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Barely 2 weeks after a well known religious organization, living faith church, Ota, Ogun State, also known as Winners, held its annual shiloh program, it’s been alleged that a worker of the church, and some pastors might have contracted the deadly novel virus, Covid-19 pandemic.

Highly respected investigative journalist in the country, Fisayo Soyombo who shared this on his personal Twitter handle, said, the worker in question believes he contracted the virus while attending the yearly Shiloh programme of the church that took place between December 8 to 13. The said worker claims some pastors who attended the program have also started showing symptoms of the disease.

Fisayo says the worker’s wife, daughter, and domestic employee have started showing symptoms of the viral disease.

Below are Fisayo’s tweets;

”A worker at the Living Faith Church is down with COVID-19 after attending Shiloh 2020. His wife, daughter and domestic employee are exhibiting symptoms of the virus — even their dog! Some pastors who attended Shiloh are down with the virus too.

“This worker didn’t want to physically attend Shiloh, held from December 8 to 13, but had no alternative because the church made it compulsory for workers. As can be seen from internet videos, congregants mingled with one another without masks or social distancing.

In the past, the church observed safety protocol such as social distancing, wearing of face masks and hand washing. However, at Shiloh, no precautionary measures were in place.

“People were just careless,” he said. “Yes, many people didn’t come this year because of COVID but those in attendance were careless.

“The problem is this worker knows the pastors currently exhibiting symptoms of the virus will not admit this to the Founder & Presiding Bishop, meaning other potentially infected but asymptomatic Shiloh congregants might continue mixing with people without caution.

“Some Winners pastors are down with COVID; they’re just keeping it to themselves but we can’t just fold our hands,” he said. The plea from him is that those who attended Shiloh “should try to isolate themselves and try not to pass on the virus”.

His wish is for people to get educated that the festive season is no excuse for them to physically attend crossover services without recourse to COVID-19 safety protocol.”

Following series of allegations of abuse of power against some operatives of southwest security outfit, codenamed, Amotekun, the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, South West Zone, has knocked the governor of the state, Engr. Seyi Makinde over his failure to call the erring Corps to order.

The students’ body poured out its anger in a released issued by the Public Relations Officer, Kazeem Olalekan Israel on Thursday.

NANS revealed that, it has received a good number of reports of recklessness of some bad eggs among the Operatives coupled with the deafening silence of the Governor who according to NANS has given violence too much time to thrive in the State without any attempt to control the excesses of this security outfit.

The body stated clearly that, the Governor is being knocked because he has explicitly declared during the inauguration of this outfit that he should be held accountable for the activities of the Amotekun operatives and the conducts of these Corps since establishment smack logic and outrightly negate the rule of law.

“Governor Seyi Makonde is undoubtedly exhibiting the characteristics of a failure by allowing the Hobbesian State of nature to gain full ground in a State he is the CSO most especially by a security outfit that is under his direct supervision and control. It is infuriating that the Governor even went to the extent of surrending the hierarchical structure of this outfit to thugs, and, of special mention is one Adebisi Morufu alias Ẹ̀ṣẹ́ Murphy who heads the outfit in their Ona-Ara Local Government office stationed at Bayeku.

“We find it most insulting that despite the extra-judicial killings and other nefarious activities being perpetuated by operatives of Amotekun in the State, the Governor has been maintaining a deafening silence which could best be defined as a situation whereby a mandate has been given to this security outfit to terminate every souls in the State. The Governor need be reminded that he swore an oath to guarantee the security of lives and properties of every citizens in the State, but, his indifference towards the killings by operatives of Amotekun is most worrisome and give us a major source of concern as an association.

“It is based on the foregoing we demand that the Governor as a matter of necessity and urgency address the excesses of Amotekun operatives in the State and also reconstitute their hierarchical structure as failure to do this will be met with stiff resistance by the mass of Nigerian students in the South West. We cannot fold our arms and watch as the lives of innocent citizens most especially students are being terminated on a daily basis without recourse to the rule of law.

“It must be properly put on record that the right to life is imprescriptible and, as such, must be jealously guided by those that have been entrusted with a mandate of maintaining law and order. Failure to do this is a long walk to anarchy and lawlessness which will ultimately make the State ungovernable. So, before we totally descend to a state of perpetual anarchy, Governor Seyi Makinde and his acolytes must do the needful in addressing security challenges confronting the people of the State most especially by erasing touts from the apparatchiks of the Western Nigeria Security Network codenamed Amotekun.

“On a final note, we demand that a judicial panel be constituted to investigate the activities of Amotekun in the State most especially the recent murder of a 400Level student of Federal College of Education, Oyo (Special) affiliated to University of Ibadan and the violence meted on executives of NANS/JCC, Oyo axis amongst others. “

Popular Fuji Singer, Wasiu Alabi Pasuma is currently over the moon following the enlistment of his daughter, Opeyemi, into the US NAvy.

The 53-year-old took to his social media page to share the good news and he used the opportunity to pray that God guides her path.

Sharing the photo, he wrote ;

Congratulations to me, my gurl is a Navy now in USA,Opeyemi L’america congrats my dearest daughter,yhu alwayz make me and yhur mum proud alwayz 🙏🙏🙏🙏may God almighty guide yhu in yhur choosing career(Amin yah ALLAHU 🙏 🙏🙏🙏E MA LO WA OOO IJOBA LAWA OOO

A corps member, Suleiman Yusuf Bomoi, has been reportedly shot dead while many of his colleagues have reportedly kidnapped after suspected Kidnappers attacked the vehicle they were traveling in along Lokoja-Abuja Highway on Tuesday, December 22.

The corps members were reportedly on their way from Ede NYSC Orientation Camp, Osun State, and were heading home when they were attacked. The number of abducted corps members is yet to be ascertained as NYSC is yet to comment on the incident.

The body of the deceased corps member who was a graduate of English Language from the Federal University Gashua has been deposited at the Sabon Wuse General Hospital in Niger State.

Meanwhile, his friends have taken to social media to mourn him. See posts below;

Federal Government has assured Nigerians that the much anticipated COVID-19 vaccines will be administered free when vaccination begins.

National coordinator, presidential taskforce on COVID-19 (PTF), Sani Aliyu made the disclosure on Channel TV’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday.

Aliyu said through the GAVI arrangement, there is the assurance that over 40 million Nigerians will be vaccinated.

GAVI is a vaccine alliance of which bid to find solution to the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic through vaccines birthed COVAX.

COVAX is one of the three pillars of Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) accelerator. It was launched in April by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the European Commission and France, bringing together governments, manufacturers, scientists, the private sector, philanthropy and the civil society in response to the pandemic and ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccine and treatments when available.

“Yesterday, the president gave the PTF the mandate to proceed with preparations with regard to the vaccine,” Aliyu said.

“The president has also given us a marching order that the COVID-19 vaccine be available in Nigeria.

“Making use of the GAVI arrangement, we already have assurance that 20 percent of our population will be accommodated by GAVI in the vaccine.

“We don’t need to pay for that and this will cover 40 million Nigerians or so. But we have to pay for the operations and the logistics associated with it.”

Aliyu also said there were plans to buy additional vaccines besides the GAVI arrangement.

“We are also planning to pay for an additional 20 to 40 percent. In general, over the next two years, at least 70 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated before we can have enough herd immunity,” he said.

“The Pfizer vaccine is one of the most effective vaccines at the moment.”

When asked if the vaccine would be administered free, Aliyu said, “of course, of course”.

The PTF national coordinator advised Nigerians not to discard safety measures already in place just because of the vaccine.

“Just to make it clear to the general public, even if we have the vaccine available tomorrow in Nigeria, the epidemic will not change.

“We still need to apply the protective measures we have been advising right from beginning. Vaccines alone will not change it. If you look at the time it takes the vaccine to take effect, the first dose will take about 12 days to have an anti-body response. The second dose takes a week. In all, it takes a month for one to have adequate immunity.”

Concerning the distribution of the vaccine when it is available, Aliyu said the PTF will make use of primary healthcare facilities that are situated in the secretariat of each of the 774 local governments areas of Nigeria.

He also said the primary healthcare facilities will be upgraded to be able to take delivery and preserve the vaccine which requires cold temperature, adding that healthcare workers will also be trained.

A photographer, @highfee_nooni, has taken to social media to narrate his horrible experience with Amotekun operatives in Ibadan.

He said he was on his way from church at 12 noon on Dec 22 when he saw people running. He later discovered they were running from Amotekun, the south western security outfit.

He explained that since he committed no crime, he continued driving and he saw them shoot at a man who went to ease himself in a bush. Fortunately, they missed.

He explained that his face registered his displeasure at what they had done so one of them told him to drive off. He said he responded that he was doing that but the road was too bad to allow him drive at a faster pace.

This angered the Amotekun operatives and they asked him to alight from his car. He said they were aggressive and one of them threatened to blow his head off.

He said they searched his trunk and saw his photography gadgets. He had to explain what he does for a living to them.

He added that they started cursing him and said “Ogun will kill his mum.”

He concluded by asking why the security outfit should be allowed such power to intimidate citizens without control.

He wrote: “I’m scared we have unleashed monsters who will do more harm than good if we don’t curb these excesses! Funny thing is I support the force but now, I’m not so sure anymore!”

He tagged the Oyo state government and the governor to his thread.

THE Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has finally suspended its nine months old strike.

The union announced the suspension of the 9-month old industrial action at a press conference held Wednesday morning in Abuja.

ASUU President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi,who led other National Executive Committee of the union to the event where he made the announcement,explained that the suspension takes effect from today,Wednesday 23,2020.

The decision to suspend the action, according to Ogunyemi,followed the resolution to that effect by NEC at its meeting held earlier.

Prof Ogunyemi said the agreements which were reached in good faith with the government and the Union on Tuesday imposed some obligations on both sides. He said: ‘On our part we have undertaken to go back to the classrooms, laboratories, etc, to do our best for our students and our country.

‘We are going back to rekindle the motivation and aspirations in our members to strive to encourage our students to excel, all in the expectations that Governments both Federal and State will sincerely fulfil their own part of the bargain.

‘We are returning to classes with the firm hope that parents will take prime interests in their children’s conditions of living and learning, better funding, better laboratories, and free development for their children, in order to get an all-round education that will enable them to compete with the rest of the world. We appeal to parents to work with us for the revitalisation of public universities.’

The Union embarked on an indefinite strike on March 23 over several issues, some of which were related to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) as well as the non-implementation of agreements and resolutions the government reached with the Union in 2009.

Following the disagreement, the ASUU proceeded to develop its own payment system named the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as an alternative to the IPPIS.

Vanguard

Antarctica, once the only continent not to be ravaged with the novel COVID-19 pandemic, has now recorded its first cases.

The Chilean army announced in a statement that 36 people linked with the General Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme base on the planet’s southern pole had tested positive for COVID-19.

Of the 36 infected, 26 are reported to be members of the Chilean military, while the others are believed to be maintenance workers.

The outbreak has been traced to the delivery of supplies from the Naval vessel Sargento Aldea which arrived from Chile on November 27.

In the statement, the Chilean army said: “Thanks to the timely preventive action … it was possible to relieve said personnel, who, after being subjected to a medical control and the administration of a PCR test … turned out to be positive for Covid-19,” according to Newsweek.

It also reported that three crew members on a ship providing support to the base have also tested positive since returning from their mission to Antarctica.

The 36 individuals who tested positive have since been evacuated to the city of Punta Arenas in Chile, where they are reported to be under isolation and in good condition.

The news means that Covid cases have now been recorded on all seven continents.