Author: News Room

Former Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, and two presidential aspirants of the Labour Party were on Friday screened and cleared ahead of the party’s May 30 primaries. The presidential hopefuls are former Director of Finance in the Obidient Movement, Peter Agada, and a London-based entrepreneur and oil mogul, Samuel Nwigwe. The screening exercise, which took place at the party headquarters in Abuja, attracted several other aspirants contesting various political offices. Speaking after the exercise, Nwigwe told journalists that his years living and working abroad convinced him that Nigeria can adopt successful governance models from London, Singapore, Toronto and Amsterdam. The…

In a move aimed at tackling clearance delays and improving passenger clearance compliance, the Nigeria Customs Service has officially launched the Simplified Customs Advanced Declaration System at the International Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. The National Public Relations Officer of the Service, Abdullahi Maiwada, a Deputy Controller of Customs, announced this in a statement on Wednesday obtained by The PUNCH. Maiwada explained that the platform, designed to simplify baggage declaration for inbound international passengers, “is expected to reduce manual bottlenecks, improve transparency in revenue assessment and enhance operational efficiency at Nigeria’s international airports”. Speaking at the official…

Congo’s World Cup squad must isolate for 21 days before they will be allowed into the United States due to the African country’s deadly Ebola outbreak, authorities said Friday. Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House Task Force for the World Cup, told ESPN that US officials had informed FIFA, the Congolese national team and the government in Kinshasa that the squad was to remain in a “bubble” in Belgium where players are currently in training. “We’ve been very clear to Congo that they should maintain the integrity of their bubble for 21 days before they can then…

Since 2012, the British literary magazine Granta has published the regional winners of the annual Commonwealth Short Story Prize. This year, however, there was something off about one of the selections for the prestigious award: It appears to have been written by AI.Jamir Nazir’s “The Serpent in the Grove” has many of the hallmarks of LLM-generated prose — mixed metaphors, anaphora, lists of threes. (I’m aware this, too, is a list of threes, and I promise I wrote this post myself, unassisted, as I write all things.) I’ll admit I was initially unconvinced by the allegation that Nazir’s story had…

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings spent $4.3 million on personal security for CEO Fred Thiel in 2025, including $430,780 to armor a vehicle, as crypto companies respond to rising physical attacks on industry executives and investors.MARA, the seventh-largest Bitcoin mining company worth more than $5 billion, also spent about $58,810 on Thiel’s home security installations and reported additional expenses related to the security measures of other executives, according to its DEF 14A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on April 30.The filing shows that MARA spent a total of $4.3 million on Thiel’s security during fiscal year 2025, including…

New research is reframing dreams not as random mental noise, but as one of the clearest signals of how well your body is actually resting. Here’s what scientists now know about dreams, REM sleep and what your nightly patterns may be flagging. What Do Your Dreams Say About Your Sleep Quality? Think of your dreams as a nightly report card on your sleep. They can reveal how well your brain is moving through sleep stages, particularly REM, where the most vivid and emotionally charged dreams happen. REM sleep accounts for roughly 20 percent to 25 percent of a typical night…

A former member of the House of Representatives, Farah Dagogo, has secured the governorship ticket of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the 2027 election in Rivers State. Mr Dagogo emerged winner after the party conducted direct primaries across the 319 wards in the state’s 23 local government areas. He scored 64,700 votes to defeat his closest rival, Sokonte Davies, who polled 9,050 votes. The result was announced by the chairperson of the ADC Rivers State Governorship Primary Electoral Committee, Agu Bryan, in the presence of other committee members and representatives of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Mr Bryan…

The Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, has defended the foreign engagement strategy of President Bola Tinubu, describing recent criticisms by the former Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, as a “populist simplification” of Nigeria’s economic realities. Mr Yakubu, in an article titled “Foreign Engagements and the Dangers of Populist Simplification: Peter Obi’s Ignorance,” argued that Mr Obi failed to appreciate the complexities involved in rebuilding investor confidence and restoring economic stability in a country emerging from fiscal and monetary challenges. On 16 May, Mr Obi criticised the value of recent foreign state visits by Nigerian…

The House of Representatives candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for Otukpo/Ohimini Federal Constituency in Benue State, Innocent Omudu, on Thursday escaped death after heavily armed gunmen attacked his convoy. The incident occurred while Omudu and his team were returning to Otukpo after the party’s primary election, where he emerged as the consensus candidate and ADC flag bearer for the 2027 general elections. It was gathered that the gunmen opened fire on the convoy along the Onyagede-Ugboju road, damaging some vehicles and leaving several people injured. Confirming the incident, Omudu said that although none of his team members was…

The African Democratic Congress, ADC, in Ebonyi State has declared Mr Oriji Tobias Nnabuike as the winner of its governorship primary election ahead of the 2027 general elections. The Coordinator of Electoral Matters and State Returning Officer for the exercise, Mr. Bassie Umoke, announced the result shortly after the conclusion of the primary held at the party’s state office along Old Enugu Road in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital. Umoke disclosed that Nnabuike secured a total of 6,400 votes to emerge victorious in the governorship contest conducted across the 171 wards of the state. He further revealed that 6,730 party…