The report of the shut down of the hostels of the University of Lagos by the authorities to avoid escalation of COVID-19 cases and the adoption of the national men’s basketball team and their women’s counterpart ahead of their participation at the Tokyo Olympic Games are some of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
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The Guardian reports that in order to avoid escalation of COVID-19 cases at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), the authorities, yesterday, shut down the hostels effective today till further notice and ordered students to vacate campus. This followed the panic ignited by Tuesday’s report that more than six students from Honours, Moremi and Amina hostels reportedly contracted coronavirus and were sent to an isolation centre. The development led the school management to convey an emergency Senate meeting yesterday. The students were also advised to move all their personal effects at once. As of press time, students were seen packing their bags to go home. The authorities also confirmed there has been a recent increase in the number of persons within the university community, who have presented with symptoms of COVID-19 infection. In a statement yesterday, the University Senate, after the emergency meeting approved that all students vacate the halls of residence by 12noon today indefinitely. It also added that contact tracing has enabled them to identify those who have had exposure to the affected students and directed them to self-isolate immediately. The newspaper says that the adoption initiative of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development yielded even more fruits on Wednesday as three Nigerian commercial banks donated $200,000 (about ₦100 million) to jointly adopt the national men’s basketball team, D’Tigers, and their women’s counterpart, D’Tigress, ahead of their participation at the fast-approaching Tokyo Olympic Games. The ministry noted that Zenith, Access and Guarantee Trust banks responded in a timely fashion to the appeal by the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, for corporate organizations to adopt the national teams. D’Tigers got $100,000 while D’Tigress also got $100,000 as support to prosecute their participation at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The ministry expressed its appreciation to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, who was central to the process leading to the adoption. It also noted that the CBN governor’s played a key role in the revitalization of the Principals Cup – a football tournament for secondary schools in Nigeria – this year. The ministry further thanked the CEOs of the three banks – Ebenezer Onyeagwu (Zenith Bank), Herbert Wigwe (Access Bank), and Segun Agbaje (GT Bank) – and their financial institutions for adopting the national basketball teams. ThisDay reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), yesterday launched an online App, Eagle Eye, designed to enable easy reporting of financial crimes by members of the public. Speaking at the event in Abuja, the Chairman of the commission, Mr. Abdulrasheed Bawa, warned against false information that could mislead the agency in its investigations. He said the full weight of the law would be brought to bear on purveyors of misleading information. “It is wrong to mislead the commission. Anybody that has malicious intent in the process of giving information to us will be dealt with according to the law,” he said. Bawa described the App, the first by any law enforcement agency in Nigeria, as a product of ingenuity by a staff of the commission. |
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GIK/APA