Author: Kelvin Funkeye

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday invited President Trump to give his State of the Union address on Feb. 5, putting the president on track to deliver his prime-time speech to a nation still reeling from the longest federal shutdown in history and facing the prospect of a second one next month. Trump sent a letter to Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday evening saying it was his “great honor” to accept her invitation to deliver the…

Growing mental health services for children who have survived Nigeria’s Islamist insurgency can help prevent future violence, aid agencies said on Monday, although huge needs remain unmet. In Niger’s Diffa region, about 250,000 people have fled fighting around Lake Chad where Islamist group Boko Haram has been waging attacks since 2009, according to the United Nations. Two-thirds are children, many of whom have witnessed extreme violence and have no way to process their anger and…

Cameroon opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who claims to have been cheated out of the presidency in elections last year, was arrested in the country’s economic capital Douala on Monday, a senior party member said. The arrest is the latest political turbulence to hit the West African country and comes after several recent eruptions of violence over the October vote, which saw Kamto come second behind Paul Biya, who has ruled for more than three decades….

North Korean President Kim Jong-un has ordered citizens to submit their poo to government officials. The 35-year-old president believes his order will save North Korea’s tanking economy by turbocharging the farming sector with cheap manure. RadioFreeAsia claim the pariah state’s starving population have a choice between supplying bonkers 100kg of human excrement or 300kg of compost EVERY DAY. The demand for manure means some workers have allegedly asked to be paid in POO rather than cash….

Ghana is in talks with lenders for $300 million in loans to support the country’s loss-making cocoa regulator. Ghana Cocoa Board, which oversees sales and purchases in the world’s second-biggest grower of the chocolate-ingredient, needs 1.1 billion cedis ($223 million) to meet its commitments for the annual season through September, according to a document that was submitted to lawmakers on Dec. 22. The board recorded a shortfall of 2 billion cedis in the previous harvest,…

CAIRO (Reuters) – Islamic State said it killed 30 Nigerian soldiers in an attack on Saturday in the country’s northeastern Borno state, a claim disputed by the Nigerian Army. A Nigerian Army spokesman said an attack on troops by insurgents in the Borno village of Logomani was repelled on Saturday and eight soldiers were hurt, none with life-threatening injuries. In a statement issued through its news agency Amaq, Islamic State on Sunday claimed responsibility for…

The names of about ten dead and retired judges appeared among the recently sworn-in 250 election tribunal members. Lawyers in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, told Daily Independent about the inclusion of dead and retired judges in the list. According to the newspaper, the group of concerned lawyers who declined being identified, faulted the list of the recently sworn in 250-tribunal members as parading over 10 names of dead and retired judges. They admitted…

A Kenyan opposition leader, Raila Odinga has mocked Nigeria in a trending video. The Kenyan leader told a story of a Nigerian Minister involved in corruption and diversion of public funds. Odinga, who did not mention the Minister’s name, was speaking at an event when he told the story about a Nigerian Minister for Works and a Malaysian Minister for Work. According to Odinga, “A Nigerian Minister for works went on a tour to Malaysia…

Sixteen people were killed in an accident at a gold mining site in northern Ghana, a local official said on Thursday, prompting the authorities to launch an investigation. The accident happened in the Talensi area of the Upper East region early on Wednesday near a site operated by China´s Shaanxi Mining Company Limited. The exact circumstances were not immediately clear. “The death toll is 16,” local government leader Christopher Boatbil told AFP, adding that management…