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http://ift.tt/eA8V8J Nigeria’s information minister on Wednesday said fears for President Muhammadu Buhari’s health were unfounded, despite more than three weeks with no word about his condition. Lai Mohammed was asked about the latest situation after the weekly FEC meeting of senior ministers in the capital, Abuja. “Once again, I want to make myself very, very clear. On the issue of Mr President, he is in very competent hands and there is no cause for alarm,” he told reporters. Buhari, 74, has spent a large part of this year in London receiving treatment for an unspecified medical condition. He left Abuja on May 7 for what his office said was a “follow-up medical consultation” in the British capital and has not been seen or heard from since. His wife, Aisha, has left Abuja to be with her husband. She previously played down rumours he was too ill to rule but said nothing on her departure from the capital on Tuesday. Buhari, a former military ruler, has been dogged by speculation...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J The Plateau chapter of the PDP on Tuesday accused the APC-led state government of “reckless spending”. Its Chairman, Damishi Sango, at a press briefing on Tuesday in Jos, alleged that the government was “plunging the state into indebtedness, severe hardship, hunger and penury by deploying limited resources into fictitious projects”. “Instead of rescuing Plateau as it promised, state actors are busy rescuing their personal pockets and those of their friends and families by pushing outrageous sums into non-existent contracts,” he said. Sango alleged that government had spent N216 million “to remodel an already well-constructed and furnished Governor’s lodge in Abuja”. “The government says it has also spent N1 billion to re-grass the Rwang Pam Stadium and N2 billion to purchase fertiliser that farmers have not seen. “It has also budgeted N1.8 billion to renovate the new Government House built by the PDP-led administration that it succeeded. “The records are cle...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J …six-month-old, 13 others suffer severe injury ..We evacuates, sealed building thrice-LASBCA By Monsuru Olowoopejo Tragedy struck in Lagos State Monday after a three-storey building undergoing renovation at No 9 Daddy Alaja Street, Oke Arin, Idumota axis, caved in, killing a bricklayer and five-year-old girl while sleeping. The five-year-old girl, who was identified as Faridah Ajitayo and the bricklayer, who was contacted for the repair works, identified as Baba Ibeji, were rescued from the rubbles at about 11 am. While the two could not escape death, a six-month-old baby, her mother and 12 others escaped death but suffered severe injuries, which the head of Nigerian Red Cross officials led by Adeshile Aderibigbe, said: “the injuries were on different parts of their bodies.” When Vanguard arrived at the scene at about 10 am, the State Emergency Response Team and other responders which includes the Lagos State Ambulance Service, Lagos State Fire Service, LASB...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J A youth group, under the aegis of Igbo for Nigerian Movement, INM, has floated anti-Biafra campaign to unite people of Igbo extraction in order to reap maximum benefits from the peaceful co-existence of one United Nigeria. INM called on the entire Ndigbo to bury the idea of the struggle of the Republic of Biafra and embrace the new platform, INM for intellectual and strategic engagements that would enthrone equity, fairness and justice to every member of the Nigerian State. The group warned that the ongoing clamour by some persons for the secession of Igbo from Nigeria was a call to self-destruction and would only do them more harm than good. Some groups, including the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, as well as the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, under the leadership of Uchenna Madu have been clamouring for the birth of Biafra. According to them, ‘Nigeria is a zoo’ and has succeeded in expunging them ...

http://ift.tt/2rMTaRp South Sudan President Salva Kiir looks on at the headquarters of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in Juba, South Sudan, on May 18, 2017, during the commemoration of SPLA Day. SPLA Day is marked annually in remembrance of a group of Sudanese soldiers who mutinied in 1983 in the South Sudanese area of Bor – Jonglei, sparking off more than two decades of civil war which culminated in the independence of South Sudan in 2011. / AFP PHOTO / STR / ALBERT GONZALEZ FARRAN South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir declared a unilateral ceasefire Monday as he launched a national dialogue, a controversial bid to end a civil war that excludes his rival Riek Machar. It is not the first time Kiir has vowed the army will lay down arms in the three-year conflict, and he warned that his troops would defend themselves if attacked. “I am also once again declaring a unilateral ceasefire effective from today, so that we can create an environment for an inclusive dialogue an...