The report that the uproar caused by the quit notice given by Ondo State Governor to unregistered herdsmen to vacate state forest reserves within seven days has deepened dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
| The Guardian reports that the uproar caused by quit notice given by the Ondo State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, to unregistered herdsmen to vacate state forest reserves within seven days has deepened.
At the meeting held at Cocoa Conference Hall of the Governor’s office, Alagabaka, Akure, the governor said the activities of herdsmen had for long threatened the security of the state. The Presidency, in its reaction, argued that ‘’insecurity is not alien to any group, the language they speak, their geographical location or their faith’’. The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement on Tuesday urged the state government to tackle all forms of criminality without breaching the rights of herders in the state. The state Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Donald Ojogo, spoke on behalf of the governor yesterday in Akure. Ojogo insisted that Shehu’s comment was inimical to the peaceful existence of Nigeria, lamenting that Shehu had stated: “unambiguously, the position of the Federal Government”. ThisDay says that Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has declared that the United State has redeemed itself by rejecting Mr. Donald Trump at the presidential poll. Speaking last night on ARISE NEWS Channels, a sister broadcast arm of THISDAY Newspapers, Soyinka argued that with the removal of Trump and successful inauguration of President Joe Biden, the United States has effectively corrected the mistakes made four years ago. The playwright disclosed that he has forgiven Americans for electing Trump whom he described as a “racist” and a “xenophobe”. Soyinka had in 2016 torn his American Immigrant Visa in protest against Trump’s victory. He, however, told ARISE NEWS Channels that he would not be renewing the green card since he does not require it to visit the United States. Soyinka said, “I feel honoured to be associated with the democratic forces of the United States for correcting the unbelievable error that they committed four years ago.” The Vanguard reports that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has recorded 1,386 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 114,691, according to the NCDC’s official website on Wednesday. The NCDC said 14 new COVID-19 patients were confirmed dead in the last 24 hours, while the total death toll stood at 1,478. The public health agency said the new cases were reported in 21 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja with “Lagos State, the epicentre of COVID-19 in Nigeria, recorded 476 new infections bringing the total number of the infections in the state to 42,427”. The subscribers, who pleaded for further extension, would have had their lines blocked January 19, being the initial deadline for them to link their SIMs to their National Identity Number, NIN. On December 15, 2020, the Federal Government declared that after December 30, 2020, all SIMs that were not registered with valid NINs on the network of telecommunications companies would be blocked. It later extended the deadline following widespread opposition against the earlier announcement and gave three weeks’ extension for subscribers with NIN from December 30, 2020, to January 19, 2021. It also gave six weeks’ extension for subscribers without NIN from December 30, 2020, to February 9, 2021. However, before the January deadline, many telephone users and organisations called for a further deadline extension or outright suspension of the NIN registration process due to the large number of people that are yet to get their NINs. |
||||||||
|
GIK/APA