The UK government has urged for restraint and called for dialogue as fighting broke out in Somalia's capital Mogadishu.Rival units in the security forces and some former warlords and clan leaders clashed on Sunday.The British embassy in Somalia said the violence reports were "deeply concerning".The international community has been calling for dialogue on the election impasse in the country after parliament extended President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo's term by two years.Former Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and opposition leader Abdirahman Abdishakur said pro-government soldiers had attacked their homes.The government has since denied the accusations. Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble called for negotiations after Sunday's violence.

The Academy of Medicine Specialties, together with its Rapid-Response initiative group, has advised the federal government to shut the country’s international airports for at least two weeks to avoid the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.The President of the Academy of Medicine Specialties of Nigeria, Prof. Oladapo Ashiru, noted that the transmission of the third wave was still active but at a low level.Ashiru says the low-level transmission was due largely to the lockdowns going on in Europe and some countries.He further stated that the ongoing transmission in the country was caused largely by those inbound passengers from India and those countries with surges in the cases reported daily.He recommended that Nigeria’s testing strategy should still be PCR-based. He, however, added that some other Genes should be looked out for aside from the ‘S’ gene.He recommended that Nigeria should close the international airports to all flights for at least two weeks, stressing that the third wave was affecting not only India but France, Germany, and Italy.

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has called on the Federal Government to seek help where necessary to regain peace in the country and chart a way forward without using Nigerians as victims.He made the call in a statement while reacting to the killings across the country by bandits, terrorists, and other gunmen in the country.Professor Soyinka decried that these gunmen have sacrificed and traumatised the country’s youths beyond their capacity to cope.He says the country is at war and it is time to stop pretending while the government should put in more efforts to stop the killing of youths who are the future.The Nobel laureate also condemned the practice of blame trade, saying it should be left for later.

The spokesman of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Emmanuel Powerful says the Group has no connection with the recent attack on Governor Hope Uzodinma’s country home.He described those linking the incident to the secessionist group as liars, stressing that neither IPOB nor the Eastern Security Network was responsible for the incident.He says they don’t want to tell the citizens that Nigeria is almost collapsing, and IPOB has decided that nothing will stop them to back out on this course for Biafra restoration.They were, however, repelled by the security operatives attached to the governor’s house, but some vehicles parked on the premises were burnt.The attack was condemned by various individuals and groups, including members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum has condemned the attack on the country home of Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma.THE NGF Chairman and Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi said the governors described the incident as taking criminality to reckless and irresponsible heights.They say those responsible for the attack must be mindful that they do not have the monopoly of violence.The governor stated that all hands must be on deck to apprehend the attackers whom they said constituted a small league of persons trying to harm the nation's corporate existence.The governors believe the mantra for every Nigerian at such a challenging time should forge peace and unity across Nigeria’s divides and shun violence and wanton destruction.

The European Commission is looking to launch legal action against AstraZeneca for underdelivering COVID-19 vaccine doses to the EU, hobbling the bloc’s early rollout of jabsThe EU executive says any lawsuit against AstraZeneca would begin in a Belgian court — the jurisdiction agreed under the commission’s contract with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company.A Commission spokesman, Stefan De Keersmaecker says AstraZeneca is not delivering the number of doses that have been agreed upon in the contract. He says this is one of the reasons why they keep their options open together with member states to take any further steps.

The World Health Organization has urged African countries not to destroy Covid-19 vaccines that may have passed their expiry date.Countries have been told to keep hold of them and wait for further guidance.The appeal comes after Malawi and South Sudan said they would destroy more than 70,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab because they expired in mid-April.The Africa Centres for Disease Control says it had been assured the doses were safe to use.Many vaccines can be used up to 36 months after manufacture, but because Covid-19 jabs are so new there is not enough data to prove their effectiveness over longer periods.The final decision on whether to use expired jabs rests with national drug regulators, the BBC's health reporter in Nairobi, Rhoda Odhiambo, notes.The roll-out of coronavirus vaccines across Africa has been slow, partly because of supply issues and wider scepticism about the jab.

Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Muhammad says that the strike embarked on by the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria is legal since it is aimed at realizing their constitutionally guaranteed rights.JUSUN had asked its members to proceed on indefinite strike pending when state governments obey the constitutional provisions of financial autonomy of the Judiciary.The Union had in March gave a 21-day ultimatum but was not heeded by the government.The CJN had held a meeting with JUSUN leaders asking them to call off the strike in view of its adverse effect on the justice system in the country.Muhammad noted that it had become difficult to fault the idea of the strike since the rights of the union and its members which were clearly defined in the Constitution were being denied, especially at the state level.

Nigerian lawmakers directed the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire to put together a policy to compel all government hospitals to procure locally manufactured syringes.The Senate Committee on Health gave the Minister a six-week ultimatum to carry out the directive.The committee is investigating the failure of government agencies to implement the Backward Integration Policy, on local production of syringes five years after it was validated.Members of the committee say it is alarming that despite the capacity of local manufacturers to meet the market demands, an estimated 1 billion units of syringes and needles are imported into the country per annum.

The House of Representatives is set to investigate the incessant jailbreaks in the country.The House is worried that the jailbreaks will only continue to fuel the insecurity in the country.Hon. Chudy Momah raised the motion during the plenary. His statement follows the most recent attack on April 5, where gunmen attacked the Nigerian Correctional Services and the Police Headquarters in Imo State, freeing an unspecified number of prison inmates.IPOB has been blamed for the recent attacks on prisons and police stations in the South-East but the group has denied these claims, noting they are agitators, not gunmen.