Author: News Room

President Bola Tinubu is expected to present the 2026 proposed Federal Budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on Friday, December 19, 2025, at 2:00 pm, barring any last-minute changes. This is according to a letter dated December 17 and circulated to all National Assembly staff by the Secretary of Human Resources and Staff Development, Adm. Essien Eyo Essien, which stated that only accredited personnel will be allowed into the National Assembly Complex for the budget presentation. According to the memo, all accredited staff must report to their duty posts no later than 11:00 am, as security protocols…

Senator Ireti Kingibe, who represents the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, has formally defected to the African Democratic Congress, ADC. Her official registration is scheduled for Thursday at the ADC national headquarters in Wuse, Abuja. The development was confirmed in a statement released on Wednesday by her media aide, Kennedy Mbele, who said the move marked Kingibe’s exit from the Labour Party (LP) and her entry into the ADC. The statement noted that the registration ceremony will be attended by senior party officials, ADC candidates contesting the February 21 FCT area council elections, party supporters, and members of the media. “Kingibe’s…

Troops of the Nigerian Army deployed in Taraba State have recovered weapons and the corpse of a slain soldier during ongoing search-and-rescue operations following an ambush on a military patrol in Takum Local Government Area. Sources told Zagazola Makama that the operation followed an earlier attack on troops at Tyojande village in Takum LGA, which resulted in casualties, as disclosed in an Army operational update on Tuesday. Acting on intelligence provided by local residents in the Kufai Amadu area on December 17, troops advanced to the general vicinity of Tyojande, where the ambush had occurred. During the operation, troops made…

Arsenal are showing their determination to sign Kenan Yıldız from Juventus ahead of the January transfer window. As reported by TouchlineX on Wednesday, the Arsenal board has told manager Mikel Arteta he needs to sell one of his attackers to make Yıldız’s signing happen. The Gunners chiefs are keen to bolster Arteta’s squad in the second half of the season when the January transfer window opens. The Premier League North London club are keen to win the English top-flight league this season, having finished in second position in the last three seasons. This season, Arsenal is currently on top of…

Eleven Nigerian soldiers have been released, 10 days after being detained in Burkina Faso. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Kimiebi Ebienfa, confirmed the development to The PUNCH on Wednesday night. “The soldiers have been released. I just confirmed with our Head of Mission in Burkina Faso,” he said. It remains unclear when the soldiers are expected to return to Nigeria, as their travel plans could not be verified. The soldiers were held by Burkina Faso’s military authorities after their aircraft made an unscheduled landing in Bobo-Dioulasso on December 8. The landing followed a technical issue shortly after departing Lagos…

Multiple explosions on Wednesday rocked Auchi, the administrative headquarters of Etsako West Local Government Area in Edo State The News Agency of Nigeria correspondent reports that multiple explosions occurred in three different areas of Auchi at about 6:30pm on Wednesday. NAN observed that the first blast occurred along Igbei Road, the second at the Igbo Shade area near an AP filling station, while the third explosion occurred along the Auchi–Okene Road, close to Winners Junction. Properties worth millions of naira were reportedly destroyed, including buildings and shops, across the three affected areas. As of the time of filing the report,…

The experts at the financial and economic intelligence platform, Proshare, have warned that 2026, being a pre-election year, will test the strength of recent economic reforms and shape the country’s medium-term growth trajectory, even as it projects a cautious path to recovery. The assessment is contained in Proshare’s Economic Outlook Report 2026, titled ‘Hope and the Politics of Economic Recovery’, which examined global, continental, and domestic economic trends and outlined the policy discipline, structural reforms, and political stability required to sustain Nigeria’s ongoing macroeconomic adjustment efforts. The report noted that the globe is transitioning from a multilateral global order toward…

Rayan Cherki’s stunning strike put Manchester City on their way to the League Cup semi-finals with a 2-0 win over Brentford on Wednesday. Ahead of the hectic festive Premier League schedule, Pep Guardiola could afford to give Erling Haaland the night off as his side secured a sixth consecutive victory in all competitions. Haaland was left on the bench among seven changes by Guardiola at the Etihad. Abdukodir Khusanov was one of those handed a rare start and the Uzbek defender was lucky just to see a yellow card for chopping down Kevin Schade when the German looked set to…

Meta has “paused” its program to license its VR operating system to other hardware companies so they could build their own headsets using the platform, as reported by Road to VR .With the program, announced in April 2024, Meta announced that it would be licensing the Quest OS headset — which, at the same time, it also renamed to Horizon OS — to hardware makers like Lenovo and Asus. In a blog post at the time, Meta said that the program would give “more choice to consumers and a larger ecosystem for developers to build for.” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said…

The Competition Commission of India, the regulatory body responsible for promoting fair competition in the country, has approved Coinbase acquiring a minority stake in cryptocurrency platform CoinDCX.In a Tuesday notice, the regulator said it had approved Coinbase Global’s minority stake acquisition in DCX Global Limited, the company behind CoinDCX. Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal confirmed the news in a Wednesday X post, saying it deepened the exchange’s “long-term partnership with one of India’s most established and trusted digital asset platforms.” Source: Paul GrewalNeither the regulatory announcement nor Grewal’s post included information about the percentage of Coinbase’s stake in the…