Author: News Room

More than 30 per cent of solar systems installed in Nigerian Primary Health Centres (PHCs) become non-functional within three years of commissioning, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Iziaq Salako, has said. Salako disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at the official launch of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA)-Renewable Asset Management Company (RAMCO), held under the theme, “Powering Sustainable Growth: Launching Nigeria’s Renewable Asset Management Company.” He said the problem was rarely the technology itself, but rather the absence of scheduled preventive maintenance, the unavailability of spare parts, a lack of dedicated budget lines, and unclear responsibility…

Nigerian dancer and entertainer Iweh Odinaka, popularly known as Poco Lee, has been formally charged in the United Kingdom with five sexual offences, including two counts of rape. Snaresbrook Crown Court in London confirmed that the five charges comprise one count of attempted rape, two counts of rape and two counts of assault by penetration. The court’s Admin Team Leader, James Baker, confirmed the charges in correspondence with PUNCH and said the case is listed for a plea and trial preparation hearing on 15 September. “The defendant has been charged with: Attempted rape, 2x Rape, 2x Assault by penetration,” Mr…

Nigeria Women’s Football League champions Edo Queens continued their impressive run in the WAFU-B CAF Women’s Champions League qualifiers after securing a deserved 3-1 victory over Ivorian champions ASEC Mimosas in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The encounter, played at the Stade du 4 Août, lived up to its billing in the early stages, with both sides producing an entertaining end-to-end contest. However, it was Edo Queens who found the breakthrough in the 23rd minute through former Robo Queens forward Oluwakemi Adegbuyi, who powered a thumping header into the net following excellent work down the flank and a well-delivered cross. ASEC Mimosas…

The Federal Government on Thursday disclosed that contracts had been awarded for the rehabilitation of 13 police training institutions nationwide, with 80 per cent of contractors having already received their award letters. This was as Vice President Kashim Shettima on Thursday charged the National Economic Council to sustain ongoing economic reforms until improvements in the economy translate into jobs, stronger purchasing power, business confidence and better living conditions for Nigerians, as the council received updates confirming Nigeria’s reclassification to frontier market status by index provider FTSE Russell. Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications in the Office…

Google’s AI note-taking app, Gemini Notebook, can now pull information from the books you’ve purchased. The new “Expert Intelligence” feature allows you to bring titles from Google Play Books directly into Gemini Notebook, which means you can ask questions about the material, as well as generate plans, infographics, AI podcasts, and more based on their contents.During a briefing with The Verge, Google Labs editorial director Steven Johnson showed how you can use the tool to generate a recipe book using the information in Michael Pollan’s Food Rules. In another example, Gemini Notebook applied the knowledge from Kim Scott’s management-focused Radical…

Good Good Golf cofounder Garrett Clark issued a public apology after his company produced a promotional video that has since been pulled from broadcast. “I personally want to apologize for playing a role in this skit [and] this ad at the magnitude that I did,” Clark, 26, said in a social media video shared Wednesday, August 26. “On Good Good’s behalf and Good Good marketing’s behalf, I wanted to say an apology as well because this is not at all what we stand for. The way that this ad was received was not how Good Good is, and it’s not…

The nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen reported that US President Donald Trump “left investors at least an estimated $4.7 billion underwater” since 2022 through his and his family’s digital asset ventures.According to Public Citizen, investors lost billions of dollars through the Trump family World Liberty Financial governance token, the president’s nonfungible token (NFT) trading cards launched in 2022, his memecoin Official Trump (TRUMP) and Trump Media’s digital asset treasury. The bulk of the estimated losses, according to the organization, came from investors in the TRUMP memecoin, with $3.2 billion lost, while buyers of World Liberty Financial‘s USD1 stablecoin “haven’t suffered…

The official website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) hosted dozens of gambling and casino-related articles, raising questions about the security of the electoral body’s digital infrastructure ahead of the 2027 general elections. The discovery was made by an X user, Martin Uwakwe, known for analysing public-sector digital infrastructure, election data and government websites. In a post on X, using the handle @mundus01, Mr Uwakwe said he found about 28 gambling and casino pages hosted directly on INEC’s official website. He stressed that the pages were not links from INEC’s website to gambling platforms, but actual articles published under…

The Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar Sa’ad III Abubakar III has done more for inter-faith unity and understanding than any Muslim spiritual leader I’ve known for a long, long time. In his capacity as co-chairman of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council, he has worked tirelessly, drawing on his extensive network with other faith councils worldwide, to repair broken bonds and roll back religious intolerance and extremism. It was five years on Tuesday since I wrote a tribute to the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, who was 65 at the time. Our paths first crossed after he was named Sultan following…

David’s Christian Centre (DCC) founder and lead pastor, Kingsley Okonkwo, has come under fire after launching “Mentor To Marry (MTM)”, a Christian matchmaking platform with a ₦700,000 package for high-profile singles seeking potential partners. Mr Okonkwo, a relationship and marriage expert, announced the platform’s launch on his X page on Tuesday, saying he sympathised with men of his generation over what he described as the commercialisation of relationships. He said the commercialisation of relationships among women had made it almost impossible for young men to find true love, adding that he launched the platform to help address the situation. The…