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A tanker laden with 33,000 litres of petroleum product burst into flame on Wednesday afternoon causing pandemonium on the Festac link bridge in Lagos. The tanker was said to be carrying petrol and was heading to a filling station in Festac town when it fell, spilling its content on the road in the process. It was gathered that the tanker exploded minutes after it tumbled. Daily Trust reporter also learnt that the unfortunate incident occurred around 12:45 pm, and that the driver of the truck and his conductor sustained varying degrees of injuries in the process. The victims have since been rushed to a private hospital in the area. As at the time of filing this report, no death has been recorded and officials of the Lagos State Fire Service led by Rasaq Fadipe are on ground putting off the inferno

The Federal Government and the Lagos State Government have agreed to pull down two bridges in Lagos located at Jibowu and Costain as part of efforts to address challenges facing the ongoing construction of a new Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge rail line. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, announced this in Lagos on Tuesday, adding that the worst challenges of the new rail project were located in Lagos State. Amaechi had announced the intention of the contractor, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, to demolish the two bridges to give way to the new rail line. Although the minister said new bridges would be immediately constructed, the Lagos State Government had then suggested digging further into the ground to accommodate the new rail track to be laid under the bridges. But the minister, who met with the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, said, “Yesterday (Monday), I was on a tour with the governor of Lagos State and...

The Chairman, Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria, Mr. Olayinka Sonaike, has died. Among other responsibilities, ESVABORN is charged with registering persons who are fit and qualify to serve and practice as estate surveyors and valuers; and also regulate the knowledge and the general practice of the profession. Our correspondent learnt that Sonaike, who was appointed the chairman of the board in March 2017, died while delivering his speech at an event at the headquarters of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission in Abuja on Tuesday The deceased was one of the resource persons invited by the ICPC to speak at a one-day colloquium of business management organisations. It was learnt that 74-year-old Sonaike was the first guest to arrive at the event which was supposed to have started at 9am but began an hour later. After the acting Chairman of the ICPC, Mr. Bako Abdullahi; the Secretary, Dr. Mu...

Bola Tinubu, national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says the party must not derail in its all-inclusive policy of internal democracy. Tinubu said this while reacting to comments credited to Rochas Okorocha, governor of Imo state, who criticised his opposition to an automatic ticket for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019. The APC leader had said if Buhari decides to re-contest, there would be no automatic ticket for him but Okorocha accused Tinubu of “ crying more than the bereaved.” However, the APC leader said he never underrated the importance of governors in the party’s nomination process. He said contrary to Okorocha’s claims, he only said the APC should not mimic the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) “penchant for short-circuiting internal democracy” by promoting the idea of an automatic ticket. “Asiwaju (Tinubu) never said anything that could be interpreted as meaning or even implying the governors are irrelevant or insignifi...

An artisan on Waidi Ogunseye Street, Meiran, Lagos State, Kingsley Oriaku, has owned up to selling one of his five children, a one-and-a-half-year-old girl, Chimamada Oriaku. He also confessed to kidnapping his neighbour’s seven-year-old son, Gabriel Yanga, barely two months after he moved to the area, adding that he used the N310,000 he realised from the sale of the two children for the burial of his father-in-law. It was learnt that the 37-year-old Abia State indigene sold his daughter in September 2017 for N190,000 to the operator of an orphanage home in Aba, Abia State, through a self-acclaimed evangelist, Adaeze Obi. Two days after selling the daughter, he returned to his Lagos residence and reportedly lured Yanga out of the compound, while her mother was not at home. He was alleged to have subsequently taken him to Obi in Abia State, who linked him up with one Loveth Nwako. Nwako was said to have led Kingsley and Yanga to her sister in Ana...

The French government is to ban students from using mobile phones in the country’s primary, junior and middle schools. Children will be allowed to bring their phones to school, but not allowed to get them out at any time until they leave, even during breaks. A proposed ban was included in Emmanuel Macron’s successful presidential election campaign this year. Jean-Michel Blanquer, the French education minister, said the measure would come into effect from the start of the next school year in September 2018. It will apply to all pupils from the time they start school at age of six – up to about15 when they start secondary school. Blanquer said some education establishments already prohibited pupils from using their mobiles. “Sometimes you need a mobile for teaching reasons … for urgent situations, but their use has to be somehow controlled,” he told RTL radio The minister said the ban was also a “public health message to families”, adding: “It’s goo...

Two weeks after he formally defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC), former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanik oro, has indicated his interest to seek the 2019 senatorial nomination in Lagos West senatorial district, THISDAY has learnt. By implication, it was g athered, Obanikoro would  challenge  Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola and former Commissioner for Tourism & Intergovernmental Relations in Lagos State, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi in a bid to clinch the nomination for the senatorial district. While Aregbesola had in May said he could contest election in any state of the South-west geo-political zone, Afikuyomi has engaged political leaders subtly in the senatorial district with a plan to return to the Senate. At his defection penultimate Saturday, Obanikoro had specifically said he was on a mission to the APC    because the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could no longer offer ...

About $32bn was lost to corruption during the six-year administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development said on Monday. The agency said the huge amount represented 16 per cent of the previous government’s resources that could have been channeled to development. The agency’s Head of Office, DFID Nigeria, Debbie Palmer, said this at the expression of undergraduate debates challenge to celebrate this year’s international anti-corruption day. The event was organized by a non-governmental organization, Youngstars Foundation Initiative in Abuja. She said millions of dollars tied up in legal challenges remained in other countries. Palmer said: “An independent report estimates that up to $32bn was lost to corruption under the previous government. This is around 15 per cent of state resources during the period and could well be an under-estimate. “So the estimate is that nearly 16 per cent of t...

Ahead of Christmas celebration, prices of tomatoes, pepper and onions have reduced by about 45 per cent in Lagos, checks have shown. Price checks at Mile 12, Whitesand, Iddo and Oko Oba markets in Lagos on Monday, revealed that the drop in prices was due to the bumper harvest of agricultural produce. A basket of tomatoes, which previously sold for N15,000 now goes for N8,000 while red pepper ( tatashe ) now cost N8000 compared to its previous price of N14,000 a basket. A basket of chilli pepper ( rodo ) also reduced from N18,000 to N10,000 and a jute bag of onions, which previously cost N30,000, now goes for N20,000. A 25-litre of vegetable oil, which previously sold for N11,500, now cost N10,700, palm oil decreased from N11,000 to N10,300, while a measure of garri now cost N400. However, the price of a 50-kilogramme bag of rice ranged between N13,500 to N17,000, depending on the brand while a measure of beans cost N1,500. The spokesman for ...

The Lagos State Government on Monday commenced the demolition of structures in Pen Cinema, Agege for the construction of a flyover. Bulldozers moved in early on Monday for the commencement of the demolition of the structures. While some of the structures are said to be illegal, others are said to be legal. According to the Lagos State Government, compensation will be paid to owners of legal structures that need to give way for the flyover. This will be more so for residents of the estate in Pen Cinema. The exercise, according to a resident, who pleaded anonymity, did not come to them as a surprise. The resident said they had since been served the demolition and compensation for notice by the government. Several buildings, which included those housing eateries, banks and phone shops were being pulled down as at press time. Among buildings affected were those housing Zenith Bank Plc, Union Bank Plc and Tantalizers. Security operatives were on hand to ma...

Abubakar Atiku took his search for endorsement to the Minna home of former Nigerian military dictator and political genius, Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) and had to practically kneel down “begging”. The next day he was at the PDP convention donning Louis Vuitton shoes, making President Buhari’s Daura Air Max Sneaker look cheap!

The Saudi Arabian government on Monday announced the lifting of a 35-year ban on cinemas. Cinemas, once considered as a threat to cultural and religious identity in the ultra-conservative kingdom, were banned in the 1980s. The move to allow them to reopen is part of a series of social reforms embarked upon by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince. The development is coming about three months after the government granted Saudi women the right to  drive cars for the first time in history. “Commercial cinemas will be allowed to operate in the kingdom as of early 2018, for the first time in more than 35 years,” the culture and information ministry said in a statement. The ministry added that the government will begin licensing cinemas immediately. Awwad Alawwad, the information minister, also said: “This marks a watershed moment in the development of the cultural economy in the kingdom.” Saudi filmmakers have long argued that a ba...

Lauretta Onochie, personal assistant on social media to President Muhammadu Buhari, has stated that there is no northerner alive who can defeat the president in 2019. She made the comment on her Twitter handle, @Laurestar, on Sunday, December 10. O nochie’s statement was in agreement with a similar quote by an Abuja-based lawyer and lecturer, Daniel Bwalla, during a Channels TV interview. She further agreed with Bwalla that in terms of the recently held national convention of the PDP, the opposition party is ‘done and dusted’.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, has said President Muhammadu Buhari is bereft of the understanding of how a government should be run. He also described the federal cabinet put together by Buhari as incompetent, saying the President is “sleeping on the job.” “Government’s work is misunderstood even by the President. He doesn’t understand the nature of how to run a government,” Agbakoba told reporters in Lagos. According to him, Buhari’s government is performing poorly because a number of his ministers do not have the required competence to handle the portfolios assigned to them. Examples of such ministers, he said, are Geoffrey Onyeama, a lawyer, appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Kayode Fayemi, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development. He said though Fayemi and Enyeama were brilliant men, they were round pegs in square holes. “He (Buhari) needs to sack his entire cabinet because they have failed,” Agbakoba said. ...