The Nation Newspaper

Tag: THREE

  • Three charged with stealing N3.9m law books

    Three men, who allegedly broke into a building and stole law books valued at N3.9 million, were yesterday brought before a Yaba Chief Magistrate’s Court in Lagos.

    Joseph Ogeche (22); Charles Edet (29) and Chinedu Nwafor (21) were charged with conspiracy, burglary and stealing.

    According to the prosecuting police Inspector Peter Nwaugwu, the accused committed the offences between January 12 and March 14 at 3A, Mokoya Street in Obanikoro, Lagos.

    He said the accused broke into the house of the complainant, Mr Olakunle Ojo, damaged and stole copies of Nigeria Weekly Law Reports from October 1985 to December 2006 valued at N2.9 million.

    Nwaugwu alleged that the accused also stole Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 series valued at N1million.

    The offences contravene Sections 285 (7), 307 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State.

    Section 307 prescribes a seven-year jail term for burglary; Section 285 (7) provides seven years imprisonment for stealing; Section 409 stipulates two years for conspiracy.

    The accused pleaded not guilty.

    Chief Magistrate P.A. Ojo granted the accused N500, 000 bail with two sureties each in the like sum and adjourned the case to June 10.

     

  • Suicide bomber injures three

    A botched suspected Boko Haram suicide attack targeting a group of Shiite Muslims injured three people in Potiskum, Yobe State yesterday, witnesses told AFP.

    The would-be bomber detonated his explosives a few metres (yards) from an open-air mosque in the Dogo Tebo area of Potiskum shortly after afternoon prayers.

    “Three worshippers were hit by shrapnel and sustained mild injuries while the bomber’s thighs and legs were blown off,” said local resident Mukhtar Ubale in an account supported by two others.

    Another resident who witnessed the explosion, Zakari Kabiru, said the bomber, thought to be aged about 30, was taken to hospital but his chances of survival were slim.

    “Only his torso was intact but the lower parts of his body were shattered,” he said, blaming the Sunni jihadist group Boko Haram for the attack.

    Boko Haram, whose insurgency to create a hard-line Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has killed at least 15,000 since 2009, condemns Shias as heretics who should be killed.

    The group has carried out several suicide and bombing attacks on Potiskum, which is the commercial hub of Yobe state and one of the worst hit by the violence.

     

  • Three unwise men

    Three unwise men

    One is stocky, nearing ninety, with a comic face, dons a riverine hat, has a bitter tongue in his head but loves his role for not being a role model. Another is tall, slim, past middle age, has a face of shifty calmness, a lickspittle when he wants something and a Judas afterwards. The third is a prince who is a pauper in wisdom, who has made a living only because of his birthright; he is past middle age, not very articulate but a chameleon who knows how to live in and out of uniform.

    This is not an age of riddles. Nigerians don’t need much elucidation on the identities of the trio described above. The first of course is Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, the so-called leader of the Niger Delta, who fattens on the identity of President Goodluck Jonathan whom he calls “my son.” In fact, he likes to call a lot of people “my son” or “my daughter.” Sonship and daughterhood have suffered from many tongues.

    The second is the quisling governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko, otherwise known as the whitlow of the west. He is the man who has come out in true colours to the citizens of Ondo State and the vast, now wiser Yoruba race. Like leaves of autumn, he no longer can hide the colour of his teeth. He has been forced to laugh in public.

    The third is Sambo Dasuki, the blue blood, who prides himself on only one qualification: that he is blue blood. On that score he rose in the army. On that resume again, he is the national security adviser to President Jonathan.

    These three men epitomise the gloom of the moment. They are Jonathan’s trusted men. They are the point men of tragedy. There, of course, are others, like the buffoon governor of Ekiti State, whose audio tale is still unfolding. And Doyin Okupe, who was booed out of a church recently for campaigning against Buhari. But those are for another day. Then we have Musiliu Obanikoro, the minister whose imploded gubernatorial fantasies are driving him into all sorts of public misbehaviour both in and out of tapes. Then we have the service chiefs who have presided over cases of desertion in the military. Yet their failure to defend democracy on February 14 was desertion in chief. As Shakespeare noted, if correction lies in the hand that committed wrong, to whom shall we complain? One of them, Badeh, even scampered away with his family when the dreaded insurgents came calling in his village.

    Back to the trio. It is because of these men that we have not known our next president now. The elections would have become history. But these men were afraid, just like their principal Dr. Jonathan. Since he has a PhD, I want him to write a thesis for political science with a tentative title, “the fear of elections: the Nigerian example.” At least, that PhD thesis would be seen by all, not the one on biology that is only heard but not seen.

    Clark acted his part as an elder who is not elderly when he opened the slaughterhouse on INEC chairman Attahiru Jega. He was the first to call for the firing of INEC boss. Why? Because the man said he was ready for the polls. This elder who is not elderly was afraid like his master-son, Jonathan. After that, he led his Southern Nigerian People’s Assembly, an umbrella group of desperate fuddy-duddies and expired statesmen, to endorse Jonathan for a second term.  Recently I saw a cartoon in a newspaper of Tompolo carrying him on his back to Government House, a spoof of his role as an interloper in the affairs of Delta State and how he now works obsequiously with militants, the same men who want to burn the country if his master-son loses. Let us not forget that the same elder who is not elderly had once stated that Jonathan was not in the second eleven of Niger Delta when the Owu chief made him vice president. That was the last time he was true to his conscience. Now, he calls the same man his son.

    Mimiko, who has turned into a mimic governor, was very loud in supporting the service chiefs when they said they were not ready for elections. He is expecting Jega to be fired, which will light the tinder of crisis in the polity. The whitlow of the west’s younger brother is now being told that he would succeed Jega in newspaper speculations when the INEC boss is fired. Neither the mimic governor nor his professor brother has dissociated from the speculation. The speculated removal of Jega is so fraught with evil that Jonathan denied it in public. Why have both of them kept a sepulchral silence on it? No man who guards his reputation lets such words slip in public without rebuttal. Although Jonathan said he would not sack Jega, who can believe him? Did he not say that he went on his evangelical spree because the churches invited him? The churches said he invited himself and they could not say no. He placed his flawed finger in the holy of holies. If he could lie against the church of Christ, why can’t he lie about Jega? Did he not say in that presidential chat that PVC collection in Lagos was about 30 per cent when it had pushed around 60 per cent? It was presidential charade, not chat.

    Dasuki was the first to fly the kite. A national security adviser did not talk about security in Chatham House when he raised questions about February 14. He spoke PVCs. He became a politician, not a security man. For a man who has lived both in and out of uniform, he thought he made the right sartorial choice in Chatham House. He wore neither uniform nor civilian clothes. He was naked, exposed as a civilian hireling. When he was appointed NSA, the reason was that, being a prince, he would help destroy Boko Haram. I wrote in this column that Jonathan erred in judgment. Boko Haram is a virus of paupers. A prince could not relate to them. A few weeks after, Dasuki stopped travelling to speak to emirs, who were also targets of the insurgents.

    These men have been afraid of Buhari, and that is why the president and his men have published unprintable material that could cost newspapers billions in libel suits. Abraham Lincoln went through a similar fate. His detractors said he could not speak English, that he was a third-rate lawyer, that he was a backwoods man (bush man), that he was like a baboon, that he descended from an African gorilla. But he won the election because the time had come for him who had failed many times in his political career. He freed slaves and saved the union. Churchill’s political obituary was written in the House of Commons when he was 65 years old. He became perhaps their greatest leader ever.

    It is clear Nigerians are tired of Jonathan and that is why we did not have the election last Saturday. They want another chance, just like the Governor’s Forum polls. They asked for time, only to subvert arithmetic. Sixteen became bigger than 19. The Ekiti audiotapes reveal what role the PDP assigns the military to rig elections. Before Lincoln became president, mammoth forces amassed against him and the abolition of slavery. Ralph Waldo Emerson then wrote, “the hour is coming when the strongest will not be strong enough.” Wise words.

    Agbaje, Ambode, Sanity, et al

    I received a text message twice last week from Lagos For All raising sanity questions about APC governorship candidate for Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode. Is this where the Agbaje Campaign is now headed? After failing to defend its candidate’s subversive gaffes, it now walks the dangerous terrain of fantasies. Agbaje joined the ranks of Tompolo and Asari Dokubo recently by saying that if Jonathan loses the election, Nigeria will be shut down.

    The Governor of Example, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, exposed the man for not paying taxes but only paid for 2013 and 2014 and evaded three years. In a federal system, he also wants to sell his state’s birthright when he says Lagos belongs to the Federal Government. After all those implosions, the campaign cannot steer its course aright. Rather it is trading in insane fantasies. Is that what his godfather Bode George taught him?

    In his short story The Madman, Achebe tells of a chief who runs naked in the public square in reaction to a man he had mocked as mad. Who became the madman and who is the specialist? Apologies to Soyinka.

  • SURE-P: Three years after

    Three years ago, Nigeria was in the frenzied grip of another sort of campaign. There were intense arguments for, and against the planned removal of fuel subsidy. By January 2012, organised Labour paralysed the country with a nationwide strike that had echoes of similar work stoppages in the preceding decade when fuel prices were increased rather peremptorily. In the heat of the debate, anyone could have been forgiven for being cynically dismissive of the federal government’s insistent pledge of what it would do with its own share of the savings from the partial withdrawal of fuel subsidy.

    Now, three years later, it is fair to ask whether the cynics have seen their worst fears materialise. On the contrary, there is growing evidence that the federal government is keeping faith with its pledge of judicious use of its accruals arising from the fuel subsidy removal.

    Let’s take a sampler from infrastructural development. In 2006, the federal government awarded the dualisation of the Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja highway. But the project languished in the doldrums owing to inadequate geological surveys occasioning poor design, and majorly the abject lack of funding, as the annual budget of the Federal Ministry of Works could hardly make any impact. Contractors abandoned their various sites on the Lots. Since 2012, following the launch of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) by the federal government, the story of the project has changed dramatically: the Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja expressway is now a reality.

    Similarly, for more than two decades, the Benin-Ore-Sagamu expressway had collapsed, and the remedial patchwork that often was carried out on that critical arterial road was as laughable as it was dangerous. SURE-P funding is now making a huge difference that is clearly measurable in the reduced travel times on that route. The Benin-Ore part of the expressway has been totally reconstructed, while work is proceeding determinedly on the Ore-Sagamu axis. Indeed, the story is the same with the on-going total reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, which has a basket of funding to which SURE-P is contributory.

    Move over to the Loko-Oweto bridge that connects Nasarawa and Benue states, and SURE-P funding is the reason why the project is already more than 65 per cent complete, not to reference the hundreds of direct and indirect jobs being created in the process. Furthermore, the SURE-P wallet is one of the assured sources for financing the much-delayed Second Niger Bridge, the ground-breaking ceremony of which was performed this year by President Goodluck Jonathan. After many sorrowful years for commuters, the East-West Road was at about 22 per cent completion in early 2012 when SURE-P was created. Within two years of injecting funds, the East-West Road has notched more than 70 per cent completion with a new lot added, not to mention overcoming the havoc wreaked by the floods of 2012.

    The Lagos-Kano rail line that represents the Western line of Nigerian Railways is active today with regular commuter and cargo traffic, because of massive supplementary funding by SURE-P. The Eastern corridor, which runs from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri has also witnessed tremendous rehabilitation, on account of SURE-P financing. But one must also add that the brand new standard gauge rail line from Kaduna-Abuja is a dream come true, because SURE-P weighed in with funds. It is also deploying resources of up to N10 billion in support of the Abuja light rail project that is expected to ease intra-city transportation upon completion.

    The 21-member committee that manages SURE-P as a unique interventionist agency was established on February 13, 2012, after the smoke cleared from the protests against the partial withdrawal of subsidy. The mandate is judicious and transparent application of the federal government’s 41 per cent share of the subsidy savings. The funds are domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). All the 36 states of the federation and the 774 local governments are entitled jointly to 54 per cent of the subsidy savings, while the remaining five per cent goes to Ecological Fund, as well as cost of collection.

    SURE-P started receiving funds in July 2012. From then until now, it has received a total of N441 billion. The programme has an annual allocation of N180 billion, but its receipts so far have been N126 billion (2012), N180 billion (2013), and N135 billion (2014). SURE-P operates through specialised sub-committees and project implementation units that are embedded in, but insulated as much as practicable from the stifling bureaucracy in relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs). SURE-P does not choose or award contracts on behalf of the MDAs. However, projects and programmes that are targeted for funding are evaluated by SURE-P in-house technical staff and outside consultants where necessary, to certify work done, before payment certificates are approved. The payment certificates are then forwarded to the Federal Budget Office, which scrutinizes the certificates, before advising the CBN, which credits the contractor’s account. This approach, no doubt, has boosted the confidence of contractors handling the infrastructure projects, hence the rapid milestones they have achieved in so short a time.

    SURE-P is focused primarily on critical infrastructure projects and social safety net programmes, which directly and positively impact on the people. The infrastructure projects include roads, bridges, and railway. On the other hand, the social safety net programmes cover mass transit; maternal and child health; community service, women and youth empowerment (incorporating the Graduate Internship Scheme); public works (under the aegis of the Federal Emergency Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA); vocational training, as well as culture and tourism.

    If SURE-P can crow about its achievements in infrastructure intervention, it can crow even louder about the impact of aspects of its social safety net programme, which are not as visible as roads and bridges. Let us take it for granted that the major works in railways and on roads and bridges are generating jobs. Yet many more jobs are being created in the course of executing the social safety net programmes. No fewer than 12,400 youths have been engaged in maintaining 40 priority federal highways nationwide under the FERMA Public Works project. In the same vein, more than 120,000 jobs have been created for the youth, women, and physically challenged across the federation, under the community, social, women and youth empowerment programme. This is just as thousands of graduates have taken advantage of the Graduate Internship Scheme that prepares them for employment, even as they receive monthly stipends.

    By far the most remarkable is the landmark success in the Maternal and Child Healthcare programme. The programme is designed to increase the supply of skilled health workers to offer maternal and child health services at the primary health care (PHC) level, undertake infrastructural renovations to PHC centres, raise supply of essential commodities at PHC facilities with a view to upscaling service delivery, and above all to increase demand for maternal and child health care services in underserved and rural communities by deploying conditional cash transfers. As at August, SURE-P had recruited nationwide 11,912 health care workers made up of 2,811 midwives, 3,133 community health extension workers (CHEWs), and 5,966 female village health workers.

    Three years ago, who could have believed that the successes recorded thus far by SURE-P were possible? No one can assert that SURE-P is perfect; but it has shown what 41 per cent has achieved, and what lies ahead. If only we could also tally the aggregate positive showing of states and local governments with their combined 54 per cent receipts, we would have a much happier picture that the firm promises of partial subsidy withdrawal are being kept.

     

    • Omafume, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja.

     

  • Three policemen, prophet held over alleged murder

    Three policemen, prophet held over alleged murder

    The death of a 20-year old man after an alleged torture by the police has landed three policemen and a prophet in trouble. JUDE ISIGUZO reports.

    Three policemen attached to the ‘B’ Division Akure of the Ondo State Police Command and a popular prophet are currently been detained for the alleged murder of  Mohammed Oluwatobi Badmus (20).

    The deceased was the only son of a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a popular hotelier, Raheem Afolayemi Badmus.

    Young Badmus was allegedly tortured to death by policemen on the orders of Prophet Bisi Adedugbagbe of the Celestial Church of God, who alleged that the deceased stole a phone belonging to a member of his church.

    Late Badmus was allegedly dragged to the police station by the prophet on the allegation of breaking and stealing at his church.

    The family is also alleging that the police are demanding for a sum of N150,000 (one hundred and fifty thousand naira) to carry out an autopsy to ascertain the cause of death, a responsibility they claim ought to be borne by either the state our the suspects.

    But the police are saying that since the family was alleging that their men killed the deceased, it was their responsibility to provide the funds for the autopsy to ascertain their claim.

    The family had alleged that Adedugbagbe had ordered the policemen led by  one Corporal Adesola Awodeyi to torture late Badmus to confess to stealing a phone from his church.

    It was gathered that Awodeyi and the other two policemen beat and tear gassed Badmus until he collapsed and became unconscious.

    A family source said: “Once he became unconscious, the policemen at the station then hurriedly wanted him released to his family because they suspected he could die.

    “Corporal Awodeyi and Prophet Bisi should be held responsible for the death of Badmus. He was tear-gassed at close range, after he had been beaten mercilessly at a mini-detention room in the station. The beating and torture with tear gas was to coerce Badmus to confess to stealing the phone.

    “He refused to confess to the crime because he did not do it and he was battered as a result. Some of the other officers at the police station heard the scream of the boy. They advised Corporal Awodeyi and the other two officers to take it easy with the boy, but they refused.

    “The prophet was present during the torture, but he showed no compassion for the boy. All he wanted was for the boy to confess to the crime of stealing a phone. He was urging the corporal to keep pummeling Badmus. The prophet was bragging that he would deal with Badmus unless he confessed and returned the phone he allegedly stole”.

    A police source said “We have no legal record of the boy in our station now because they didn’t even ask him to write a statement. The statement should have been the first thing, but Corporal Awodeyo forgot to initiate that. Already he has put himself into trouble for that.

    “We can’t deny the fact that he was brought here. He was actually here but we have no legal record backing up his presence.”

    The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of the station had asked for Badmus’ statement as soon as he received a petition on his torture but none was produced.

    Bakare Asani, a lawyer representing the Badmus family, in a petition to the Inspector General of Police, accused the police officers at the ‘B’ Division police station, Akure, of murdering Badmus.

    The petition alleged that the deceased sustained internal injuries as a result of the gruesome torture by the police.

    A medical report issued by a hospital said Badmus suffered serious internal injuries. The report added that the victim had inhaled a chemical that caused serious bodily damage.

    “The boy was brought in here and he was breathing through the help of an oxygen mask and we attended to him immediately after they had collected a card,” said a staff at the hospital. He added that the deceased “had inhaled a heavy dose of the substance which had already damaged his brain and caused serious disorder in his system before he died.”

    Father of the deceased Raheem Badmus said: “My son was hale and hearty before his untimely death. He came home to break the Ramadan fast with me during the week at my residence. I even spoke to him concerning some unholy behaviours of his during the fasting period and promised to deal with him, before he ran away from the house to his uncle’s place in Okuta Elerinla Estate.

    “He was filled with life and expectations when we broke the fast together. Certainly, death was not one of the tasks of my only son, not even cheap death from the supposed law enforcement agents who tortured him with large dose of chemical substance, which he inhaled and later passed out.

    “So -me of my friends that called him over the unfortunate incident found it difficult to break the news to me and it was later I was told what transpired on the day.

    “The elder sister Oluwaseun told me that she was in the house when she was called by one of our neighbors who asked her to come to Danjuma Street where she was told that they wanted to see her because her brother (Tobi) had stolen a smart phone in a prophet’s church.

    “Truly, they discovered such type of phone was in Tobi’s possession and they inquired how he managed to get the phone since he was never at the church.”

    He added that Tobi was taken to the police station along with his uncle, Sola, and was tortured before being released, but that he died some hours later.

    Oluwaseun, the late Badmus sister who was with him when the police came for him confirmed his arrest and torture at the police station. She said: “I was at home when some people close to prophet Bisi called me, that my younger brother, Tobi, had stolen a smart phone from his church. It was surprising, and I told him my brother can’t do such a thing. Immediately I called my mum’s uncle (brother Sola) where Tobi was staying to inquire about the allegation and if he saw any phone with Tobi and he confirmed he saw a phone with him and had already collected the phone”.

    She explained that she told the clergyman that his uncle had confirmed finding such a phone with late Badmus and that she had called him on his phone to meet her at the prophet’s church.

    She said that though the late Badmus agreed to meet with her at the church, the prophet was impatient and advised that they go and meet him wherever he was.

    “On getting to Tobi’s place, it was argument all through between the two, with claims that the phone doesn’t belong to the prophet. The prophet now told us that he had already informed the police at B division Oke Aro about the matter. It was at that point, Tobi suggested we move down to the Police station, where he believed the matter would be resolved”.

    She further stated that three police officers, led by a corporal with the name tag ‘Adesola Awodeyo’ held

    several talks with the prophet at the front of the Police station before they arrested her late brother.

    When they were dragging him away, she said she heard use of the term, ‘Baptismal Room,’ and believed that was where he was tutored.

    “Close to an hour later, the prophet and the cohort (Policemen) with whom he carried out the plot came

    out with my brother with his face swollen, vision blurred  and his eyes balls reddish and bulging and couldn’t compose himself while he can’t also stand on his legs”.

    She alleged that instead of the policemen to take him back inside the station, he was handed over to them with directions that they go home, adding that they drove back home in the prophet’s vehicle amidst argument and anger over the maltreatment in the station.

    She said when the prophet dropped them and departed, her brother’s condition worsened. He was crying, vomiting and holding his stomach and complaining of a headache.

    “I picked my phone and called prophet Bisi who pleaded we take him (Tobi) to the hospital and that he

    would join us there,” she said.

    He was rushed to the State Specialist Hospital Akure, but that he could not be attended to because of

    the ongoing strike of doctors, and later to Liberty Hospital in Oluwatuyi quarters also in Akure, where doctors directed them to their family hospital.

    At Hope Land Hospital, Lafe junction in Akure, where Badmus died, a nurse who spoke on the condition of anonymity said: “The boy was brought in here and he was breathing through the help of

    oxygen and we attended to him immediately after they had collected a card. Report with us showed that he had inhaled a heavy dose of chemical substance which has already damaged his brain and caused a serious disorder in his body system before he died”.

    Days after Tobi’s death, Oluwaseun said the police, in an effort to cover up the case called her to come over to the station to write a statement for the deceased because they had forgotten to get him to write one, but that she declined.

    Spokesperson to the Ondo State Command, Oluwole Ogodo confirmed the incident. He said the deceased was brought to the station for stealing and that he confessed to it, adding that it was because he refused to return the other items that he took from the church that he was brought to the station.

    The spokesperson said from investigation, the deceased was released by the police around 10am and developed ill health around 6pm. He said if he had indeed been tortured as his family was claiming there was no way he could have survived up till that time.

    Ogodo said the three policemen and prophet linked to the murder of Badmus have been arrested and they are been detained, pending investigation.

    On the issue of autopsy, he said it is the family’s responsibility to pay as they are the ones alleging and therefore should be able to go to any extent to prove it.

  • Police arraign three for ‘stealing’ N6.69m

    Three men have been arraigned at a Lagos State magistrate court, Ikeja for stealing and for obtaining N6,697,000 under false pretext.

    They are Ibrahim Suleiman 30, Habeeb Quadri, 42 and Rauf Adebayo 44.

    They were arraigned before the court presided by magistrate Mrs. E.A. Fabanwo.

    The Police prosecutor, Inspector A. Samson, alleged that the defendants, about 10.45am on May 14, this year  at Ogba, Lagos conspired to obtain money under pretext, thereby committed an offence and punishable under Section 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2011.

    According  to Inspector Samson, the defendants obtained the amount from Temilola Akintayo to import fabrics, thereby committing an offence punishable under section 312(1a)(3) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2011.

    The defendant were also alleged to have stolen N6,697,000 belonging to Temilola Akintayo, thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 285(1)of the criminal law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2011.

    The defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    Magistrate Fabanwo granted them bail for N500,000 each and two sureties in like sum

  • PHCN cable kills three,injures scores in Ogun market

    There was pandemonium in Ifo market, Ogun State penultimate week, when three persons were electrocuted while many others sustained various degrees of injuries.

    Trading activities at the market was said to be in full gear when electric cables of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) suddenly snapped, killing three traders instantly.

    Not a few traders and buyers were said to have been injured while scampering into safety. The injured are now receiving treatm ent at the Ifo General Hospital while the bodies of the dead victims have been deposited in the hospital’s mortuary.

    One of the traders who witnessed the incident, Sherifat Adele, said: “The deadly wire snapped and fell on three persons and not two as being rumoured by some people. The victims died on the spot while others got injured while trying to run away from the scene of the incident.”

    The traders later staged a protest at the branch office of PHCN in the community to register their displeasure over the unfortunate incident.

    The spokesman of Ogun State Police Command, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, said: “The story is true but only two persons died while two others were injured.

  • Nigeria bags another silver, three bronze in wrestling

    Nigeria bags another silver, three bronze in wrestling

    Nigeria’S wrestling team completed its campaign at the 2014 Commonwealth Games by adding a silver and three bronze to its medal haul for Team Nigeria in the final day of the wrestling event at Hall 3 of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow, on Thursday.

    Yesterday’s haul makes it a total of 12 medals (2 gold, 2 silver and 8 bronze) won by the country’s wrestling team at this year’s edition of the Games, as against the 13 medals (3 gold, 3 silver and 7 bronze) won at the 2010 edition in Delhi, India.

    Andrew Dick settled for the silver medal after losing to Canada’s Tamerlan Tagziev by 4-1 technical superiority in the Men’s Free Style 86 kg Gold Medal Match.

    Andrew, who won gold at the 2003 All Africa Games, defeated Kenya’s Peter Onyango Omenda 4-0 in the quarter-final, before overpowering Armando Hietbrink of South Africa also by 4-0 in the semi-final.

    Ifeoma Nwoye won bronze after defeating Joseph Essombe Tiako of Cameroon 5-0 in the Women’s Free Style 55 kg bronze medal finals.

    21-year-old Ifeoma beat 27-year-old Jeanne-Marie Coetzer of South Africa 4-1 in the quarter-final before losing to 32-year-old Brittanee Laverdure of Canada in the semi-final.

    Sampson Clarkson followed up with another bronze medal for Team Nigeria after defeating South Africa’s Terry van Rensburg 3-0 in the Men’s Free Style 65 kg Bronze Medal Finals.

    Clarkson, who qualified for the 2014 Commonwealth Games after taking part in the E.K. Clark Wrestling Open Championship held in Warri, Nigeria, last month, beat Jacob Jevon Balfour of Canada 3-1 in the Round of 16, before defeating Muhammad Salman of Pakistan by 3-1 technical point in the Repechage.

    Blessing Oborududu completed the bronze medal haul of the day when she defeated Chloe Spiteri of England 3-1 in the Women’s Free Style 63 kg Bronze Medal Finals.

    Blessing, who received the Best Female Wrestler award at the 2013 Commonwealth Championships in Johannesburg, South Africa, lost to Danielle Lappage of Canada 3-1 in the quarter final match.

  • Heartland declare three days of mourning for the late Eke

    Heartland FC of Owerri are mourning the death of their former defence ace, Godwin ‘Goddy’ Eke, and have declared a three-day mourning period in his honour.

    Eke was confirmed dead by the Aladinma Hospital in Owerri on Tuesday after a sudden illness.

    He was a key member of the club between 1984 and 1992 when it was known as Iwuanyanwu Nationale Football Club.

    Heartland General Manager Prince Okechukwu Ibe, while bemoaning the sad news of the former player’s demise, said Eke belonged to a proud and golden era when Iwuanyanwu Nationale straddled the African continent, bearing the football dreams and aspirations of our nation.

    “We are indeed saddened by the news of Goddy Eke’s demise, more especially when it happened very suddenly. Goddy was a great footballer, a genius at work when it came to defense roles, when he played in Heartland – known then as Iwuanyanwu Nationale.

    “He served with diligence and dedication and it was from here that he played himself by merit into the Flying Eagles and later, Super Eagles,” Prince Ibe said.

    “On behalf of the management and staff of Heartland FC, I condole with the family especially his lovely wife and children.

    “On our part because of what he represents for the club and the entire football community here, we offer three special days of mourning as we pray to God to accept his gentle soul.”

    Eke was in the Iwuanyanwu Nationale team that won the Nigeria Division One and Professional League titles five times, two FA cups in 1988 and 1989, African Champions League Finalist in 1988, and also represented Nigeria at the Pre-Seoul Oympic Tournament In 1988.

    After his exit from the club in 1994, Eke went into coaching and rose to the position of Zonal Sports Officer with the Imo State Sports Council.

  • Collapsed building kills three

    Two sons and a housemaid of Edo State Chairman of the Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON) Osamudiamwen Osagiede have been killed in Benin, the Edo State capital, when a building collapsed.

    They were at the building to repair a bicycle when the tragic incident occurred.

    The names of the boys were given as Junior and Martins, aged 15 and seven.

    Their dad said: “It is a great pain to me. They were my only sons. They went there to repair their bicycles when a section of the building collapsed on them. They were killed instantly.”

    He said the matter has been reported to the police.