Controversial Nigerian journalist, Kemi Olunloyo has alleged that Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Igboho, has been poisoned in the Benin Prision.
Olunloyo made this claim in a post on her Twitter account on Monday.
She wrote, “#BREAKING Sunday lgboho has been poisoned in a Cotonou prison.”
“His kidney function is deteriorating and Yoruba Nation is silent. Where is the cash donated for him? Cotonou authorities need to be questioned on what he consumed. He had a healthy kidney before arrest. #Kemitalks.”
This is coming days after one of the agitator’s legal counsel, Yomi Aliyu confirmed that Igboho is critically ill and has been rushed to the hospital.
Naija News reports that Aliyu while interacting with BBC Yoruba earlier, alleged that the rights activist developed the illness in Benin Republic prison custody.
According to him, the agitator has also been critically ill and rushed to the hospital for treatment. The lawyer raised an alarm that Igboho is in dire need of medical treatment.
The Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government has officially scrapped the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF).
This was made known by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, while speaking on the side-lines of the inauguration of the boards of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority and the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission.
He stated that the Buhari-led administration has also sacked the chief executive officers of the three agencies.
According to the minister, the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act, the NPRA and NURC had taken over the functions of the DPR, PPPRA and PEF.
On the DPR’s fate following the inauguration of the board of NURC, Sylva said, “It is now a matter of law.
“The law states that all the assets and even the staff of the DPR are to be invested on the commission and also in the authority. So that means the DPR doesn’t exist anymore.
“And, of course, the law specifically repeals the DPR Act, the Petroleum Inspectorate Act, the Petroleum Equalisation Fund Act and the PPPRA Act. The law specifically repeals them. It is very clear that those agencies do not exist anymore.”
Speaking on what would happen to their CEOs, he said, “The law also provides for the staff and the jobs in those agencies to be protected.
“But I’m sure that that doesn’t cover, unfortunately, the chief executives, who were on political appointments.”
The minister revealed that the process of integrating the workers of the scrapped agencies with the new bodies has already started
“The authority has its staff coming from the defunct PEF, PPPRA and DPR. The commission has staff coming over from DPR and the process is going on for the next few weeks,” he said.
Lawyers to the embattled leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu have reacted to an amended charge against him by the Nigerian Government.
The government amended terrorism charges against Kanu, who has a court appearance on Thursday, 21st of October.
Reacting to the development, Kanu’s lead counsel, Ifeanyi Ejiofor disclosed that there will be ‘legal fireworks’.
“Today, I and my colleague, Bar. Alloy Ejimakor, had a very fruitful visitation to Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. We discussed a wide range of matters, especially concerning Hearing in his case and appearance in court on 21st October, 2021. There will be more on this later.”
“The coast is now clear for legal fireworks this Thursday, particularly now that we have been served with a purported “Amended Charge” in the Case.”
“Nnamdi Kanu is in good spirit, awaiting his auspicious outing on Thursday, the 21st Day of October, 2021. He commended those who are in the spirit with him, while declaring that Chukwuokike Abiama has ordained this special Day for a victorious outing.”, the statement on Monday night read in part.
Popular Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage has once again spoken on her alleged sex tape in the possession of a blackmailer.
The ‘somebody son will find me one day’ crooner while performing on stage revealed that no one would see the tape.
She said this during her performance in the Eko on show event which took place on Sunday, October, 17.
Recall that it was earlier reported that the singer was being blackmailed over an alleged sex tape and she had subsequently decided to call the blackmailers bluff by refusing to pay.
Tiwa further went on to reveal how the video got leaked as most Nigerians were curious. She said that her partner had uploaded it on Snapchat by mistake and immediately deleted it. Unfortunately, the blackmailer got a hold of the video before it was deleted.
In response to this, most Nigerians kept saying that something was wrong and the singer’s story was not adding up.
But the recent revelation made by Tiwa might simply be the last we will be hearing of the alleged sex tape.
Colin Powell, who was born in Harlem to Jamaican immigrants and rose to become the first African-American to be U.S. secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has died. He was 84.
Powell died Monday due to complications from Covid-19, his family said on the general’s Facebook page. Powell was fully vaccinated and was being treated at Walter Reed National Medical Center, the family said.
A decorated soldier who started as a second lieutenant, a rank earned as a Reserve Officer Training Corps student at City College of New York, Powell served in Vietnam, West Germany and South Korea before being put in charge of the 1990 Gulf War as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
In the allied effort to help Saudi Arabia and Kuwait defend against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, he developed the so-called Powell Doctrine. It called for using overwhelming force, such as “shock-and-awe” battle tactics, to assure victory and minimize casualties once diplomatic solutions prove unworkable. He styled himself the “reluctant warrior.”
Coli Powell
Colin Powell in 2017.Photographer: Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage/Getty Images
Admired for his mix of military discipline and sunny optimism, Powell was often urged to run for president. Tall, solidly-built, with salt-and-pepper hair and an easy smile, he represented to many an American ideal of hard work and equal opportunity. The author of four books about himself, he argued that he was part of a new generation of accountable leaders.
High Ideals
“Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in [Vietnam], vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand,” he wrote in “My American Journey,” published in 1995.
Such idealism proved elusive, however, in the 2003 Iraq War to oust Hussein. As secretary of state, Powell was given the task of justifying an allied invasion. In a speech to the United Nations that included pictures he said were of mobile arms laboratories, he asserted there was “no doubt” that Hussein had hidden chemical and biological weapons.
Colin Powell UN
Powell during a meeting of the Security Council at the United Nations in 2003. Photographer: Lorenzo Ciniglio/Corbis/Getty Images
But the following year, Powell told Congress that the evidence he had been given was “wrong,” and the speech “a blot” on his record.
“It was painful,” he told interviewer Barbara Walters in 2006. “It is painful now.”
Iran-Contra
Powell had two other blots on an otherwise lauded record. In the first, he was assigned to investigate the 1968 U.S. massacre at My Lai and found no wrongdoing. And as President Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, he was part of an administration that illegally traded arms for hostages in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. He was not personally implicated in either case.
Colin Powell Reagan
Powell speaks in the White House Rose Garden in 1987.Photographer: Diana Walker/The Chronicle Collection/Getty Images
After serving as the top U.S. official in the Gulf War, he was considered as a Republican vice-presidential candidate in the 1992 campaign and was urged to run against President Bill Clinton in 1996. He declined but actually won the GOP New Hampshire primary based on write-in votes.
In 2000, he declined to run again. The winner, George W. Bush, appointed him secretary of state, a post from which he resigned in 2004 when the evidence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was shown to be false. His resignation prompted some to lament the loss of a moderating voice within the administration and others to urge his successor to play a bigger role in policy decisions.
By submitting my information, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service and to receive offers and promotions from Bloomberg.
After his retirement, Powell leaned more liberal, quietly campaigning against the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the UN. He supported affirmative action and criticized the Bush administration on its treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and its handling of impoverished victims of Hurricane Katrina. In 2008 and 2012, he endorsed Barack Obama, a Democrat, for president. In 2016, he supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
Powell was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian decoration.
After leaving public service, Powell joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, as a “strategic limited partner” and served on corporate boards, living a lush Manhattan life.
Colin Powell
Linda and Colin Powell in New York in 2005.Photographer: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic/Getty Images
Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in New York City to Maud Arial McCoy and Luther Theophilus Powell, a shipping clerk whose ancestors were African and Scottish.
He received a bachelor’s degree in geology from the City College of New York in 1958 and an MBA degree from George Washington University in 1971, after his second tour in Vietnam.
Medal Winner
In 1962, while on patrol in South Vietnam as one of 16,000 military advisers, Powell was wounded by a punji-stick booby trip and was awarded a Purple Heart. He also won a Bronze Star and later the Soldier’s Medal for rescuing comrades after a helicopter crash.
Colin Powell
First Lady Barbara Bush fastens the Presidential Medal of Freedom around the neck of Powell, as then-President George HW Bush watches during a ceremony at the White House in 1991.Photographer: Howard L. Sachs/CNP/Getty Images
After studying at the Army War College and a serving in Korea as a battalion commander, Powell got a staff job at the Pentagon and was promoted to one-star general in charge of a brigade of the 101st Airborne Division. In 1983, he was an aide to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger in the first Reagan administration. He later served as an aide to Reagan’s national security adviser Frank Carlucci before Reagan gave him Carlucci’s job. In that role, he advised Reagan on summit meetings with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev as the Cold War was ending. Reagan made him chairman of the joint chiefs in 1989.
Powell retired from the army in 1993 with the rank of four-star general.
Powell married Alma Vivian Johnson in 1962. The couple had three children: Michael, who was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2005, Linda, an actress, and Annemarie.
Pastor David Ibiyeomie of Salvation Ministries has enjoined Christians to be weary of persons who ask them for coconut, incense, candles, water, in order to conduct deliverance as he said such practices are alien to the Christain faith, and is not documented anywhere in the Bible.
The clergy man warned that such persons who demand for coconut are magicians, and not prophets as many are led to believe.
He further asked anyone with contrary views to show him anywhere it is recorded in the Bible that someone was asked to bring coconut or candle for deliverance of any sort.
He said: “A prophet is [one who] when you tell him your problem, he speaks God’s counsel, and it is turned. Not somebody that will say, ‘Go and bring candle, bring incense, bring water, bring coconut’, that is a magician.
“You don’t need coconut in the New Testament. If you see coconut in the Bible, I will drop my Bible. If you see coconut in this Bible, I will not preach again till tomorrow. Those are not prophets. Please don’t be deceived with nonsense.
“Did you see broom here? That is not a prophet. You mistake magicians for prophets. A prophet is the mouthpiece of God who speaks God’s counsel. They speak God’s counsel to cancel evil.”
THE WHISTLER learnt that the founder of Omega Power Ministry, Apostle Chibuzor Chinyere, who is resident in Port Harcourt, often conducts what they call “Coconut day” in his church.
On the said worship day, members and new comers come to the church with lots of coconut and the pastor performs series of miracles with the coconut.
Nigerian Football Federation President, Amaju Pinnic, has made excuses for Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr, saying that the Eagles will qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar under his watch.
The national team and the coach, Rohr came under serious criticism with many Nigarinas including former players calling for the sack of Rohr over loss to Central African Republic in Lagos.
The Super Eagles lost to the CAR by a lone goal, a team that has never won an away game in the World Cup Qualifiers.
But Pinnick defended the German on Arise Tv programme, ‘The Morning Show.’
Rohr 56, has been accused of running the national team from Germany and not competent to help the team book a place in Qatar.
In defence, Pinnick said the coach has never argued with the federation regarding living in Nigeria as claimed.
He said, “We have a contract with Gerhot to live in Nigeria and he has not been antagonistic to that. That is the truth. I’m not trying to defend him when I don’t need to defend him.
“But most of our players live outside the shores of this country and that what we do right now is that he is at the head of a monitoring team that monitors and talks to our players, talks to their teams, their backroom staff, their coaches and because he is an ex-international himself, he has relationship with most of their coaches. These are some of the things people don’t know.”
He further pointed out that the Super Eagles under the German coach will qualify for the World Cup, a feat which would secure his place as coach.
The NFF boss said, “I always want to believe that by God’s grace it is not negotiable that we will not qualify. We will do our best in the enterprise, putting everything together to ensure that Nigeria qualifies, because it is just one factor that unifies the country. It is just one factor that makes the country happy that is why we are not leaving any stone unturned.”
According to him, Rohr’s side lost to CAR in Lagos because the Eagles underestimated the team in Lagos.
“The incident in Lagos was quite unfortunate because we never expected that it would come even though we know it is football.
“My take on that is that our team underestimated the strength, the capacity of the team from the Central African Republic. In football, you pay for losing your chances and it was a very deep loss for us. I couldn’t sleep for days.”
A trial notice has been issued by the Federal High Court in Abuja on the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu in the treasonable felony charges filed by the Federal Government.
The trial notice entitled “Federal Republic of Nigeria Versus Nnamdi Kanu” was marked FHC/ABJ/CR/383/15 and served on Kanu’s lawyer, Mr Ifeanyi Ejiofor and that of the Federal Government Mr Shuaib Labaran.
The trial notice was issued following the resumption of the charges levelled against the IPOB leader.
The court in the notice instructed the lawyers involved in the case things to put in place ahead of the proceeding.
The IPOB leader is expected to be arraigned before Justice Binta Nyako.
The notice reads “This case will be transferred from the General Cause List to the hearing paper for Thursday 21st October 2021at 9 o’clock forenoon and will come on to be on that day if the business of the court permits or otherwise on some adjustment day of which you will receive no further notice.
“If either party desires to postpone the hearing, he must apply to the court as soon as possible for that purpose and if the application is based on any matter of fact, he must be prepared to give proof of those facts.
“The parties are warned that at the hearing, they are required to bring forward all the evidence by witnesses or by documents which each of them desires to rely on in support of his case and in contradiction of that of his opponent.
“The proof will be required at the hearing and not on a subsequent day, and parties failing to bring their evidence forward at the proper time may find themselves absolutely precluded from adducing it at all, or at best only allowed to do so on payment of substantial costs to the other side, and such other terms as the court fits to impose.
“Parties desirous to enforce the attendance of witnesses should apply at once to the court to issue one or more summonses for the attendance of the witnesses required.
“It is indispensable that the application should be made to allow time for reasonable notice to the witnesses required.
“If the witness is required to bring books or papers, they must be particularized in the summons sufficiently to enable him to understand what is meant.
”Any party summoning a witness through the court thereby becomes liable to pay such witness reasonable sum of money to be fixed by the court for his expense and loss of time.
“The court may refuse to enforce the attendance of a witness unless such sum has been fixed and deposited in the court.
“If either party desires to use in evidence at the hearing, any book or document in the possession or power of the other party, he must give the other party, reasonable notice in writing to produce It at the hearing, failing which he will not be allowed to give any secondary evidence of its contents.”
FORMER Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has said the Peoples Democratic Party is now prepared and ready to reclaim its mandate from the All Progrssives Congress come 2023.
Saraki said this at the Kwara State Congress of PDP held at the Atlantic Event centre, Ilorin, on Saturday. He told party members to go and prepare to win the 2023 elections.
He said, “As soon as you leave this venue work should begin. The peaceful conduct of this Congress has confirmed to me that we are indeed ready to take back power in Kwara.”
Members of the new state party executive were elected via consensus. At the end of the exercise, a former Speaker, Kwara State House of Assembly, Alhaji Babatunde Mohammed, emerged as the chairman.
In his acceptance speech, the new chairman said, “We will start work from the grassroots and work our walk our way up. We will use the next local government to tell Kwara people that we are back.”
A coalition of northern youths in Kano, has launched a campaign to galvanise support for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, ahead of the 2023 presidential elections.
The group has unveiled a platform to mobilize 20 million youths across the 19 northern states and the Federal capital Territory (FCT), while stating that Osinbajo is the one man who can continue with President Buhari’s transformation agenda.
“We are launching the awareness campaign across the northern states to mobilize support for Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo towards making him our next president,” says National Coordinator of the group, Mubarak Haruna.
“None of us has ever met him in person but from all we know, we are convinced that the vice president is the only tested and trusted candidate that can continue the good works started by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“It is obvious that Professor Osinbajo is a visionary leader, a patriotic citizen whose loyalty to one indivisible Nigeria is never in doubt; he is a detribalised Nigerian who is widely accepted, irrespective of religion and tribe across the country. We will support him to make sure he wins,” Haruna adds.
The group also acknowledges that Osinbajo hasn’t yet expressed a desire to throw his hat in the ring ahead of the presidential contest.
Haruna however adds that it will be in the APC’s best interest to cede its presidency ticket to the southern geopolitical region, from where Osinbajo hails.
Other such groups have been vociferous in their desire for an Osinbajo presidency in recent times.
The vice president has remained coy on his political ambitions ahead of the vote, with his team repeatedly stating that he remains primarily focused on helping President Buhari deliver on his electoral promises to Nigerians.
