Katsina State Governor, Aminu Masari, has insisted that Nigeria has the ability, capacity, and resources to deal decisively with the current and lingering security situation bedevilling the country.The governor believes the present problems in the country are parts of the process of growth and development, as well as indicate that nothing good comes easy.Governor Masari added that recent happenings call for more action and more unity among members of the National Assembly. He says the nation needs leadership and you have a history to make. We need to look at our problems and other challenges facing the country without blame games.

Nigerian Lawmaker Gbajabiamila explained that the President listens to ideas and is keen on bringing solutions to the ongoing crisis in various parts of the country.He added that the National Assembly would do everything possible to assist the President to reach a consensus on the nation’s security challenges.The speaker noted that the House of Representatives had passed a resolution and set up a special ad-hoc committee to find solutions to the nation’s problems.He says the House of Representatives some time ago passed a resolution and they set up a special ad-hoc committee, which involves all principal officers and 30 other members of the House.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has rejected the calls for secession, saying that more effort is needed to break Nigeria than to fix it.The Minister says the nation’s strength lies in its diversity and the agitation for political restructuring is okay.He says Nigerians would need more energy to break Nigeria than to fix it. As a matter of fact, the strength of Nigeria is its diversity. So everybody agreed that secession is not an option.”He also backed several calls for the creation of state police and called on the National Assembly and the States House of Assemblies to collaborate to enable it to happen.

Bandits have killed two more students abducted from Greenfield University in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.The Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs in the state, Samuel Aruwan, confirmed this in a statement on Monday.He disclosed that two more bodies of the abducted students were recovered by security agencies and have been evacuated to a mortuary, while the university has been notified of the development.This brings the total number of students abducted from the school and killed by the bandits to five.Aruwan has said that the remains of the three students were found in Kwanan Bature village, while Governor Nasir El-Rufai has condemned the killing as sheer wickedness, inhumanity, and an outright desecration of human lives by vile entities.

The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib says the Nigerian government is expecting about 29.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.He added that the government signed off to receive the vaccines through the African Union while vaccine deliveries through the COVAX facility were expected by the end of May or early June.He noted that by then, Nigeria would have completed the process of administering the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine to those who got the first dose.He revealed that the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has continued discussions with manufacturers to examine their vaccines, in anticipation of emergency use listing from the World Health Organisation.

More than 80 people died Sunday when a fire ripped through a Baghdad hospital for Covid-19 patients, sparking outrage and the suspension of top officials overseeing Iraq’s crumbling health services. Medic says the blaze at eastern Baghdad’s Ibn al-Khatib hospital began when badly stored oxygen cylinders blew up.The health ministry says 82 people were killed and 110 wounded, while the Iraqi Human Rights Commission says 28 of the victims were patients who had to be taken off ventilators to escape the flames.A medical source says the blaze tore across multiple floors in the middle of the night, as dozens of relatives were visiting patients in the intensive care unit.

Russian news agency TASS reported while quoting Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying Russia has put the U.S. on its list of unfriendly states.The move comes amid an escalating diplomatic row between Russia and several European countries.Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a law to limit the number of local staff working at foreign diplomatic missions and other agencies and ordered the government to draw up a list of unfriendly states that will be subject to the restrictions.Zakharova says the whole story began with another wave of unfriendly U.S. steps and naturally, the U.S. is on this list.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator in the ongoing Vienna talks aimed to revive the Iran nuclear deal and that his country will not allow talks of attrition.Abbas Araqchi, who heads the Iranian negotiating team in the ongoing talks with the representatives from the UK, China, France, Russia, and Germany in Vienna say the exact time cannot be predicted for the duration of talks. He says they will not allow attritional talks. If they feel that the other parties are not serious or intending to buy time or add other issues to the discussions, they will give up the negotiations. He echoed what Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said of Iran's approach to the nuclear talks: Iran will re-embrace its suspended obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action only after the United States removes its sanctions on Iran.The senior Iranian diplomat rejected again the long-abandoned plan to revive the nuclear deal.

British lawmakers on Monday called on the government to publish all communications with pharmaceutical companies to understand if private lobbying influenced its opposition to a waiver of intellectual property rules for COVID-19 vaccines.The United States and a handful of other big countries, including the United Kingdom, have blocked negotiations at the World Trade Organization involving a proposal spearheaded by India and South Africa that now has the support of 100 WTO members.The proposal would temporarily waive the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies to allow developing countries to produce vaccines.The waiver is opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and big pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer PFE.N, BioNTech 22UAy.DE, Moderna MRNA.O, and Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N.A spokesperson for the UK government said it prioritised transparency but stakeholders had a right to expect a reasonable degree of confidentiality in their communications.

South Africa’s Health Department has announced that the country’s rollout of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine will resume on Wednesday after it was temporarily placed on hold for two weeks.The move came after it was reported in the United States (US) that patients who had been administered the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, developed blood clots.The Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize says it had been established that there’s a one in a million chance of getting blood clots after being jabbed and that it appears that women between the ages of 18 and 48 years old are particularly at risk. With such a low probability of developing a clot, all the regulators across the world have recommended the continued use of Johnson and Johnson.The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority has recommended that pregnant women be excluded from getting the shot.Dr Zweli Mkhize further says vaccination sites will be expanded to 95 sites across the country and these sites will continue to vaccinate health care workers during the first phase of the rollout.