Abdul's Blog: 02/16/18

Friday, 16 February 2018

Lassa fever kills two pregnant women in Benue

The Benue State Government, Thursday, confirmed that two pregnant women and one other person have died in Makurdi as a result of outbreak of Lassa fever in the state.

The Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Dr. Cecilia Ojabo, who disclosed this to newsmen in Makurdi, Benue State, said one of the pregnant women was confirmed positive after her blood sample was taken and sent to a specialist hospital at Irua in Edo State.

A businesswoman, Adenike Bolarinwa, has begged a Lagos Customary Court in Agege to dissolve her eight-year-old marriage to her husband, Abiola Bolarinwa, over constant sexual harassment and battery.

The 32-year-old petitioner, and indigene of Abeokuta, Ogun, told the Court that there was no more love and that her husband molests her at will.

Gov. Rauf Aregbesola of Osun has approved the release of N1 billion for the payment of contributory pension to retired civil servants in the state.

Dr Festus Oyebade, the state Head of Service, made this known on Friday in Osogbo at a meeting of the Forum of Head of Service/Permanent Secretaries, Coordinating Directors, Director-General, General Managers and Executive Secretaries.

An Osun Magistrates’ Court sitting in Ile-Ife on Friday remanded a traditional ruler, Oba Adeoye Adefarakan, 63, and one Abidemi Olukanmi, 18, for allegedly spreading rumour against the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi.

The Prosecutor, Inspector Christian Olajide, told the court that the accused committed the offence sometime in November, 2017 at Ile-Ife.

Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde is hopeful Andres Iniesta will stay at Barcelona following reports his captain has offers on the table to move to China at the end of the season.

“I can’t comment on every story in every newspaper. This has not happened, and we want Andres to stay, to keep scoring and creating goals for us,” Valverde said at a press conference on Friday ahead of the trip to Eibar in La Liga.

South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, president until Wednesday when he resigned on live TV, faces an uncertain future as his legal challenges mount and his support network crumbles.

Analysts sketch several scenarios for Zuma, an anti-apartheid activist who rose to the presidency only to become thickly tarred by a reputation for graft.

A female returnee recently evacuated from Libya, Towobola Adebayo, died after two days of medical treatment at University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.

Sani Datti, the Head of Media and Public Relations, National Emergency Management Agency, in a statement on Friday in Abuja said the returnee was 32 years old and hailed from Ogun State.

The Nigerian Community in South Africa said on Friday that a member was stabbed during a xenophobic attack in Rustenberg, North-West Province area.

The President of Nigerian Union, South Africa, Mr. Adetola Olubajo, told the News Agency of Nigeria on telephone that the victim, identified as Desmond, was attacked on February 14.

A Karmo Area Court, Abuja, on Friday sentenced a driver, Nura Mohammed to four months in prison for dishonestly parading himself as a policeman.

Mohammed, who has no fixed address, was convicted on a charge of impersonation.

The Judge, Abubakar Sadiq, handed down the punishment after Mohammed pleaded guilty to a count charge leveled against him and begged the court for leniency.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the latest massacre in Zamfara State in which scores of innocent people were forced out of their vehicles and brutally killed by unknown bandits.

In January, Abubakar spoke out on the killings in Rivers, Kaduna, Benue States.

A father of two who transitioned to be a woman after eight years of marriage is transitioning back to being a man after just seven months.

James Cohen, 36, told his wife, Eirian, 36, that he wanted to become a woman after claiming he’d hidden his gender secret since he was a child.

Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero has won the Premier League Player of the Month award for January.

The accolade is recognition for the major part the Argentinian is continuing to play in City’s relentless pursuit of the Premier League title.

Rochas Okorocha, governor of Imo state, says he is not going to pull down the statue of Jacob Zuma, former South African president, which was erected last year.

Okorocha said this on Friday in reaction to recent calls for the statue to be pulled down.

In October 2017, the Imo government erected a statue of the former South African president in Owerri, the state capital, a move that had irked many Nigerians.

A Man, Akinsina Ibrahim, who allegedly sent a text message threatening a girl, was yesterday granted a temporary reprieve by an Osogbo Chief Magistrates’ Court in Osun. Ibrahim, 22, was released on bail at N100,000, with two sureties.

The Magistrate, Mrs. Olubunmi Ajanaku, said the sureties must live within the court’s jurisdiction with an evidence of tax payment. In addition, she said, one of the sureties must be a civil servant on Grade Level 8, while the other must be a relation of the accused.

The Cross River House of Assembly on Thursday passed the 2018 appropriation bill of N1.3trillion presented by Governor Ben Ayade.

The budget, tagged Budget of Kinetic Crystallisation, was presented to the House of Assembly by the governor on November 30, 2017.

Revenues in Germany’s top two divisions have increased for a 13th straight season and topped four billion euros for the first time, the German Football League reported on Thursday.

The annual figures for the DFL, which is made up of the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, show a 4.2 percent growth in revenue for the 36 clubs to 4.1 billion euros ($5.1 billion) in 2016/17.

MTN Nigeria has paid a total of N110bn into the coffers of the government out of the N330bn imposed on it by the Nigerian Communications Commission.

Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, disclosed this at a workshop on Code of Corporate Governance organised by the commission in Kano on Thursday.

The Joint Committee on Land Transport has faulted the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi over non-utilisation of N48 billion released to the Ministry of Transportation in 2017 budget.

Mr Aminu Sani, the Chairman, House Committee on Land Transport, faulted the minister on Thursday during the 2018 Budget Defence of the ministry before the Joint Committee on Land Transport in Abuja.

The man who owned Portsmouth for six weeks during an ill-fated spell in 2009 has been sentenced to five years in a United Arab Emirates jail for stealing £5m from his wife to fund the purchase.

Sulaiman Al Fahim, who also fronted the Abu Dhabi United Group’s deal to buy Manchester City in 2008, was found guilty of forgery, using forged documents and aiding and abetting.
He and an accomplice were found to have stolen the money used to buy Pompey from Sacha Gaydamak, with Al Fahim soon selling the club to Ali Al Faraj.

The executive Secretary, State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, Mr. Emmanuel Shior yesterday received Miss Alice Adah, a Benue deportee from Lybia at the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, zonal office Portharcout, River state.

Mr. Shior stated that he got a call from NEMA zonal office Port-Harcourt that there was a Benue indigene among the returnees from Lybia, and without delay he swung into action and traveled to Portharcourt where he received her from the management of NEMA zonal office Portharcout to bring her back to Makurdi, Benue State capital.

No fewer than 447 of the 686 foreign trained doctors who wrote the assessment test of Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) failed.

The Federal Government decried the poor performance of the foreign trained medical and dental graduates as only 249 were successful in the examination conducted in November 2017.

Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has taken a swipe at the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), saying even if a party wins through propaganda, it can not govern with it.

Speaking when he received leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state capital, on Friday, Jonathan said the APC had failed to fulfil its promise to Nigerians.

German authorities have arrested a 20-year-old Somali man on suspicion of being a member of the extremist militia al-Shabab.

Federal prosecutors say the man was detained Thursday in the central state of Hesse.

A court in Istanbul on Friday sentenced six Turkish journalists to aggravated life imprisonment each over their alleged involvement in a failed coup in July 2016, local media reported.

The defendants, including Turkey’s well-known journalists Nazli Ilicak, Ahmet Altan and Mehmet Altan, were charged with trying to remove the constitutional order, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte will rotate his squad, starting from Friday’s English FA Cup clash with Hull City.

The London side are faced with a tough run of fixtures ahead, but the coach said a strong Cup run was high on his list of priorities for the rest of the season.

Former Brazil international Walter Casagrande has slammed Paris Saint-Germain star Neymar, saying a “monster” is being created.

Neymar was unable to inspire PSG on Wednesday as the Ligue 1 giants suffered a 3-1 loss at Real Madrid in the first leg of their last-16 Champions League tie.

Another prophet has predicted Shatta Wales death. Just last week, Prophet Agyei Fredua Agyeman said he saw death coming close to the Ghanaian singer and urged Ghanaians to pray for him. Now another Prophet who was on Kofi TV, Ghana, says he sees Wale committing suicide out of frustration. Speaking further, Charles Dady said;

The National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency, Adamawa State Command, has intercepted 1.31 tonnes of illicit drugs which were concealed in noodles’ cartons.

Yakubu Kibo, the NDLEA’s state Commander, who made the disclosure shortly after displaying the exhibits on Thursday in Yola, said the drugs were valued at N19 million.

A grieving mum who wanted to be artificially inseminated with her dead son's sperm now has twins after being told by doctors she needed a surrogate to complete her dream of 'reincarnating' her child.

Rajashree Patil, 49, was informed by doctors that she was unfit for IVF treatment using a sample taken from her son Prathamesh, who died of a deadly tumour.

Australian deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has hit out at his boss, calling prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s criticism of Joyce’s extra-marital relationship “inept” and “unnecessary.”

On Thursday, Turnbull took the extraordinary step of banning sex between ministers and staffers, after slamming his deputy for making “a shocking error of judgement in having an affair” with his media advisor.

Unidentified hackers stole 339.5 million rubles ($6 million) in an attack on the SWIFT international payments messaging system in Russia last year, the Russian central bank said on Friday.

The disclosure, buried at the bottom of a central bank report on digital thefts at Russian banks, is the latest in a string of attempted and successful cyber heists using fraudulent wire-transfer requests.

A 25-year-old man, Benjamin Akegh, has been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment by a Tinubu Magistrate’s Court, Lagos, for stealing a television belonging to the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

Akegh was jailed on Thursday without an option of fine by a presiding magistrate, Mr. L.O. Kazeem.

Britain has reportedly announced its intention to deport at least 2 500 Zimbabweans living illegally in that country.

According to New Zimbabwe.com, British ambassador to Zimbabwe, Catriona Lang, recently told Zimbabwean Deputy President Kembo Mohadi that her government intended to deport illegal Zimbabweans in that country.

Runaway Ligue 1 leaders Paris Saint-Germain find themselves under pressure for the first time this season after Wednesday’s Champions League defeat at Real Madrid.

Unai Emery’s men have blown away all before them domestically this term, but with world-record signing Neymar failing to fire and captain Thiago Silva left to sulk on the Santiago Bernabeu bench, Cristiano Ronaldo led struggling Real to a 3-1, first-leg win.

Swansea City’s on-loan midfielder Renato Sanches is expected to return from a hamstring injury in March.

Sanches, who joined Swansea on a season-long loan from Germany’s Bayern Munich, suffered the injury against Notts County last month and Swans boss Carlos Carvalhal has alleviated concerns of a long-term absence for the 27-year-old.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has signed a $700.9 million loan agreement with the African Development Fund (ADF).

The loan is designed to provide an Official Development Assistance (ODA) and is part of Japan’s contribution to the African Development Fund’s Fourteenth Replenishment (ADF-14).

US President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon has been questioned by investigators examining alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 US elections.

Bannon, who left his position last August, was interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller behind closed doors on Thursday for at least the second time this week, according to local media reports.

Gerard Pique has told Barcelona to be wary of the threats posed by Chelsea ahead of next week’s last-16 Champions League tie.

Barcelona travel to the Premier League champions for the first leg of their clash on Tuesday, the Catalan giants having seen their comfortable cushion atop La Liga cut to seven points after back-to-back draws.

Salisu Yusuf, Coach of U-23 national football team also known as Olympic Team on Thursday promised to make Nigeria proud at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in Japan.

Yusuf stated this in Abuja that he had confidence in his crew and they would work collectively to achieve the desired results.

Arsene Wenger has rubbished reports suggesting he could leave Arsenal this summer, with the manager saying he’s snubbed the “biggest clubs in the world” to stay with the Gunners, Goal reports.

Once seen as untouchable, as he tasted Premier League title glory and pieced together a squad of ‘Invincibles’, the Frenchman has seen his position called into question of late.

Olapade Agoro, the national chairman of National Action Council (NAC), on Thursday, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately resign just like former President Jacob Zuma of South Africa.

Agoro, in a press conference addressed on the state of the nation at his Apata, Ibadan residence on Thursday, declared that President Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) have failed Nigerians.

A Jos High Court on Thursday ordered the remand of 39-year-old Peter John, accused of raping his neighbour’s 9-year-old daughter.

Though the defendant pleaded not guilty to the two-count charge of rape and criminal intimidation, the judge, Justice Nafisa Musa, ordered that he should be remanded at Jos Prison.

Human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has listed 10 alleged corruption cases that can fetch the Federal Government not less than $74.5bn and N2.5trn if prosecuted.

The lawyer said without resolving these high-profile corruption cases in which the funds were trapped, it would seem that the Federal Government was chasing shadows in its anti-graft war.

President Muhammadu Buhari has told the new leader of South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa that he is looking forward to working with him to enhance the cooperation between Africa’s two biggest economies.

Buhari said this today in a letter of congratulation to Ramaphosa, who was endorsed today by the South African parliament as the successor of former President Jacob Zuma.

U.S. President Donald Trump in his tweets on Thursday called the suspected gunman in the massacre of 17 people at a high school in southern Florida “mentally disturbed”.

The 19-year-old, identified as Nikolas Cruz, was due in court on Thursday.

A former House of Assembly and Chairmanship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State and son of the former Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Ibrahim Babajide Obanikoro, is declaring for the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday (today).

THISDAY reliably gathered that the event would hold at the ward level at Mosley Road, Ikoyi.

Former Pope Benedict is suffering from a disease of his nervous system which puts him on a wheelchair regularly, his brother, George Ratzinger, said on Thursday.

Ratzinger added that he feared the paralysis could spread to Benedict’s heart.

The Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, has intercepted sacks of elephant tusks and pangolin shells with a combined duty paid value of N493.5m.

The unit also arrested a Chinese suspect, Mr. Ko Sin Ying, in connection with the items.

Displaying the items at the FOU headquarters in Ikeja on Thursday, the Controller, NCS, FOU, Mohammed Garba, said the seizures comprised 55 sacks of pangolin shells weighing 2,001 kilogrammes and valued at N408.32m and 218 pieces of elephant tusks weighing 343kg and valued at N85.2m.

Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court, sitting in Maitama, Abuja, has adjourned to June 18, 2018 for the arraignment of a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke and eight others over their alleged involvement in the sale of Oil Prospecting License, OPL 245.

The others are Dan Etete, a former Minister of Petroleum Resources; Aliyu Abubakar; Ralph Wetzels; Casula Roberto; Pujatti Stefen; Burrafati Sebestiano and Malabu Oil and Gas Limited.