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Plateau Workers Commences Indefinite Strike As APC and PDP Chairmen Resume Office

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Caleb Mutfwang

The Plateau State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has initiated an indefinite strike action as a preemptive measure to prevent a potential clash between supporters of reinstated Local Government (LG) chairmen and recently inaugurated caretaker chairmen appointed by Governor Caleb Mutfwang.

The strike, which commenced on Monday, comes in response to a directive from the State Police Commissioner reinstating the 17 suspended LG chairmen in the state.

Arondon who addressed a press conference in Jos on Sunday evening while announcing the strike, said the statement by the CP that the reinstated chairmen would be led by DPOs of their various LGAs to their offices on Monday has sent a wrong signal.

He added that the strike is borne out of fear that there could be a possible clash between supporters of the APC and PDP at the various secretariats.

“We’re at variance with the earlier directive whereupon the press release is asking for the suspended local government chairmen and councillors to resume office on Monday 28/08/2023,” the union said in a communique released at the end of the press conference.

“While as a union, we are not concerned with the political tussle over the matter, our concern is for the safety of our members (workers) whose safety and welfare is uncertain as the situation is unpredictable.

“We have therefore called this press conference in order to let Nigerians and concerned authorities know our predicament.

“Accordingly, as a union whose members salary is the Ieast in the state, we shall not further risk the lives of our members as result of this tussle, hence the union has resolved at an emergency state executive council meeting held today, Sunday, 27/08/2023 for a total strike action effective 12.00 midnight until this matter is resolved.

“This decision has become necessary in order not for innocent members of the union to be caught in the web of the police release,” the communique stated.

The genesis of the crisis came after Governor Mutfwang suspended the LG chairmen who were elected on the platform of APC for alleged misappropriation of funds.

The governor had, following the suspension of the chairmen, appointed caretaker chairmen to take charge of the councils, a development that led the embattled chairmen to drag the governor to court.

In early August, an appeal court sitting in Jos had ordered that the suspended chairmen should be reinstated in office, a directive that the police has decided to follow.

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New leaders, new fund: Sequoia has raised $7B to expand its AI bets

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Few venture firms have bet more aggressively on AI than Sequoia Capital, and it isn’t slowing down.

The Silicon Valley stalwart has raised roughly $7 billion for a new fund, according to Bloomberg. Sequoia declined TechCrunch’s request for comment. The money will go toward what the firm calls its “expansion strategy” — essentially its late-stage investing arm, focused on the U.S. and Europe — and it’s nearly double Sequoia’s last comparable fund, a $3.4 billion vehicle raised in 2022.

That growth in fund size reflects something bigger: late-stage investing has taken on an entirely new meaning in the AI era. Companies can now scale at a speed and cost that would have been unimaginable a decade ago, and the firms backing them have to keep pace.

The money signals where Sequoia sees the future: deeply embedded in AI, from the giants building the underlying technology to the startups putting it to work. The firm has backed two of the most prominent players in the AI race — OpenAI originally and, more recently, Anthropic — both of which are reportedly eyeing public listings in 2026. The development that could mean a significant payday for the firm.

Sequoia isn’t only swinging for the foundational AI heavyweights, however. It has also placed bets on other buzzy startups, including Physical Intelligence, the Bay Area robotics startup, and Factory, which builds AI agents for enterprise engineering teams.

The fundraise is also the first major capital raise under Sequoia’s new leadership, with Alfred Lin and Pat Grady now serving as co-stewards of the 54-year-old firm.

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Factory hits $1.5B valuation to build AI coding for enterprises

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More than three years after the emergence of generative AI, AI-assisted coding remains by far the most popular and lucrative use case for the technology.

Although multiple companies — including Anthropic, maker of Claude Code, as well as Cursor and Cognition — are already vying for dominance, investors believe there is room for at least one more player.

On Wednesday, Factory, a startup developing AI agents for enterprise engineering teams, announced it had raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, and Blackstone. Keith Rabois, a managing director at Khosla Ventures, joined the startup’s board.

Factory founder Matan Grinberg told the Wall Street Journal that the company’s key differentiator is its ability to switch between different foundation models, such as Anthropic’s Claude or Chinese AI startup DeepSeek. However, startups like Cursor also don’t rely on a single model to generate code.

Factory’s customers include engineering teams at Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, and Palo Alto Networks.

The startup was founded in 2023 after Grinberg, then a PhD student at UC Berkeley, cold-emailed Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire. The two bonded over mutual academic interest. (Maguire’s PhD from Caltech is in the same area of physics Grinberg was studying.)

Maguire convinced Grinberg to drop out and launch Factory, with Sequoia backing the startup at the seed stage.

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