Metro

Insinuations that Tinubu is treating security challenges lightly are lies, VP Shettima says

Published

4 days ago

September 3, 2024

Vice President Kashim Shettima says insinuations that President Bola Tinubu is not taking the nation’s security challenges seriously are lies from the enemies of the government out to discredit the administration.

Shettima, who stated this on Monday while receiving the leadership of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, said Tinubu was very much concerned about the insecurity situation in the country and was doing everything possible to defeat the malaise.

The visit of the NAN leadership was also to intimate the VP of an international lecture on security in the Sahel region being organized by NAN.

In a statement by his media aide,
Stanley Nkwocha, Shettima said:

“The security situation in the nation is something that the President is very much interested in and is not taking it lightly,” the VP said.

“The international lecture NAN is organising is very timely, especially on the issue of insecurity in the Sahel.

“I believe that with the calibre of people that will grace the lecture, you will come up with a lot of perspectives on how to address the insecurity in the Sahel in a holistic way.”

Shettima also called for regional and collective efforts to address the insecurity in West Africa’s Sahel region, observing that the security situation in the Sahel region has significant implications for Nigeria and neighbouring countries.

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Metro

Kenya experiences second major blackout in weeks

Published

16 hours ago

September 6, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Although 70% of consumers had their electricity restored by late afternoon, Kenya experienced its second significant blackout in as many weeks on Friday, according to the country’s energy minister and national distributor, Kenya Power.

According to a statement from Energy Minister, Opiyo Wandayi, the power outage was caused by a transmission line tripping at a substation, which was followed by another trip on the high-voltage transmission line between Ethiopia and Kenya.

“The loss of 488MW, accounting for 27.3% of the total generation, resulted in cascade failure and a partial collapse of the grid,” Wandayi said.

“What we are witnessing today has built up over time and is a result of sub-optimal investment in infrastructure.”

The blackout, which lasted for many hours on August 30 and affected multiple districts of the largest economy in East Africa, came after another one.

The Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) said that the outage affected all regions except North Rift and Western. Although Kenya Power hasn’t stated the cause of the incident, it has however corporation apologised and promised to fix it.

Over the past year, Kenya has had several blackouts, one of which completely darkened Nairobi’s main airport.

Metro

Zambian Immigration Service detains 283 illegal immigrants in Lusaka crackdown

Published

19 hours ago

September 6, 2024

Isaac Dachen

The Zambian Department of Immigration says it has detained 283 suspected illegal immigrants of various nationalities pending further screening and prosecution, in a major crackdown and clean-up operation conducted on Wednesday in different parts of Lusaka.

The Zambian Immigration Public Relations Officer, Namati Nshinka, who disclosed this in a statement on Thursday, said the operation was carried out in collaboration with the Zambia Police, Drug Enforcement Commission, and the National Anti-Terrorism Centre.

Nshinka said 357 suspects were initially apprehended during the operation, which began at 05:00 hours, also gave a breakdown of the nationalities of the arrested illegal immigrants.

“Among those detained were 207 Burundians, 61 individuals claiming to be Zambian citizens, 53 Congolese, 10 Rwandese, six Tanzanians and four Malawians,” Nshinka said.

He added that the arrested suspects also included two Eritreans, two Indians, two Zimbabweans, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and one Pakistani.

He stated that screening was conducted at Edwin Imboela Stadium, where 68 individuals, mostly Zambians, were released unconditionally.

“Six were asked to report to Immigration Offices for further formalities, while two Zambians apprehended for drug-related offences were handed over to the Drug Enforcement Commission,’ the Immigration PRO said.

“The Department wishes to thank members of the public for their cooperation during this operation, which contributed to its success and ensured it was incident-free,” Nshinka added.