ONE WORD

The Lagos State Government has launched a probe into the collapse of a seven-storey building under construction on Banana Island, Ikoyi, following a directive by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, made the position known in a statement on Thursday. Omotoso said nobody died in the incident, which occurred on Wednesday as at the time of the report, adding that 25 people were rescued from the site, which the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency scanned with a high-precision 3-D Laser Imagery System for life, and found no evidence of anyone trapped in the rubble. A roll call has also been done by the site supervisors, with everyone accounted for. Omotoso said LASEMA has continued with the excavation of the site, using the architectural designs. He said the site has been divided into quadrants for a painstaking search and rescue operation, adding that quadrants 2 and 3 have been levelled to ground zero, with the search operation co...

  The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has told the presidential election petitions tribunal that President-elect Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress won the February 25 election and was validly returned as the winner without needing to get 25 per cent of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). INEC stated this in its reply by its lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, to the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, before the tribunal. Nigeria’s electoral umpire said the APC candidate met all the legal requirements to be so announced as the winner of the election, arguing that a candidate must not secure 25 per cent votes in the FCT to be declared winner because the FCT was not accorded any special status in the constitution as being “erroneously” portrayed by some political parties and candidates who lost the election. On why it returned Tinubu as the winner, INEC said the APC candidate scored 25 per...

  The United Kingdom (UK) government has tendered an apology to the presidential candidate of the Nigerian Labour Party in the just-concluded 2023 elections, Peter Obi, over his illegal detention and poor treatment at Heathrow Airport in London last week. The apology was tendered after it a British immigration official admitted he wrongly handed Mr. Obi a detention note in a search of man who impersonated him to commit perjury, forgery and identity theft in the country. British authorities said the uncomplimentary treatment meted out to the former Governor of Anambra State was “completely unacceptable”. “Frankly, the Immigration Official’s action – has been appalling – and we are sorry,” Immigration authorities apologised. The British High Commission in Abuja, through the head of the media unit, Dean Hurlock, said the mission does not make comment on matters of that nature. Obi was reportedly detained and interrogated for hours by immigration officials at Heathrow Airport in London...