Suspected kidnap kingpin behind a series of high profile kidnap incidents in Bayelsa State has been arrested by operatives of Operation Puff Adder in Abuja and the police have revealed his real identity.
As against the name Lyon John that trended on social media, the suspect’s real name is John Ewa.
Vanguard gathered that John Ewa changed name to John Lyon when he was a dispatch rider at a commercial bank after he was sacked due alleged involvement in criminal activities at the bank.
While working at the bank, Ewa, it was learnt, had run several errands for his superior which gave him access to privileged information which was supplied to criminal elements to carry out operations.
After his appointment was terminated, Ewa was said to have recruited boys to run a kidnap syndicate with specialisation in kidnapping high profile residents of the state.
According to investigations, operatives of Puff Adder got on the trail of Ewa after the arrest of two suspects, Kingsley Innocent and Godlives Donald involved in the kidnap of Mr Danjuma Emeije a manager with Premium Trust Bank Yenagoa.
Emeije was kidnapped on June 30 2022 and was released after he was said to have parted with a ransom of 50 Million.
Police sources said Ewa, who runs Lyon Interior hub as cover for his criminal activities, is known for his lavish lifestyle and heavy spending at night clubs in Yenagoa.
He was said to have masterminded the kidnap of the sister to former governor Seriake Dickson and top Igbo businessmen forcing many of them to relocate from the state.
During interrogation Police sources said Ewa confessed to have been involved in only two kidnap incidents and denied being part of the gang that kidnapped Danjuma.
Recall that the suspected kidnapper’s story first trended on social media on Sunday. In a viral video, Ewa was seen in handcuffs wearing a boxer at the premises of Operation Puff Adder Yenagoa.
The suspected kidnapper, in the viral video, was seen begging the Police officers to forgive him noting that his wife just gave birth
“I was not involved in your kidnap (referring to the Danjuma). There is a guy they always call for a job, his name is Millow. Please, sir, forgive me. I was not involved in your matter. Please Sir my wife just gave birth”
According to police sources, Ewa had gone to Premium Trust Bank pretending to be making inquiries on opening an account for his children but was actually gathering information about Danjuma.
Danjuma, who was also at the premises of Puff Adder insisted that he could recognise Ewa as one of the kidnappers who was on a couch while his gang members were brutalizing him.
A Police source said a close friend of Ewa, who is an in-law of a governorship candidate of one of the major political parties in the state, is also in Police custody answering questions on the kidnap incidents in the state.
According to the source, barring any change of plans, Ewa should be paraded before the media this week.
The leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has revealed why the group will not support the All Progressives Congress’ candidate, Bola Tinubu, and the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in the 2023 presidential election.
Adebanjo said Afenifere stood on justice and fairness and believed in true federalism and the Federal Character principle.
The Afenifere leader disclosed this on Monday in a statement while clarifying his position on the group’s support for Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s candidate in the 2023 general election.
Responding to the backlash that followed his announcement of the group’s support for Peter Obi in the 2023 presidential election, Adebanjo said, “…not a few Yoruba leaders questioned why I should be supporting Peter Obi, a candidate of Igbo extraction, against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba. I took my time to explain that the presidency is not a contest between the Yorubas and the Igbos and to a large extent I was able to convince many.
“But ever since, social media has been filled with comments tending to ethnicise the campaign instead of making it issue-based. Afenifere has, therefore, decided to address you today and through you educate the public on the ideological and equitable principles which have influenced our decision.”
Adebanjo stated that Afenifere “is the Yoruba interpretation of the social welfarist ideology of Action Group, a political party founded by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his colleagues in 1951 with strong advocacy for federalism as the best form of government to give the federating units the requisite autonomy to thrive and peacefully compete among themselves for the ultimate development of Nigeria.”
He said other founding fathers of Nigeria — Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Chief Obafemi Awolowo — agreed to the system with the endorsement of colonial secretary Sir Oliver Littleton in 1954 “and embodied in the 1960 independence constitution. This is the modest contribution of Afenifere in shaping Nigeria into a federation where no person or ethnic nationality is oppressed.”
The nonagenarian said Afenifere had always advocated and insisted on restructuring of the country “long before the parties conducted their Conventions to elect their National Executives and candidates,” and had proposed “a synthesis of the identical Resolutions of the 2014 National Conference and the APC El-Rufai 2018 True Federalism Committee.”
Adebanjo said Afenifere and the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum “unanimously proposed that the minimum condition for a peaceful transition from the disastrous eight years of Buhari’s government headed by a President of northern extraction was to have the next President from the South,” a position which, he said, was supported by southern governors irrespective of their political parties.
He added, “In this quest for peace, based on equity and inclusiveness, the Yoruba took the first turn at the zoning arrangement in 1999, and that led to the emergence of Chief (Olusegun) Obasanjo, the current Vice President is a Yoruba man and equity forbids us for presuming to support another Yoruba person for the presidency in 2023.
“The current President is a Fulani from the North-West and by virtue of the zoning arrangement that has governed Nigeria since 1999, power is supposed to return to the south imminently. The
“The South-West, as I have pointed out, has produced a president and currently sits as VP, the South-South has spent a total of six years in the Presidency, but the Igbo people of the South-East have never tasted presidency in Nigeria, and now that the power is due back in the South, equity demands that it be ceded to the Igbo.
“We cannot continue to demand that the Igbo people remain in Nigeria, while we at the same time continue to brutally marginalise and exclude them from the power dynamics.”
Adebanjo, therefore, condemned the ceding of the PDP presidential ticket to “a Northern Fulani Muslim to succeed General Muhammadu Buhari, another Fulani Muslim, who will soon complete eight years of uneventful and disastrous rule. One can imagine such a high degree of political insensitivity.”
The Afenifere leader also stated that the group would not jettison equity, inclusiveness and justice just because one of their own Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was in the contest.
“We will not compromise this principle of justice, equity and inclusiveness because one of our own Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is a frontline candidate,” Adebanjo said.
Adebanjo, who said Afenifere had “no apologies but due courage of our conviction that Nigeria can only prosper in righteousness,” reiterated that, “To keep Nigeria one, everyone should be Obi/Datti compliant,” and advocated that that should be the slogan henceforth.
A Zimbabwean woman has confessed to lying against a man who has been in prison for eight years, serving a 20-year rape sentence.
Simbarashe Chadiwa was handed a 20-year sentence for the rape of a 10-year old minor.
The “victim” now 18, came out clean after a string of misfortunes befell her and her family.
She said;
“That man never raped me but I was under so much pressure that I ended up wrongly implicating him.
“That action has been haunting me daily such that I can no longer live with the fact that there is someone out there who is suffering for a crime that he never committed in the first place.
A lot of misfortunes are also happening at our home, which makes me suspect it has to do with the grief on the part of Simbarashe, hence my decision to come clean.”
The lady further revealed that the passing of her mother who recently died of a mysterious ailment triggered her confession. She added that a witch doctor told her to do the right thing.
Brother of the serving inmate, Tapiwa Chadiwa, said last weekend when they visited Harare Central prison with the good news, Simbarashe literally broke down.
Chadiwa said;
“He could not hold a discussion with us, he was simply drowned in tears.
“The fact that it has taken this long to finally have justice prevail was overwhelming for him.
“We were all so emotional we could not go into a decent talk to chart the way forward.”
Simbarashe and his friend visited the girl’s homestead, where the latter intended to see the family maid, who was his lover.
The girl’s mother was away in Botswana. When the mother returned, she queried why her daughter seemed to be having a limp in her walk.
This led to the chain of events that ended with the conviction.
The police in India has launched a manhunt for a teacher accused of beating a low-caste student which led to his death, over a spelling mistake.
The victim, Nikhil Dohre, was beaten up by his social science teacher on September 7 after he made a mistake in an exam. His health deteriorated after that and he was taken to a hospital.
The Class 10 Dalit student who was fatally beaten up by his school teacher in Auraiya, died during treatment in the hospital. It was gathered that the accused fled the area after his student’s death.
On September 24, Nikhil’s father, Raju Dohre, lodged a report in the Achhalda police station against the teacher for not cooperating in the treatment and for using caste-indicative abusive words.
The FIR was registered against the accused, Ashwini Singh, at Acchalda police station and teams have been formed to arrest the accused. Auraiya’s Superintendent of Police Charu Nigam said;
“We have talked to Etawah chief medical officer to set up a panel for autopsy to find out the cause of death and get the autopsy and videographed. Further action will be taken. Three teams have been formed to arrest the accused.”
“He is on the run, but we will arrest him soon,” police officer Mahendra Pratap Singh told AFP.
Dohre was a member of the Dalit community, which sits at the lowest rung of India’s caste system and has been subject to prejudice and discrimination for centuries.
Hundreds of people took to the streets on Monday September 24, after news of Dohre’s death spread in Auraiya district, the location of the attack.
The crowd demanded the teacher’s arrest before the cremation of the boy’s body and torched a police vehicle.
Around a dozen protesters had been arrested, Singh said. “We used force to quell the mob and the situation soon came under control,” Superintendent of Police Charu Nigam told reporters.
The Russian government is planning to expel a detained Japanese diplomat who was reportedly caught ‘red-handed’ trying to buy state secrets and for spying on a ‘country in the Asia-Pacific region’.
Motoki Tatsunori, the Japanese Consul General in Vladivostok, was arrested for allegedly soliciting ‘restricted’ information about an unnamed country in the Asia-Pacific region – which is speculated to be China.
The FSB, the KGB´s successor agency, released a statement about the matter, accusing Tatsunori of gathering secret information on Russia and ordered him to leave the country within 48 hours.
The statement said: ‘A Japanese diplomat was detained red-handed while receiving, in exchange for financial reward, restricted information about Russia´s cooperation with another country in the Asia-Pacific region.’
The FSB also accused the diplomat of seeking out information on ‘the impact of Western sanctions’ on the surrounding Primoriye region, according to news agencies.
Vladimir Putin, Russian President has granted full Russian citizenship to U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden.
It was learnt that Edward Joseph Snowden, an America born former computer intelligence consultant, leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013, when he was an employee and subcontractor of the agency.
Snowden, 39, fled the United States to Russia after revealing information about extensive surveillance operations being conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA). He is now officially a Russian citizen by presidential decree.
The announcement comes roughly two years after Russia granted Snowden permanent residency in the country.
The country first granted Snowden asylum in 2014 and has since resisted calls by the US government to extradite him. He faces espionage charges that could land him in prison for up to 30 years in the U.S.
The move likely signals Snowden working more closely with the Russian government and Russian intelligence.
Back in 2019 Snowden stated that he would be willing to return to the U.S. on the condition that he got a fair trial.
“That is the ultimate goal, but if I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison then my one, bottom-line demand that we all have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial,” Snowden told “CBS This Morning” at the time.
Details of how a female lawyer, Clara Bassey died in a car crash last Sunday while chasing her husband, Sonnie Bassey in the company of his alleged girlfriend, in Calabar, the Cross River state capital, has emerged.
WITHIN NIGERIA had reported that Clara, middle aged woman died while she was in a hot chase of her husband over his “mistress” along the Muritala Mohammed Highway in Calabar.
According to Vanguard, a family source who begged for anonymity said the late wife, who hails from Imo State had been suspecting the husband for a long time but didn’t know who the girlfriend really was. He said the relationship between the husband and the girlfriend had been going on for a long time.
A close friend of the husband who did not want his name in print said, “Sonnie and I attended St Patrick’s College. He grew up here in Calabar. He was a car dealer before he became a lawyer. We play chess together. He lived at Barracks Road, near Bogobiri before moving to his present home. He and his wife had been having issues over the girl and when information got to the wife that her husband who said he was travelling out of town was actually in town, she was terribly angry and that was the reason for the hot chase”.
Woman poses as hospital worker, steals newborn twin from maternity ward in Bauchi Kebbi: Three brothers beat neighbour to death for allegedly stealing their motorcycle It was learnt that the said girlfriend, a single mother and a brilliant lawyer who had been assisting the husband to write his legal briefs and that they had been dating for a long time.
The aforementioned publication reported that last Sunday, the husband was said to have travelled out of town but when he came back he decided to see his girlfriend first before going home and that was when a third party saw them together at the Spar Supermarket and called the wife to tip her off. The late wife reportedly waited for them at the Stadium very close to the Supermarket in a Toyota Highlander and when she sighted her husband and his girlfriend driving past in a Mercedes Benz car, she pursued them.
About a kilometre away from point of taking off, at the New Secretariat, the husband on top speed veered off the highway and headed towards Atekong Drive and the wife in an effort to follow the husband on the same route lost control and rammed into one of the ornamental trees by the roadside completely wrecking the car and sustaining mortal wounds in the process.
From his rear mirror, the husband saw what happened, stopped the car asked his girlfriend to alight from the car and went back to attempt to rescue his wife. Other road users joined in the rescue and she was taken to the Nigerian Navy Reference Hospital, about a kilometre away, still on the same route for medical attention.
A family source at the hospital told Vanguard that before the wife gave up the ghost, Sonnie knelt beside his dying wife begging the lifeless body for forgiveness and urging her to come back to life and take care of their three children.
The source said, “it was at the hospital that the man wailed seriously begging the wife to forgive him, while professing all his love for her, asking her to wake up. The woman who made the call to the deceased wife that her husband was with his girlfriend was actually at the hospital when she was pronounced dead. But the family members didn’t realise this at the time until they checked the deceased’s phone and discovered that the woman who had been with them all along in the hospital was the one communicating with the deceased.
“All that said, I can tell you that the husband loved the wife and never joked with his family, he is very passionate about them, and did everything that a father and husband should do. The stories and so many versions you have been reading are mostly false. Just a few days ago he was said to be in a coma, some said that he was dead, but all were pure falsehood.
“It is natural for someone in his shoes to feel sober, withdrawn from people when bereaved but I can also tell you that he might be feeling all that, but he is definitely not in any dangerous situation at the moment.
“The single mum who was his ‘side chick’, and has now deactivated her social media accounts was not the cause of the accident and the death of the victim, the lady who tipped off the deceased is the real killer. As a matter of fact, she was also at the hospital when the victim was pronounced dead. When I realized that she was the one who was responsible for sending the victim to her early death, I felt like beating her, but it was late by that time we realized it.
“The husband might be in a sober mood but there is no serious health issue arising from the incident that I’m aware of. He is a great father, husband and hardworking man, but was just a victim of circumstance,” the source said.
Another friend of the family who also pleaded anonymity said that what happened was just unfortunate because the husband was a gentleman to the core.
“He was indeed hospitalised but we hope he gets better soon, he battled with stroke some time ago, he is just recovering and coupled with what happened again, he is only human, they should stop peddling death rumour and remember his kids in the mix. The relationship with his late wife started as far back as 2004 or thereabout and it ended in marriage with three kids, it’s rather sad that this kind of thing happened to him because both of them were inseparable love birds, he was always with her all the time.
“The children are currently being taken care of by a family friend, all we are doing is praying for him to be strong, the deed has already been done, and people should allow the family to mourn in peace. This kind of thing that happened to him could have happened to anybody.
“There are cases of divorce that he even refunded money to female clients while preaching peace because he doesn’t believe in separation or divorce, he is just a gentleman people should consider his children and stop judging him”, the source stated.
A friend of late Clara, Mrs Ann said the man should be held responsible for the death of his wife because of his action. “The man refused to take his children back to school that day on the pretext that he was travelling out of town for business but the trip was to keep a date with a ‘side chick’. Which woman would hear that and not be infuriated?”
The General Superintendent of Deeper Life Bible Church Pastor William Kumuyi has said that he has not received any revelation from God on the next President.
He however promised to make it known once he receives the revelation from God.
Kumuyi said he cannot question God why he has not revealed who the next President would be to him.
Kumuyi spoke with reporters in Minna at the Global Crusade with Kumuyi (GCK) with the theme: “God of all possibilities” on Saturday.
He said: ” I cannot tell you a lie. God has not shown me anything. He has not found it fit to tell me. He does not tell everybody, everything.
“Who am I to tell God why haven’t you tell me about the next President. When he tells me, I will come and tell you.”
He said that only dialogue would resolve the impasse between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government, adding that going to court, issuing threats and having series of protests is not the solution.
“The conflict between ASUU and the Federal government requires dialogue as the way forward, rioting may or might not solve the problem. When two institutions and opposing bodies have a challenge, they should look at the challenge from both points of view.
Mathias Pogba, the brother to world-famous Juventus star, Paul Pogba, has made some startling accusations against his brother.
Mathias accused the midfielder of paying at least €4 million (£3.5m) to a witch doctor who ‘neutralised’ Kylian Mbappe during Manchester United’s Champions League tie against Paris Saint-Germain in 2019.
Mathias was arrested a couple of weeks ago and is currently in custody in Paris over his alleged role in the blackmail plot involving Pogba.
The 37-year-old Mathias Pogba has denied his part in the attempted blackmail but has been accused of ‘extortion in an organised gang’ and ‘participation in a criminal association with a view to preparing a crime’.
Just yesterday, Friday, September 23, several pre-recorded video messages from Mathias surfaced online.
In one of the video messages, Mathias accused Pogba of paying for a witch doctor to put a spell on Paris Saint-Germain’s star-man, Mbappe for United’s Champions League tie against PSG in 2019.
Manchester United were defeated 2-0 in the first leg at Old Trafford and Pogba was red-carded during the game but staged a remarkable comeback in second leg in Paris, beating PSG 3-1, progressing to the quarter-finals.
“The turning point came with the World Cup in 2018, where Paul had more faith in the witch doctor than in God, entrusting the witch with a big task in order to help the French team win,” Mathias Pogba said in his video.
“The witch doctor would go on to tell Mam’s [an intermediary] that the job had already been done, and that was when Mam’s would start to be scared.
“After that, Paul continued with his witch doctor, notably in the Champions League to ensure that Manchester United would go through against PSG.
“At the request of Paul, the witch was told to neutralise Kylian Mbappe, who back then was on a rapid rise, far outstripping Paul’s fame.
“It was strange to see that during that match Kylian was a shadow of himself against a reserve side.
“The issue is that at the same time, Paul was doing everything he could to get closer to Kylian, as we could see in the media, supposedly liking him and calling him his friend, he would often call him, we would see them arm-in-arm
“It went so far that Kylian almost made it a condition for his PSG contract extension that the club would have to sign Paul, without knowing that behind his back Paul was engaging in witchcraft to sabotage his matches.
“That same witch doctor would go on to [say] that he had to stop the ongoing curse, at risk of destroying [Mbappe’s] career, keeping in mind that he was paid by the task, knowing that my brother, always close to his money, had not paid enough for a long-term job, and that the witch wanted to make him pay as much as possible,” he said according to Metro.
Gone are the days when it was a pride for young ladies to troop boutiques to buy pants and brassieres.
The economy of the average Nigerian lady no longer supports that luxury.
Besides, several brands of new panties come with substandard elastics and fabrics that do not let the products last.
The alternative now appears to be used pants and brassieres, sold in heaps at roadside stalls and markets popularly known as bend-down boutiques.
Although some say the act is degrading to women’s fashion sense, there’s also an argument that fashion sense that does not consider quality and affordability, lacks real taste.
More for affordability, some women have even resorted to making a choice between panties and tights saying that both of them perform the same job of covering their private parts.
Adejobi Badejo, an undergraduate said she goes for okrika pants and gets them at Katangua market for far cheaper costs.
“The state of the economy is really dealing with I used to buy two dozens of panties before but now, I have limited it to one dozen and they are not new but bend-down-select. A dozen of new cotton panties that were sold for N5,000 to N7,000 as of last December, have risen to N15,000 to N25,000. Even to match quality pants and brassiers are no go areas. I love wearing my undergarment in the same colors but now that I have resolved to buy okrika panties, I have forgotten all about that dress sense.
“This is what is trending for most young ladies and housewives now. The first day my friend and I visited Katangua to buy pants; we saw many women buying okrika panties in the market and were shocked at the high patronage.”
Confirming women’s high patronage of okrika panties, Mrs Chinwe Mbafor, an okrika undergarment seller in Ikotun market said: “It is true that most ladies now prefer buying okrika panties. They have dropped their shame and embraced its use.
Before, I would sit for hours and make little sales from brassieres, tights and children’s panties. The low sales made me buy less quantity of okrika ladies’ pants.
“Sometimes any odd occurrence in any environment favours some people. Now the so-called okrika panties are bought with speed. Not only panties but other used products as the prices of brand new ones are increasing every day.
“Even the prices of some okrika products are also increasing due to the high demand.”
On his part, a pharmacist known as Doctor Chinedu, said he noticed that his female friends and some other ladies no longer wear panties. He pointed out that most young ladies, including married women, now wear tights without panties.
He said most of his female friends said tights are better options when compared to pants as most of the new pants being produced are very expensive and get torn easily and don’t last long unlike tights. However, he noted that some prefer using tights due to the comfort they derive from it.
“I see most of my female friends putting on tights without panties, even the ones that are married. Before, these tights were undergarments worn under gowns or skirts. But now, these women said due to the increase in the prices of panties which don’t last long, they prefer to go pantless and wear tights.
“A male friend of mine who sells okrika clothes disclosed to me that ladies, even his girlfriend, now go for okrika decided to start buying okrika briefs. The so-called new ones don’t last long anymore.”
Mr. Matthew Oluwaseyi, a laboratory Technician explained that despite their ability to last long and being cheap, wearing okrika pants without proper washing and ironing, can cause infections.
“As a laboratory technician, I have come in contact with various infections contracted by wearing okrika undergarments, especially pants.
“It is unhygienic for a woman to put on Okrika pants because some of these pants were worn by infected patients who might have disposed of them without proper washing. So if a new buyer does not wash and iron them well, they could contract bacterial and fungal infections such as genital warts, vaginal and skin candidiasis, scabies, tinea curis, gonorrhoea, syphilis, and even Hepatitis A, B and C.”
The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu’s legal team, has made a case for his release.
They demanded his immediate unconditional release from custody of the Department of State Services to enable him access medical personnel of his choice.
Kanu’s lead counsel, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, made the demand in a statement in Abuja on Friday.
Ejiofor said his client had been in excruciating pains and had not been able to eat for 48 days due to some gastrointestinal disorder.
The lawyer alleged that while the DSS medical facility was ill-equipped to address Kanu’s health, the security agency had also denied his client access to his preferred physician.
He said, “As usual, the court-ordered routine visit to our client , Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, was conducted today at the DSS headquarters in Abuja, where Onyendu is still being held in solitary confinement for over 14 months.
“Today’s visit was centred on our curiosity to ascertain the level of compliance by the DSS with providing Onyendu the requisite medical treatment that would address his deteriorating health condition.
“Sadly, we made startling discovery that despite the alarm raised on Monday, calling for the intervention of responsible foreign governments and institutions, on the DSS flagrant disobedience to orders of court, particularly in denying Onyendu access to his personal medical doctor and medication, the DSS immediately resorted to a local chemist store to procure substandard drugs to be administered on Onyendu.
“Since it is now obvious that the DSS does not have the facility, capacity and or resources to manage Onyendu’s deteriorating health condition, we are compelled to publicly implore the DSS, to allow us have Onyendu back unconditionally, or better still, allow us to purchase the prescribed drugs for Kanu pending his unconditional release from their custody.’’
Germany players will receive £360,000 each if they lift the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the country’s football association (DFB) said on Sunday, September 25, after agreeing on tournament bonuses with the team.
When Germany won the title at the Brazil World Cup in 2014, the players received £268,000 each. The new bonus for this year’s title win is up from £312,000 for the previous tournament in 2018, but unfortunately Germany crashed out in the first round.
Clearing the group stage in Qatar will earn each player £45,000 while a spot in the last eight will net them £89,000 each.
Germany have been drawn into Group E along with Spain, Costa Rica, and Japan. The tournament starts on Nov. 20 and Germany opens their campaign against Japan on November 23.
A man who flaunts money on social media and encourages his followers to “hustle” has been arrested for alleged kidnapping.
The man nicknamed “Lion” is said to be a dreaded kidnap kingpin.
He was traced to Abuja from Bayelsa and was arrested.
A video of Lion after his arrest shows him begging for mercy. He claimed he has only kidnapped two people.
He also begged to be set free because his wife just had a baby.
However, a man there claimed to be one of Lion’s victims and insisted the suspect has kidnapped more than two people.
He narrated how Lion allegedly kidnapped him and threatened to end his life.
Videos from Lion’s social media accounts show him flaunting money online.
Watch a video of Lion before and after his arrest.
JUST IN: Video shows moment kidnappers kingpin popularly known as Lion was traced and arrested in Abuja. Available reports indicate that he is part of those terrorizing Bayelsa State and its environs. pic.twitter.com/LaVchChIq0
Juventus and France midfielder, Paul Pogba, has admitted to hiring a witch doctor but not to put a spell on France team-mate Kylian Mbappe, like his detained brother, Matthias Pogba claims.
Mathias and other suspects charged with trying to blackmail Pogba out of more than £11million, claim Paul Pogba, the 29-year-old France and ex-Manchester United midfielder, tried to cast evil spells on Mbappé, 23, because of he was jealous of the PSG striker.
Five of the suspects, including Matthias are now on remand and facing up to 20 years each in prison over a range of charges including ‘extortion in an organized gang’.
They claim to have recorded a video showing Pogba speaking to the witch-doctor, who calls himself ‘Ibrahim the Great’ and charges as much as €100 (£88) an hour for his services.
Pogba denies that his hiring of the witch-doctor had anything to do with Mbappé saying he ‘never intended to harm anyone’.
Pogba instead told investigators working for France’s Central Office for the Fight against Organised Crime (OCLCO) that he was ‘looking to be protected against injury’ and ‘also to help poor kids in Africa’ he was in connection with through an aid organisation.
Two judicial sources in Paris confirmed the revelations and the transcript from interviews completed last month as they worked on the explosive investigation.
Pogba is currently under police protection while ruled out of playing because of injury.
Further horrifying details from the investigation include Pogba describing how he was threatened by two hooded men brandishing assault rifles after being lured into a flat in Chanteloup-en-Brie, in the eastern suburbs of Paris on March 19.
He was in the city on international duty, four days after a burglary in Manchester which saw his wife, Zulay, and the couple’s two young boys threatened.
Also present in the Paris property were four of Pogba’s childhood friends, identified as Boubacar C., Adama C. and two brothers called Roushdane and Machikour K.
Pogba claims he had his mobile phone taken away and was told to pay the £11million in return for ‘protection fees’ going back 13 years – the length of his professional career – and also for a guarantee that the witch doctor evidence, contained on a USB stick, would not be released.
‘I was scared,’ said Pogba. ‘The two guys pointed their guns at me. Given I was being held like that at gunpoint, I told them I’d pay.
‘They shouted: ‘Shut up, look down’. One of them spoke in Roushdane’s ear. When the two hooded guys left, Roushdane told me I had to pay otherwise we were all in danger.
‘Roushdane said what had happened was usual when you are a famous footballer, but that I had to pay because he had vouched for me.’
Pogba began trying to raise the money, before being released at 4am, while being told that he would be watched.
After making an initial payment of €100,000 (£88,000), Pogba realised the blackmailers were stalking him around the training ground of his current club, Juventus, and so filed a complaint to the Italian authorities on July 16.
A man was stabbed to death after complaining when a fellow customer failed to say “thank you” when he held the door open for him.
The 37-year-old was stabbed outside a Brooklyn smoke shop in New York City.
The stabbing occurred around 10.20pm on Tuesday, September 20, after the victim, who has not been named, held the door open for a fellow customer walking into the 4th Ave Tobacco Road Corp in Gowanus.
The victim is said to have then asked the suspect why he did not say thank you and became angry.
An argument then erupted outside, as the victim punched the suspect who was trying to leave.
The victim was then stabbed in the neck and abdomen.
He fell back into the shop entrance bleeding heavily.
The victim was taken to Brooklyn Methodist Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Speaking to ABC7, shop employee Kharef Alsaidi said: “It was just about not saying ‘thank you’ for opening the door for him.”
He said the victim asked: “Why don’t you say, Thank you for opening the door?”
The employee said he had tried to deescalate the problem and get the suspect to put the knife away but it did not work.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s Manchester United return last summer helped see the club set a new record for the highest wage bill in Premier League history according to latest financial figures published by the club.
United on Thursday, September 22 posted their latest financial figures, which also showed the club’s net debt had increased.
Ronaldo is the highest-paid player at Manchester United with reported wages of around £500,000-a-week and following his arrival last season Manchester United have now soared way above other clubs in the EPL as their wage expenditure leapt up to £384.2m, a 19.1 per cent increase on their previous figures, following the big-money signings of Ronaldo, Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane.
United’s wage increased further under new manager Erik tag Hag, who has brought in five new players this summer, including £85.5m winger Antony, £70m midfielder Casimiro and £56.7m centre-back Lisandro Martinez, but a host of big earners including Paul Pogba, Nemanja Matic, Edison Cavani and Juan Mata also left Old Trafford in the same period.
United also announced a net loss of £115.5million for the 2021/22 season even though revenues rose by 18 per cent to £583m.
Figures released incorporating the final quarter of their financial year, which ended in June, showed losses rose by £23m on the previous year.
The club’s net debt also went up, from £419.5m in 2021 to £514.9m this year, an increase of more than 22 per cent.
Meanwhile, pay-offs to former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick and their associated coaching staff amounted to £24.7m.
Chief executive Richard Arnold, insisted the whole club is devoted to improving the team and getting back to the top.
“Our club’s core mission is to win football matches and entertain our fans,” Arnold said in a conference call with investors.
“Since our last earnings report, we have strengthened our men’s first-team squad, completed a successful summer tour, and established a foundation to build from in the early stages of the 2022/23 season under our new manager Erik ten Hag.
“We have also continued to develop our women’s team with an aim of reinforcing our position among the leading clubs in the Women’s Super League.
“While there is a lot more work to do, everyone at the club is aligned on a clear strategy to deliver sustained success on the pitch and a sustainable economic model off it, to the mutual benefit of fans, shareholders, and other stakeholders.
“Clearly our on-pitch performance in finishing sixth in the Premier League last season fell short of our aims and expectations.
“In response, we have made important and necessary changes, including new leadership for the men’s first team under Erik ten Hag and the strengthening of the playing squad during the summer transfer window.”
On the club’s overall debt, United’s chief financial officer Cliff Baty added: “Our financial results for fiscal 2022 reflect a recovery from the pandemic, a full return of fans and new commercial partnerships offset by increased investment in the playing squad.
“Our results have been adversely affected by the absence of a summer tour in July 2021, material exceptional and increased utility costs, and the impact of the weakening of sterling on our non-cash finance costs.”
A 21-year-old man identified simply as Chukwudi has killed his mother and father in Nnewi, Anambra state.
The suspect said to be an undergraduate of a university in Anambra, is the only son of the couple, Mr. and Mrs Micheal Ulor, from Nsukka, Enugu State.
The already decomposing corpses were found with machete cuts in their apartment at Mr. Moses Nnodu’s compound, Abubor Nnewichi-Nnewi, close to Orie Agbo Market on Thursday evening, September 22, 2022.
It was gathered that the suspect allegedly killed his parents after a heated argument over their refusal to give him money.
It’s suspected that Chukwudi killed his parents three days ago before he fled to an unknown destination.
The corpses were reportedly discovered by neighbours, who started perceiving offensive smell from their bedroom. It was also claimed that Chukwudi is a drug addict and known for taking Mkpurummiri (Methamphetamine)
Spokesperson of the State Police Command, DSP Ikenga Tochukwu, who confirmed the incident on Friday September 23, said it has launched a manhunt for the suspect.
“The commissioner of police, CP Echeng Echeng described the discovery of the already decomposing dead bodies in an apartment in Nnewi on 22/9/2022 at about 5:20 pm with machete cuts, as an act of man’s inhumanity to man.
“He has ordered an immediate manhunt of the suspect. He further directed the immediate transfer of the case to State Criminal Investigation Department for discreet investigation.”
Meanwhile, the decomposing bodies have been recovered and deposited in the morgue.
Matthias Pogba has published an open letter to his younger brother Paul on Twitter, detailing allegations of witchcraft and more regarding the Juventus midfielder.
Matthias is currently under detention for allegedly collaborating with childhood friends to extort Pogba of millions of pounds. Matthias has denied the allegations and accused Pogba of engaging in witchcraft.
He released a series of videos and tweets on his Twitter account, on Friday, September 23, Matthias, in what many believed to be the work of a bot in a carefully planned release of the videos long before his detention in prison over alleged extortion attempts against the French midfielder .
He reasserted claims Paul Pogba used a witch doctor against French teammate Kylian Mbappe claiming Paul met the witch doctor through Ivory coast defender Serge Aurier.
He further alleged that the witch doctor was paid a bi-monthly sum of €75,000 to €100,000 as he sought to isolate Pogba from his family.
“This individual, my brother, has become adept in witchcraft in recent years, becoming the follower of a wizard, known as Marabout Ibrahim, called Grande, a close friend of former player Alou Diarra, who would have known him thanks to player Serge Aurier. This is the wizard I was referring to as someone who worked to isolate my brother.” He said in one of the videos.
“As expected I am where you wanted me to be, Paul. When you got Adrien arrested by lying, I already knew that you wanted to get me arrested and that it would happen.”
“This was confirmed to me when Massiré and Doudou passed on your message to the others (childhood friends) so that they could tell me to come crawling to you to beg you not to crush me. You wanted to crush my honour and my spirit, do you really think I was going to accept it? Is honour not sacred?”
“And I really knew that you were ready to do anything to keep me quiet when they suggested to our childhood friends to forget the criminals who are after us, to spare themselves from your anger by abandoning me and blaming everything on me, by accusing me of being the only one responsible. So that you could tell everyone and especially your family that I’m the bad guy. Well done my brother, you must be happy with yourself even if you’ll hide it in front of others. But you can mislead others, but the family knows you who are and who I am.”
“So yes I started to speak out in the knowledge that you wanted to end it like that, in the knowledge that you would be able to mislead your world and that I would without a doubt end up where I am now. So it’s not a surprise. Even if I admit that I thought you were planning to take me out when you sent me that foreign-speaking group of people who watched and followed me, showing me that they could make me have an accident whenever they wanted, the day I went to see our mother down in the south.”
“In fact, the authorities might be able to identify these individuals on camera given that they followed me all the way to the airport. In any case, a so-called victim deploying their henchmen against people with no means to intimidate them is a weird story, I would say. Just like the fact that friends’ and family visits to the club [training ground] become so-called ambushes, just because you say so, even though it wasn’t the first time that friends, family, or even I came to see you. I had hope for you, now I know how things really are, it’s sad, my brother.”
“It’s just like your explanation of this story about being under protection for years, where everything became true based on your word alone. Well done. So either what you’re saying is true and you were very lucky for all these years, going under the radar despite your fame. Being able to walk around everywhere without bodyguards. Or you’re lying and you were protected during all these years by a mutual agreement.”
“Or maybe your protection was working for free all these years, and in the end was sick of it and asked you for payment. But what kind of thug works for free for years? So what’s the most logical explanation my brother, that, actually, you know these thugs, or the opposite? Oh yes, because you’re rich and famous, no one gives a toss about logic and truth. It’s like with your childhood friends, because you want to reduce them to silence so much, for all the wrong you’ve done to them, but you have nothing to justify your accusations, that you’re prepared to resort to the worst.”
“Now you claim, you and your supporters, that the few gifts that you gave to them for their birthdays, marriages and baptisms for years, since the start, in front of witnesses and our families, with a smile and while dancing, where actually just cases of extortion. You’ve stooped very low, my brother.”
“Not to mention Mam’s, who you exploited off the books like a slave for years, who you now want to pass off as a robber, to hide all the dirty tasks he reluctantly did for you. How much did you say he stole from you again? €200,000? With a bank card that had a limit of €2/3,000 per month which was meant for groceries and fuel? Having worked for you for 6 years? You didn’t do the maths before lying and you didn’t think about it either! Because you forget that he had permission on your bank accounts to take out €100/150,000 on your behalf every month for your witch doctor – wouldn’t it have been easier to help himself [to the money] at that point to disappear or send a big chunk to the Bahamas?”
“But yes, because Paul Pogba said it, it must be true.”
“My brother, why do you want to keep digging yourself a hole? In the neighbourhood you were saying he stole €100,000 from you, now it’s €200,000? This so-called case happened more than two years ago, now the date changed and was brought closer? Isn’t that strange? No – I’m an idiot – your level gives you the right to rewrite reality, so it’s as you say, even if things have changed and can still change.”
“Or still with me, as didn’t you say that you’d recognised me when you got held up, thinking I was one of the armed men, daring to think that I would point a gun at you – you have really disappointed me, my brother. Even though I was miles away from there with our sisters and friends that came round from the USA, with whom I stayed constantly during their stay of around ten days. Or will the story change again like with the witch doctor.”
“On that day, I didn’t even know that you were coming to the opening night, because we were on bad terms and hadn’t spoken in a while. So I also ask myself, how are you going to implicate me in this story? I hope you won’t have the audacity to claim that I was the only one to know where you were going or something like that, while you talk about your entire life to those close to you and your friends every day. I say that, but in the end it wouldn’t surprise me, coming from you.”
“But wait, if you had your hearing at the end of August, it means that if these two accusations are put forward, it means that you indeed set out a nice trap my brother – either I was there on the day you got held up, in which case I have a good alibi, [or] I would supposedly be the one who gave the information to the criminals (information which I couldn’t have had given that we were barely talking, something which the whole family including our brother can confirm). So I’m stuck in any case – well played.
“What’s more, you know very well that before June/July I wasn’t aware of your problems that you had involved everyone in. And now I’m being made out to be the mastermind!? I had to experience that to comprehend at what level of vice you had fallen to. Now I see clearly, to my detriment. Anyway, you nearly pulled it off Paul, because I have to be locked away somewhere right now, and our childhood friends must be in cells next door, but injustice and ingratitude in the long run and the Final day [judgement] is arriving.”
“Enjoy this temporary earthly success and kiss my nephews.”
A former Chinese justice minister was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on charges of taking bribes and helping criminals including his brother hide illegal activity.
67-year-old Fu who was once one of China’s most powerful police chiefs, pleaded guilty to abusing his powers in roles including minister and chief of police for the Chinese capital, Beijing, in 2005 – 2021 to hide crimes by his brother and others, China Central Television said on its website.
In return, Fu received money and property amounting to 117 million yuan ($16.5 million), the official China Daily newspaper reported in July. Thursday’s report and earlier news accounts gave no details of what Fu’s brother, Fu Weihua, was accused of doing.
With no possibility of parole, he was handed a suspended death sentence that will be commuted to life imprisonment after two years, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday September 22.
Fu Zhenghua, who was in charge of a high-profile corruption investigation into Zhou Yongkang, had also served as the head of the Beijing municipal public security bureau.
This follows the imprisonment of three former regional police chiefs for corruption on Wednesday, all accused of disloyalty to President Xi Jinping and being part of a “political clique” led by former public security vice-minister Sun Lijun.
An Ikeja Special Offences Court in Lagos has sentenced a Lagos-based prophet, Cletus Ilongwo, to seven years imprisonment for defrauding his church member of N59.7 million.
Recall that in 2018, The EFCC arrested and arraigned Ilongwo, the presiding pastor of the Power of the Holy Ghost Evangelical Ministry in Lagos, for defrauding a member of his church after the member had reported a case of fraud against him to the tune of N 85 million
According to the church member, Ilongwo’s action cost him his job in one of the first-generation banks in the country
Today, September 22, Ilongwo, was found guilty of seven counts charges bordering on fraud and stealing.
Delivering judgment, Justice Sherifat Solebo ordered the forfeiture of the convict’s property situated at No. 3 Popoola Ajayi St., Diamond Estate in Amuwo Odofin, to the complainant.
“His Toyota Prado is also to be forfeited to the Federal Government as restitution to settle the complainant,” Solebo said.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) submitted that the convict on January 29, 2016, defrauded a former member of his congregation, one Mr Obinna Ezenwaka.
EFCC counsel, Nwandu Ukoha, told the court that Ilongwo collected the sum in tranches through his bank.
Ukoha said that the convict received the amount from Ezenwaka on different occasions in 2016 on the pretext of helping him to purchase a property located at 165c Diamond Estate, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos.
The defence counsel, Mr Albert Imolodia, in his allocutus, informed the court that the convict was a first-time offender.
“He is a family man who has people that rely on him for their survival. We pray the court to temper justice with mercy,” Imolodia said.
The EFCC counsel, however, urged the court to give the convict the maximum sentence as required by law and a restitution order in line with the Advance Fee Fraud Act.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) presents Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with a book printed in Russia about Berlusconi's political life, during their meeting in the presidential residence Bocharov ruchei in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, April 2, 2002. Putin called Italy a privileged partner and noticed that its role in Europe is growing, Itar-Tass agency reported.
(Credit : REUTERS/ITAR-TASS/KREMLIN PRESS SERVICE)
Former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi has defended Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, saying the Russian leader was “pushed” into the conflict by his party and the Russian populace.
The 85-year-old who is close friends with Putin, 69, said Russian troops were meant to replace the government of Kyiv within a week with “decent people” and then leave.
Berlusconi, a three-time Italian PM, is a long-term ally of the Russian president and this weekend his party is expected to take power as part of a right-wing coalition in a general election in Italy.
According to Berlusconi, a narrative alleging the Ukrainian government was slaughtering Russian speakers in the east of the country was created by the media in Moscow
Speaking to Italian TV, Berlusconi said the reporting was pushed by separatist forces and nationalist politicians in the Russian government and left Putin with no choice but to launch a limited invasion.
“Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party and by his ministers to invent this special operation,” he said.
“The troops were supposed to enter, reach Kyiv in a week, replace the Zelensky government with decent people and a week later come back,” Mr Berlusconi added on Thursday, September 22.
“Instead they found an unexpected resistance, which was then fed by arms of all kinds from the West.”
Opposition leaders in Italy were quick to condemn Mr Berlusconi’s comments, with Centrist Party leader Carlo Calenda accusing him of speaking “like a Putin general”.
Enrico Letta of the centre-left Democratic Party said the intervention proved if Sunday’s election is “favourable to the right, the happiest person would be Putin”.
But on Friday, September 23, Berlusconi clarified his comments, saying his views had been “oversimplified” .
“The aggression against Ukraine is unjustifiable and unacceptable, [Forza Italia’s] position is clear. We will always be with the EU and Nato,” he said.
Berlusconi has long been an admirer of Mr Putin, in 2012 joining the then-prime minister for a skiing trip in the Russian city of Sochi.
Tyler Perry has revealed why he offered up his $18 million Beverly Hills home to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to use as their personal residence after they quit the monarchy and moved to the US.
Back in 2020, after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they were moving away from royal duties and relocating to California. The couple, along with their then-one-year-old son, Archie, spent a few months living in Tyler’s Beverly Hills mansion before they went on to purchase their own sprawling, $14.65 million estate in Montecito, California.
The American actor and producer, 53, has explained why he offered help to the couple, insisting that it was a ‘very difficult time for them’ and that he wanted to ‘support them’ in any way possible.
The filmmaker added that he was inspired by Harry and Meghan’s love, telling the Today show, ‘What I know about the two of them – and I wish the world knew – how much these two people love each other.
‘They found each other, out of all these odds against them finding each other, they found each other.
‘The love they have is really, really moving and I wanted to do anything I could to support them.’
He added of Meghan and Harry’s relationship: ‘If I don’t have that, what she and Harry have, I don’t want it. That’s really amazing.’
During a recent interview with The Cut, Meghan, 41, spoke out about her bond with Tyler, explaining that he got in touch with her after she first wed Harry, 38, in 2018.
She explained that he told her that he was praying for her, and that he ‘understood’ the intense pressure she was under.
According to Meghan, Tyler also told her that if ever needed advice, she could reach out to him – so she did.
‘Sometimes, you can tell your life story to a stranger on a plane as opposed to some of the people that are closest to you,’ she told The Cut.
The eight bedroom Tuscan-style villa, which Tyler purchased in 2004 for $4.3 million, sits on 22 acres of land and comes with 24,000-square-feet of living space.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky has asked world leaders to unite against Russia’s war in Ukraine and strip Moscow of its veto power on the UN Security Council.
In a prerecorded message to the United Nations on Wednesday September 21, Zelensky echoed assessments made by several world leaders on the same stage including US President Joe Biden.
“A crime has been committed against Ukraine, and we demand punishment,” Zelensky said, wearing his now-customary khaki cloth.
Russia’s invasion of a fellow member state had upturned the world order, he said.
“So long as the aggressor is party to decision making in the international organization, you must be insulated from them, at least until aggression stops,” he added.
“Reject the right to vote. Deprive delegation rights. Remove the right of veto – if it is a member of the UN Security Council.”
Zelensky described Putin as an increasingly lonely figure on the world stage.
‘Russia is afraid of negotiations’
“Ukraine wants peace, Europe wants peace, the world wants peace, and we have seen who is the only one who wants war. There is only one entity among all UN member states, who would say now, if he could interrupt my speech that he’s happy with this war,” Zelensky said.
His speech was met with a standing ovation from scattered delegates in the hall in New York.
In his speech, Zelensky slammed the idea of “neutrality” toward the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, warning that indifference itself is what creates the conditions for war.
“Those who speak of neutrality, when human values and peace are under attack, mean something else. They talk about indifference – everyone for themselves,” he said.
Zelensky also claimed that previous attempts to negotiate with the Kremlin had failed, saying that there were “88 rounds of talks in various formats” in an attempt to prevent Russia’s invasion before it began in February 24.
Zelensky repeated his previous calls for friendly countries to support Ukraine’s fight with military aid, and also described a “peace formula” of five conditions, including punishment for Russia, such as sanctions and diplomatic isolation; restoration of Ukraine’s territory; security guarantees; and “protection of life.”
“For us, this is a war for life. That is why we need defense support – weapons, military equipment and shells. Offensive weapons, a long-range one is enough to liberate our land, and defensive systems, above all, air defense. And we need financial support – to keep internal stability and fulfill social obligations to our people,” Zelensky said.
The last condition for peace, he added, would be “determination” – from Ukraine and from the world.
“This is our determination to fight. This is the determination of the partners to help us, and also themselves. And this is the determination of the world to unite around the one who fights against armed aggression and to call to order the one who threatens all,” he said.
He also predicted that Russia intended to use the winter to prepare its forces for a renewed assault on Ukraine.
Putin earlier on Wednesday announced the “partial mobilization” of 300,000 Russian citizens to support the invasion, and raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons.
Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, has convicted and sentenced a pastor, Ayodeji Ibrahim Oluokun, to two years in prison.
The assistant pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), City of David Parish, Victoria Island, was jailed on Tuesday, September 21, 2022.
Oluokun’s conviction came, consequent on his arraignment by the Lagos Zonal Command of the EFCC, alongside his company, Peak Petroleum Industry Nigeria Limited, on an amended six-count charge bordering on issuance of dud cheques, stealing and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of $1.6 million on January 19, 2019.
Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo, in her judgment, held that the prosecution had successfully proved the charge of issuance of a dud cheque against the defendants.
Taiwo, however, discharged and acquitted the defendants of stealing and obtaining money under false pretences.
“The defendant issued two cheques in the sum of 1.6 million dollars to the nominal complainant, which was dishonoured because there was no fund in the defendant’s account. Issuance of a cheque for lack of credit is a strictly liable offence,” said Taiwo.
“If the defendant was truly expecting some money till the end of July 2014 as claimed by him, he would have waited till he received the money before issuing the cheque on June 24, 2014,”
The judge said the first defendant knew all of these and still went ahead to issue the cheque dated June 24, 2014.
“It is hereby in the view of this court that the defendant was deliberate in issuing the dud cheque. He is hereby found guilty of counts one and two of issuance of dud cheque.
“The defendants, however, are discharged and acquitted of stealing and obtaining money under false pretences as the prosecution failed to establish the facts against them,” she said.
The judge thereafter sentenced the first defendant to two years in prison or payment of a fine of N2 million, and the second defendant to a fine of N2 million.
She ordered the convict to make restitution of 1.6 million dollars to the nominal complainant within 18 months.
The defence counsel, Mr Edoka Onyeke, in his allocutus, prayed the court to grant the convict a non-custodial sentence, adding that he was a pastor and could use his pastoral work as service to humanity, through community service.
“My lord, apart from the defendant being a first offender, if he is incarcerated, he will not be able to carry out the necessary things on behalf of the second defendant so as to make the restitution easy.
“The first defendant is a pastor of a church. This is a very good opportunity for him to engage in community service instead of a custodian sentence so as to preach the word of God. On a final note, the defendant has promised to involve the nominal complainant in order to make the restitution,” Onyeke said.
Counsel to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Samuel Daji, however, urged the court to convict the defendants as charged.
He argued that the convict and the nominal complainant had not been on talking terms, thereby making the terms of restitution difficult to meet.
He also prayed the court to order the defendant to forfeit his property in order to pay up the debt.
“My lord, from the evidence before this court, the defendant is not committed. It has been nine good years my lord. A dollar was N150 at the time the loan was granted to the defendant. The defendant does not even greet the nominal complainant unless it is of utmost necessity.
“There is an evidence that the defendants never want to settle this case. The defence counsel said he is a pastor. My lord, the more reason he should be given a custodial sentence in order to serve as a deterrent to others.
“The court has stated mandatory sentence. We shall be asking for restitution. I shall be urging the court to order the defendant to forfeit his property so as to use it to pay his debt,” Daji said.
The EFCC counsel had submitted that the defendant issued a Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Ltd. cheque of 1.6 million dollars payable to GOSL Nigeria Ltd.
He said when presented for payment, the cheque was dishonoured on the ground that there were no sufficient funds standing to the credit of the account on which the cheque was drawn.
The offences contravened Sections 1(1) (b) of the Dishonoured Cheques (Offences) Act, Cap D 11 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, and Section 285 (1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State and section 1(3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences.
Paris Saint-Germain Women’s star, Kheira Hamraoui has admitted she is ‘scared’ after former team-mate Aminata Diallo was released under judicial supervision.
Diallo was charged with aggravated assault last Friday after being taken into police custody in connection with an attack on her team-mate Hamraoui by two masked strangers last year.
After a team meal on November 4, Hamraoui was travelling home as a passenger in a car driven by Diallo, before she was dragged from the car and beaten on the legs with an iron bar.
Diallo was released on Wednesday September 21, has been forced to hand over her passport to limit the risk of flight.
The judicial review prohibits Diallo from contacting Hamraoui and the rest of the PSG team, suspects involved in the case, and witnesses, while a deposit of €30,000 (£26,000) was also required.
Hamraoui on Wednesday disclosed that she was happy to be back with her PSG teammates as she attended their 2-1 Champions League victory over Swedish side BK Hacken.
A few hours after Diallo’s release, she told RMC Sport: ‘I trust justice, but tonight I’m scared.’
She also posted a photo along with a caption that read: ‘Happy to be back at PSG. It was the first step. The second will take me to the championship. Find the team and the public that I love. That’s my only ambition, my only alternative.’
Nollywood actress, Chioma Chukwuka, has hinted at divorce from her husband, Franklin Akpotha, in recent series of social media posts.
Tori Media reports that the actress who is married for over fifteen years has been very private with her union and rarely shares their photos online like her colleagues.
However, a check on her Instagram page revealed that Chioma’s series of posts also come with an emphasis on her maiden name, ‘Chioma Chukwuka’.
But her Instagram handle still bears ‘Chioma Akpotha’ and this may be difficult for her to change else she would lose her verification.
The Nollywood sweetheart also got some of her fans talking after sharing a Tiktok video saying she is single.
The latest development has sparked reactions from many Nigerians who have wondered what went wrong with her marriage considering she has always been private with her family and marriage.
Suspected internet fraudsters hacked into the server of an old generation bank and stole a whopping sum of N523,337,100,00 from a customer’s account.
The Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the Police Special Fraud Unit (PSFU) Ikoyi, Lagos, SP Eyitayo Johnson, disclosed this in a statement on Wednesday, September 21, 2022.
The PPRO said the hackers stole the huge sum using 18 different customers accounts and dissipated same via Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Cash, ATM/POS,Withdrawals and e-transfers.
The PPRO said police have arrested two suspects while operatives are following other leads in order to apprehend the remaining members of the syndicate.
“Hackers hit an Old-Generation Bank, Transferred Five Hundred and Twenty-Three Million, Three Hundred and Thirty-Seven Thousand and One Hundred Naira (N523,337,100.00) to eighteen (18) different customers’ Accounts and dissipated same via Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Cash/ATM/POS/Withdrawals and e-transfers,” the statement read.
“The Legal Section of the Police Special Fraud Unit (PSFU), Ikoyi-Lagos; headed by CSP. E.A. Jackson, Esq; has successfully obtained an order of the Federal High Court siting in Lagos for the Preservation/Forfeiture/Attachment of a net sum of Five Hundred and Twenty-Three Million, Three Hundred and Thirty-Seven Thousand and One Hundred Naira (N523,337,100.00) fraudulently transferred by internet fraudsters who hacked a customer’s account domiciled in one of the Old-Generation banks and posted the funds into eighteen (18) different accounts in the same Bank before transmitting same to Two Hundred and Twenty-Five (225) other accounts in Twenty-Two (22) Banks/Financial Institutions.
“The coordinated cyber-attack was carried out during the weekend of Saturday 23rd April, 2022, through Sunday 24th April, 2022 to the early hours of Monday 25th April, 2022 before business opened.
“In the course of the investigation, the sum of One Hundred and Sixty Million, Two Hundred and Eight-Seven Thousand, Seventy-One Naira and Forty-Seven Kobo (N160,287,071.47) has been recovered from different Banks; with two suspects arrested, while operatives are following other leads in order to apprehend the remaining members of the syndicate.
“The suspects will be charged to Court as soon as investigations are concluded.”
Russian police have arrested hundreds of people protesting against President Vladimir Putin’s decision to call up 300,000 troops to fight in Ukraine.
Putin ordered a partial mobilisation on Wednesday September 21, meaning 300,000 military reservists but not conscripts will be drafted to bolster Russia’s forces who have suffered recent battlefield reverses in Ukraine.
The move came a day after occupied areas of Ukraine announced snap referendums on joining Russia.
But on Wednesday, September 21, Russian human rights group OVD-Info said a total of more than 1,000 People had gathered to protest in different cities of Russa including St Petersburg, Moscow, Irkutsk, Kaliningrad and Yekaterinburg.
Also, flights out of Russia sold out fast after Vladimir Putin’s announcement. Flights to popular destinations such as Istanbul in Turkey and Yerevan in Armenia were snapped up, and prices for remaining seats skyrocketed.
The price for flights from Moscow to Istanbul or Dubai reached as high as 9,200 euros ($9,119) for a one-way economy class fare following Mr Putin’s announcement, according to reports by the Associated Press.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office on Wednesday warned that calls on the internet to join unauthorised street protests, or participation in them, could incur up to 15 years in jail.
They could be prosecuted under laws against discrediting the armed forces, spreading “fake news” about Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, or encouraging minors to protest.
Despite the warning, the anti-war opposition group Vesna called for widespread protests, resulting in many arrests across Russia. Several video clips show police disrupting protests and arresting protesters.
Vesna called its action “no to mogilisation” – a wordplay, because “mogila” in Russian means grave.
The Kremlin’s mobilisation move follows heavy losses in Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces have recaptured a huge area east of Kharkiv.
The Taliban have announced that they will ban TikTok because it promotes violence.
Taliban’s ministry of telecommunication said the popular app as well as PUBG, an online game will be banned in the country within weeks.
‘TikTok has been spreading immoral and non Islamic content and videos in an Islamic country among the very vulnerable youths of Afghanistan, and we have to block it for the sake of our youths’ future,’ a Taliban official told MailOnline.
‘They are just devastating our young people by advertising western life style. We are living in an Islamic country and these platforms have been spreading contents against it,’ he said.
‘Facebook is also spreading same kind of content. Our youths are wasting lost of time on that. It’s our duty to take care of young people,’ the official said.
Internet providers were informed that they have the next 30 days as ‘the deadline’ to ban TikTok, the ministry of telecommunication said in a statement.
People will be blocked from being able to use the popular apps in the country.
The new rulers of Afghanistan announced the decision in a meeting with the representatives of security sectors and a representative from the Sharia law enforcement administration.
It comes after recent bans on music, movies and television soap operas which saw the Taliban destroying musical instruments.
Ten prisoners of war from countries including the United States and Britain have been released and transferred to Saudi Arabia as part of an exchange between Russia and Ukraine, the Gulf kingdom of Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday, September 21.
The release came following mediation by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, “in continuation of [his] commitment to the humanitarian initiatives towards the Russian-Ukrainian crisis”, the Saudi foreign ministry said.
The prisoners of war includes five British nationals, two Americans, a Croatian, a Moroccan and a Swedish national, the ministry said in a statement, adding that a plane carrying the prisoners landed in the kingdom.
The Saudi statement said they had arrived from Russia and that Saudi authorities were “facilitating procedures for their safe return to their respective countries”.
However, British lawmaker Robert Jenrick said Aiden Aslin was among those released. Aslin was captured earlier this year then sentenced to death by a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), one of Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine.
Russia also released US citizens Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Huynh, 27, according to Reuters .
The pair, both from Alabama, were captured in June while fighting in eastern Ukraine where they went to support Ukrainian troops resisting Russia’s invasion.
Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have captured hundreds of enemy fighters since the start of the conflict, with a handful of prisoner exchanges having taken place.
Former Speaker of House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara has said that the adoption Muslim-Muslim ticket by the All Progressives Congress for the 2023 presential election is a fruitless political effort that has been doomed to end in spectacular failure.
He also took to cleaners the insistence by the presidential candidate of APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu on presenting Muslim-Muslim presidential candidates, despite a national outcry.
Dogara expressed his views in Abuja while delivering his keynote address at a summit tagged, ‘Meet The Church,’ organised by the Nigeria National Christian Coalition with the theme: ‘The role of the church in nation-building’.
He said, “In their convoluted posturing, they have placed state-building ahead of nation-building; a task never before achieved in history and we need no seer to tell us that such endeavor is guaranteed to end in spectacular failure. No divided people have ever built any civilization
“I am so elated that today’s church in Nigeria has shaken off the beast of the complacency of the past into fire by speaking up and resisting measures adopted by some political platforms that will hamper nation building.
“In a manner that negated the fundamentals of nation building, such as shared identity, values and visions, the APC adopted a same faith ticket in a country that has never attained nationhood.”
According to him, long before the adoption of the same faith ticket, the church had warned against it through the Christian Association of Nigeria, Catholic Secretariat, ECWA and so many other Christian organisations.
Dogara said, “These warnings were not only ignored but dismissed in one fell swoop by the APC presidential candidate who strangely believes that he can build a strong, secure and viable nation-state without first forging a shared identity, vision and values for our people thereby enabling us transit from citizens of a country into a nation of people with strong shared identity and values.
“To demonstrate that the church is right, it is not alone in condemning the same faith ticket. Other prominent Islamic clerics and Muslim leaders have also spoken in the same light.
“It is a good omen that both Christian and Muslim elites are not complacent over this matter. To this end, it will be easy to generate the needed elite consensus that is key to nation-building. All nations are built by elite consensus while all countries that failed in nation-building were destroyed by elite complacency.”
Emerging report has revealed that Google mistakenly paid a man almost $250,000 without any detailed work for the company.
The man identified as Sam Curry, a staff member of a cryptocurrency company, Yuga Labs, described the payment as baffling on his verified Twitter handle, @samwyco on Tuesday.
Sam tweeted, “It’s been a little over 3 weeks since Google randomly sent me $249,999 and I still haven’t heard anything on the support ticket,” wrote Curry.
It’s been a little over 3 weeks since Google randomly sent me $249,999 and I still haven’t heard anything on the support ticket. Is there any way we could get in touch @Google?
(it’s OK if you don’t want it back…)
“Is there any way we could get in touch @Google?”
“It’s OK if you don’t want it back,” he added.
Meanwhile, Google said it is working to get the money back.
“Our team recently made a payment to the wrong party as the result of human error,” wrote a Google spokesperson in an email to CNN.
“We appreciate that it was quickly communicated to us by the impacted partner, and we are working to correct it.”
A 47-year-old Chinese national in Kano State, identified as Geng Quangrong, has disclosed why he stabbed his girlfriend, Ummu Kulthum, to death in Kabuga Quarters, Dorayi Babba area of the State.
Naija News reports that the suspect, who was arrested after he attacked and killed his 23-year-old girlfriend in her home on Friday night, 16th September, said he did it because he was betrayed.
According to the state Police Public Relations Officer, Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, the suspect invaded the deceased home after scaling the fence to gain access and repeatedly stabbed her until she passed away.
Geng alleged that Ummu had promised to marry him, but later reneged on the promise after he had spent so much money on her.
The suspect further claimed he was angered by Ummmu’s deception, and he decided to attack and kill her at her residence.
Deng has since been transferred to the State Police headquarters at Bompai for further investigation and prosecution while Ummu was buried on Saturday morning, 17th September.
He Once Attempted Suicide
A neighbour to Ummu, Abubakar Mustapha who spoke with Daily Trust revealed that she was a divorcee and the suspect was her boyfriend.
Mustapha said, “The incident happen around 10:00 pm last night. The murderer was her boyfriend since before she got married. Her husband divorced her and they went on with their friendship as boyfriend and girlfriend. He often went to her house. She was taken to UMC Zhair Hospital not more than a kilometre away from her house and she died.
“Khaleed, her brother stopped the mob from attacking the murderer when he came back for his car when he entered the house because he (Khaleed) thought that will be lead to a different thing. The man was then caught and handed over to the police.”
Another neighbour, Muhammad Sani, noted that the Chinese man once attempted suicide because of his girlfriend, adding that the matter was settled with the intervention of the police.
Sani said, “When she was about to get married, he once attempted suicide because of his love for her until the police intervened and everything was settled.”
Some Nigerians have expressed displeasure over the action of the newly crowned King of England, King Charles III, towards a black man during his mother’s burial.
Tori Media reports that in the video which has gone viral, King Charles was seen avoiding giving a handshake to a black man who was among the crowd at Queen Elizabeth II’s Funeral on Monday, 19th September.
The act sparked outrage on social media with many people questioning what the black man was doing at the event.
While some claimed it was not a deliberate gesture from the King, others opined that the new King might be a staunch ‘Racist’.
crd_liveth wrote: “Not a mistake. He did it deliberately. Even when the man was still trying to hold onto his hand, u can see he waved him reluctantly. More like he’s not comfortable with him. So sad”
A Nigerian national identified as Akne Benjamin and his female accomplice have been arrested in India for allegedly duping people after befriending them on social media.
32-year-old Benjamin and Fatima Lyngdoh (42), a resident of Khasi Hill district of Meghalaya, were arrested from Delhi by Rajasthan police on Monday, September 19, 2022.
The Superintendent of Police, Sirohi, Mamta Gupta, in a statement said a complaint was received at Abu Road Sadar police station on April 24 in which a woman alleged that she became friends on Facebook with a woman who told her that she was from New Zealand.
During interrogation, Lyngdoh confessed to duping people in different states of crores of rupees, police said.
The senior police officer said both accused used to create fake profiles of foreign nationals on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook among others.
After befriending their targets, the accused told them that they had sent some expensive gifts.
Thereafter, another member asked the victim to pay an amount failing which the target was threatened that probe agencies will launch an investigation about the gift, police added.
General Superintendent of Deeper Life Bible Church, Pastor Williams Kumuyi has cautioned ushers in his church to stop imposing head covering rules on ladies, stressing that persistent coverings causes heat in the hair and it will emit odour.
The revered pastor lamented that many Christians who don’t know how to interpret the word of God are driving people away from the church.
Kumuyi made the remarks in a sermon shared on the Facebook wall of the Ekiti State Deeper Life Church monitored by Church Times
His words, “Somebody is coming to our church for the first time. And she happens to be a lady not covering her head. We ask the person to cover her head before coming in. We don’t know whether the person does not even know God. We confront her out there before she even enters the church. We don’t know if she does not know how to pray or prophesy. But we impose rules on her.
“If I were the person, I would wonder what kind of church is this? If they treat me like a primary school girl, that will be my last time coming to the church.”
Citing 1Cor 11v5 of the Holy Bible, which dwells on the covering of the head for the female gender, Kumuyi explained that women should have their heads covered while praying or prophesying.
He also wondered why some sisters in the church would cover their heads for almost 20 hours a day; stating that many have made themselves unattractive by their appearance.
Kumuyi said, “There are some women who are not attractive to their husbands. Some believe since they are married they are no longer obligated to look good before their husband. There are single sisters that are not presentable. ”
Kumuyi noted that because of persistent covering there will be “heat in the hair and it will emit odour,”
Women who practice such according to him, “put themselves in bondage because they never read the word.”
He said many of the sisters who insist on the covering of hair might not even be praying in the church. They just believe since they are covering their head, they are okay.
“If I don’t tell you maybe nobody will tell you. There are some wives who dress shabbily and are no longer attractive to the man. There are some single sisters that are not presentable. Anybody who is looking for the will of God may not be attracted to them.
The Bible says every woman that pray or prophesies. The reason why you are covering is either you are praying or prophesying.”
Award winning actress, Halima Abubakar has opened up over the alleged romantic relationship with the General Overseer of Omega Power Ministties Auchi, Apsotle Johnson Suleman.
She spoke in a series of posts shared on her official Instagram handle on Sunday.
The 37-year-old actress openly admitted that she had an affair with the preacher because he told her he was divorced with three children.
“I fck up yes. I own my mistakes. But I won’t lie anymore. Ngg* said he was separated. I didn’t meet a married man. I met a bizman with three kids. Long story, stay away from liars.”
She also accused the cleric of feeding bloggers with negative stories about her.
She said: “Every month only you. You paid off the blogs, only you, God forbid. Look for lies and send it to your bloggers. They need am. But you you you JS. You bought market Sule. Emperor Sule. Allow me rest biko.”
Abubakar and other popular female celebrities have been accused to have amorous relationship with the flamboyant gospel preacher.
Though, Suleman has consistently denied the allegations, dismissing them as handiworks of his detractors.
Last week, Peter Obi – former governor of Anambra State and presidential candidate – finally made his much-anticipated appearance on CNN. It was, all things considered, an impressive outing.
By this I mean not just that Obi held his own – which he did – but, even more critically, that the program clarified for me something that, hitherto, had been somewhat mysterious.
Why has Obi’s campaign been so far so undeniably electrifying? What accounts for his palpable momentum? How do we explain the seeming ease with which he has galvanized young Nigerians across religious and ethnic lines?
The author, Professor Okey Ndibe
Put differently, what’s the defining source and element of the Obi Mystique?
I had flirted with an intuitive answer. Obi’s CNN interview confirmed it. Interestingly, that confirmation came less from Obi than from a young Nigerian woman named Weyimi Lube.
Lube is a member of a youth group that’s fishing voters for Obi. A CNN correspondent interviewed her prior to Obi’s appearance. “The Obidient movement is pretty simple,” Lube said in a self-assured manner.
Peter Gregory Onwubuasi Obi, a former governor of Anambra, is running in Nigeria’s presidential race as the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate. He discusses his objectives for the country with CNN’s Zain Asher [Source: CNN]
“We’re just a group of frustrated Nigerians who want good governance. It’s as simple as that. And we’re running for the presidency. Each and every one of us in the Obidient movement is running for the presidency through Peter Obi.”Then, more to the point, she explained the relationship between the #EndSARS movement and the groundswell for Obi. “EndSARS was the catalyst that started all of this,” she told the correspondent.
Let’s do a quick recap for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with that explosive episode in Nigeria’s recent political history.
In October of 2020, Nigerians – most of them youngsters – fanned out in the country’s major cities to demand an end to police brutality. Their initial goal was to force the government to disband a notorious police unit styled the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
SARS was formed in 1992 to counter festering violent crimes. In short order, its agents transformed into monstrous torturers, often of innocent people.
For decades, hapless Nigerians writhed under the brutal heels of lawless SARS officers. Far from operating as law enforcement agents, many SARS officers evolved into lawless louts. They created a grotesque cottage industry, reputed for battering their civilian victims and – on occasion – carrying out extra-judicial executions.
EndSARS protesters gather at Lagos’ Lekki toll gate during a demonstration against police brutality on Oct. 15, 2020. Pierre Favennec—AFP/Getty Images
It was this man-sized virus that outraged Nigerian youth rallied to erase in 2020. For me, the protests represented a particularly heartening moment. It had been, in my estimation, close to three decades since Nigerians witnessed a focused youth-led mass action.
In a country where such protests often quickly fizzle out, #EndSARS seemed intent on going for the long haul.
President Muhammadu Buhari was clearly rattled, as were other occupants of elective offices. Buhari consented to institute reforms. Buoyed by the power and effectiveness of their movement, the protesters sought to wring broader concessions out of the government.
Their ambition and boldness collided with the ruling elite’s duplicity and desperation. In a sign that Buhari’s reformist rhetoric was hollow, he had hardly finished delivering his sweet pledge when soldiers blockaded protesters in Lagos and unleashed deadly force. Many lives were snuffed out, many more maimed.
Nigerian soldiers shooting at peaceful EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate
Ever since that devastating denouement, I had wondered how the distraught youth would respond, in the short and long terms. Would they fold up, utterly crushed by defeat? Would they reconcile themselves to the idea that their station was that of serfs, seen but hardly heard? Would they accept the implicit bargain that Nigerian politics was the exclusive reserve of geriatrics, with the young providing – at best – the recruiting pool for thugs, praise singers and lowly apprentices?
It appears that a growing number of Nigerian youth have not forgotten the injustice done them and their fellows during EndSARS. They seem set to exact revenge, determined to use their country’s 2023 elections to make a point. And that point may well be that Buhari’s hounds, far from draining the fighting spirit out of Nigeria’s youth, instead fueled the youth’s stamina. What didn’t altogether extinguish them in 2020 seems to have fanned them into fiercer force.
Ms. Lube buttressed that point to CNN. “We harnessed that [EndSARS] pain, that energy, and said we’re not just going to let this die. It’s not really about Peter Obi. Definitely, Peter Obi is the quote, unquote poster child for good governance. But it’s about us Nigerians. When do we start to speak up for ourselves?”
Hers was an entirely eloquent and illuming summation of the Obi factor in 2023. In and through Obi, Nigeria’s youth – a much maligned, marginalized, brutalized and underestimated demographic – seem bent on seizing the center of their country’s politics, infusing their nation’s space with that measure of competence, vision and imagination that’s eluded Nigeria.
Should Obi win – and nobody who has encountered the grit, energy and passion of his foot soldiers can discount the prospect – it would be a victory powered by the resurgent, smoldering fire from the days of EndSARS. His victory, if it comes, would be less a personal triumph than a vindication of the youth’s collective effort.
EndSARS protesters at lekki toll gate | David Elppa Aerial Photography
That being the case, he cannot but incorporate his (mostly) youthful sponsors’ dreams in his policies and statecraft. His administration must be shaped by that noble idea of Nigeria which the country’s youth incubate.
That, for me, was the key takeaway from CNN’s spotlight on Obi.
The article “Is Peter Obi EndSARS Phase 2?” by Okey Ndibe was first published on Offsidemusings.
More details have emerged on the lawyer who died in an accident while chasing her husband and an alleged side chic in Calabar on Sunday, September 18.
The deceased, Claret Opara Bassey, and Mr. Sunday Bassey have been married for over 10 years, with three kids.
According to the Nation, on Sunday, September 18, she reportedly got a call from one of her friends that her husband was sighted in a shopping mall with the alleged side chic.
She was said to have immediately driven to the mall in one of their cars.
Getting there, she saw her husband about to leave the premises of the shopping mall and inside his car was the alleged side chic identified as Laticia.
Upon sighting the wife, he hurriedly drove off with Laticia in the front seat.
Mrs Bassey went after her husband’s car and the more he accelerated, the more the wife tried to catch up with the car until they got to the highway.
The husband was said to have decided to veer off from the highway to adjoining streets of the State Housing estate, forcing the wife to make a U-turn.
She then lost control of the car and rammed into a tree, leaving her seriously injured and the car badly damaged.
She died here.. as she chased her husband
Eyewitnesses said immediately he saw from the back mirror that the wife was involved in an accident, the husband made a u-turn.
The alleged side chick dropped off and fled the scene while the husband rallied to rescue his wife, the publication reports.
The tearful husband was said to have apologised to his wife who was in the pool of her blood.
“He was apologetic before the dying wife and pleaded that she should not die. He rushed the wife to Navy hospital in Calabar where she was reportedly confirmed dead,” an eyewitness told The Nation.
Friends of the couple said they started dating during their university days
One of the deceased’s friend named Queenofhearts Oyoyo wrote on the deceased’s Facebook page: “My friend is gone, Barr. Claret Bassey; you were intimidated, subdued and abused until you gave up. I told you to focus on yourself and your kids. What happened that you didn’t call any of your bone friends as usual? I am broken to pieces.”
Apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has warned the Federal Government against allowing the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, to die in custody of the Directorate of State Services (DSS).
This comes after his brother Emmanuel Kanu and attorney Ifeanyi Ejiofor had raised the alarm on Kanu’s health condition following a routine visit at the Department of State Service cell. They said the Biafra leader is critically ill and has not been allowed access to his doctors by the DSS.
Ejiofor said Kanu “is currently suffering from gastrointestinal illness, which necessitates the constant use of antacids and other available medical treatments.”
“The DSS has refused to allow him to have even the smallest amount of prescribed painkiller, which could have given him short-term respite.”
Reacting in a statement titled, “Nnamdi Kanu Must Not Die in Prison,” Ohanaeze described the report as worrisome to any fair-minded patriotic Nigerian.
Signed by the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, the pan-Igbo body warned the Federal Government that nothing untoward should happen to Kanu in detention.
According to the statement, the group’s President General, Ambassador George Obiozor, has on several occasions advised President Buhari on Kanu’s issue beyond the courts or the use of force, stating that it requires a political solution.
The statement read, “The Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, and several eminent Igbo have repeatedly appealed to the heart of Mr President to release Nnamdi Kanu on the premise of a political solution. The only living legend among those that fought for Nigeria’s independence and the Minister of Aviation in the First Republic, Chief Mbazulike Amechi, presented the request to Buhari when he visited Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, as his last wish.
“Earlier before that, Mbazulike had also met the President in Aso Rock, Abuja for the same reason. In the interim, common sense will ask – why deny Nnamdi Kanu the necessary access to a medical doctor? This is very curious and raises a lot of questions.
“Finally, it is common knowledge that the incarceration of Nnamdi Kanu has rather contributed to the enormity of insecurity in the South-East and one wonders what will happen if, by the utter carelessness, negligence or unnecessary victimisation, something untoward happens to Nnamdi Kanu.”
Four occupied areas of Ukraine under Russia’s control have announced plans for urgent referendums to join Russia, paving the way for Russian annexation.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has stalled in recent months with Ukraine recapturing swathes of territory in the north-eastern part of the country propelled by arms sent from the West.
Now Russian-backed officials of the four regions in Ukraine controlled by Russian forces say they want to organize votes on joining Russia this week.
For months, Russian-installed authorities have tried to hold self-styled referendums which have been made harder by Ukraine’s counter-offensives.
While most of Luhansk has been in Russian hands since July, on Monday the Ukrainian leader in Luhansk announced that the army had recaptured the village of Bilohorivka.
Donetsk and Zaporizhia are still under the control of Russia
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, after a referendum that drew international condemnation and was never accepted by the UN, West or Ukraine.
There is speculation that Russia may announce a mass mobilisation, to beef up its forces in Ukraine. The Russian parliament has approved tougher punishments for crimes such as desertion, damage to military property and insubordination during mobilisation or combat operations.
The deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said early on Tuesday that holding votes in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk – also known as Donbas – would correct “historical justice” and be irreversible: “After the amendments to the constitution of our state, no future leader of Russia, no official, will be able to reverse these decisions.”
Annexing more Ukrainian territory would enable the Kremlin and Russian president, Vladimir Putin to claim Russia itself was coming under attack from Nato and then use more serious measures such as chemical weapons or even nuclear weapons to defend the ‘Russian territory’
The Ukranian government has reacted to the planned referendum, calling it a sham.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday that “sham ‘referendums’ will not change anything”.
Ukrainian defence ministry adviser Oleksiy Kopytko suggested the vote plan was a “sign of hysteria” in Moscow. President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday night “the occupiers are clearly in a panic”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the votes were a “sham”, while France’s Emmanuel Macron condemned the idea as “cynical” and a “parody” that would obviously not be recognised by the international community. Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said they had no legitimacy and were “a further escalation in Putin’s war”.
Any attempt to further annex sovereign Ukrainian territory is bound to anger the Ukranian government and destroy any hope of negotiations.
The Peoples Democratic Party’s crisis has taken another twist as loyalists of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State have pulled out of the campaign council of Atiku Abubakar.
Speaking after a long meeting which started at about 7pm last night and ended by past 2am this morning at the private residence of Wike in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, Wike’s loyalists vowed not to partake in Atiku’s campaign activities until chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu resigns.
Channels Television reported that those present at this defining gathering at Wike’s residence in Port Harcourt include Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State; former Governors Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo, Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, Donald Duke of Cross River, Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe and Jonah Jang of Plateau, former Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke.
Others at the meeting are elder statesmen, Olabode George, Jerry Gana; South-South Chairman of the PDP, Dan Orbih; former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chibudom Nwuche; Senator Suleiman Nazif, Nnenna Ukeje, among several others.
Lagos PDP Chieftain, Chief Olabode George reportedly read the communique of the group.
The Chairman of Okene Local Government Area of Kogi State, Engr. Abdulrazaq Muhammad has ordered security agencies to carry out full investigation into the activities of a self-proclaimed man of God, Peter Michonza.
The presiding pastor of “New Jerusalem church” located within Ageva axis of Okene went viral on social media over allegations of running labour wards for pregnant women in his church and selling “bulletproof” water to the people, amongst other medically unacceptable practices which have reportedly led to the death of many.
Michonza and members of his church also held a protest rally in Okene, calling for the release of International Musician, Rkelly who was recently jailed over child pornography and rape allegations.
A press statement issued by Abdulmumin Abubakar, the Special Adviser to the Chairman on Media & Publicity, said the directive for investigation became necessary “after some of his alleged ungodly activities were published on social media by concerned members of the public.”
“The council chairman appreciates people for blowing the whistle and exposing the alleged atrocities of Mr Peter in the name of church activities, noting that details of the investigation will be made public in due course.” the statement added.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that it would conduct a supplementary Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for 67 candidates on Saturday, September 24,2022.
JAMB’s Head, Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr Fabian Benjamin said the supplementary exam was fixed for the candidates after reviewing the entire exercise.
The statement released on Monday September 19, read;
“The examination is for 67 candidates who had registered for the 2022 UTME, but who could neither sit the examination nor take the just-concluded Mop-Up UTME owing to one challenge or another, to take their examination at specially-designated centres.
“It would be recalled that after the 2022 UTME, the Board had reviewed the entire exercise and those candidates with biometric challenges were given the opportunity of sitting a mop-up examination.
“The Board also announced that since the conduct of a mop-up examination is a stopgap measure, it would not be allowed to be a permanent feature of its calendar. Therefore, any candidate presenting any strange challenge(s) would have to indicate or declare such peculiarities at the point of registration for them to be given special consideration and allocated to centres within its National Headquarters, Abuja, for close monitoring as the Board had phased out the conduct of mop-up examinations.
“However, in spite of the discovery of series of suspicious challenges presented by some candidates, the Board has, on account of its avowed commitment to equity and fairness, scheduled another set of 67 candidates to sit the examination at designated centres, under close scrutiny of the Board.
”This decision to give these set of candidates this unusual opportunity is to ensure that no single innocent candidate is punished unjustly.
“These 67 candidates are, therefore, urged to print their supplementary examination notification slips from Monday, 19th September, 2022, to know the centres where they would be sitting the examination.”
Kylian Mbappe has reportedly refused to take part in the France national team’s photoshoot as his long-running dispute with the French Football Federation (FFF) over image rights continues.
Mbappe led a boycott among the French team of certain sponsors back in March as he did not want to be associated with particular brands.
On Monday, September 19, he opted out of a scheduled photoshoot with the squad as he remains uncomfortable promoting certain sponsors including betting companies and fast food brands, as reported by Get French Football News.
The FFF struck an €8m (£7m) deal with online sports betting company Betclic last year, with that contract running through until the 2026 World Cup.
The federation also have ties with KFC, Uber Eats and Coca-Cola, which may be a concern for Mbappe.
All of the money that Mbappe earns from France sponsorships goes to charity, but the forward is believed to have stepped away from the photoshoot due to the moral and ethical issues that arise in representing certain sponsors.
According to Mail Online, Mbappe’s grievances are understandable given his previous issues with betting companies in the past.
French betting company Winamax were widely condemned for a tweet that they sent out earlier this year of a football fan celebrating a goal by showing his bum to the crowd. Alongside the picture, their caption read: ‘Kylian Mbappe’s father celebrating his son’s goal against South Africa.’
Mbappe was far from impressed with their ill-judged tweet and responded by writing: ‘The danger of online betting… no longer having a limit. A little respect please.’
It is understood that Mbappe still wants to renegotiate the agreement over image rights with the FFF for national team players.
Investigations have revealed that under the President Muhammadu Buhari government, a 32-page passport costs N10,750 to process at the northern parts of Nigeria, while the same passport costs N25,000 to process at the southern hemisphere.
See a few samples from four states, two from each half apiece involving Adamawa, Sokoto, Imo and Ogun States respectively below:
The Queen’s casket has been lowered into the Royal Vault in St George’s Chapel, where it will lie with her beloved husband Prince Philip after her crown, orb and sceptre were removed from her coffin so she could descend into her grave ‘as a simple Christian soul’.
Her Majesty returned home to Windsor to be reunited for eternity with her husband, father, mother, and sister in the crypt at St George’s Chapel to the lament of a lone piper as her 70-year reign came to an end.
The Royal Family stood at the end of the short service as the Queen was slowly lowered down into the royal vault while the Dean of Windsor said: ‘Go forth upon thy journey from this world, O Christian soul.’ He also offered the commendation – a prayer in which the deceased is entrusted to God’s mercy.
Before she was lowered, Dean had placed her crown and other crown jewels on the altar before the Queen’s staff of office was snapped – signifying the severing of the Queen from her service in death. The Garter King of Arms then pronounced the styles and titles of the Queen as all power moved to her son, the King.
Her Majesty’s long journey to her final resting place will end with her private interment next to her ‘strength and stay Philip’ this evening where the King will scatter earth on his mother’s coffin at 7.30pm at a private family service.
Britain’s longest reigning monarch had been carried into the historic church followed by Charles III, her children, and grandchildren including Prince Harry and Prince William.
Nigeria’s serial internet fraudster facing trial in the United States of America, Ramon Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi, has written to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), complimenting American authorities for arresting him and bringing him to justice for his crimes.
The internet fraudster who will soon be sentenced by the US court appreciated the presiding Judge Otis D. Wright and the U.S. justice system for “upholding the law against criminals like myself.
Abbas in a handwritten letter recounted his criminal adventures and apologised to his family members for the pains his lifestyle had caused them.
In his final appeal to Justice Wright on Friday ahead of his sentencing on Monday, Abbas who took full responsibility for his crimes also tendered an apology to the victims of his crimes and pleaded for a more lenient judgment
“I would like to specially apologize to the victims in the cases I’m involved with from count one to five…,
“I apologise to the law enforcement agents who have worked tirelessly to make the world a safer place and to the U.S. Attorney’s entire office for the great work of upholding the law against criminals like myself,” he said in the letter
According to the letter, Abbas recalled how he joined Instagram in 2012 to share his style online and noted the expansion of his business into “luxury fashion, real estate, automobile sales and entertainment deals.
Recall that in July 2021, Abbas entered a plea bargain with the U.S. authorities, and admitted to multimillion-dollar fraud charges. Intelligence agencies recorded multiple crimes, including money laundering, cyber fraud, hacking, criminal impersonation, scamming individuals, banking fraud and identity theft committed outside the United Arab Emirates
Abbas, who has been in custody in the US since his arrest in Dubai in June 2020, in the letter, had claimed that he made only $300,000 from his crime activities
While tendering his apologies to the Judge for his crimes, Abbas promised that he would use his personal funds to repay the victims of his crimes
“Your Honour, I totally recognise the seriousness of my offence, and no amount of sorry can write my wrong in the hearts of the victims, and this is why I have decided to use my personal money to offset all of the entire $1,700,000 restitution even though I only benefited a fraction of $300,000,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Justice Wright on Friday reversed an earlier decision and denied Abbas’ requests to view case files of the Juma case, where disgraced Nigerian Deputy Police Commissioner, Abba Kyari was also indicted as an accomplice
The judge also denied the request to reschedule the sentencing date from September 19 to November 3.
A U.S. judge on Thursday September 15, sided with former US president Donald Trump, by refusing to let the Justice Department immediately resume reviewing classified records seized by the FBI from Trump’s Florida estate in an ongoing criminal investigation.
Federal Judge Aileen Cannon also appointed Senior District Judge Raymond Dearie as a third party to review records seized by the FBI for materials that could be privileged and kept from federal investigators.
The Justice Department also sought to block the independent arbiter, Dearie, from vetting the roughly 100 classified documents included among the 11,000 records gathered in the court-approved Aug. 8 search.
“The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government’s conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion,” Cannon wrote Thursday, September 15.
Cannon’s ruling further complicates the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s alleged handling of classified records. The special master’s review could bar prosecutor from viewing documents seized as they weigh the possibility of criminal charges against the former president who is planning on coming out for president in 2024.
Cannon on Thursday said she would instruct Dearie to prioritize reviewing the classified records first. She also directed him to complete his review of all the seized materials by Nov. 30.
Trump’s lawyers in Monday’s filing disputed the department’s claim that the roughly 100 documents at issue are in fact classified, and they reminded Cannon that a president generally has broad powers to declassify records. They stopped short of suggesting that Trump had declassified the documents, a claim he has made on social media but not in court filings.
About two weeks after the search, Trump’s attorneys sought the appointment of a special master to review the seized records for materials that could be covered by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege – a legal doctrine that can shield some presidential records from disclosure.
The Justice Department is investigating Trump for retaining government records – some marked as highly classified, including “top secret” – at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach after leaving office in January 2021.
The department is also looking into possible obstruction of the probe after it found evidence that records may have been removed or concealed from the FBI when it sent agents to Mar-a-Lago in June to try to recover all classified documents through a grand jury subpoena. The Justice department says it will take the case to the appeal court after losing to Trump on Thursday.
Nigerian musician, Panshak Zamani, a.k.a Ice Prince, has said freedom is priceless after spending six days in Ikoyi prison.
The rapper stated this via his Twitter handle on Thursday night, September 15, a week after he was released on bail.
“Freedom is priceless,” he tweeted.
The ‘Oleku’ crooner is standing trial on a three-count charge bordering on assault, obstructing a policeman from carrying out its statutory duties, and abduction.
He was arrested in the early hours of Friday September 2, for allegedly abducting and assaulting a police officer in Lagos.
The court granted him bail in the sum of N500,000 and asked him to provide “two responsible sureties.
The court also ordered his remand at the Ikoyi correctional facility until his bail conditions were met.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin sat across from each other on the opposite ends of a conference room on Thursday, in their first in-person meeting since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The two leaders have developed a close personal bond. During his decade in power, Xi has met Putin 39 times — more than twice as many times as he has met any other world leader.
President Putin expressed veiled disappointment with China but praised its “balanced position” on the Ukraine war.
He, however, conceded Beijing had “questions and concerns” over the invasion, in what appeared to be a veiled admission of their diverging views over the protracted military assault.
He made the comments when meeting the Chinese leader in person for the first time since the invasion at a regional summit in Uzbekistan, days after Russia suffered a series of major military setbacks in Ukraine.
Russian troops are retreating en mass, having lost more territory in a week than they captured in five months.
China has so far refused to outright condemn Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine while stepping up economic assistance to its neighbor, boosting bilateral trade to record levels in a boon to Russian business amid Western sanctions.
“We highly appreciate the balanced position of our Chinese friends in connection with the Ukrainian crisis. We understand your questions and concerns in this regard.
“During today’s meeting, of course, we will explain in detail our position on this issue, although we have spoken about this before,” Putin said in an opening speech of the meeting.
Xi said China would “work with Russia to extend strong mutual support on issues concerning each other’s core interests” and “play a leading role in injecting stability and positive energy into a world of change and disorder,” according to a readout from the meeting provided by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Xi also said he appreciated “Russia’s adherence to the one-China principle and stressed that Taiwan is a part of China.”
The two authoritarian leaders have emerged as close partners in recent years, propelled by growing conflict with the West and a strong personal bond.
China has offered tacit support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, while Moscow has backed Beijing and criticized Washington over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August. Beijing responded to her trip with unprecedented military drills around the self-governing democratic island, which it claims as its own territory.
In their meeting Thursday, Putin condemned the United States for what he said were “provocations” in the Taiwan Strait, and criticized what he claimed were attempts to “create a unipolar world.”
Those attempts, he said, have “recently taken an ugly shape and are absolutely unacceptable to most states on the planet.”
The two are holding talks on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security-focused grouping that also includes India, Pakistan and four Central Asian nations.
Beijing carefully avoiding Western sanctions
Faced with punishing western sanctions as result of its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Russia has sought ever closer ties with China.
Beijing has carefully avoided violating Western sanctions or providing direct military support to Moscow.
This balancing act, experts say, is a sign that Xi won’t sacrifice China’s economic interests to rescue Putin, who arrived at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan this week with his army retreating from large swathes of Ukrainian territory.
But the trading relationship is booming, in a lopsided way, as Russia desperately seeks new markets and China — an economy 10 times the size — scrambles for cheap commodities.
Trade in bilateral goods is at record levels as China snaps up oil and coal to tackle an energy crisis. Russia, meanwhile, has become a top market for China’s currency, and Chinese companies are rushing to fill the vacuum left by departing Western brands.
China’s spending on Russian goods soared 60% in August from a year ago, hitting $11.2 billion, according to Chinese customs statistics, surpassing July’s 49% gain.
Its shipments to Russia, meanwhile, jumped 26% to $8 billion in August, also accelerating from the previous month.
For the first eight months of this year, total goods trade between China and Russia surged 31% to $117.2 billion. That’s already 80% of last year’s total — which stood at a record $147 billion.
“Russia needs China more than China needs Russia,” said Keith Krach, former Under Secretary of State for Economic growth, Energy and the Environment in the United States.
“As the war in Ukraine drags on, Putin’s losing friends fast and increasingly becoming more and more dependent on China,” he added.
For China, Russia now accounts for 2.8% of its total trade volume, slightly higher than the 2.5% share at the end of last year. The European Union and United States have much bigger shares.
China was already Russia’s largest single trading partner before the war, and accounted for 16% of its total foreign trade.
But the world’s second biggest economy has assumed much greater significance for Russia, which has plunged into a recession because of the Western sanctions.
Do you know that an Igbo man planned and proposed a modernised self-governed Nation/Empire/Republic of Igbos 39 years before the birth of Nigeria as a country? His name is James Africanus Beale Horton (1835–1883).
He published and sent the British government his proposal titled, “The EMPIRE OF THE EBOES/HACKBOUS/HEEBOS/IBOES/IGBOES/EGBOES, with the Requirements Necessary for Establishing that Self Government Recommended by the Committee of the House of Commons, 1865: and a Vindication of the African Race.”
This proposal included a plan for:
A Self-governed independent nation
an army,
currency
Support for modern civilisation, and,
economic empowerment.
His proposal was hinged on his research showing that the Igbo race was the most emulative, intelligent and adaptive “race” in West Africa, and with modern support, they will vindicate the black race. He also supported the hypothetical but controversial Jewish migration origin of the Igbos at that time.
Horton was born in the then British colonial Sierra Leone, near Freetown. His parents were former recaptive Igbo slaves. Horton lived in Gloucester until 1847 when he moved to Freetown to attend the local Church Missionary Society School (CMS).
In 1853 he was moved to Freetown’s Fourah Bay Institution to train for a ministry in the Church of England. His seminary studies ended two years later when the CMS selected him to study medicine in preparation for a medical career in the British army. Horton attended Kings College in London for three years and then Edinburgh University for a fourth year to earn an MD.
In 1859 Horton was commissioned back to West Africa as a staff-assistant surgeon in the British army. His works led him to correlate topography and human health, developing theories that eventually would earn him a reputation in the medical world and a promotion to the army rank of surgeon-major.
Horton became more concerned with politics during his military service in West Africa. Horton refutes the derogatory racial theories about Africans life in Victorian Britain and its empire.
However, Horton also consider himself, a loyal subject of the British establishment and envisioned that Britain should have a strong cultural and technological influence in the development of Africa. Thus his philosophies, radical when colonial powers were dominant, have acted as a basis for the future advancement of African independence and nationalist ideologies.
At 45, Horton retired and returned to Freetown, where he continued to promote African education as the key to self-governance, and he further provided scholarships to hopeful young Africans. He also took a keen interest in Africa’s technical and economic development and opened a bank called the Commercial Bank of West Africa. His business and gold mining exploits made him one of the richest men in Africa by 1880.
Although his dream of an independent Self-governed Igbo nation was not realised in his lifetime, his political thoughts birthed the African political thoughts during the colonisation of Africa after his death.
James Africanus Beale Horton died in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 1883.
Sources:
Beverton, A. (2021). James Africanus Beale Horton (1835-1883), retrieved 12 September 2021, Horton, J. (1868).
West African countries and peoples, British and native: With the requirements necessary for establishing that self-government recommended by the committee of the House of Commons, 1865; and,
a vindication of the African race. London: W. J. Johnson.
Performance index of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Gregory Onwubuasi Obi, to know who did better as a governor.
I promised to make it public so that Nigerians will see and judge for themselves.
Aside character and integrity which Peter Obi has, in addition to practical verifiable business experience, age on his side, mental and physical health on his side, he had a better performance record than Tinubu.
I have decided to lay before all Nigerians the TRUTH by making a comparative performance analysis of Lagos and Anambra using key development indicators.
However, it’s unfair to compare Lagos State with Anambra.
Lagos the Toast of Africa – from the Portuguese, to the British, to the locals and Nigeria as a whole, everyone just wants her.
And Anambra… the state left in ruins after the civil war (imagine what’s happening in Ukraine currently).
So here we will be looking at the performance of BAT (2003-2007), PO (2007-2014) using key development indicators
Everything I will be sharing are verifiable facts from verifiable sources.
Below are growth indicators often used by development economist to access low-middle income countries hence we will be using it here:
1.) Gross National Income per Capita 2.) Life Expectancy 3.) Human Development Index (HDI) 4.) Health Index 5.) Educational Index 6.) Income Index
My data source is from the renowned Global Data Lab (GDL) – an independent data and research center at the institute of Management research, Radboud University, Netherlands.
GDL started compiling data from 2003, hence BAT’s Performance is evaluated from 2003
1.) Global National Income Per Capita
BAT (2003-2007): In 2003 at 8.887 & in 2007 at 9.218. Had a growth of 3.72%
Lagos (2007-2014): In 2007 at 9.218 & in 2014 at 9.303. Had a growth of 0.92%
Anambra (2007-2014): In 2007 at 8.823 & in 2014 at 9.220. Had a growth of 4.50%
2.) Life Expectancy
BAT (2003-2007): In 2003 at 55.40 & in 2007 at 56.80. Had a growth of 2.54%
Lagos (2007-2014): In 2007 at 56.81 & in 2014 at 58.21. Had a growth of 2.46%
Anambra (2007-2014): In 2007 at 53.55 & in 2014 at 58.97. Had a growth of 10.12%
3.) Human Development Index (HDI)
BAT (2003-2007): In 2003 at 0.610 & in 2007 at 0.630. Had a growth of 3.28%
Lagos (2007-2014): In 2007 at 0.630 & in 2014 at 0.644. Had a growth of 5.40%
Anambra (2007-2014): In 2007 at 0.569 & in 2014 at 0.659. Had a growth of 15.82%
4.) Health Index
BAT (2003-2007): In 2003 at 0.545 & in 2007 at 0.566. Had a growth of 3.85%
Lagos (2007-2014): In 2007 at 0.566 & in 2014 at 0.588. Had a growth of 3.89%
Anambra (2007-2014): In 2007 at 0.516 & in 2014 at 0.600. Had a growth of 16.30%
5.) Educational Index
BAT (2003-2007): In 2003 at 0.645 & in 2007 at 0.634. Had a DECLINE of -0.011%
Lagos (2007-2014): In 2007 at 0.634 & in 2014 at 0.702. Had a growth of 10.73%
Anambra (2007-2014): In 2007 at 0.560 & in 2014 at 0.686. Had a growth of 22.5%
6.) Income Index
BAT (2003-2007): In 2003 at 0.647 & in 2007 at 0.697. Had a growth of 7.73%
Lagos (2007-2014): In 2007 at 0.697 & in 2014 at 0.710. Had a growth of 1.86%
Anambra (2007-2014): In 2007 at 0.637 & in 2014 at 0.697. Had a growth of 9.42%
From the above 6 indicators used in measuring public governance performance in low-middle income country, Peter Obi outperformed Lagos of Fashola and BAT in ALL!
Factoring IGR, investments in Lagos since colonial days and the civil war, it’s safe to say Peter Obi is in a league on his own.
So, comparing Lagos with Anambra in terms of the globally accepted developmental indicators is an INSULT to Anambra State and the leadership of Peter Obi.
As if that was not enough, also look at the departing gift Peter Obi presented to Anambra State and BAT’s to Lagos State (everywhere in public domain).
To prove that his education at Harvard Business School, Kellog School of Management, Oxford and Cambridge wasn’t just for fun, Peter Obi, in his handover note, left local and foreign investment savings in billions of Naira and cash savings for the state as has been verified.
The investment had a MINIMUM 2-year maturity period before the state can sell part of it for liquidity
It has also been verified how the next government generated funds from the investments Peter Obi made on behalf of the state
These are funds, Peter Obi could have easily stolen like many governors in Nigeria shamelessly do.
Show me any servant leader in Nigeria’s history at least since 1999 like Peter Obi.
Meanwhile, he did all of this and still chose to deprive himself of ALL entitlements as an ex-governor.
A Nigerian-born lawyer in the United Kingdom (UK) has revealed there may be political or other factors for the continued detention of former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, in the UK.
Speaking without disclosing his identity with The Guardian last week, the lawyer said: “He’s being treated harshly and the man is not well.
“They fear he may jump bail and run back to Nigeria.” Ekweremadu, who was arrested with his wife, Beatrice, on June 23, and charged with allegations of wanting to make payment for the procurement of organ for their daughter, Sonia, from one David Nwamini, has been kept behind bars since, while his wife is on bail.
“When both were brought before a Sergeant in courtroom 12, at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, on August 4, he appeared via video link from prison during the short session, while his wife was physically in the dock.”
While speaking with The Guardian, the lawyer was asked if the offence for which Ekweremadu is being detained is bailable, he confirmed it is, and noted that the Senator is not granted bail because each case is different, and that there are factors to consider. He further noted that Ekweremadu might not be granted bail because they fear he may jump bail and fly back to Nigeria.
Earlier in the week, Ekweremadu’s daughter, Sonia, took to her Instagram page and made a public appeal for any willing kidney donor to come to her aid.
She revealed that she is suffering from a rare kidney disease.
The 25-year old said that she had to drop out of the university of Newcastle in 2019 because of the health challenge.
“I was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease, FSGS Nephrotic Syndrome.”
The Ekweremadus are due back at Old Bailey for the plea and trial preparation hearing on October 31.
“The trial is for May 2 next year,” a court staff told The Guardian yesterday.
They are being charged alongside Dr. Obinna Obeta.
The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, says the union is willing to end its seven-month-old strike.
Osodeke disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja, at a National Town Hall Meeting on Tertiary Education tagged: ‘The Locked Gates of our Citadels -A National Emergency.’
Recall that the union embarked on industrial action on February 14, making it over seven months since public universities across the country were closed down.
The Federal Government recently sued ASUU at the industrial court in an attempt to end the strike.
Osodeke reiterated the union’s commitment to return to school if the Federal Government puts its proposal on the table, saying that negotiation could be reached if the government was willing.
“If the government loves this country, these children and their parents, then they should come to the table and let us resolve these issues in one day”.
The ASUU president also expressed sadness over the lingering strike resulting in the government taking the union to court.
He said suing the union was not an option as it would further worsen the situation of the students and tertiary education in the country.
Osodeke claimed that if the court forces the lecturers to return to school, they won’t force them to teach with open minds, saying that the students would be at the receiving end, NAN reports.
GOVERNOR Nyesom Wike on Thursday ended the denial of women inheritance prevalent among cultures and traditions in Rivers state as he signed into law three new bills passed by the State House of Assembly.
Wike at the Government House, Port Harcourt, signed into law, the Rivers State Prohibition of the Curtailment of Women’s Right to Share in Family Property Law No. 2 of 2022 along with the Rivers Compulsory Treatment and Care of Victims of Gunshots Law No. 3 of 2022, and the Rivers Pension Reform (amendment) Law No. 4 of 2022.
Explaining the significance of the new state laws, the Governor said he couldn’t comprehend why it is considered a taboo in many parts of Rivers for female children not to share in family inheritance.
He said, “Because you’re a girl, you’re a woman, you’re not entitled to inherit what belongs to your father. It is not you who decides having a girl or a boy. It is God. So, put yourself in their shoes today where, by God’s mercy you have three children, all girls and you struggle in life to see what you can keep for them.
“Tomorrow, one of their uncles comes, and says, my friend, girls don’t inherit their father’s property. With all your efforts in life, somebody comes to discriminate against them, why?
“We have even found out that women are more useful to us than even the men. The day you’re getting old and dying you’ll know that you need more daughters than men. They will leave their husbands’ houses and come to take care of you.”
He asserted that the law is important to the development of the State because it will enable people actualise their potentials and women allowed by law to inherit their entitlements, urging the women to henceforth stand up for their rights and challenge any discrimination against them in court, armed with the new law.
On the pension reform law, he said pensioners do protest unpaid entitlements due to ignorance of the good intentions of the government, adding, “The government has good intentions and wants to do it at its own time.
“Only the government knows when it can carry out this responsibility. Government will pay when it will pay. Government cannot carry everything at the same time. Whether you like it or not, a huge chunk of our resources go into the civil service.”
On compulsory treatment and care for victims of gunshots, Wike said within the confines of the law, any victim of gunshot would be required to be properly identified, so that such a person can be traced should the person run away after treatment.
The Governor however explained that the law is in furtherance of the responsibility of government to protect lives because even the criminal needs to be alive to be tried and made to suffer for his crime.
Cautions on ASUU, FG faceoff
Governor Wike backed the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the body of lecturers demands on the Federal Government, but said any government that releases the weight of money ASUU requires would crash, given current economic reality.
He urged both parties to resolve the lingering conflict in an atmosphere of give and take, asserting that, “The problem didn’t start today. It has been there. Again, it is because we elect people who cannot solve problems.”
Revocation of AIT land
Governor Wike also acknowledged receipt of a report of the State House of Assembly revoking ownership of the land currently occupied by AIT broadcast network in Ozuoba, Rivers State for allegedly not possessing requisite titled documents.
The governor said the days of Rivers being Father Christmas were gone as no one can illegally acquire what belongs to the State, directing the Attorney General to take appropriate action on the land revocation report.
