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  • Umahi approves payment of two years leave allowance for Ebonyi workers – NLC

    Umahi approves payment of two years leave allowance for Ebonyi workers – NLC

    The Nigerian Labour Congress ( NLC ) in Ebonyi, says the approval given by Gov. Dave Umahi for the payment of workers’ 2016/2017 leave allowances will enhance productivity.

    The state NLC Chairman, Mr Leonard Nkah, on Friday in Abakaliki, said that the approval was a welcome development.

    “We have been negotiating with the government on the issue of the payment of arrears of workers’ leave allowances and other statutory workers’ entitlements; and we are happy that the governor has graciously approved the payment.

    “The action will not only motivate the workers to greater productivity, it will also enhance more service delivery.

    “Workers have been subjected to more hardship with their families and other dependents, suffering excruciating pains under the present economic recession.

    “The payment of the leave allowances will no doubt alleviate the sufferings and ensure that they put in their best.

    “We commend and congratulate the governor for keeping to his promises to better the welfare and wellbeing of the Ebonyi workers, ” Nkah said.

    Nkah, who is also the President, Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees ( NULGE ), Ebonyi chapter, said NLC would continue to engage the state government in constructive dialogue on matters concerning workers’ welfare.

    He said that payment of workers’ promotion arrears and lifting of embargo on promotion were being discussed and would soon be addressed by government.

    The chairman urged workers to be more dedicated to their duties, promote work efficiency and avoid acts that could impact negatively on service delivery.

    Workers in Ebonyi were yet to receive entitlements accruing from their annual leave since the inception of the present administration on May 29, 2015.

    NAN

  • Five killed in renewed Ebonyi/Cross River boundary dispute

    Five killed in renewed Ebonyi/Cross River boundary dispute

    Five persons from Itim-Amagu in Ikwo local government area of Ebonyi state were on Thursday allegedly killed and beheaded by  unknown gunmen at the boundary area between the community and neihbouring Adadama community In Cross River state.
    Both communities have been in boundary dispute for decades.
    The beheaded bodies of the victims have been recovered while three persons have been declared missing.
    The Chairman of Ikwo council, Mr John Nnabo  in a statement accussed the Adadama community of carrying out the killings.
    However, it was gathered that the war has claimed hundreds of lives and unquantifiable cost of property destroyed on both sides.

    Confirming the incident, the local government chairman of Ikwo, Mr John Nnabo said he was called on Thursday morning by his Vice chairman
    over the incident.

    The council chairman noted that the victims had gone to the area to uproot their cassava and other food crops because it had been long any sound of gunshots were heard or any sign of danger in the area, only to be surrounded by the warlords of Adadama and unleashed mayhem on
    them.

    Nnabo pointed out that the problem has persisted because the Adadama people would always cross the river boundary to the side of Ebonyi state to humiliate them.

    He said: “it is true. I was called on Thursday morning by my Vice Chairman. Five women were killed and beheaded. We have recovered their corpses. Three persons are still missing. Our people went to uproot their cassava and other crops thinking that the war has subsided without gunshots for a long time”.

    “As they were in the farm, the Adadama people surrounded them, killed and beheaded them. They will always cross the river to humiliate us”.

    Meanwhile, an Ikwo stakeholder and National Coordinator of Buhari/Osibanjo Initiative For Demonstrating Change,  Comrade Chinedu
    Ogah has called on the Federal government and the National Boundary Commission to quickly take urgent steps to delineate the boundary to forestall further loss of lives and property in the area.

    He, however,  commiserated with the families of the victims, assuring them that efforts were on top gear to ensure amicable resolution of the dispute.

    The Youth Leader further charge security agencies to ensure adequate security for the protection of lives in the area to avoid the repeat of the dastardly act.

  • Five Policemen arrested for aiding murder suspect’s escape from custody

    Five Policemen arrested for aiding murder suspect’s escape from custody

    Five policemen in Ebonyi have been arrested and placed on Orderly room trials for allegedly aiding the escape of a murder suspect, one Ogonna Alioka aka “Pilot” and three other suspects of various offences from the Police Cell in the state command.
    Commissioner of Police, CP Titus Lamorde told journalists in Abakaliki that the Ogonna was one of the fifteenth suspects arrested for their role in the abduction and murder of one Mrs Chukwu Okorie.
    He said the victim  was kidnapped in her home on January 8, 2017 in her home at Egba Amanye community in Ivo LGA of Ebonyi state and was murdered and buried in a shallow grave at Lopkpanta
    forest in Abia state.

    “After his arrest, Ogonna was helping the police to arrest the two other gang members but unfortunately, on the night of October 22, policemen of the state CIID on Cell/Counter duty negligently allowed the escape of kidnap suspect, Ogonna Alioka and three other suspects of various offences”, the commissioner said

    Mr Lamorde said all the policemen on Counter duty on the day the suspects were arrested, detained, defaulted and tried in an orderly room.

  • Defeating Algeria imperative for national pride – NFF

    Defeating Algeria imperative for national pride – NFF

    Dr Mohammed Sanusi, General Secretary, Nigeria Football Federation ( NFF ), on Friday said victory by the Super Eagles over Algeria in their last World Cup match was imperative to uphold national pride.

    Sanusi, who made this known in Abuja said that all necessary preparations were being made for the nation’s male national football team to maintain their lead in Group B of the world cup qualifiers.

    He said that the Super Eagles had all that was required to beat Algeria considering the level of support given to them by the NFF.

    The NFF scribe called on Nigerians to continue to support the team, promising that they would not disappoint the country.

    “The match against Algeria is about national pride and we are doing everything possible to win the match,” Sanusi said.

    NFF had last week released a 24-man list of players for the matches against Algeria and Argentina.

    The Super Eagles, which has qualified for the global event, will play Algeria on Nov. 11 in their last World Cup qualifiers and a friendly against Argentina on Nov.14, ahead of Russia 2018.

    NAN

  • Notorious kidnapper Evans seeks bail

    Notorious kidnapper Evans seeks bail

    Notorious kidnapper, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, a.k.a Evans, on Friday filed an application for his case to be given accelerated hearing and be released on bail.

    However, Ms. Titilayo Shitta-Bay, the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions, described his bail application as confusing and an abuse of court processes.

    She said it is a ploy to frustrate the trial.

    The court proceeding is still in progress.

    Details soon.

     

  • Truecaller hits 6.2m Nigerian mobile subscribers – Official

    Truecaller hits 6.2m Nigerian mobile subscribers – Official

    The Chief Commercial Officer, Truecaller, Mr Ted Nelson, said on Friday that the company out of the 150million phone subscribers in Nigeria, 6.2million had subscribed to Truecaller.

    Nelson disclosed this on the side-line of the launch of its Developer programme in Lagos.

    According to him, in Africa, we have 50 million registered users and this is about 20 per cent of total global Truecaller users.

    “Africa is growing and it is important for us, to establish our presence to be felt in Africa, there is need for us to understand the market and to enable us grow faster as a brand.

    “This is currently carried out by studying most likely Nigeria and South Africa for us to gain our subscribers base,’’ he said.

    Nelson said that presently, we have good position both in Google play store and Apple play store as Truecaller in Nigeria and this was amongst the top five download in the past two-years.

    He said the market was growing and that the company would leverage on smartphone penetration increase to become stronger.

    He said this  was to engage technology developers was the objective of the company in kicking off the African tour, which started in Nigeria in partnership with CcHUB, Africa’s leading social innovation centre.

    “To launch our Truecaller Developers Programme, which is becoming the major skill in the India environment, is also why we are here in Lagos, Nigeria.

    “We want the same in Africa and so we want African developers to access the tools that we can offer when it comes to making communication more safe and beneficial.

    “The Developer Programme, ‘Truecaller SDK’ is a mobile identity product for digital start-ups and app developers.

    “Truecaller SDK enables third party app developers, digital businesses and start-ups to verify end users quickly and frictionless by utilising their Truecaller profile with a one-touch and password free experience,’’ he said.

    He said that the Truecaller app, allows people to see who was calling and filter out spam calls and SMS.

    “The service is helping users block more than half a billion spam calls on a monthly basis in the region, and more than 50 per cent of all messages being filtered is considered as spam,’’ he said.

    NAN

  • Facebook investigates temporary outage of WhatsApp messenger

    Facebook investigates temporary outage of WhatsApp messenger

    Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp messenger suffered a temporary outage in India and many other countries, according to reports from multiple users on Facebook and Twitter on Friday.

    Users in countries ranging from Brazil and Russia to Vietnam and Myanmar reported on social media that it was down in their countries.

    The extent of the outage and the reasons for it were not immediately known.

    ‘Whatsappdown’ was the top trending item on Twitter in India, which is WhatsApp’s biggest market with about 200 million of its billion-plus users.

    It was also a top trending item on Twitter in Pakistan, Britain, Germany and many other countries.

    Users reported WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging service, had begun to gradually function again about 30 minutes after initial complaints of an outage appeared on social media.

    Users in Malaysia and Singapore also complained of WhatsApp being down in those countries.

    A spokeswoman for Facebook in Singapore said the company was still investigating the matter.

    Independent websites monitoring outages of popular social media services via online conversations and Twitter messages report regular outages for WhatsApp, often one every few weeks, but these are typically brief and confined to certain geographies.

    WhatsApp has faced similar widespread outages this year, including for several hours in May.

    WhatsApp is used by more than 1.2 billion people around the world and is a key tool for communications and commerce in many countries.

    The service was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for 19 billion dollars.

    NAN

  • Worse NFP can potentially trigger a good buy signal on the Gold

    Worse NFP can potentially trigger a good buy signal on the Gold

    Second half of the October was for Gold. The price was declining almost every day and was close to create a major sell signal in the mid-term. Fundamentally, the main two reasons for this downswing were the risk on mode on the markets, negatively affecting the safe heavens and the stronger USD. The risk on mode itself would not be such a big problem alone as the gold dealt with that in the past but the appreciation of the Green back was really negatively affecting the price of the XAUSUD as the correlation between the USD Index and the Gold is significant.

    Currently the buyers are defending on the last crucial support here so they still have some hope. This support is created by few bullish elements. First of all, we do have a black up trendline here (connecting higher lows since the end of 2016). Second factor is the blue down trendline (connecting lower highs since the July 2016), which was broken in August and now can be used as a support. In addition to that, we do have two important Fibonacci lines, 61,8% of the latest upswing (brown) and the 38,2% of the main trend (light blue). All that coming together creates an 8 USD wide support and is marked with a green colour on the chart.

    We can see that the price bounced from this level but that is not significant enough to trigger a buy signal. First of all, the bullish reversal is closed inside a flag (blue lines), which in this case is still bearish. In addition to that, we are below the red line, which is a strong resistance connecting recent lower highs. The buy signal will be created, when the price will close a day above that one. Chance for that will appear later today as the NFP data from US is about to hit the screen and the lower number can be a bullish factor here.

    Tomasz Wisniewski
    Chief Analyst – Alpari Research & Analysis Limited

    Alpari Research & Analysis LTD (UK) is a company part of Alpari Brand, which aims to deliver superior market research, analysis and trading education for free both to Alpari’s clients and the general public.

  • Gombe to inaugurate N4bn conference centre

    Gombe to inaugurate N4bn conference centre

    As part of efforts to open up the state to local and international communities, Gombe State Government says its state-of-the- art International Conference Center will be inaugurated soon.

    The centre, constructed along Airport road, Gombe, at the cost of N4 billion, is one of the best in the country.

    Conducting newsmen round the edifice on Friday, the site Engineer, Mr Sylvanus Silas, said the centre had two wings, eastern and western wing.

    Silas, a Deputy Director in the state Ministry of Housing, said the largest hall can accommodate more than 1500 people.

    He said the centre had three other halls that could accommodate between 500 and 150 people.

    “A parking space for more than 400 cars, banks, shops and other commercial activities have been provided.

    “This is aimed at attracting people from within and outside the country to establish businesses in the state.”

    To facilitate easy movement of goods and people, the state government has also constructed 248 roads to link various towns and villages with the state capital.

    Junaidu Abubakar, Special Assistant to the State Governor, said while conducting newsmen round some of the roads, that 25 of the roads had been dualised.

    “Some of them are federal roads but due to their level of dilapidation, we resolved to reconstruct them to facilitate smooth movement of people and goods in the state.”

    He, however, said the state government would request for refund from the Federal Government.

    Other projects visited include: Gombe State University of Science and Technology, State College of Education, Billiri, Government Science and Technical College, Gombe, and Gombe Central Nursery and Primary School.

    NAN

  • FRSC urges Ogun to effect palliative measures on sango-ota roads

    FRSC urges Ogun to effect palliative measures on sango-ota roads

    The Federal Road Safety Corps ( FRSC ) has appealed to Ogun Government to repair roads in Sango-Ota and its environs, to ease free-flow of traffic in the area.

    Mr Adekunle Oguntoyinbo, Sango-Ota Unit Commander of FRSC, in an interview in Ota on Friday that such palliative measures would reduce the suffering of those plying the road.

    According to him, the deplorable state of roads in Sango-Ota and its environs has been the major challenge confronting the personnel of the unit and public in the area.

    “There is an urgent need for the State Government to come to the aid of the people by providing measures that will reduce their hardship,’’ he said.

    The unit commander explained those road networks in Sango-Ota and its environs were bad, adding that they had become death traps for the people.

    He listed some of the bad roads to include: Ota to Agbara, Owode to Ilaro, Owode to Ifo and Ifo to papa area.

    Oguntoyinbo also said that over laden vehicles (longer, heavier vehicles) easily over turn due to the nature of the roads.

    “This development has also affected business activities and contributed to gridlock the areas are experiencing,’’ the unit commander said.

    He also implored companies in Sango-Ota and its environs not to wait for the government before contributing to development where they made their revenues.

    “Do the little you can to enable your businesses move on smoothly in the areas.’’

    NAN