Infowiz

Femi Adesina, special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, says the person who leaked the draft speech of the president hours to his last nationwide broadcast, has been caught. Buhari had addressed the nation on Monday, extending the lockdown in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun by a week. He also commended health workers on the frontline of the battle against COVID-19 and adopted some of the recommendations of governors about the pandemic. Among the recommendations he listed for implementation are use of face mask in public, restriction of interstate movement and imposition of dusk to dawn curfew. A version — full of errors — circulated on social media at least four hours before the president eventually read what was different in some ways from the draft. In a piece entitled: “Enemies of the state”, Adesina said the individual who leaked the memo had been traced and is now “paying for his evil action”. “President Muhammadu Buhari was to bro...

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused the World Health Organization of being a “pipe organ” for China during the coronavirus outbreak. Trump said China “misled us,” as he referred to investigations the White House asked the US intelligence agencies to conduct into whether China and the WHO covered up what they knew about the early spread of COVID-19. “They must have known more than they knew,” he told reporters about the UN agency during a meeting with Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards in the Oval Office. “We knew things that they didn’t know, and either they didn’t know they didn’t tell us … right now, they’re literally a pipe organ for China, that’s the way I view it,” the president said. Trump and other world leaders have ripped China for its lack of transparency and for failing to accurately report the number of coronavirus cases after the initial report of the outbreak in the city of Wuhan in December. Arguing that the US payment...

The Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau, Nuno Nabiam and three ministers, on Wednesday tested positive for Coronavirus. Health Minister, Antonio Deuna, confirmed this, revealing that they were being quarantined presently at a hotel in the country’s capital, Bissau. It was learnt that some members of the cabinet: Interior Minister Botche Cande and two secretaries of state, Mario Fambe and Monica Buaro were also infected. So far, Guinea-Bissau has recorded 73 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with one death, and 18 recoveries, according to figures compiled by the US-based Johns Hopkins University. President Umaro Sissoco Embalo had also extended the nationwide state of emergency due to COVID-19 to May 11. Nabiam was selected by President Embalo to be prime minister in late February, 2019.

Reprieve has come the way of 24 states whose financial records have been adjudged by the World Bank as transparent. Accordingly, they are sharing a $120.6 million grant (about N43.416 billion) provided by the global lender under its the Assisted States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability Programme-for-Results. The transparency fund is not a loan, therefore, it is not to be repaid by the beneficiaries. Unfortunately, Lagos and four states in the South-South, namely Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers and Bayelsa missed the mark, as it was believed they were found wanting in their fiscal transparency. Advertisement The Lucky ones include Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Niger and Ondo. The rest are Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Sokoto, Taraba and Yobe.Yobe.AccinAccording to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, Kaduna scored the highest point in the exerc...

AUTHOR: Oluseyi Awojulugbe The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on Tuesday,  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. TheCable has provided these questions to help you understand the grounds on which Nigeria got the facility from the IMF. IS IT A LOAN? No, it is not a loan. Countries hold reserves with the IMF. These reserves are held in what we can technically call a currency called SDR (special drawing rights). The value of an SDR is based on the value of certain international currencies including the dollar, euro, pound, Japanese yen and the Chinese renminbi. The $3.4 billion Nigeria got represents SDR 2,454.5 million (100% of the quota Nigeria holds with the IMF). So what Nigeria has done is to draw its reserves with the IMF. You can read more about SDR  HERE . DOES ...

ON APRIL 29, 20208 :45 PMIN NEWS By Nwafor Sunday After appointing five dead persons in 2017, namely, Francis Okpozo, a senator in the second republic; Donald Ugbaja, a retired deputy inspector-general of police;  Ahmed Bunza, sole administrator of Jega local government area of Kebbi state, Christopher Utov, a former proprietor of Fidei Polytechnic, Gboko; and Kabir Umar, a former emir of Katagum in Bauchi state, President Muhammadu Buhari has again appointed a dead person in the Federal Character Commission, FCC. Late Tobias Chukwuemeka Okwuru was from Amudo in Ezza south local government area, Ebonyi state. Before his death at the age of 59, Okwuru represented Ezza south/Ikwo federal constituency. However, yesterday Okwuru was named as a member of the board of the FCC, two months after he passed on. The deceased was appointed alongside 37 others. The appointees will be chaired by Dr Farida Dankaka. Reacting, Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwar...

Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, gives a press briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic in Abuja on April 29, 2020 The Presidential Task Force (PTF) has released the guidelines for the ease of COVID-19 guidelines which will come into effect on May 4. In a briefing on Wednesday, PTF Chairman and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, noted that banks and offices will reopen next week. The SGF, however, insisted that educational institutions will still remain shut nationwide as precautionary steps to prevent the spread of the virus in the country. “In line with Mr President’s directives in paragraphs 34 to 41 of his broadcast, the Presidential Task Force has developed guidelines. The gradual reopening of the economy will stand a total of six weeks broken into three tranches of two weeks each. “To the avoidance of doubt, the following clarifications are provided –...

OYOGist.com has learned and reported that the General Overseer of Bible Believing Church A.k.a Talknado,  Prophet Kingsley Innocent yesterday 28th of April 2020 gathered his Worshippers in defiance to the Ban on Religious Gathering by the Abia State Government. The Worst was that when the State Enforcement Team arrived his Church, non of his Members including the Prophet was putting on Face Mask. Reporting the incident by one of the team, he said : Do u know they attacked us, they resisted our entrance, ever ready to fight the armed mobile men, nearly destroyed our cameras, a whole lot happened. OYOGist.com reports Investigation reveals that the said pastor told his members that nothing like any disease in the country which led to misleading his members in Aba . Another team said the pastor has no respect for the government, “Maybe the “Pastor” doesn’t know that disobedience is a sin”. “This is too bad, to come from sombod...

Apostle Johnson Suleman has responded after Leo Igwe , the director of Advocacy for Alleged Witches ( AFAW ), challenged him to treat just one COVID -19 or HIV patient and get a reward of $1,000. Igwe , who holds a doctoral degree in religious studies from the University of Bayreuth , wrote in an open letter to Suleman : “I am challenging the founder of Omega Ministries, Apostle Suleman , to demonstrate his so-called gift of healing under agreed medical and scientific conditions. I ask Suleman to heal a person with a confirmed case of COVID -19 and get a thousand US dollars. This challenge has become necessary because Apostle Suleman has in a recent video urged the government of Nigeria to allow him and other pastors with the gift of healing into the isolation centers so that they could pray and heal those who have been infected by the virus.” Apostle Suleman took to Twitter to respond to Leo Igwe’s challenge. He wrote: “A certain Leo igwe say...

The Presidency has disclosed that someone obtained and leaked the draft of President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech hours before the national broadcast on Monday. This was disclosed by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, when he appeared on TVC News. The leaked version of the president’s speech was full of errors and was already circulating on social media before the actual broadcast to the nation at 8pm. Adesina was asked to clear the confusion on the lockdown where some newspapers reported different dates, and he said, “There is just one authentic copy of the broadcast, which is the one released from the media office. “But then, I recognise that a couple of hours before the broadcast itself, a copy of the purported speech had been circulating particularly on WhatsApp. If you compare the two, yes there are some similarities but then, there are also wide differences. “You have just mentioned the effective day p...

hThe board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved the sum of $3.4 billion to support Nigeria’s COVID-19 fight. The emergency financial assistance to Nigeria is the highest so far to any member country. The assistance, facilitated via the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI), will help limit the decline in Nigeria’s international reserves, the IMF said. It will also help to provide financing for the country’s budget, which has been severely affected by falling oil prices triggered by the pandemic and price wars. The IMF praised the Nigerian government’s “immediate” response to the crisis, describing it as “welcome.” However, it noted that short-term focus should be on higher health spending and palliative for households and businesses. The financial body also said Nigeria should take steps to unify its exchange rate as quickly as possible. After the COVID-19 crisis passes, Nigeria’s “focus should remain on medium-term macroeconomic stability, with reve...