The list sighted by Daily Gazette shows as follows;

Prof. Ndubueze Mbah,
– Education

Mrs Ngozi Enih – Gender Affairs and Social Development

Prince Lawrence Ezeh – Lands and Urban DevelopmentAdvertorial

Patrick Nwabueze Ubro – Agriculture and Agro-Industrialization

Pharm. Chika Ugwoke – Labour and Employment

Dr Kingsley Udeh- Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice

Prof Emmanuel Obi – Health

Deacon Okey Ogbodo – Local Government, Rural Development and Chieftaincy Affairs

Dame Ugochi Madueke – Culture and Tourism

Barr. Lloyd Ekweremadu – Youth and Sports

Engr. Gerald Otiji – Works and Infrastructure

Nathaniel Uramah – Finance and Economic Development

Dr. Malachy Agbo – Human Development and Poverty Eradication

Me Aka Eze Aka – Information

Adaora Chukwu – Trade Investment and Industry

Dr Martin Chinweike – Housing

Obi Ozor – Transport

Prof. Sam Ugwu – Environment and Clinate Change

Ajogwu, Sunday Emeka – Special Duties

Dr. Felix Nnamani – Water Resources

Burkina Faso’s junta-led government has suspended one of the country’s most popular radio stations after it broadcast an interview deemed “insulting” to Niger’s new military leaders.

Radio Omega was immediately suspended on Thursday “until further notice,” Communications Minister Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo said in a statement.

He said the measure was “in the higher interests of the nation.”

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The station, part of the Omega media group owned by journalist and former foreign minister Alpha Barry, ceased broadcasting after the statement was issued late Thursday.

The channel had run an interview with Ousmane Abdoul Moumouni, the spokesman of a newly-established Nigerien group campaigning to return President Mohamed Bazoum to power.

The country’s elected leader was overthrown on July 26 by members of the Presidential Guard.

Moumouni made “insulting comments about the new Nigerien authorities,” said Ouedraogo, who is also a government spokesman.

His organisation “is clearly campaigning for violence and war against the sovereign people of Niger” and seeks to restore Bazoum “by every means,” he charged.

Burkina Faso underwent two military coups last year, each triggered in part — as in Mali and Niger — by discontent at failures to stem a raging jihadist insurgency.

It swiftly declared solidarity with Niger’s new leaders and joined Mali in warning that any military intervention to restore Bazoum would be considered a “declaration of war” against them.

The Burkinabe authorities in recent months have suspended the French TV outlets LCI and France24 as well as Radio France Internationale and expelled the correspondents of the French newspapers Liberation and Le Monde.

The Nigeria Police Force has confirmed the arrest of the police personnel that were caught extorting money from youths in Osun by the State House of Assembly Speaker, Adewale Egbedun.

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The police in Osun State, Southwest Nigeria disclosed this in a statement released by the State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Opalola Yemise Olawoyin, who described the actions of the arrested policemen as unprofessional and against the ethical codes of the force.

Osun Assembly Speaker, Egbedun in a video posted by a Twitter user, Alákòwé, caught some personnel of the police force extorting money from youths in the state.

“Many days for the thief, one day for the owner. See as shame dey catch them, Ire oo”

In the video, a voice is heard accusing the policemen of always stopping youths on the highway and asking them to transfer money before they would be allowed to go. He said. “They stop the youth in Osun and collect money from the youth. They make transfers to the police and Mr Speaker is collecting back the money right away with immediate effect.” The Speaker appears visibly angry at the situation in the video. He described the action of the policemen as inappropriate and asked people in his entourage to keep videoing the policemen. “What kind of rubbish is that, do their video,” the Speaker said. Providing more information on the incident, the police’s statement said the incident occurred along Ile-Ogbo/Iwo axis, adding that the culprits had been identified, arrested and detained since Thursday. The statement reads: “This is to inform the general public that the Osun State Police Command is aware of the viral video trending on social media showing some policemen extorting commuters along Ile-Ogbo/Iwo axis.

“The Police officers involved in this unprofessional and unethical behaviour have been identified, arrested and detained.

“The police Command frowned and condemned the act in totality as the erring police officers are currently in detention since Thursday, 10/08/2023 and undergoing investigation and eventual disciplinary procedure of orderly room trial for their unprofessional conduct while the senior officer among them has been queried accordingly.

“The Commissioner of Police wishes to apprise the general public, most especially the good people of Osun State that, he will never condone any act of indiscipline and unprofessional conduct exhibited by any member of the Nigeria Police under his watch.”

Governor of Enugu State, Dr. Peter Mbah has sworn in the newly appointed commissioners that will constitute the State Executive Council, charging them to get down to work immediately as the administration was in a hurry to deliver on its campaign promises.

The newly sworn-in commissioners include Prof. Ndubueze Mbah, Mrs. Ngozi Enih, Engr. Lawrence Ezeh, Prof. Sam Ugwu, Pharm. Chika Ugwoke, Dr. Kingsley Udeh, and Prof. Emmanuel Obi.

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Other are Deacon Okey Ogbodo, Dame Ugochi Madueke, Barr. Lloyd Ekweremadu, Engr. Gerald Otiji, Nathaniel Uramah, Dr. Malachy Agbo, Mr. Aka Eze Aka, Adaora Chukwu, Dr. Martin Chulwunweike, Obi Ozor, Emeka Ajogwu, Chris Robert Ozongwu, Dr. Felix Nnamani and Patrick Ubro.

Reiterating his commitment to the exponential growth of the state’s economy, speedy provision of socio-economic infrastructure, and human capital development in the state, Mbah said the new commissioners were products of a painstaking search for quality hands to help his administration to deliver on its manifesto.

“We expressed a massive vision, a vision that would see us growing our economy exponentially. We also promised our people to eradicate poverty. We want to make Enugu State the premier destination for investment.

“Those are laudable and lofty ideas. But one thing we knew also, when we made those promises, was that we needed a team that will convey our people from where we are today to that destination we want to take them to. For this reason, the process that resulted in your selection was quite rigorous and detailed.

“So, I want to congratulate all of you for at least making it on this list. In about 100 days from now, Enugu people want to turn their taps and see water flowing from those taps. We have promised them. So, they are expectant.

“We want to have access to quality education. We want to have access to quality healthcare services. We want to attract investments to Enugu and it will require you, deploying not only your skills, but also making sure that you acquire those new skills that we need to fix the challenges of breaking new grounds of economic development and growth.

“So, your selection was largely driven by your track-records, your experience, your background and it’s our hope that you are going to bring those experiences to bear and to work for the people of Enugu State.

“In this journey of greatness, this journey of growth, this journey of development, I look forward to working with you all to actualisae the Enugu State of our dreams, together”, the governor stated.

Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, Dr. Martin Chulwunweoke assued the governor that they would not fail him or the state.

“On behalf of all the commissioners, I say that we are very grateful and feel highly honoured for this opportunity to serve. And I will say that with all our hearts, we are committed to delivering an Enugu State of your dream and our dream. We will do all within our power, with unalloyed loyalty”, he assured.

The Russian space programme launched its first moon-landing spacecraft in 47 years, on Friday.

This is in a bid to be the first nation to make a soft landing on the lunar south pole, a region believed to hold coveted pockets of water ice, according to Reuters.

The Russian lunar mission, the first since 1976, is racing against India, which launched its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander last month, and more broadly with the United States and China, both of which have advanced lunar exploration programs targeting the lunar south pole.

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A Soyuz 2.1 rocket carrying the Luna-25 craft blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome, 3,450 miles (5,550 km) east of Moscow, at 2:11 a.m. on Friday Moscow time (1111 GMT on Thursday).

The lander was boosted out of Earth’s orbit toward the moon over an hour later, at which point mission control took command of the craft, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said.

The lander is expected to touch down on the moon on August 21, Russia’s space chief Yuri Borisov told state television, though the space agency previously pegged August 23 as the landing date.

“Now we will wait for the 21st. I hope that a highly precise soft landing on the moon will take place,” Borisov told workers at the Vostochny Cosmodrome after the launch. “We hope to be first.”

Luna-25, roughly the size of a small car, will aim to operate for a year on the moon’s south pole, where scientists at NASA and other space agencies in recent years have detected traces of water ice in the region’s shadowed craters.

There is much riding on the Luna-25 mission, as the Kremlin says the West’s sanctions over the Ukraine war, many of which have targeted Moscow’s aerospace sector, have failed to cripple the Russian economy.

The moonshot, which Russia has been planning for decades, will also test the nation’s growing independence in space after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine severed nearly all of Moscow’s space ties with the West, besides its integral role on the International Space Station.

The European Space Agency had planned to test its Pilot-D navigation camera by attaching it to Luna-25 but severed its ties to the project after Russia invaded Ukraine.

“Russia’s aspirations towards the moon are mixed up in a lot of different things. I think first and foremost, it’s an expression of national power on the global stage,” Asif Siddiqi, professor of history at Fordham University, told Reuters.

U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong gained renown in 1969 for being the first person to walk on the moon, but the Soviet Union’s Luna-2 mission was the first spacecraft to reach the moon’s surface in 1959, and the Luna-9 mission in 1966 was the first to make a soft landing there.

Moscow then focused on exploring Mars and since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has not sent scientific probes beyond Earth orbit.

For centuries, astronomers have wondered about water on the moon, which is 100 times drier than the Sahara. NASA maps in 2018 showed water ice in shadowed parts of the moon, and in 2020 NASA confirmed water also existed in sunlit areas.

Major powers such as the United States, China, India, Japan, and the European Union have all been probing the moon in recent years. A Japanese lunar landing failed last year and an Israeli mission failed in 2019.

No country has made a soft landing on the south pole. An Indian mission, Chandrayaan-2, failed in 2019.

Rough terrain makes a landing there difficult, but the prize of discovering water ice could be historic: large could be used to extract fuel and oxygen, as well as be used for drinking water.

Borisov said at least three other lunar missions were planned over the next seven years, and that after that Russia and China would work on a possible crewed lunar mission.

“My colleagues and I from China will move on to the next phase – the possibility of a manned mission to the Moon and the construction of a lunar base,” he said.

Maxim Litvak, head of the planning group for the Luna-25 scientific equipment, said the most important task was to land where no one else had landed – and to find water.

“There are signs of ice in the soil of the Luna-25 landing area,” he said, adding that Luna-25 would work on the moon for at least an Earth year, taking samples.

Roscosmos said that it would take five days to fly to the moon. The craft will spend 5-7 days in lunar orbit before descending to one of three possible landing sites near the pole – a timetable that implies it could match or narrowly beat its Indian rival to the moon’s surface.

Chandrayaan-3 is due to run experiments for two weeks.

With a mass of 1.8 tons and carrying 31 kg (68 pounds) of scientific equipment, Luna-25 will use a scoop to take rock samples from a depth of up to 15 cm (6 inches) to test for the presence of frozen water.