President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Saratu Umar as Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) for a fresh term of five years. Garba Shehu, the president’s media aide, confirmed this in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja. According to the statement, Umar holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Ahmadu Bello University and an MBA in Finance and Banking. ”She is trained locally and internationally in all core aspects of her career, as well as in leadership, strategy, general management, risk management and corporate governance. ”Umar is a technocrat, reformer, strategist,…

French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to reveal private telephone exchanges in a documentary about his failed efforts to convince Vladimir Putin not to start a war in Ukraine has drawn strongly-worded rebuke from Russia. “When calls are made at the highest level this of course is confidential, these are closed-doors negotiations,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a talk show on state-run Channel One. “After that, it’s hardly worth expecting the French side to respect anyone’s confidentiality,” she said late Sunday. “Paris signaled to the whole world that it considers it normal to publish conversations between its leaders…

Russian troops are engaged in heavy fighting supported by widespread artillery fire as they launch a major offensive for Ukraine's Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials said, a day after Moscow declared victory in the neighbouring province of Luhansk. Donetsk and Luhansk comprise the Donbas, the industrialised eastern part of Ukraine that has seen the biggest battle in Europe for generations. Russia says it wants to wrest control of the entire Donbas from Ukraine on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in two self-proclaimed people's republics. After Russian forces on Sunday took control of Lysychansk, the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, Ukrainian…

Now is the wrong time to remove Nigeria's costly fuel subsidy, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said on Monday, noting many other nations were introducing measures to help citizens cope with high oil energy prices. Africa's largest oil exporter, which still has to import almost all its fuel needs due to lack of refining capacity, scrapped plans to abolish fuel subsidies earlier this year - a move that raised concerns with the International Monetary Fund. "When you consider the chaos, the social disharmony and ... instability such an action (of abolishing subsidies) would facilitate, is it worth it? I don't think…