Gist Arena

F ive members of a family have been confirmed dead after alleged food poisoning. The incident happened at Ndieke Umuatuegwu village Okija in Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State, just few kilometers away from Ozubulu where gunmen massacred church worshippers last week. According to eyewitness, on Wednesday, August 9th, the mother of the house served a food she personally cooked to her husband, a commercial motorcyclist when he returned from work. The husband invited his three children to join him without knowing it was their last meal on earth. Reports say they started vomiting blood shortly after they began eating. They were rushed to a nearby hospital but none of them survived. His wife who didn’t join them to eat the food slumped and died this morning, August 14th as she couldn’t withstand the trauma of losing her husband and three children. The villagers assembled their corpses on Monday to investigate their death, probably the traditional...

T he Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU, has embarked on an indefinite strike beginning from today August 14th. President of the academic union, Biodun Ogunyemi, announced this in a memo to lecturers dated August 12th. According to the memo, the union is proceeding on an indefinite strike because of the federal government's failure to implement its 2009 agreement and 2013 memorandum of understanding (MoU). Other reasons listed for the strike include non-payment of salaries, non-payment of earned academic allowance (EAA), removal of universities staff schools from funding by government and non-implementation of provisions of the 2014 pension reform act with respect to retired professors and their salaries. The memo in part reads “The national executive council (NEC) of ASUU met at the university of Abuja main campus, Giri, on the 12th of August 2017 to consider the results of a referendum from all branches in a bid to ascertain ways of convincing government to impl...

I have up till now chosen to maintain my silence and not to respond to inaccurate press reporting. However, given the level of deliberate inaccuracies, I am now forced to respond because it is clear that the EFCC is taking advantage of my silence to try me by media and to convict me in the eyes of the public. $153.3MILLION ALLEGATION I am deeply disturbed and bewildered by recent media reports claiming that by virtue of an order of the federal high court, I have forfeited to the federal government, the sum of $153.3m which I purportedly stole from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. First and foremost, whilst the reasons for my being out of the country are public knowledge, the principle of fair hearing demands that I should have been notified of formal charges if truly there was a prima facie evidence or indictment against my person linking me with the said issue, so as to ensure that I had adequate legal representation. This was never done. I wish...

W ith less than two years to the end of the tenure of the current administration, President Muhammadu Buhari has given Acting President Yemi Osinbajo approval to reshuffle the cabinet if he so desires, INDEPENDENT has learnt. This is following intense pressure on the acting president to carry out a major cabinet reshuffle to inject new blood into the administration to turnaround the ailing Nigeria’s economy. According to an impeccable source in the Office of the Acting President, Osinbajo received the blessings of his principal, President Buhari, to “effect changes in the cabinet if he feels there is need to do so” during their meeting in the United Kingdom (UK) on July 11 where the president is currently on medical vacation. According to the source, “Though they have been communicating on phone frequently, the president asked the acting president to meet him in the UK. He not only asked him to swear in the two ministers who have been confirmed by the Senate, he also...