IMF Grants $3.4bn Loan to Nigeria

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has approved Nigeria’s request for financial assistance to the tune of $3.4 billion.

The disbursement is the highest so far given to any African country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Naira Marley Embraces Ramadan

Naira Marley has put a halt to his exuberances on social media to embrace Islam during the holy month of Ramadan.

The 25-year-old father of three stunned his 3.1 million followers on Instagram and 1.1 million followers on Twitter to share quotes from the Quran at the start of Ramadan on Friday, April 24.

Reacting to some of the backlashes he got from some followers on Twitter and Instagram, Naira Marley said, “You will never be able to please all of the people all of the time, so concentrate on pleasing your maker (ALLAH) because that’s what matters.

Naira Marley was born Azeez Fashola in 1994. In less than 14 months, he became Nigeria’s most controversial music artist with at least 3 viral songs and large followership on social media and music scene.

He has proudly promoted sex, alcohol, and drugs in his music but said in different interviews that he gets musical inspiration from Islamic songs and Fuji music.

The singer also revealed to Olisa Adibua in his interview on The Truth that he began a career in music after he made £250, 000 from doing odd jobs on the streets of London.

The Nation

US coronavirus cases surpass 1 million as projections show deaths could rise in coming weeks

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States topped 1 million on Tuesday as researchers say the number of deaths could rise in coming weeks.

There are at least 1,004,908 cases of the virus across the US, according to a tally from health officials by Johns Hopkins University.

The grim milestone comes after seven coronavirus models anticipate a rise in cases that will depend on how much "contact reduction" Americans practice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The models estimate the numbers of cases and deaths on the state and national levels, and one model from the University of Texas at Austin makes metro-area projections.

Your top coronavirus questions, answered

"State-level forecasts vary widely, reflecting differences in early epidemic phases, timing of interventions and model-specific assumptions," the CDC says.

Models that factor in strong contact reduction suggest deaths will continue to occur, but will "slow substantially over the next four weeks," the CDC said.

CNN news

The Rise and Rise of John Boyega

John Adedayo B. Adegboyega (born 17 March 1992), known professionally as John Boyega, is an English actor known for playing Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy films, The Force Awakens (2015), The Last Jedi (2017), and The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Boyega rose to prominence in his native United Kingdom for his role as Moses in the 2011 sci-fi comedy film Attack the Block.

Boyega's other credits include historical drama film Detroit (2017), the science fiction film Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), four episodes of the television series 24: Live Another Day and the drama Imperial Dreams (2014). Boyega received the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2016.

Boyega was born on 17 March 1992 in Peckham, London, England, to British Nigerian parents, Abigail (née Aboderin), who works with the disabled, and Samson Adegboyega, a Pentecostal minister. His first role was a leopard in a play at his primary school. John is of Yoruba ethnic group in Nigeria. 

Boyega was a pupil at Oliver Goldsmith Primary School. While acting in a play there at the age of nine, he was noticed by Teresa Early, the artistic director of Theatre Peckham, a learning theatre for young people who live in south London. After he joined the theatre, he spent his time there outside school hours between the ages of nine and 14. Boyega's father, a preacher, had wanted Boyega to become a preacher too, but was supportive of his son's theatrical interests.

 

In 2003, Boyega started his secondary education at Westminster City School, where he took part in various school productions. Between 2008 and 2010, he attended South Thames College at the college's Wandsworth campus to study for a National Diploma in Performing Arts. His activities at the college included playing the title role in the college's production of Othello. He enrolled at the University of Greenwich to study BA Film Studies & Media Writing, but dropped out to focus on acting.

Boyega trained at the Identity School of Acting in Hackney, and appeared in Six Parties at the National Theatre and Category B at the Tricycle Theatre prior to being offered a role in the 2011 film Attack the Block. In September 2011, HBO announced that Boyega had been cast in the boxing drama pilot Da Brick, loosely based on Mike Tyson's life. Boyega was expected to play Donnie, who is released from a juvenile detention centre on his 18th birthday and begins to examine what it means to be a man. The pilot was written by John Ridley,[16] but was not picked up by HBO.Also in 2011, he acted in the film Junkhearts in which he portrayed Jamal, a drug dealer who finds some guns and tries to sell them.

 

Boyega was chosen by Fionnuala Halligan of Screen International as one of the "UK Stars of Tomorrow 2011" and appeared alongside two other actors on the front cover of that magazine in its July 2011 edition.In March 2012, Boyega was cast in the film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's book Half of a Yellow Sun. On 29 April 2014, it was confirmed that Boyega had been cast as a lead character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It was later revealed Boyega would play Finn, a stormtrooper for the First Order, who leaves the military power after witnessing their cruelty in his first combat mission before joining the fight against them. The film was released on 18 December 2015. Both the film and Boyega's performance received acclaim from both audiences and critics.

 

In 2017, Boyega starred in Detroit, Kathryn Bigelow's film about the 1967 Detroit riots. The same year, he reprised his role as Finn in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

 In January 2016, Boyega formed his own production company, Upperroom Entertainment Limited. His company co-produced Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), the sequel to the 2013 movie Pacific Rim, alongside Legendary Entertainment. Boyega also starred in the lead role of the film, Jake Pentecost.

 In November 2018 it was announced that Boyega would be starring alongside Letitia Wright in a novel adaption of Hold Back the Stars. Boyega has also been cast in Steve McQueen's upcoming mini-series Small Axe.

 In 2018, Boyega subsequently reprised his role as Finn in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, released in 2019. During an interview with Good Morning America, Boyega acknowledged that he had accidentally left his script in a hotel room during filming. The script subsequently surfaced on eBay but was bought by a Lucasfilm employee to prevent it from being leaked.

 

In the 2020 Power list, Boyega was listed in the Top 100 of the most influential people in the UK from African/African-Caribbean decent.

wikipedia

NDDC Alerts Nigerians on Scammers offering Fake Agric Loans

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has warned the public against activities of scammers offering non-existent agriculture cooperative loans in the name of the commission. Mr Charles Odili, NDDC Director of Corporate Affairs, said in a statement in Port Harcourt on Tuesday that the scammers had collected money from unsuspecting Nigerians to obtain ‘fake’ agric loans.

Dr. Segun Toyin Dawodu MD, JD, MBA, LL.M, MS, Doing Nigeria Proud

Segun Toyin Dawodu, a Yoruba man (born October 13, 1960 in Nigeria) is currently an Attending Interventional Physiatrist with the WellSpan Health and was previously an Associate Professor of Pain Medicine at Albany Medical College.  He has been a major contributor to the peer-reviewed articles on the diagnosis and management of Spinal Cord Injury, Cauda Equina and Conus Medullaris Syndromes, Swallowing Disorders Traumatic Brain Injury, and chapter in Comprehensive Pain Management in the Rehabilitation Patient. In 1998, he established dawodu.com, a website on Nigeria's socio-political issues.

 

He is a graduate of Medicine (MD) from University of Ibadan, Nigeria, of Law from University of London (LL.B and LL.M) and King's College London The Dickson Poon School of Law (LL.M in International Corporate and Commercial Law, as its first graduate in that degree), graduate of Medical Informatics (Master of Science) from Northwestern University and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School with an MBA. He is board certified in the medical specialties of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Pain Medicine, Sports Medicine, Clinical informatics, Spinal Cord Injury Medicine and Electro Diagnostic Medicine. He is also a diplomate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Scotland

 

He is a licensed Physician in the United States in New York and other states in the United Kingdom with the General Medical Council, Nigeria with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria and Medical Board of Trinidad and Tobago. He is also a licensed Medical Informatician as a specialist in Medical Informatics Health informatics with the United Kingdom Council for Health Informatics Professions (UKCHIP).

He was previously (2000-2001) a Clinical Instructor of Traumatic Brain Injury and Stroke Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital/Medical School in New York City before going into solo private practice.

He has served in many capacities in different professional organizations including being formerly a pioneer member of the editorial board and author in the Knowledge NOW publications of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, membership of different committees of the American Academy of Neuromuscular and Electro Diagnostic Medicine etc.

He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Fellow of the American Academy of Neuromuscular and Electro Diagnostic Medicine, Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, Member of the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management, and Member/Diplomate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

 source: wikipedia

Ken Walibora: The Passing of a Prolific Writer

The Kenyan author Ken Walibora who was buried last week left behind a generation of fans who read his books in Swahili classes, including the BBC's Basillioh Mutahi.

Prof Walibora was renowned for promoting Swahili, the national language he used in writing his books.

In 2018 he expressed concern that some schools in Kenya had notices reading: "This is an English-speaking zone".

He asked the ministry of education why it would allow students to be barred from speaking in Swahili, when it was a national language.

The author said this was a sign of brainwashing and neo-colonialism. You would not find another country that would choose a foreign language over the language of its people, he said

.His most prominent book was his first novel Siku Njema which was later translated to English as A Good Day. It was used as a set book in high schools around the country for many years.

Many Kenyans who read it in school have spoken about how the novel, a tale of triumph over adversity, helped them love Swahili literature - which is something Kenyans often find difficult to do.

Our neighbours in Tanzania are supposed to be the most proficient speakers of this language used as a lingua franca by around 100 million people across East Africa.

• Born on 6 January 1965 as Kennedy Waliaula in Baraki, Bungoma county, in western Kenya
• Later changed his identity to Walibora, the latter part of his surname which means "better" in Swahili. He also shortened his first name to Ken
• Worked as a teacher and a probation officer before he became a journalist. He has also served as a professor of the Kiswahili language in the US and Kenya
• Died on 10 April after he was hit by a bus in downtown Nairobi, the police initially reported
• He had been reported missing for five days when his body was found at the mortuary of Kenya's main referral hospital, the Kenyatta National Hospital
• The police's homicide department have since taken over investigations into his death after a post-mortem by the government pathologist revealed he had a knife wound on the space between his thumb and the index finger
• Buried on 21 April at his home in western Kenya in a funeral attended by not more than 15 people, due to the regulations imposed to stop the spread of coronavirus
• His widow and two children did not attend as they could not leave the US, where they live, due to Covid-19 travel restrictions

SOURCE: BBCNEWS