Day: January 19, 2021

ECOWAS lawmakers attend Zoom meeting in panties, cook, smoke during session

Aoko Benjamin

  It was a bizarre scene at the online second ordinary session of the ECOWAS parliament as some lawmakers were seen dressed in underwears and the other smoked with flagrant impunity. It seemed fellow lawmakers tacitly gave their nods to these social anomalies but journalists invited to the parliamentary session voiced against the indecent behaviour of the lawmakers, VANGUARD reports. They also called on the Speaker of the Parliament, Sidie Tunis to address the lawmakers on virtual meeting etiquette before the commencement of any other meeting. One of the journalists…

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MTN, Glo, Etisalat harvest 47.8m NINs from Nigerians

Dawood Rabiu

  So far, a total of 47.8 million National Identification Numbers (NINs) have been collected by the MTN, Glo, and other mobile operators. This data was rolled out by the Technical Implementation Committee under the Ministerial Task Force at a meeting to review the ongoing NIN-SIM linkage exercise. At an average of three to four SIMs per subscriber, this means many millions will be linked up before the deadline in February 2021. Reacting to the report, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, expressed satisfaction…

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Four burnt to death, 12 Injured as Tanker exploded in Abeokuta

Gbenga Adeoti

  A fully loaded 33,000 litres fuel tanker on Tuesday emptied parts of its content on the road and spontaneously exploded in Kuto area of Abeokuta, Ogun state, Southwest Nigeria, burning four people to death while several others sustained different degrees of injuries. Properties worth millions of naira including five vehicles and two motorcycles were, according to checks by Platforms Africa, not also spared in the incident. The ill-fated tanker, according to eye witness account, caught fire at the popular IBB Boulevard, Kuto-Oke-Ilewo, at about 8am, where headquarters of some…

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Non-Smokers, non-Vegetarians at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 – Study

Aliyu Aliyu

  New research puctures earlier studies, which claimed that smokers are at higher risk of developing severe symptoms of Covid-19.   A new nationwide survey carried out by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) revealed that vegetarians and smokers are at lesser risk of contracting coronavirus due to low seropositivity. The survey was conducted across Indian CSIR’s nearly 40 institutes. It further noted people with blood type ‘O’ are less vulnerable to the virus. While ‘B’ and ‘AB’ are at an elevated risk of contracting Covid-19. For the…

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WhatsApp puts “Policy on hold” as backlash shatters subscribers’ strength

Precious Ibekwe

  WhatsApp has reassured users about privacy at the Facebook-owned messaging service as people flocked to rivals Telegram and Signal following a tweak to its terms. There was “a lot of misinformation” about an update to terms of service regarding an option to use WhatsApp to message businesses, Facebook executive Adam Mosseri, who heads Instagram, said in a tweet. WhatsApp’s new terms sparked criticism, as users outside Europe who do not accept the new conditions before February 8 will be cut off from the messaging app. WhatsApp that has been…

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Uganda on red alert, switches on internet after days of shutdown

Aoko Benjamin

  Uganda has declared that it remained on red alert as it switched on the internet after it had shut it down on January 13. Spokesman for the East African country, Ofwono Opondo, who declared this in an interview, gave reason for the shutting down of internet during the elections. The model was adopted, according to him, “fearing that it (the internet) would be used to spread messages of hate and violence amid the country’s general elections held on Jan. 14.” He told Xinhua by telephone that the internet had…

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