Author: Vardiafrica

The First Lady Oluremi Tinubu on Monday hosted 2nd Lieutenant Princess Oluchukwu Owowoh, First Nigerian Female Graduate of the UK’s Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst (RMAS). The 24-year-old Owowoh was one of the 135 officer cadets to graduate during RMAS’ sovereign’s parade in London on April 12. According to a statement by the Nigerian Army, Senator Tinubu received Owowoh, who was led by Major General John Ochai, the Commandant, Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), at the State House. The First Lady was said to have described Owowoh’s achievement as outstanding and divine. She commended the Nigeria Army for giving a female the…

Vice President Kashim Shettima, originally scheduled to represent President Bola Tinubu at the 2024 US-Africa Business Summit hosted by the Corporate Council on Africa, has been forced to make a detour. Shettima was expected to join other political and business leaders across Africa, the United States of America and beyond for the summit featuring high-level dialogues, networking business sessions and the plenary. The summit is scheduled to be held from May 6 to May 9, 2024 However, a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Stanley Nkwocha, on Monday, revealed that a technical fault with the VP’s…

Rivers State governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, has declared that members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, as currently led by the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Martins Amaewhule, were no longer lawmakers. Fubara noted that in seeking peaceful resolution to the political crisis that erupted in the state last year, he had attended several reconciliation meetings, whose resolutions the other party, where the state’s lawmakers belong, had rebuffed. Governor Fubara spoke on Monday evening when he received on courtesy visit the Bayelsa State delegation of political and traditional leaders, led by former governor of the state, Senator Henry Seriake Dickson, at…

The Federal Government, through the Securities and Exchange Commission, is set to delist the naira from all Peer-to-Peer platforms to reduce the manipulation of the local currency value in the foreign exchange market. Emomotimi Agama, the SEC’s Director General, disclosed this during an interactive session with the Nigerian Blockchain Industry. This is expected to be part of a couple of regulations that will be rolled out in the coming days. He said: “That is one of the things that must be done to save this space. The delisting of the naira from the P2P platforms to avoid the level of…

The political face-off between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the Rivers State House of Assembly is showing no signs of reprieve as the House is tackling the governor over the state’s Public Procurement Law. At plenary on Monday, the Speaker of the House, Martin Amaewhule, accused the governor of financial irresponsibility and recklessness in the way he spent money without appropriation. One of the items on the agenda for the day’s sitting was the governor’s handling of state financing which the Speaker condemned. The Deputy Speaker, Dumle Maol, asked his colleagues to veto the governor on the state public procurement amendment…

Britain’s King Charles III on Monday marked the first anniversary of his coronation following a difficult year that has seen a cancer diagnosis and continuing tensions with his estranged son Prince Harry. To celebrate the occasion a 41-gun salute rang out from Green Park next to Buckingham Palace at noon (1100 GMT), followed an hour later with 62 volleys fired from another central London location. No official events, however, were planned with the milestone coming less than a week after King Charles resumed public duties since his diagnosis. He visited fellow cancer patients at a London hospital on Tuesday after…

The President Bola Tinubu-led Nigerian government has said it is not true that there are discussions between Nigeria and some foreign countries to establish foreign military bases in the country. The Minister for information and national orientation, Mohammed Idris, in a statement on Monday urged Nigerians to disregard the “falsehood.” SaharaReporters had on Saturday reported that some eminent leaders in the country as well as civil society organisations cautioned Tinubu against allowing the United States and the French governments to relocate their military bases from the Sahel to Nigeria. In an open letter to Tinubu and the leadership of the National…

The Edo state house of assembly has suspended three lawmakers over an alleged plot to impeach the speaker and other principal officers. Blessing Agbebaku, speaker of the house, announced the suspension of the lawmakers during plenary on Monday. Donald Okogbe, one of the suspended lawmakers, is an ally of Philip Shaibu, former deputy governor of Edo. Okogbe was the only lawmaker who did not sign the petition that led to Shaibu’s impeachment. The suspended lawmakers are Okogbe (PDP Akoko-Edo 11), Bright Iyamu (PDP Orihonmwon south) and Adeh Isibor (PDP Esan north-east 1). The speaker said the lawmakers are being used…

Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities and said it would hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid sharply rising tensions over comments by senior Western officials about possibly deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine. After summoning the British ambassador to the Foreign Ministry, Moscow warned that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.K.-supplied weapons could bring retaliatory strikes against British military facilities and equipment on Ukrainian soil or elsewhere. The remarks came on the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration to a fifth term in office and in a week when Moscow…

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has ordered the downward review of electricity tariff for Band A customers to N206.80 per kilowatt-hour from the N225/kWh. In a statement on Monday, the electricity market operator said the development was due to the appreciation of the naira in the official exchange window. “Effective from May 6, 2024, Band A end-user tariffs have been reviewed to NGN206.8/ kWh under MYTO 2024. This is largely driven by the relative appreciation of the Naira in the official foreign exchange window,’ According to the statement. To this effect, electricity Distribution Companies also known as the DisCos,…