Headline

Nigerian Senate Exonerates Finance Ministry Of Withholding Funds From MDAs

Published

4 years ago

November 12, 2021

The Nigerian Senate, on Friday, ruled out the allegation that the Federal Ministry of Finance was not releasing funds to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government, for the purpose of executing their budgets.

Rather, the Senate Committee Chairman on Appropriation, Senator Jibrin Barau argued that the MDAs have enjoyed prompt release of recurrent and capital overhead funds this year.

Some Heads of MDAs, during the ongoing 2022 budget defence exercise before the National Assembly, had alluded that lack of release of funds was amongst issues affecting the poor budget performance in the 2021 fiscal year.

But Senator Barau, while addressing journalists in National Assembly on Friday, admitted that his committee has been monitoring the release of funds, saying, “the Ministry has done well.”

According to him, he chaired the Committee on Appropriation at the lower legislative chambers years back, but what he is seeing showed that the present administration was doing well enough in the release
of funds, notwithstanding that some parastatals would have to fulfill procurement requirements in order to access funds.

“I don’t think that is correct as far as I know of capital releases to Ministries, Agencies and Department of Government. The Federal Ministry of Finance has done very well in prompt release of funds for execution of capital projects.

“They are doing very well, but the problem lies with some agencies of government that were yet to conclude procurement processes for execution of capital projects. As far as I know as the Senate Committee Chairman on Appropriation, there is so much money in accounts of some MDAs.

“In respect to implementation of the 2021 by the various agencies that have appeared before the various Committees so far, I think there was no problem so far. There’s also no problem accessing funds already
released and anything contrary is not correct.

“I want to recall that the budget performance for last year was 100 hundred percent and this year, from what the Committee on Appropriation has discovered, they are doing well such that by December when the lifespan of the 2021 would expire, they would have had 100% performance too.

“I was chairing this Committee between 1999 to 2003 and I know the difference between now and then, it hadn’t been so good like this”, Senator Barau said.

Meanwhile, the Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan had on Wednesday announced that agencies of government have only one week to finalize their budget defence.

Lawan stated at the close of plenary, saying that any Ministry that fails to defend its budget within one week would not have opportunity to do so anymore.

Headline

VIDEO: Two Nigerians Arrested In Libya For Alleged Robbery

Published

2 hours ago

August 28, 2025

Editor

Police in Tripoli, Libya, have arrested two Nigerians for allegedly carrying out a series of robberies in the city.

The suspects, both undocumented migrants, were arrested on August 25 after they were captured on CCTV robbing a convenience store.

Migrant Rescue Watch, an organisation that monitors migrant activities, disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday.

According to the group, the suspects had allegedly been responsible for multiple break-ins and robberies targeting commercial stores with the intent of seizing cash.

The statement said, “Police in Tripoli arrested 2 undocumented #migrants of Nigerian nationality responsible for series of break and entries and robberies. The accused were targeting commercial stores with the intent of seizing cash. The case was referred to public prosecutor.”

Watch video below:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1961001698136072343https://twitter.com/i/status/1961001698136072343

Headline

NGO Says Starving Gaza Children Too Weak To Cry

Published

15 hours ago

August 27, 2025

Editor

The head of Save the Children described in horrific detail on Wednesday the slow agony of starving children in Gaza, saying they are so weak they do not even cry.

Addressing a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president of the international charity, Inger Ashing, said famine — declared by the UN last week to be happening in Gaza — is not just a dry technical term.

“When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what famine is,” said Ashing.

She went on to describe what happens when children die of hunger over the course of several weeks, as the body first consumes its own fat to survive, and when that is gone, literally consumes itself as it eats muscles and vital organs.

“Yet our clinics are almost silent. Now, children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony. They lie there, emaciated, quite literally wasting away,” said Ashing.

She insisted that aid groups have been warning loudly that famine was coming as Israel prevented food and other essentials from entering Gaza over the course of two years of war triggered by the Hamas attack of October 2023.

“Everyone in this room has a legal and moral responsibility to act to stop this atrocity,” said Ashing.

The United Nations officially declared famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming what it called the systematic obstruction of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.

A UN-backed hunger monitor called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory, including Gaza City.

The IPC projected that the famine would expand by the end of September to cover around two-thirds of Gaza.
AFP

Headline

Again, Russia Claims Another Village In Ukraine’s Region

Published

3 days ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

The Russian army Monday claimed to have captured another village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, moving deeper into Ukrainian territory as peace efforts stall.

Russian forces are slowly but steadily gaining ground in costly battles for largely devastated areas in eastern and central Ukraine, normally with few inhabitants or intact buildings left.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had seized the settlement of Zaporizke in the region, which Russian troops recently advanced into for the first time in the three-and-a-half-year offensive.

Kyiv denies that Russian troops have gained a foothold in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial hub.

After another push by US President Donald Trump to broker a Ukraine-Russia summit, hopes for peace dimmed when Russia last week ruled out any immediate meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.

The central region of Dnipropetrovsk has previously been largely spared from fighting that has ravaged swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, until Russia said its forces broke through in July.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

Ukraine said Russia had launched over 100 drones Monday, killing a 37-year old civilian driver and wounding two people in the northeastern Sumy region.

Moscow said Kyiv had launched about two dozen drones targeting western Russia