No fewer than 2,367 school students are expected to participate in Gombe State Inter Secondary Schools Athletic Competition.

The Main Organizing Committee (MOC) for the programme disclosed this during a during a meeting held at the GOFCECON HOTEL conference hall.

Announcing preparations for the upcoming event, the MOC constituted seven sub-committees to ensure a successful competition to oversee the event.

The constituted sub-committees include Technical, Ceremonial, Entertainment, and Training; Media and Publicity; Accreditation and Security; Accommodation, Transportation, and Logistics; Medical and Welfare; General Duties; and Secretariat.

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According to the MOC, capacity training will be compulsory for all secondary school game masters prior to the competition.

Additionally, the committee has extended an invitation to one private and one public secondary school from each of the six states in the North East Region to participate in an invitational relay at the finals.

According to the MOC, Amany secondary school across the country willing to participate in the invitational relay can also register.

The competition will feature cadets, youths, and 65 U-20 registered schools, with approximately 2,367 school pupils participating.

The MOC also announced that participating schools will enjoy free accommodation and feeding.

The committees have been urged to submit their budget proposals within seven days.

By Tari Ayesinghan

Palo Alto, Calif, May 16, 2024- HP Inc. has released its quarterly HP Wolf Security Threat Insights Report, exposing the latest techniques used by cybercriminals to evade detection and breach PCs.

The report highlights the growing use of open redirects, Fake invoices leading to HTML smuggling attacks and Living-off-the-Land (LotL) techniques to sneak past defenses.

HP Wolf Security has identified notable campaigns, including the use of open redirect vulnerabilities and the exploitation of Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to download malicious files.

According to Patrick Schläpfer, Principal Threat Researcher, “Invoice lures are a classic trick, but still effective. Employees are more likely to open them, making it a lucrative target for attackers.”

The report emphasizes the importance of a defense-in-depth approach to security, as Living-off-the-Land techniques expose the limitations

Traders under the auspices of Ekiosa Market Traders Association, on Monday protested what they tagged activities of ‘evil middlemen and women’, which according to the protesters are causing price hike and artificial scarcity in Benin markets.

The protesters also protested against the neglect of their market (Ekiosa Market)by concerned authorities, which according to them got burnt in 2019.

The protesters who carried placards with different inscriptions as ‘evil union in Edo market are responsible for hike in food;’ Edo people say no to evil union in our market;’ Edo State government ban evil union in Edo markets;’ ‘we say no to evil union in Edo market,’ lamented that many of them are stranded due to government failure to rebuild their market that got burnt, adding that the middlemen and women are making them unproductive.

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Speaking during a peaceful protest to the secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Edo State council, Lucky Orukpe, President of Traders Welfare Union, accused the middlemen and women of causing artificial scarcity in Edo market and also price hike in farm produce.

He alleged that these middlemen and women who form unions among themselves are making sure that whoever fails to join their union does not have a place to sell in the market in Benin City.

He said: “Today, in our market, if you bring your farm produce to sell, we have people we call middlemen and women in our market in Edo State. They will compel you to join a union before you can sell your garri; they will compel you to join their union before you can sell your yam.
If you are not in their union, and you are bringing produce to sell, no vehicle will carry you. When they succeed in compelling you to join their union, they give you time to come to their market.

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“Today, farmers are scared to bring farm produce to the market. So, these evil unions are causing artificial scarcity in our market in Edo State.”

Ourkpe who alleged that the ‘evil middlemen and women just devised a new means of operation recently, lamented that due to their activities, food prices are lesser in states that Edo supplies food.

He further lamented: “We carry food from Edo State to other states but food is cheaper in these states, this is because of the activities of these middlemen.”

Ourkpe who said these men are not government agents but individuals, urged the state government to as a matter of urgency address the issue before it got out of hand.

On his part, Anthony Agho, president, Ekiosa Market Traders Association, lamented “we the Ekiosa Market traders are stranded in the streets. We have no where to trade. And they forbid us from selling on the walkway, so how are we going to survive.

He continued: “In 2019, Ekiosa Market got burnt, and since then we have been managing. In 2020, Oredo Local Government came and said we should leave the place and that they want to renovate it. Then in January 2024, the local government came and told us that we should leave and that between 4 months the work will be completed, and since then we have been waiting.”