AFRICAN NEWS FLASH

The Bureau of Board of Governors of the African Development Bank Group has approved an independent investigation of the allegations against the President of the Bank, Akinwumi Adesina. The decision, taken at the meeting of the Bureau Thursday regarding the whistle-blowers’ complaints against Mr Adesina, is in deference to the demand by the U.S. government that a fresh and in-depth investigation be conducted into the allegations against Mr Adesina using an independent investigator. On May 5, the ethics committee of the continental bank, headed by Takuji Yano, said in its report that Mr Adesina was not guilty on all counts. Mr Yano is a Japanese executive director charged with the responsibility of investigating allegations by some concerned employees against the Bank’s president. The committee described the allegations that Mr Adesina violated the code of conduct of the institution as “spurious and unfounded”. Regardless, the United States government expressed “deep reservations about t...

The Interim Management Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission led by Prof Keme Podei after approval from the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, paid N641m for media support to cover its forensic audit exercise. In a document seen by SaharaReporters, the money was paid on May 23, 2020 as to a company named Clear Point Communication Limited with Zenith Bank account number: 1012613187. 

Taking hydroxychloroquine shortly after being exposed to COVID-19 does not help prevent infection in a statistically meaningful way, scientists reported Wednesday following a clinical trial. The medicine has been touted by US President Donald Trump, who has said he used it as a prophylaxis against the novel coronavirus. But an experiment involving 821 people across the United States and Canada showed it did not work significantly better than a placebo for this purpose.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has resumed clinical trial on hydrochloroquine after it paused research on the drug for the treatment of COVID-19 last week. Announcing this during a media briefing Wednesday, the Director General, WHO, Dr. Terdos Ghebreyesus, said new information has suggested that there was no reason to modify the trial protocol hence the continuation of the research. He said: “As you know, last week the Executive Group of the Solidarity Trial decided to implement a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm of the trial, because of concerns raised about the safety of the drug. “This decision was taken as a precaution while the safety data were reviewed. The Data Safety and Monitoring Committee of the Solidarity Trial has been reviewing the data. On the basis of the available mortality data, the members of the committee recommended that there are no reasons to modify the trial protocol.

OPEC+ was said to be considering holding an earlier-than-planned meeting on June 4, instead of on June 9 and 10, but a meeting on Thursday may not take place unless laggards in compliance promise to stick fully to their quotas, sources familiar with the talks told Bloomberg. However, prices retreated and Brent Crude was down 0.88 per cent at $39.22, while WTI Crude was down 0.22 per cent on the day to $36.73, but Nigeria’s Brass River and Qua Iboe sold briefly for $40.18 on Wednesday.

‌ The Central African state of Equatorial Guinea has told the WHO’s representative to leave, accusing her of “falsifying” the country’s tally of coronavirus cases, according to the government and the UN health agency. In a document dated May 26 seen by AFP on Tuesday, the foreign ministry asked the World Health Organization’s regional office in Africa “to end the duties” of its representative in Equatorial Guinea, Dr. Triphonie Nkurunziza, “and immediately oversee her departure from Malabo.” Prime Minister Pascual Obama Asue, appearing at the Senate last Friday, accused Nkurunziza of “falsifying the data of people contaminated” by COVID-19.