DRAMA AS OAU STUDENT UNION EXECUTIVES BUDGET N1,837.550 FOR PHONE CALLS.

Student Union executives and legislators at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, have budgeted N1, 837, 550 to make official phone calls between August, 2015 and January, 2016.

In a copy of the Student Union budget made available to reporters and debated by members of the OAU Student Representative Council on Sunday evening, the leaders also had a separate budget for internet facilities and sending of bulk Short Message Service.

The sum, which did not also include the one for purchase of phones, was budgeted by the leadership of the Central Executive Council and Students’ Representative Council led by Mr. Omotayo Akande and Mr. Adebari Aare respectively.

IMPERSONATION SCANDAL - AKWA IBOM GOVERNOR'S OFFICIAL DRIVER IMPERSONATES NIGERIA POLICE FORCE (@POLICENG) DEFRAUDS @ZENITHBANK.

SaharaReporters has learned that the official driver for the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, has been brazenly impersonating a Nigerian Police Force officer by wearing a full police uniform and with the knowledge of Governor Emmanuel. This highly criminal and fraudulent act has continued with impunity for a long time, according to sources.

Sources close to the Akwa Ibom State Governor told SaharaReporters that the driver, Mr. Bassey Edet Bassey, who hails from Cross Rivers State had worked with the Governor since he was a senior management staff with Zenith Bank Plc. On further checks, it was learned that his employer, Zenith Bank, usually detailed Mr. Bassey to serve the Governor whenever he visited Akwa Ibom State.

I LEFT N287BN ABACHA LOOT IN TREASURY - OLUSEGUN OPBASANJO.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said he left in the national treasury over N287bn, made up of $2bn, £100m and N10bn in cash and property, being the loot recovered from the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha.

Obasanjo left office as President in 2007 after serving two terms of eight years and handed over to the now late former President Umaru Yar’Adua.

The N287bn figure was arrived at using an average exchange rate of N125.88 to a dollar in 2007 and an average exchange rate of N247.99 to a pound in the same year.

AGONY OF 2 SISTERS AGED 14 & 16 WHO WERE RAPED FOR 3 YEARS BY DAD. #SAYNOTORAPE.

At the end of a rugged street in Ikotun area of Lagos, house No 40, a gated storey building stands shoulder to shoulder with other houses, bearing the signs of age and numerous tenants.

But in this building inhabited by an elderly landlord, Mr. Sikiru Okunola along with his elderly wife, Bose, and their tenants, one of the greatest crimes a father can commit against his own child, has happened.

Pa Okunola and his wife, who were both alarmed when they were hinted about an incestuous act of one of their tenants, summoned his children, 14-year-old Bisi and 16-year-old Biola to confirm from them whether it was true that their father had been violating them.

SHAME OF A RAPIST - UNILAG LECTURER ACCUSED OF RAPING HIS FRIEND'S 18-YR-OLD DAUGHTER FAILS TO SHOW UP IN COURT.

Observers that filled a Lagos Magistrate’s Court to capacity were let down last Wednesday as Dr. Akin Baruwa, who reportedly raped an 18-year-old University of Lagos admission seeker, failed to show up in court.

It was learnt that Baruwa, a lecturer at the university’s Distance Learning Institute, who had been in remand at the Kirikiri Prison since August 7, reportedly declined to follow the prison officers while they were coming to the court with other inmates.

The defendant had been in trouble since August 3, when he was arrested by the police for allegedly raping his friend’s daughter inside an office at the institution’s Department of Accounting.

DETAILS OF WHY DSS SACKED 65 PERSONNEL.

Details have emerged why about 65 personnel of the Department of State Services who were evicted from the service training school in Lagos were asked to leave the service.

A senior officer of the service who spoke with reporters in Abuja Sunday evening said the trainees were sent out because “their  recruitment did not follow laid down procedures of choosing personnel into the service.”

It will be recalled that DSS 65 cadet officers of the service who were undergoing training at the State Services Academy, SSA, in Lagos, including a sibling of the sacked former spokes person of the service, Marilyn Ogar were asked to leave earlier this month, few weeks to their passing out.

WE ARE FOCUSED ON ELIMINATING CORRUPTION. - PRESIDENT BUHARI.

Presidentt Muhammadu Buhari has said that his administration remains focused in the fight against corruption because it is a battle to regain Nigerai’s soul.

Buhari, who stated that corruption was endemic in the country, explained that graft was the main reason a potentially prosperous country like Nigeria was struggling to feed itself and provide jobs for its citizens.

The President, who made this remark on Sunday at the second plenary meeting of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria held at the Catholic Pastoral Centre, Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, lamented that hundreds of thousands of deaths from communicable diseases recorded in the country could be traced to the greed and corruption of a few.

CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP WARNS AGAINST DROPPING THE UNICAL LAW LECTURER RAPE SCANDAL..

Two civil rights organisations, African Network for Environment and Economic Justice and the Nigerian Feminist Forum, have expressed concerns over the increase in the incidence of rape by some members of the academic staff in Nigerian universities.

The group called on relevant authorities to take actions to stop the trend.

They were reacting to the allegation against the Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Prof. Cyril Ndifon, who was accused of alleged sexual assault on a 20-year-old 400-level Law student in the institution.

 Read previous reports HERE, HERE & HERE.

MINISTERIAL LIST - DSS SCREENS UTOMI, OYINLOLA, FALANA, WALE EDUN & ODIMIEGWU.

A former Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Limited, Mr. Festus Odimegwu and a former presidential candidate, Prof. Pat Utomi, are among the ministerial nominees that have been screened by the Department of State Service, 

Those already said to have been screened as nominees for President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet also include a former Governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola; and a Lagos-lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN).

Also on the list are a former Chief of Army, Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazu (retd.); an ex-chief executive of the Federal Inland Revenue, Mrs. Ifueko Omoigui-Okaru; a former finance commissioner in Lagos State, Mr. Wale Edun; and a former National Legal Adviser to the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, Abubakar Malami (SAN).

(VIDEO) THE SEX TAPE THAT TORE A SCHOOL APART - STAFF & PUPIL CAUGHT HEADMASTER & CHEMISTRY TEACHER 5 TIMES.

HEADMASTER GRAHAM DANIELS

A teenager walks silently along the red-carpeted corridor of a large building. As he goes, he switches on the camera on his phone and begins recording. Heavy breathing can immediately be heard in the background of the resulting internet video clip.

It is coming from behind an office door straight in front of the youngster. The breathing and other audible indications of sexual activity get louder the closer he gets to the door.

Then, moments before the grainy footage ends, a female voice utters what sounds like: ‘Oh, yes.’ The tape, or rather soundtrack, lasts little more than 30 seconds. The repercussions of it, however, have been far reaching.

CARNAGE IN MECCA - OVER 107 DEAD & 238 INJURED AS CONSTRUCTION CRANE COLLAPSES ON GRAND MOSQUE.

At least 107 people were killed and 238 injured when a crane crashed through the ceiling of the Grand Mosque of Mecca amid high winds and thunderstorms today. 

Dramatic footage shows the moment the crane toppled in heavy rain, with another video capturing the chaos and confusion inside the building as people ran for cover after the devastating impact.

Photos posted on social media sees the polished tiled floor of the mosque covered in rubble, bodies and pools of blood, and people fleeing the area bleeding and covered in soot.

ASSETS DECLARATION - WE WON'T FOLLOW BUHARI'S EXAMPLE - APC GOVERNORS.

Governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress have said they will not follow the example laid by President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo in declaring their assets publicly.

The governors, said it is not compulsory for them to declare their assets publicly and that they would not be pressured to follow the president’s action.

According to them, there is no law mandating the governors to publicly state their worth in terms of property and cash.

WIKE'S SLEEPLESS NIGHTS BEGINS AS INEC DECLARE APRIL 11 GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION A TOTAL SHAM & MOCKERY OF DEMOCRACY.

The Independent National Electoral Commission yesterday dismissed the governorship election that took place in Rivers State on April 11 as a sham  and mockery of democracy.

The Head, Election and Party Monitoring Department (EPM) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Charles Okoye, told the Rivers State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja yesterday that the election was akin to warfare, describing it as kangaroo.

Okoye, who was subpoenaed by the tribunal to give evidence on the findings of INEC’s team that monitored the election, told the tribunal that he was the coordinator of the team that monitored the election.

OBASANJO IS A DEVIL INCARNATE BUT I HAVE FORGIVEN HIM - DIEPREYE ALAMIEYESEIGHA.

Ten years after, the anger arising from the impeachment and subsequent imprisonment of former Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamie-yeseigha by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration is still reverberating even though Alamieyeseigha claims he has forgiven Obasanjo.

Alamieyeseigha, who spoke to Saturday Vanguard in his country home in Yenagoa, said that he had forgiven all those who plotted and sent him to jail purely for political reasons even though the experience remains very painful to him.

The former governor was impeached and removed from office in December 2005 and was subsequently sent to jail for alleged mismanagement of Bayelsa State funds.

COURT SENTENCE 25-YR-OLD MAN TO 14YRS IMPRISONMENT FOR DEFILING HIS NEIGHBOUR'S 13-YR-OLD DAUGHTER. - #SAYNOTORAPE.

An Ikeja Magistrates’ Court on Friday sentenced a 25-year-old unemployed man, Ogboru Godspower, to 14 years imprisonment for defiling a 13-year-old daughter of his neighbour.

The Chief Magistrate, Mr Tajudeen Elias, sentenced Godspower after he pleaded guilty to the offence.

“The accused is hereby sentenced to 14 years imprisonment to serve as deterrent to others and to reform him to be a law abiding citizen,” he said.

PASTOR RAPES 16-YR-OLD GIRL DURING DELIVERANCE IN LAGOS. #SAYNOTORAPE.

A 40-year-old Pastor, Abraham Akpan, was arraigned in an Ikeja Magistrates’ Court on Friday over the defilement of a teenager.

Akpan of No. 39, Hassan Ogunmola St., Ijaiye, a suburb of Lagos, is facing a three-count charge bordering on rape.

The prosecutor, Sgt. Jimah Iseghede, told the court that Akpan committed the offence between Aug. 27 and Aug. 29 at his residence.

NDLEA ARREST DRUG BARON WITH 1KG OF COCAINE.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a suspected drug baron, Chief Odugwe Joseph Azubuike over unlawful importation of 1.025kg of cocaine.

Odugwe who is currently on bail over several drug charges brought against him by the agency was allegedly found with wraps of powdery substances that tested positive for cocaine at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos.

The arrest was made during inward screening of passengers on Emirates airline flight from Dubai.

2 KILLED AS BLAST ROCKS INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS CAMP IN YOLA, ADAMAWA STATE.

The National Emergency Management Agency and Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency has confirmed a bomb blast at one of the Internal Displaced Persons’ camps in Yola.

According to Sanni Datti, spokesman of the state’s emergency agency, the name of the camp was identified as Malkohi and he said its inhabitants are currently being evacuated.

At least two people were killed in the blast at a camp for people displaced by the Boko Haram conflict in northeast Nigeria, the emergency services said.

“There was a blast at Malkohi IDP (internally displaced persons) camp in Yola around 11 o’clock this morning (1000 GMT),” Red Cross official Aliyu Maikano said. State police confirmed the blast.

UNICAL SUSPENDS RANDY LAW PROFESSOR WHO WAS ACCUSED OF RAPING 20-YR-OLD STUDENT. #SAYNOTORAPE.

The Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Prof. Cyril Ndifon, accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old 400-level student in his office was yesterday suspended by the panel instituted by the school’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Ivara Esu

Read previous reports HERE & HERE.

Professor Ndifon, who is the first professor of Law from Cross River State, was briefly arrested and detained by the police and later released on Wednesday before he was suspended yesterday evening by the panel set up to investigate him.

BEYOND THE SEARCH FOR UPRIGHT JUDGES.

On the heels of startling revelations from the presidency on how public funds were wantonly looted by some public officers in the last administration, President Muhammadu Buhari recently set up a Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption.   Its major mandate is to identify alleged treasury looters with the aim of bringing them to justice.

Beyond this, the Committee’s Chairman, Prof Itse Sagay (SAN) revealed that selected judges handling anti-corruption cases are under surveillance. The action is aimed at monitoring them on moral, professional and ethical grounds.

It is trite law that the power to prosecute criminal cases, including looting of public funds, lies with the state. This power is however expected to be exercised within the ambit of applicable criminal law and constitutional provisions of fundamental human rights.