1. Presidential aspirant on the platform of All Progressives Congress, Gov. Rochas Okorocha of Imo, has promised to stop insurgency in north east if elected president of Nigeria in 2015. Okorocha made the promise when he paid a courtesy visit to the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) in Kaduna on Wednesday.
2. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) conducted the draws for the 30th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea on Wednesday with four-time winners, Ghana Black Stars drawn in group of death that has 1990 winners, Algeria, 1996 winners, South Africa, and Senegal. Algeria and Nigeria were the two African countries that reached the second round of the just concluded World Cup in Brazil . Aside the group C considered to be the group of death, group D also had a collection of strong teams that is Cote d’ Ivoire, Cameroon, Guinea and Mali.
3. Nigeria attracted the largest investments in the whole of Africa in the last three years, President Goodluck Jonathan has said. The President told private sector investors that although the country had been characterised by various challenges, businesses in Nigeria had continued to thrive.
4. Anambra is to be the first state in the South East Nigeria to use a hi-tech mapping technique with 10 centimetre resolution that is capable of aerial capturing of items as little as a big hand phone in the completed Master Plan for Awka Capital City, according to the chairman of the board of Awka Capital Development Authority, Mr. Chika Egwuatu.
5. The Federal Capital Territory Administration, has resolved to fix uniform fares for all taxi operators in the territory. The scheme which will begin next year will ensure fares are fixed for the different routes in the territory. Announcing this yesterday in Abuja, Mandate Secretary of the FCTA Transportation Secretariat, Engr. Jonathan Ivoke, said calibrated metres will be installed in the taxis.
6. Scores of retired teachers yesterday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital called on National Pension Commission, to mandate their Pension Fund Administrator, IBTC Pensions, to release their pensions without further delay. The teachers, who addressed journalists yesterday at Nigerian Union of Teachers, Kuto, Abeokuta, also called on the federal government and appropriate authorities to intervene on the matter before it is too late.
7. Men of the Enugu State Command of Nigeria Police have uncovered an illegal arms factory in the State where guns were allegedly manufactured. The discovery was made following the arrest of an alleged gun manufacturer, Foster Ezeanure, by operatives of Oji River Area Command through information obtained from members of the public.
8. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Wednesday distanced its Group Managing Director, Dr. Joseph T. Dawha from a running Facebook account opened in his name by some nondescript scam artistes. The Corporation in a statement by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ohi Alegbe in Abuja explained that the “bogus Facebook account which bears a concocted version of Dr. Dawha’s profile is designed to hoodwink unsuspecting users of Facebook into correspondence with a view to defrauding them”.
9. The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has threatened to ground the operations of domestic airlines over their failure to pay their charges which have accumulated to over N5 billion. This move would have adverse implication on the socio-economic activities of the country as no flight belonging to the indebted airlines will be given start-up to take off.
10. NATCOM consortium has emerged the preferred bidder for the acquisition of the assets of the Nigerian Telecommunications Plc, NITEL, and the Nigerian Mobile Telecommunications MTEL. The consortium won the bid after its revised bid price of $252. 251, 000 from the initial $221 was accepted, having met the reserved price.
