ONE WORD

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has granted the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki and his Deputy, Philip Shaibu, a waiver to contest for elective office on its platform. This comes days after the governor dumped the All Progressives Congress and consequently, picked up his PDP membership card at the party’s secretariat in Benin City, the state capital today. Addressing party officials, the governor said he automatically becomes the PDP leader in the state following his defection. Obaseki also reiterated his commitment to providing what he described as quality leadership, adding that he is ready to lead the party to victory in the September 19 governorship election. After displaying his membership card, he said: “I automatically become the leader of this party. I want to assure all of you (that) I am prepared to provide leadership. “I am prepared to provide leadership that will lead this party to victory. I am prepared to provide leadership that will not only put PDP into office...

President Muhammadu Buhari with the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, at the State House in Abuja on June 18, 2020. Inset: the service chiefs. The President is not pleased with the way insecurity is being handled in many parts of the country and is not mincing words about it. This indication came after President Muhammadu Buhari met with the Service Chiefs on Thursday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the nation’s capital. He warned the heads of the nation’s security agencies that excuses would no longer be tolerated and asked them to do more to secure the nation and its people. While the service chiefs are trying their best to tackle the issue of insecurity in the country, President Buhari insisted that their best is not good enough. The National Security Adviser (NSA), Retired Major General Babagana Monguno, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting. He added that the President has ordered him to meet with the state governors in the North-Wes...

A graphic published by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control on June 18, 2020, showing the nation’s COVID-19 statistics. Nigeria on Thursday recorded its highest single-day COVID-19  infections with 745 new cases.  This was revealed in a late-night tweet by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). According to the NCDC, Lagos State had the highest number of infections for the day with 280 cases and is followed by Oyo and Ebonyi states with 103 and 72 cases respectively. The health agency said other states with infections for the day include:  FCT (60); Imo (46); Edo (34); Delta (33); Rivers (25); Kaduna (23); Ondo (16); Katsina (12); Kano (10); Bauchi (8); and Borno (7). Others states with fresh infections are  Kwara (5); Gombe (4); Sokoto (2); Enugu (2); Yobe (1) Osun (1); Nasarawa (1). A further breakdown of the figures showed that the West African country now has 18,480 cases of the virus with 6307 persons discharged. Of the number of recorded cases, 475 pe...