It has been more than a year since renegade general Khalifa Haftar launched his military campaign to capture the capital Tripoli. Now the commander is scrambling to maintain control of his eastern stronghold.
The dramatic turn of events can be attributed to one major development: support from Turkey's military, particularly its drone force that has successfully pushed back Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) from Libya's skies.
aljazeera.com
Asia’s most provocative luxury fashion magazine, L’Officiel Singapore, has shared the new cover of their upcoming issue on their verified Instagram account and revealed that the guest of this month is Michael Jackson’s beloved daughter, Paris Jackson.
As you can see in the photo below, Paris Jackson was wearing a black dress and holding a cute cat on her hands. Frankly, she was looking very attractive and fascinating in the cover pose. The photos were taken by a famous photographer, Alan Gelati.
The disbursement came following the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari that the conditional cash transfers for the next two months be paid immediately to beneficiaries.
The disbursement was done on Wednesday in Kwali Central Area Council of FCT by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq.
The Minister disbursed N20,000 as payment for four months to over 190 beneficiaries at the payment point in Kwali.
The beneficiaries were handed their stipends after their payment cards were verified and scanned by government-approved mobile money operators.
Speaking during the disbursement, the minister said: “The exercise commenced about five years ago and it is geared towards supporting the poor and vulnerable households of our society.
“We give them monthly stipends of N5000 every month and now that we have these restrictions, Mr. President has directed that we give them two months advance payment and we are here today to carry out that directive of paying the two months advance payment.”
On the number of beneficiaries, Farouq said: “We have over a million people across the country. For the FCT and this particular area Council, we are giving about 5000 households in this area.”
How to collect federal government N Cash TransferOn how the beneficiaries were identified, she said: “It is a very long process and many people like religious leaders, community leaders, and different groups all came together to identify the poorest and vulnerable households in their community.”
On the claim that the beneficiaries were members of a particular political party, she said: “It is untrue and you can confirm from the beneficiaries of the process of selection.”
Also speaking, the National Programme Coordinator for the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, Dr. Temitope Sinkaiye said the additional 1million beneficiaries would be added to the programme before the end of the year.
Explaining how the programme works and how it has impacted beneficiaries, Sinkaiye said: “The process of identification is a long process that involves community members themselves identifying those who are poor and vulnerable in their sight. So, the team moves from community to community and the community members determine what poverty means in their village and those who fall within their definition of poverty.
source: Financialwatchngr.com
President Muhammadu Buhari will address the nation Monday, April 27, 2020 at 8pm.
This is according to a statement by Mr Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity.
In his communique, the media aide urged all television, radio and other electronic media stations to hook up to the network services of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) respectively for the broadcast.
Channels TV
The Lagos State Government has shortlisted 10 firms that applied for the construction of the Fourth Mainland Bridge. The announcement was made in a statement by the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure.
The firms include CCECC Nigeria Limited; CGGC-CGC Joint Venture; China Harbour Engineering Company Limited; China State Construction Engineering Corporation Nigeria Limited; IC ICTAS Insaat Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. and Ingenieros Consultores, S.A., through Makais Energy. Others are Julius Berger Nigeria Plc; Mota-Engil and CCCC Consortium; Mutual Commitment Company Limited and Power Con-struction Corporation of China.
“Following the issuance of request for qualification to the 32 shortlisted and eligible respondents to the expression of interest, we are pleased to announce that the Lagos State Government has received a total of 10 responses to the request for qualification (the applications) from the applicants. “The Lagos State Government will now proceed to evaluate the applications in line with the evaluation criteria set out in the request for qualification and thereafter announce the successful pre-qualified bidders, who shall be eligible for participation in the next stage of the selection/bidding process, being the request for proposals stage,” the statement said.
source: The New Telegraph
Jacob K.
Olupona is Professor of African Religious Traditions and Chair of the Committee
on African studies at the Harvard Divinity School with a joint appointment as
Professor of African and African American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences at Harvard University. Jacob K.
Olupona is a scholar of indigenous African religions who came to Harvard after
serving as a professor at the University of California, Davis.
He is
working on a study of the religious practices of the estimated one million
Africans who have emigrated to the United States over the last 40 years,
examining in particular several populations that remain relatively invisible in
the American religious landscape: "reverse missionaries" who have
come to the U.S. to establish churches, African Pentecostals in American
congregations, American branches of independent African churches, and
indigenous African religious communities in the U.S. His earlier research
includes African spirituality and ritual practices, spirit possession,
Pentecostalism, Yoruba festivals, animal symbolism, icons, phenomenology, and
religious pluralism in Africa and the Americas.
In his
forthcoming book Ile-Ife: The City of 201 Gods, he examines the modern urban
mixing of ritual, royalty, gender, class, and power, and how the structure,
content, and meaning of religious beliefs and practices permeate daily life.
He has
authored or edited seven other books, including Kingship, Religion, and Rituals
in a Nigerian Community: A Phenomenological Study of Ondo Yoruba Festivals,
which has been used for ethnographic research among Yoruba-speaking
communities.
Olupona has
received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Philosophical
Society, the Ford Foundation, the Davis Humanities Institute, the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Getty Foundation. He has served
on the editorial boards of three journals and as president of the African
Association for the Study of Religion. In 2000, Olupona received an honorary
doctorate in divinity from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Jacob K. Olupona received his BA from the
University of Nigeria and his MA and Ph.D. from Boston University.
The governor of Lagos State, the economic capital of Nigeria, has made the wearing of masks compulsory to fight against the coronavirus, his spokesman told AFP on Sunday.
“Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu proclaimed the wearing of masks compulsory in the state” of the 20 million inhabitants megalopolis, spokesman Gboyega Akosile told AFP.
Lagos, the neighbouring state of Ogun and the federal capital Abuja have been placed since the end of March under total containment in order to stop the spread of the virus which has officially caused to date 35 deaths for 1,182 confirmed cases in Nigeria, including 19 deaths for 689 cases in Lagos.A decision by President Muhammadu Buhari on the lifting or extension of this containment, which expires on Monday, is expected at any moment.
The governor of Lagos has threatened penalties and sanctions for anyone who violates the requirement to wear a mask while the virus is spreading among the population, according to his spokesman.
“We have made arrangements for the production of masks in large quantities for the people of Lagos State,” he said, stressing the opportunity for the private sector to contribute to the fight against Covid-19 while securing a lucrative business, according to the same source.
Africa as a whole remains even less affected than most other regions of the world, with 1,330 deaths for more than 29,000 confirmed cases, according to a report compiled by AFP.
The toll is particularly heavy in Algeria and Egypt, with respectively 419 deaths for more than 3,200 confirmed cases and 307 deaths for more than 4,300 cases.
South Africa, the continent’s leading industrial power, is the most affected country in sub-Saharan Africa, with 86 deaths out of more than 4,300 cases.
AFP
The Ojude Oba festival is an annual celebration by the Yoruba people of Ijebu-Ode, a major town in Ogun State, Southwestern Nigeria. This v...
