Gist Arena

Which state requires these items for traditional marriage right.Is this not too much? Mehn the kinsmen must be mean.

Read the press statement below... The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio has denied being the sponsor of the militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers or any other militant group for that matter. A recent online publication had alleged that a splinter group, the Reformed Niger Delta Avengers had claimed Senator Akpabio and other eminent Nigerians were the sponsors of the group. But a release signed by the Special Assistant on Media to the Senate Minority Leader, Mr Anietie Ekong described the publication as “baseless, reckless and senseless. It is a fabrication from the pit of hell from those who are profiteering from the crisis in the Niger Delta and would wish no end to it.” According to the press statement, “for the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state categorically that Senator Akpabio has no link with the Niger Delta Avengers or any other militant group for that matter. “Contrarily, the position of Senator Akpabio as a foremost advocat...

Nigeria is turning abroad for over N300 billion to bridge the funding deficit in the 2016 budget. According to the debt management office (DMO), the country is seeking two lead managers and a financial adviser to organise the issuance of $1 billion (N315 billion) of Eurobonds in 2015. This is coming a few weeks after Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, informed Nigerians that the country would be borrowing from foreign sources in the third quarter of 2016. “We have been borrowing largely from the domestic market because we needed to get the exchange rate sorted out to enable us to borrow from the international market. The international borrowings will begin to come in Q3,” Adeosun said in July. The issuance of the bond is part of a $4.5 billion Nigeria global medium-term issuance programme, which is to run through 2018. “The move will enable Nigeria to have the flexibility of quickly taking advantage of favourable market conditions in the internatio...

Political blogger, Abubakar Sidiq Usman of Abusidiqu.com was this morning arrested by anti-graft agency EFCC. This was allegedly in connection with an article titled "EFCC Boss, Magu Commences Total War With Core EFCC Staff" on his website. EFCC has now released a statement, confirming the arrest and explaining why. The statement read; The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC today arrested Mr. Abubakar Sidiq Usman, a blogger, for offences bordering on cyber stalking. The suspect who is the publisher of Abusidiqu.com was picked up at his Kubwa, Abuja home in the early hours of Monday August 8, 2016 by operatives of the EFCC and is currently being questioned over the alleged offence which contravenes sections of the Cyber Crime Act. The suspect has already been offered administrative bail and would be released to his elected sureties.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has returned to operating losses in June, after recording a N274 million surplus in May 2016. While refining capacity fell to a new low, the corporation lost N26.505 billion in June but paid N55.96 billion into the federation account. According to NNPC’s June financial statement , NNPC lost N4.69 billion to the country’s underwhelming refineries. Warri and Port Harcourt refineries produced at 24.4 percent and 11.8 percent capacity, while Kaduna refinery produced at zero percent, for the month of June. The report indicates “a deficit of N26.51 billion as against trading surplus of N274million reported in May, 2016. This trading surplus does not represent net profit as there are other expenses that should ordinarily have been captured”. “The deficit in the month of June 2016 was majorly due to decrease in revenue generation as a result of decline in PPMC petroleum products sales by 13.30% or N14.9bil...

Abubakar Shekau, factional leader of Boko Haram has resurfaced in a new video, where he vowed to fight Nigeria and the world. Speaking in Hausa and Arabic, Shekau said he has no intention of waging war against Muslims, and threatened to carry out the “mother of all attacks” on Abuja, capital of Nigeria. Shekau also expressed loyalty to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of Boko Haram affiliate, ISIS, but insisted that he would never recognise Abu Musab Al-Barnawi, as leader of Boko Haram. Al-Barnawi’s appointment was made known by the latest issue of an ISIS-owned magazine, but Shekau vehemently rejected the development, saying ISIS deceived him because he opposed their principles. In the new video, Shekau said the Al-Barnawi group is only seeking to “create division” among Boko Haram. “I, Abubakar Ash-Shakawy (Shekau), the leader of Jama’atu Ahlissunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, made it a duty for myself to fight Nigeria and the whole world. We have no d...

Motivated by the inspiration of legend Segun Toriola, Aruna Quadri yesterday defied all odds to demystify one of the tournament’s favourites, Chinese Taipei’s Chuang Chih-Yuan with a 4-0 bashing to berth in the fourth round of the men’s singles of the table tennis event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. For making it to the fourth round (last 16), Quadri has equaled the feat achieved by Toriola at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in China where the former African champion made it to the same stage of the championship. The Nigerian who is ranked 40th in the world and 27 at the Rio Olympic Games tamed the world’s number seven and tournament’s number five seed to make a giant stride in his career. If what happened at the 2016 German Open is anything to go by, Quadri has no chance against the Asian star as the 2014 ITTF Star Player was bundled out in less than 15minutes. Fired up by the loud ovation that greeted Segun Toriola’s exit in the second round of the m...

26 year old French Gymnast Samir Ait Said who suffered a gruesome and horrific leg break after jumping awkwardly during his team's preliminaries at Rio 2016 READ HERE over the weekend has said his target is to be fit for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics tournament so he can fulfil his dream of winning an Olympic gold medal. Less than 24 hours after the gruesome events of the Olympic Arena, Said posted a video from his hospital bed on Facebook, thanking all those who had sent in messages of support, and claiming that he'll be returning to gymnastics. The Frenchman, who underwent surgery last night, was quick to praise his teammates, several of whom successfully qualified for Monday's final despite witnessing the incident. "The operation went very well, I should be back on my feet in a short time. I will go back to the training camp to encourage my friends because the competition is not over," he said. We must all get behind the gu...

Militants disguised in white-mourning outfits, on Monday morning,  8th of August killed three soldiers at a checkpoint located in Nembe waterways, Nembe, Bayelsa State and stole two gunboats, according to The Nation. The militants attacked a military post by the sea, disarmed the soldiers and escaped with a military gunboat, a resident social media user also confirmed. "Soldiers are all over the town now and aircrafts are bombing the militant hideouts, but the militants are also trying to bring down the planes with anti aircraft guns"  the source confirmed.

Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung Following the barrage of criticism that followed his  embarrassing statement after the U-23 team  got stranded in Atlanta, Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung has finally apologised for his unruly behaviour. Many Nigerians called for him to resign and asked President Muhammdu Buhari to immediately sack him following the blunder.  However, Dalung has issued a statement asking Nigerians to forgive him. He wrote:  " After hugging and exchanging pleasantries with players and officials, Barrister Dalung said: "I want to apologize for all the circumstances that led to your late arrival here. I apologize because I am the head and as such I must take responsibility for anything that happens under my watch.""

Multiple reports making rounds online and social media, is alleging that an Abuja-based political blogger and publisher of Abusidiqu.com, Abubakar Sidiq, has been arrested by the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for a publication on his website. Sidiq’s lawyer, Michael Bello, confirmed the report exclusively to  TheCable News  on Monday saying that his client was arrested in the morning by 6 operatives of the EFCC, but did not give the full reason for the arrest, only saying it was because of  “an online publication’. “About 8:45am today, some gentlemen walked up to the door of Mr Abubakar Sidiq in Kubwa; they said they were there in respect of a car that someone said was missing. They said they traced the car to the house. “They asked for the particulars of the vehicle, and he gave it to them. It was at the point of this discussion that the EFCC bus was driven in… One of the men identified himself as Mayana Sambo, a leader of the team from ...

Osita Okechukwu While fielding questions from newsmen in Imo State, the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), stated Osita Okechukwu, stated that President Muhammadu Buhari and Nigerians in general will eventually be the greatest beneficiaries of the budget padding scandal currently rocking the House of Representatives. The chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who spoke at the burial of late Comrade Chuks Ehirim, the former chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Abuja council, argued that if the allegations of budget padding against the Speaker by the former chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations were properly handled, it would end many years of such criminal acts. “Let me start by saying that on the budget padding allegation, it is the Nigerian people, the president, Muhammadu Buhari and our party at the national level that would be the greatest beneficiaries of the row,”  he said. The...

The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) says the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has fixed N150 per litre as the official depot price of kerosene. It would be recalled that kerosene was very scarce two months ago pushing the price to N300 and above in the black market. Tokunbo Korodo, the South-West Chairman of the union, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Saturday about the price announcements. According to him, the price will encourage more importation of the product by the marketers. He said that most of the filling stations selling kerosene between N200 and N220 as the pump price was as a result of additional money on transportation of the product and some other levies paid by marketers. The chairman said that at present, NNPC was the only importer of kerosene and was using private depots to sell the product. “The NNPC has fixed N150 per litre as the new ...

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D has attempted a full analysis of the grammatical errors committed by Aisha Buhari in her recent speech in far America. His article has been followed by the conventional criticisms on social media which has been compared to the former Firstlady, Patience Faka Jonathan who later became an object of humour before her exit from the seat of power. Farooq A. Kperogi in his article titled "Aisha Buhari’s Embarrassing Grammatical Infelicities at USIP" exposes the grammatical weakness of Mrs Buhari. Read the interesting and insightful piece below: I am aware that this article won’t endear me to several of my thin-skinned Buhari/APC partisan readers who, interestingly, wildly acclaimed my past articles that pilloried former First Lady Patience Jonathan’s sidesplitting grammatical transgressions. But I am never one to shy away from embarking on what I’m convinced is a just and fair undertaking because of a fear of backlash from ma...

Sergeant Amos Mandiwanza was allegedly caught with another officer's wife A top police officer has allegedly been caught red-handed while having s*x with a junior police officer's wife identified as Medline Makonese (19) in Zimbabwe. He was totally disgraced and handcuffed. MasvingoMirror reports that the drama took place at a house in Hwiru in Mpandawana on Monday night when Police sergeant was allegedly caught stark n*ked. The senior cop was caught with Medline Makonese who is a constable and reports to the former in the Cattle Clearing Department. It was gathered that Sergeant Amos Mandiwanza was trapped and handcuffed by a group of Police officers at a house in Hwiru High Density Suburb and the group sang and toyi-toyed as they frogmarched him to the Police station. The picture of the officer in handcuff has been viewed many times online. Speaking about the incident, Constable Brian Chikono who is married to Makonese said that he was ...