Author: News Room
In a bid to maintain its academic excellence, preparation for the year 2023/2024 Lagos State academic calendar has got underway. As a result, the state government, assured stakeholders of prioritising harmonised and standardised instructional days of learning for all schools, in order to ensure children have the minimum standard of learning days and hours. Director-General, Office of Education Quality Assurance, Mrs Abiola Seriki-Ayeni, disclosed this in a statement on Friday, during a stakeholders’ meeting, which held in Alausa, Ikeja. Seriki-Ayeni said, “In as much as the calendar may seem like a very minute detail, when it comes to larger issues…
VPD Money, a fintech firm, has said its transaction volume rose to over $200m, which showed 2,548 per cent increase since it started operations in 2021. The firm stated that it had been able to onboard over 50,000 customers to date. It said it had leveraged on partnerships to introduce a unifying wallet, bank account, and AI-powered savings experience since it started. In a statement, VPD Money’s Co-founder and Senior Product and Project Manager, Mohammed Liadi, said, “We have created a soothing platform for the unbanked and underserved. “The unbanked people don’t necessarily mean they don’t have a job but…
A gospel singer, Mike Abdul, has said gospel artistes are not flexible because there are certain expectations people have of them. In an encounter with Sunday Scoop, he said, “Gospel artistes are not as flexible as secular artistes, because they cannot talk about everything. Gospel artistes are only expected to talk on godliness and the Holy Spirit. Being a gospel artiste, one’s path has already been defined. “On the marketing side, some people don’t want to hear certain statements from gospel artistes. It is secular artistes that are expected to sing about such things.” Speaking on how he handles the…
Preliminary reports obtained from various councils across the state showed that polling units were sparsely populated or completely empty as of noon “I had to run out, they destroyed the side mirrors of my car… They brought out knives and wanted to stab me. What happened to the free and fair election they promised us? Nothing is free and fair. You are intimidating people,” Chioma Akpotha, a veteran actress, said in a live Instagram video. Another voter in the Oniru area of Lagos, told The Africa Report that thugs threatened all those who were not willing to vote for the…
Counting is underway in Nigeria after millions of people went to the polls on Saturday in a delayed vote for new state governors. The election in 28 of Nigeria’s 36 states comes amid heightened tensions following last month’s disputed presidential poll. Opposition parties continue to reject the victory of President-elect Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress party. The vote for governors was postponed in a few locations, including in Lagos town, over fears of attacks on electoral officials. There have been reports of scattered violence and voter intimidation in some cities across the country. Local observer group, YIAGA…
French nuclear giant, Orano, and the Niger government, are exploring the potential of a uranium site in Imouraren in the northern Arlit region. One of the world’s less advanced countries, Niger is also home to one of the planet’s biggest sources of uranium, the main source of nuclear fuel. The Imouraren project, some 80 kilometres south of the town of Arlit, was put on hold in 2015 after the price of uranium collapsed following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. Instead of open-pit mining, the team is now studying the in-situ recovery (ISR) method of extraction at the site which…
Cyclone Freddy has moved on from Malawi, but it has left behind it a trail of destruction and the risk of an unprecedented cholera outbreak. It is usually spread through contaminated water and, left untreated, it can be fatal within hours, even in previously healthy people. Poor sanitation made worse by a lack of running water and adequate toilets in evacuation camps is exposing survivors to this and other waterborne diseases. “We draw water from the nearby river which lies below a graveyard. In the same area are pit latrines. With the rains, they are filled with water and all…
Angolan President Joao Lourenco held a three-hour private meeting in Luanda on Saturday with his Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) counterpart, Felix Tshisekedi. The talks came a day after the Angolan parliament approved a year-long deployment of up to 500 soldiers to the troubled eastern DRC. But Luanda said the contingent would only be moved when it was certain that the right conditions existed in the cantonment areas. “Today, a delegation of the ad hoc mechanism, which includes military officers, is visiting these areas to confirm that all is in order,” said Francisco Furtado, Minister of State and head of…
British Interior Minister defended a controversial plan to deport asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda during a visit on Saturday. Suella Braverman spoke to journalists at a news conference attended by Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta, who also defended the agreement signed between the two countries. “What we want to do is to create innovative solutions, to be able to offer to these asylum seekers and migrants alike, safety, security and opportunities for them to live a decent life. And we are going to work with the UK to propose that solution. Under the plans, migrants arriving in…
The dream of a group of young Burundians who are producing chlorine locally is that everyone should have access to clean drinking water. It all began in a laboratory in Cibitoke in the west of the country, at the headquarters of their NGO, Water For Development. “Chlorine is made by chemical transformation, the electrolysis of salt water. We take salt and water and we stir it to have a homogeneous solution. Then we put in an apparatus that is used to produce the chlorine,” said Prosper Cishahayo, a chemist and head of chlorine production. In a region where access to…
