₦airaland Forum

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has granted debt relief to 25 countries.

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the IMF, made this known in a statement issued on Monday.

“Today, I am pleased to say that our Executive Board approved immediate debt service relief to 25 of the IMF’s member countries under the IMF’s revamped Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) as part of the Fund’s response to help address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement said.

“This provides grants to our poorest and most vulnerable members to cover their IMF debt obligations for an initial phase over the next six months and will help them channel more of their scarce financial resources towards vital emergency medical and other relief efforts.”

The IMF said that CCRT can currently provide about US$500 million in grant-based debt service relief, including the recent $185 million pledge by the U.K. and $100 million provided by Japan as immediately available resources.

Others, it said, including China and the Netherlands, are also stepping forward with important contributions.

Ms Giorgieva urged other donors to help the IMF replenish the Trust’s resources and boost further its ability to provide additional debt service relief for a full two years to its poorest member countries.

The countries that will receive debt service relief, the agency said, are Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, D.R., The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali and Mozambiqud.

Others are Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Togo, and Yemen.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has left hospital after being treated for coronavirus, but will not immediately return to work, Downing Street says.

Mr Johnson, 55, was taken to St Thomas' hospital, in London, on Sunday - 10 days after testing positive for the virus.

He had three nights in intensive care before returning to a ward on Thursday.

Downing Street said the PM would continue his recovery at his country residence, Chequers.

"On the advice of his medical team, the PM will not be immediately returning to work. He wishes to thank everybody at St Thomas' for the brilliant care he has received.

"All of his thoughts are with those affected by this illness," the statement added.

Wickedfacts:
Best in Borno, especially with the insurgency there, he's mercurial.
Sule Lamido was also a fantastic Governor in Jigawa.
Fashola also was fantastic in Lagos.
Peter Obi did well in Anambra, Ngige did well too.

When you turn around and look at idiots like Ikpeazu, Ortom and that one in the North who used 1.2 Billion to organise burials, you wonder if insanity is a requirement for leadership.

pmoye:
I tire o!
I know some people that will soon attack the Op over this. People who consider the right to beg as their inalienable and fundamental human right.

By the way, it isn't just those who come out on SM to beg, it is virtually everywhere.

The police stops you on the road and beg. The Road Safety the same. Even soldiers don join them now. Children, fathers, mothers, pastors, imam... It is every where. Yes, it has become a culture. And it is no longer peculiar to Abokis. Everyone now does it.

If you have every landed in Nigeria from a foreign flight, you will simply be ashamed at how airport officers (fully employed by the way!) go dey beg you for dollars.
The worst part of it is you show the remotest interest in a girl and immediately she tries turning you into ATM. This is troubling-ly common on Nairaland these days. Hardly will you be able to have a decent conversation with a girl and you won't wake up one day to her request for cash.

We shouldn't explain this away as a consequence of poor economy. It is simply lack of home training, greed, and a nasty sense of entitlement that others are meant to be responsible for your life. The only sustainable response to harsh economic realities is hard work and smart investment. How many of those begging for money have cared to venture into a line of work they don't like? There is no year I spend a couple of months in Nigeria that I will not talk people into lending me their land to farm. Even as a terribly poor undergraduate student I farmed from my first year to the fvcking final year. That and smart investment have been my only response to poverty.

No one should come out and start blaming economic hardship. It is simply lack of proper home training. Unfortunately, some of the parents are even worse than the children, and what you don't have you cannot give. As poor as my parents were, dem no born you well to come to the house with something that belongs to someone else. They would almost kill you. But these days we have parents who also engage in the shameful career of begging.

The Lagos state government has confirmed a third case of coronavirus in the state.

Akin Abayomi, the state’s commissioner of health, disclosed this at a press conference, on Tuesday.

This development comes days after the state government confirmed that the second case was now free of the virus.

Youths in their large numbers on Thursday took to the streets of Lagos to protest against the western Nigeria Security network codenamed Operation Amotekun already passed into laws in some states in the region, thereby paralysing commercial activities in Agege area of the state.

The group operating under the aegis of Yoruba Appraisal Group (YAG) organized a massive rally and commenced their procession from Women Development Centre in Agege down to Lagos State Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja area of the state.

They said Amotekun is an instrument to perpetrate crime and make political gains for a few individuals masquerading as having the love of the people of the region at heart.

Speaking to journalists during the protest, spokesperson for the group, Chief Oloketuyi Joshua said the South West Governors are ignorant by throwing their weight and resources behind a security outfit whose real motive they were not aware of.

He said that the alarm raised by eminent Nigerians, including the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mallami Abubakar, the Convener of the Muslim Muslim Right Congress ( MURIC), Prof. Ishaq Akintola, former Governor of old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa and the leadership of the Myetti Allah, Kautai Hore on the danger inherent in establishment of the South West Security initiative cannot be discountenanced.

“Amotekun has been hijacked by those who don’t mean well for Yoruba land and the country at large. They plan to hide under the guise of providing security to cause mayhem in the country, ” Oloketuyi said.

He said that all they want was to hijack control of security architecture adding that the individuals which he refused to name have successfully achieved with the security outfit.

He added that the security Initiative is a healthy development, which ordinarily, no right- thinking person should opposed, saying indications are clear enough to discern that Amotekun will eventually become the Frankenstein monster that the country won’t be able to control.

“ Having another rebellion from South West would be one crisis too many for a country still struggling to combat the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East, Banditry and Cattle rustling in the North West and North Central area as well as militancy in the South South.

“The Plans is that once Amotekun gains foothold in the region, the new promoters and their foreign sponsors will now show their real colour, real intention by hounding other ethnic groups in the South West in the name of providing security in the region.

“In the process embark on a sort of ethnic cleansing and ultimately expelling other Nigerians from Yoruba land through force and violence, the backlash of which will be retaliation in the other region” he said.

He called on the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigerian, President Muhammadu Buhari, to take urgent and decisive steps to nip the burgeoning insurrection now threatening to arise from the south West under the cover of the Amotekun security outfit in the bud.

shaw2:
If you are in Akwa ibom make sure u attend the meeting that will hold on 5th this month by 11am.
These criminals need to be addressed.
Their spokes person claimed on air that Akwa Ibom is owing over #26b.
He claim that people owe them much. But as a business man if you establish a business and you see that their is more of expenses instead of gain the best step is to shut down.
Why are they not shutting down instead using estimated bill to extort customers.

traihit:
Good for the boy. What made Einstein popular wasn't his IQ, it was his contribution to science. By the time this boy make some great contributions, he'll become more recognized.

SenecaTheYonger:
Every country on that list has 5G network, including Iran.

There has to be a connection btw corona's fast spread and 5G.

South America and Africa are the only continents without 5G and coronavirus

obotblitz:
Nice one.
Let the government know that popular sovereignty belongs to the people. Why should they make policies that are against the people that voted them in?

mrvitalis:
The informed you 10 months ago ...you are now setting committee now to save face abi what ?

And one idiot said he is suppressed about our security situation

How in heavens name was I convinced to support Buhari in 2015?

mytime24:
Video of d dinosaur

Or

Midas01:
If you didn't see this, you'd have been shouting olosho like the rest of you do.