Gist Arena

Nigeria Police has appointed its first Female Police Public Relations Officer ,PPRO. She is Ag. ACP Olabisi Kolawole. Her appointment was ratified by the Inspector General of Police Solomon Arase today August 28th. Congrats to her. Read her profile after the cut... She is a graduate of Nigeria Police Academy; she studied Law in Ogun State University and graduated with Bachelor of Law degree (LL.B) in 2000. She graduated from the Nigeria Law School where she obtained a (BL) degree and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2002. She attended University of Leicester, United Kingdom where she obtained a   Masters degree in Police Leadership and Management (PLM). She is an officer with vast policing experience at both national and international levels. At national level she has held several positions including Legal Adviser, Administration officer, Intelligence officer and Force Gender Adviser among others. At the international level, she served in the following United Na...

Boko Haram member Mahamat Moustapha, a Nigerian, alleged to have been the mastermind of the June suicide attack in Ndjamena, Chad where 38 persons were killed and several others injured, was sentenced to death by a Chadian court today August 28th alongside 9 others. See photo of the other sect members sentenced to death below.

The Ohaneze Youth Council, OYC, Friday, expressed shock and deep anger over President Muhammadu Buhari’s latest appointments. In a statement  jointly signed by President of the of the OYC, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, and the group’s Public Relations Officer, Hon. Obinna Adibe, OYC said the appointments were totally unacceptable to Ndigbo and the nPresident had demonstrated his deep hatred for Ndigbo, even after he had said he belonged to nobody but belonged to everybody The statement read:  “We stand to condemn this glaring hatred for Ndigbo by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. We recall that apart from several other appointments, Buhari’s government has also appointed Service Chiefs and in a similar manner, he sidelined the South-East zone. “As if that was not enough, the long-awaited position of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, has come at last and this government deemed nobody from the South-East qualifi...

Skype co-founder claims he got the picture when he found out his fiancee allegedly cheated on him, and now he's suing to get the ridiculously expensive ring back.   According to TMZ,Janus Friis claims in a new lawsuit, he got engaged to Maria Louise Joenson -- a Danish recording artist who goes by Aura Dione --  back in 2013. As a symbol of his love, he gave her a $471,000 engagement ring, an apartment and cash, but claims there were strings attached to the gifts ... they had to seal the deal. Friis claims he learned she had "multiple affairs and sexual encounters with other men" and broke off the engagement. So now he wants his stuff back. Friis wants minimum $1 million. 

A pair of sisters, one of whom is only 15, are to be raped as punishment for their brother running away with a married woman in rural India. The teenager and her elder sister Meenakshi Kumari, who is 23, will also be paraded through the streets naked with blackened faces, according to an unelected all-male village council. The barbaric punishment has been handed down in Baghpat district, Uttar Pradesh, around 30 miles north of New Delhi. According to Zee News , the pair's brother Ravi fell in love with a girl from the higher Jat caste and the couple eloped in March, even after they were forcibly separated and she was married off to another man in February. The sisters fled the village in May fearing retribution, causing the family's home to be ransacked. The Kumaris are Dalits, or untouchables, at the very bottom of India's ancient caste system, transgressions of which are still taken extremely seriously in many parts of society. The couple have...

Press statement from revered lawyer, Festus Keyamo The so-called “uproar” over the perceived “lopsided” appointments made so far by President Buhari is nothing but an orchestrated frustration of a few jobless politicians who depend only on government appointments as their means of livelihood and, of course, the noise of the latest opposition party in town. The majority of Nigerians want to see good governance, pure and simple, and care less about the ethnic origin of those appointed into positions.   My worry is that the decade-long general division of government positions into “juicy” and “non-juicy”, and the mentality that these few “juicy” positions must be shared equally amongst the major ethnic groups was nothing but a contraption of the old order from which we have just liberated ourselves. To my mind, all government appointments pose an equal challenge to those appointed as a call to higher service of fatherland. All public positions come with an equal responsi...

The new Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, chairman Babatunde Fowler pictured with his wife at the inauguration party of Senator Olamilekan Adeola, senator representing Lagos west senatorial district, Nigeria. More photos below Photo credit: Soji Oni

While speaking on a show on RayPower 100.5FM today August 28th, Special Adviser to President Buhari on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, said President Buhari will balance his appointments in future. Many Nigerians were taken aback after Buhari announced key appointments yesterday with majority of those appointed from the Northern region of Nigeria. "Nobody can fault the fact that the persons appointed were appointed on merits. In terms of the spread, the President has prerogative to appoint and he knows there is federal character. I am sure that there will be balance in the future.   These are still early days. At the end of the day, we will have a balance. By the time more appointments are made, it will balance out. The President is trying to get the very best of Nigerians. The issue of key positions and no key positions should not be the issue. He gave a deadline of September for the appointment of ministers ‎and he will keep to it.”he said

Press statement from the presidency The Presidency Friday in Abuja welcomed an assurance from Centenary City PLC that all the original inhabitants of the site have been fully compensated. Speaking after being briefed by the Chairman of the company's board of directors, General Abdulsalami Abubakar and members of its management team, President Buhari praised the Centenary City's main development partners from the United Arab Emirates for having enough confidence in Nigeria to agree to invest about $18.5bn in the project. President Buhari also welcomed the assertion by Gen. Abubakar and his team that the project will create about 250,000 more direct jobs in the Federal Capital Territory and about half a million indirect jobs. The President noted that skills, expertise and vast experience that will be brought into country to build the Centenary City on the Dubai model, will also be of immense benefit to Nigeria's overall development. He said that he loo...

Daughter of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Dr Fatima Atiku, has been sworn in as the new Commissioner of Health in Adamawa state. Fatima who was sworn in alongside 21 other commissioners today August 28th, told newsmen that as a way of contributing to the health sector in the state, she will be donating her salary and allowances while serving as a commissioner “I am very grateful to the governor for appointing me to head the Health Ministry. The ministry is the most challenging because of the insurgency problem that had caused some damage to the health system in the state. For this reason, I shall be donating my salary and allowances for use in enhancing the delivery of healthcare service in the state,’’she said

Nigerian soldiers are doing well in their fight against Boko Haram.They have stepped up their game.See photos of some of the sophisticated eqpment used in the fight against Boko Haram in the Northeast: T72 M1 battle tank,a Huey helicopter,a Bofors FH77 155mm howitzer in transit,a pair of Chinese-built BigFoot MRAPs at the frontlines Gunners and a Bofor 155mm howitzer. IMAGE CREDIT: Nigerian Military History

Ekiti state governor Ayo Fayose announced this on twitter.

Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, Aliko Dangote led a delegation of Blackstone group including its CEO Stephen Schwartzman, to pay a visit to the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, at the National Assembly today August 28th. They discussed ways on how the 8th Senate and businesses can partner to provide legislative framework that will lead to job creation & strengthening the Nigerian economy.

What do you do when you're worth over $8billion? You spend $450million on a luxury super yacht. Russian businessman Andrey Melnichenko has built the world's largest sailing yacht -which boasts of eight decks, a glass observation area, measures a roomy 468 feet and weighs 14,224 tons. The ship will have a crew of around 54 people, the masts are very tall, and its sails are bigger than a football field when all are flying. It will be the largest privately owned sailing yacht in the world. The founder of MDM Bank (pictured above with his supermodel wife) who ranked 97th in the Forbes World's billionaires list, hired master ship designer Philippe Starck, whose credentials include Steve Jobs' famous yacht and Mr Melnichenko's first opulent vessel. The yacht, which Mr Melnichenko is thought to have named 'A' to ensure it is listed first in shipping registers, is due to begin its first sea trials later this year. Initially it will be tes...

Below is a press statement from The PDP Media Watchdog The PDP Media Watchdog has described the appointments so far made by President Buhari as fraudulent and asymmetrical, saying that the President's anti-corruption war is a charade and a deceit. The group while responding to the recent appointments as announced by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina said that people's expectation of President Buhari to remove his ethnic and military mentality and embrace democracy may not come to pass after all. "We mentioned this in our last statements that President Buhari and the APC is only making noise with corruption and probe to cover up their plans to derail this country. The President claimed to be fighting corruption but does not know that even lopsided appointment is also corruption. According to an English dictionary, corruption is defined as 'dishonest actions that destroys people's trust in the person or group...

Police in Kenya have released a picture of Rukia Mbarak Faraj, the wife of an Al-Shabaab fugitive, Ramadhan Kufungwa wanted for grenade attacks and assassinations in Mombasa. The police have also offered a Sh2 million reward for information that could lead to the arrest of Faraj who is suspected to be living in a refugee camp in northeastern Kenya. According to a police dispatch, she is responsible for grenade attacks and assassinations in Mombasa. "Rukia is wanted for facilitating the movement of youth to Somalia to join her husband, who is planning an attack in Kenya," the report reads Police also say she is involved in the smuggling of weapons and explosives in the region from Somalia as part of preparations for a terrorist attack. The bounty on Ms Faraj was put a day after a cache of firearms and explosives were seized in Garissa County in a raid on Wednesday evening. A terrorism suspect was arrested in the raid. Police believe the weapons were to be u...

President Muhammadu Buhari has granted licences to 65 Nigerian companies to construct modular refineries. The companies were selected from about 285 applications that were screened for the purpose. Modular refineries are mini-refineries with capacities ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 barrels per day, bpd, which can be assembled and separated easily for enhanced performance and efficiency. The decision to award Licence to Establish, LTE, which was taken within 10 days of his assuming office in June, may not be unconnected with his desire to see the increase in domestic refining capacity to meet local demand, thereby reducing huge import bills for subsidy. Although the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, the industry regulator, feigned ignorance of the development, one of the beneficiary companies confirmed to Vanguard that the measure is also meant to cushion the impact of crashing oil prices at the international market. The shock is not only in the period t...

President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday in Abuja warned civil servants to shun corrupt practices or be ready to leave the civil service. The permanent secretary in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Muhammed Bukar, said President Buhari gave the warning when he was briefed on the activities of the General Services Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). Mr. Bukar said the president underscored the importance of strict adherence to the rules and laws guiding public service. “We have received a mandate to work harder. He has given us a very strong warning that change has come and every public servant has to sit up. We will give our best to support the government. ‎“We told him what we have been doing in support of the government’s policies and the president promised to give us the support and the political will to do our job better.’’ Mr. Bukar, who led five other permanent secretaries in the SGF Office during the...

One of the forensic experts who testified before the Akwa Ibom State governorship tribunal Thursday, said out of the 140,832 finger prints on ballot papers matched (scanned and analyzed) over 100,000 were non-human prints.  The witness was testifying in the gubernatorial election suit between Umana Umana of the All Progressives congress (APC) and governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, who was the candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party in the election. Umana had approached the tribunal, challenging the election and declaration of Udom Emmanuel as governor. At the Thursday hearing, the forensic expert added that they also discovered about 13, 000 cases of thumb printing. The witness, Abdullahi Dauda, said the forensic analysis was done using Automated Fingerprint and Identification System. The witness who has worked for the United Parcel Service for 32 years, offered to demonstrate to the tribunal how he and members of his team arrived at the result...

Nigerian afro-pop singer, Yemi Alade narrowly escapes death in London in the early hours of Friday.  The MAMA award winner and Jonny crooner who was in Wembley to thrill fans today, took to her instagram in the early hours of today to announced to her fans about a fire she and her team narrowly escaped, confirming no body was hurt. Yemi Alade Her post read, “Yemi Alade #3 things I grabbed when the fire alarm went off. I thought it was prank but I was frigging scared!!! I knew better than to start parking up my cloths! I thought I was dreaming!!!! But I knew I had to leave immediately.. I def picked up my phone, my bible and my iconic invanity performance outfit!!! Thinking about it now….I picked the things I loved… 1. Phone: to sha call if I needed to 2. My bible: cos I was so scared 3. My iconicinvanity: becos I wasn’t going to loose the most artistic and expensive piceces I have ever acquired or perform at Wembley tonight in anything less luxurious...

The Abuja residence of the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, was gutted by fire this morning. He confirmed the incident on his twitter handle and said the fire has been contained.

(AFP) - Authorities in Nigeria's financial capital Lagos have shut down churches across the city after a glut of complaints over noisy worship. The chaotic megacity's environmental protection department said it had sealed off 22 premises on Wednesday after receiving dozens of calls a day, according to local newspaper reports. Neighbours of one church -- Jesus Our Lord Divine Catholic Prayer Ministry -- said they were constantly disturbed by a congregation of mainly pregnant women, young mothers and their children. "On my phone alone, I get 20 SMS on a daily basis," said Adebola Shabi, head of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, according to the national daily New Telegraph. "In the next five years, if there is no stringent policy on the siting of religious houses, there will be problem." Constant noise -- from the the thumping beats of loud music, the beep of car horns and the noise of generator engines -- is the soun...