Day: December 26, 2020

We are still surprised COVID-19 deaths, cases are low in Africa – Bill Gates

Precious Ibekwe

Bill Gates, a co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), says the world still does not have enough data to understand why COVID-19 numbers have not been as high as predicted in Africa. The American philanthropist who invests heavily in healthcare in Africa said he is, however, happy to have been wrong about COVID-19 rates in the continent. “One thing I’m happy to have been wrong about—at least, I hope I was wrong—is my fear that COVID-19 would run rampant in low-income countries,” he wrote in his end of…

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Bakare Didn’t Defend Tinubu; He Defanged Him by Kperogi

Farooq A. Kperogi

Bakare Didn’t Defend Tinubu; He Defanged Him By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi Pastor Tunde Bakare’s trending video on Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for which he is receiving caustic flak from the Nigerian online commentariat, isn’t the deodorization of Tinubu’s smelly underbelly that many people say it is. It is, on the contrary, an effective denunciation of Tinubu and a deep, lasting, strategic delegitimization of his “omo Eko” bona fides. In the video, Bakare essentially mainstreamed reputationally deleterious information about Tinubu that had flourished on the fringes of Yoruba society,…

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Pope Francis demands COVID-19 Vaccines-For-All in Christmas message

Wonuola Olujobi

Pope Francis in his message on Friday prayed for an end to suffering in the world and emphasized on unity among the people. The Pope on the Christmas day, offered the faithful the traditional papal blessing “Urbi et Orbi’’ (to the city and to the world). “We are all in the same boat,’’ the Pope said from the Benediction Hall at the Apostolic Palace, where he gave his address instead of from the central balcony of the basilica, to crowds in St Peter’s Square. The change from balcony to hall…

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Mali opposition leader Soumaila Cissé dies of COVID-19 in France + PHOTOS

Aoko Benjamin

Malian opposition leader, Soumaïla Cissé, died of coronavirus on Friday in Paris, France, his family and his Union for Republic and Democracy (URD) party have confirmed. Cissé was transferred from Niamey, Niger, for specialised treatment in France. A former member of Mali’s National Assembly, Cisse was abducted on 25 March while campaigning for legislative elections in the northwest Timbuktu region. After six months in the hands of jihadists, he was released in October, along with French humanist, Sophie Pétronin, and two Italians, in exchange for 200 detainees released at the…

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