These are the top five Nigerian stories that drove conversation today.
The Presidency on Thursday explained that President Muhammadu Buhari did not refer to all Nigerian youths as lazy in a statement he made on Wednesday during the question and answer section of the Commonwealth Business Forum in London.
Rather, it said Buhari only made reference to “a lot of” Nigerian youths and not all of them.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, made the clarification in a statement made available to journalists.
Adesina attributed the outrage that trailed the President’s comment to those he described as “manipulators and twisters” of Buhari’s statements.
He said, “Typical of their stock in trade, manipulators and twisters of statements of Mr. President, who lie in wait to make mischief, interpreted the comment to mean that President Buhari had taken all Nigerian youths to the cleaners.”
The Court of Appeal sitting in Ado Ekiti on Thursday, directed the freezing of the account of the Ekiti state governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose.
The court allowed the appeal filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission against the judgment of Justice Taiwo. O Taiwo of Federal High Court, Ado Ekiti division.
The Federal High Court, Abuja, has expressed doubts as to whether the claim of ill health by Olisah Metuh, the embattled former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), is true.
The trial judge, Justice Okon Abang, said this on Thursday while delivering a ruling on an application seeking the release of Metuh’s international passport to enable him travel abroad for medical treatment.
According to the judge, “I am wondering, if the defendant is really sick as he claims, why did he not appeal the two earlier decisions of the court that refused to release his international passport.
“I doubt that he is really ill as he wants the court to believe, if he is, he should have appealed the decisions of the court at the Court of Appeal.”
A high court sitting in Abuja has granted Ovie Omo-Agege, senator representing Delta central, an interim order restraining the police, Department of Sate Service (DSS) and other law enforcement bodies from arresting him.
Omo-Agege had on Wednesday, allegedly stormed the senate with unidentified persons who made away with the mace.
The suspended lawmaker said he was not arrested but “merely” left with the police who wanted to hear his perspective on the matter
However, Omo-Agege’s lawyers approached the court on Thursday to seek an interim injunction against arrest or detention of the senator.
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday challenged youths in the country to brace up for political leadership of the country in the years ahead.
Osinbajo gave the charge when he received a delegation of “Not Too Young To Run” movement which visited him at the presidential villa in Abuja.
He said youth needed to be ready for political offices they intended to occupy, pointing out that leadership positions were not automatic.
“It is true that young people are participating in every sphere of the economy and they are doing well, but they ended up there through one process of training or the other. Just like you have to train before you can become a pilot, so it is for politics,” he said.
“I think that whatever age a person chooses to run should not matter; what should matter is the preparedness of the person because elective positions require some skills. Most times people train to acquire other skills but not politics; that’s the way of democracy.”
And now, stories from around the world…
Miguel Díaz-Canel has been sworn in as Cuba’s new president, replacing Raúl Castro who took over from his ailing brother Fidel in 2006.
It is the first time since the revolution in 1959 that a Castro is not at the helm of the government.
Mr Díaz-Canel had been serving as first vice-president for the past five years.
Even though Mr Díaz-Canel was born after the revolution, he is a staunch ally of Raúl Castro and is not expected to make any radical changes.
King Mswati III of Swaziland announced on Wednesday that he was renaming the country “the Kingdom of eSwatini”.
The monarch announced the official change in a stadium during celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Swazi independence.
The celebrations also marked the king’s 50th birthday.
The new name, eSwatini, means “land of the Swazis”. The change was unexpected, but King Mswati has been referring to Swaziland as for years as eSwatini.
The head of the department of Islamic guidance in the Iranian city of Mashhad has been arrested after people danced at an event in a local shopping centre.
A video showed a crowd of men and women enjoying a performance by a singer.
Mixing between the genders and dancing in public are severely restricted under Iran’s Islamic laws.
A judicial official said the shopping centre event, which was authorised by the Islamic guidance department, was an “offence against public decency”.
A similar engine fault behind a fatal mid-air engine explosion that punctured a passenger jet window was reported in 2016, it has emerged.
A female passenger died after she was nearly sucked from the cabin of a Southwest Airlines flight travelling from New York to Dallas on Tuesday.
Investigators say there was a fault with the engine’s fan blades – the cause of the incident two years ago.
US aviation authorities are to order inspections of similar jet engines.
Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, a Boeing 737 which was carrying 149 people, was forced to make an emergency landing at Philadelphia airport on Tuesday following a fault with one of its CFM56-7B engines.
The UK Government has lost a key Brexit vote, with the upper House of Parliament backing calls to remain in the EU customs union after Brexit.
The House of Lords voted 348 to 225 to amend the government’s EU Withdrawal Bill, which will now return to the House of Commons where the defeat is likely to spur renewed opposition.
The amendment requires the government to report to Parliament by October 31 on what steps it has taken to remain in the customs union, which allows goods to flow freely across the European Union.
Leave a reply