Michael Ojuroye Initiative (Ngo)

President Jonathan &   former President Olusegun Obasanjo The 22nd Assembly of African Union Heads of State and Government on Thursday began a two-day Summit with the crises in South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) taking centre stage. The News Agency of Nigeria,(NAN) reports that the Summit is being attended by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, former President Olusegun Obasanjo,and Former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar. President Jonathan is leading a delegation of seven members of the Federal Executive Council, including the two ministers of Foreign Affairs, Agriculture, Works, Health, Justice and Water Resources. The Summit with the theme, 2014, Africa’s Year of Agriculture and Food Security was declared opened by the out-going Chairperson and Ethiopian Prime Minister, Hailemariam Dessalegn. He said the union was concerned by the continued crises in the two countries. Dessalegn urged leaders to deliberate on the crises and resolve on the bes...

Goodluck T he  Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak has challenged the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, and the media community to focus on critical issues that will determine the agenda for the 2015 general elections rather than concentrate on bashing President Goodluck Jonathan and threatening mayhem, if the election results did not favour them. Gulak said the mass media was making itself a willing tool in the hands of the political opportunists in APC, whose stock in trade was to abuse the office and person of Mr. President because they had nothing to offer Nigeria. In a telephone interview in Lagos, yesterday, Gulak said: “I hold the media in highest esteem and I expect them to be guided by the ethics of their profession, to be fair to all sides.” Follow us on Twitter: Click here On Facebook:   Click here Add on BBM: 2860E881 or 7C80F17E

Image of  Proposed 4th Mainland Bridge Lagos State government, yesterday, said the proposed Fourth Mainland Bridge may not be realisable soon because; “With the current plan, 318 buildings will need to be demolished for the bridge to take-off.” Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Ben Akabueze and his counterpart from the ministry of Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat disclosed these during an inter-ministerial press briefing on analysis of Year 2014 budget, stressing that the year’s budget is aimed at eradicating poverty. Hamzat explained that it was difficult for the state government to embark on the previous alignment for the construction of the bridge because of its huge requirements and expenses, adding that the previous alignment which is eight  kilometers, will cost the state government N320 billion. According to him, “And to construct a kilometer of that bridge is about N40 billion, so the issue is that we also need to factor the cost of d...

El Tio Mexican forces have captured one of the country’s most wanted drug lords, officials say. Dionicio Loya Plancarte, known as El Tio (The Uncle), was one of the leaders of the Knights Templar drug cartel in western Michoacan state, officials say. The government had a 30m-peso ($2.2m; £1.3m) bounty on his head for drug and money-laundering crimes. Troops were deployed to Michoacan earlier this month after vigilantes clashed with gang members. The vigilantes accuse the government of not doing enough to protect locals from extortion and violence. Armed with high-powered weapons, they have pushed out the Knights Templar from some of their strongholds in the Tierra Caliente region. The army was sent in to restore order and disarm the so-called self-defence forces. However, many have refused to lay down their weapons until the cartel’s main leaders are captured. Follow us on Twitter: Click here On Facebook:   Click here Add on BBM: 2860E881 or 7C80F17E

D' banj Oyebanjo, a.k.a D’banj, on Monday said he would take to farming to encourage youths to embrace agriculture and fight poverty. D’banj said in an interview with in Ikeja, during the launch of “ONE’s Year of Agriculture’ Campaign” that his action was to explore another area of opportunities. “ONE’’ is an international, non-partisan, non-profit, advocacy and campaigning organisation aimed at eradicating poverty and preventable diseases in the world through public awareness. D’banj said that during his meeting with the “ONE Organisation” in South Africa, he was convinced that agriculture was the only way forward for Nigeria and Africa. “They told me about how many potentials that we’re missing out on. “They told about how if we focus on agriculture in the next five, six, seven, 10 years, Africa can actually be feeding the rest of the world. “They told me about how much the small scale farmers don’t even have any support and they are the larger percentage of people that are...

The State Security Service released the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, in the early hours of Tuesday after quizzing the ex-minister for about 15 hours. El-Rufai, who reported to the SSS Abuja office at about 9.30am on Monday, was released some minutes after midnight. The bail conditions of the All Progressives Congress chief was not known as of the time of filing this report. The former minister was summoned by the SSS for what the security agency described as provocative and inciting comments. El-Rufai was reported to have said there would be violence if the 2015 elections are not free and fair.   El- Rufai SSS detains El-Rufai The State Security Service on Monday detained a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Malam Nasir el-Rufai at its headquarters in Abuja. The SSS operatives detained el-Rufai, who is the interim Deputy Publicity Secretary of the opposition All Progressives Congress, when he reported at their of...

Properties worth more than N50 million were on Monday destroyed in a fire incident that gutted a warehouse in Omu-Aran, Kwara, the News Agency of Nigeria reports. An eyewitness told NAN that the warehouse, located on Aperan Way and behind a filling station, was stocked with foam and building materials. It caught fire at about 4.15p.m. and raged for more than three hours before the arrival of fire fighters from Ilorin. NAN reports that although no life was lost in the incident, police men from the Omu-Aran police division, assisted by some military personnel were on hand to maintain law and order in the area. An Assistant Chief Fire Superintendent, Mallam Mustapha Ibrahim, who led the team of firemen, told NAN that he received a distress call at about 5.30p.m. and immediately headed to Omu-Aran. He said that the intensity of the fire was due to the materials stocked in the warehouse which accounted for the huge losses incurred in the incident. Ibrahim attributed the fire to a susp...

Emotions ran high in Otukpo, Benue State in the week, when a 52 year old HIV positive teacher (name withheld) simply went berserk and allegedly took advantage of his 12 year old female student and raped her. The rather unfortunate incident occurred at Wesley High School, a missionary secondary school located in the heart of Otukpo town which also has boarding facilities for resident students. Narrating the ordeal through a petition written to the Chief Judge of Benue State a copy of which was made available to Vanguard, titled: A petition for Justice to be done devoid of favouritism, the father of the victim, Mr. Amos Adeoye, intimated that the teacher, on July 2 2009, within the premises of the school allegedly raped his daughter. He explained that the victim was caught in the web of the accused on the fateful day, when on her way to the school matrons abode to make a phone call to her parents when she was waylaid and lost her virginity to the HIV positive teacher. According to Mr....

In readiness for the 2015 general elections in the country, over 60,000 anti-riot mobile Police officers are being trained at the Police Mobile Training College, Ila-Orangun, Osun State. The Police officers who are currently undergoing training  were drawn from the 36 states of the federation and they are deployed next year during nationwide general elections. The Commandant of the college, Mr. Jackson El-Ekoh, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, told newsmen, weekend, that the training was to make police effective before, during and after the various elections scheduled for this year and 2015. El-Ekoh, who said the training would be in batches, disclosed that the 700 officers and men in the first batch started receiving their training last Friday. According to him, the training was at the instance of the Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed  Abubakar who he said gave a directive to ensure proper training for all Police officers that will participate in the future electi...

Udiomeh Kufre A Nigerian undergraduate, who used his tuition fee to buy a hard drug, has been arrested for drug trafficking, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, said in a statement, weekend. NDLEA said the suspect, Udiomeh Kufre Ita, a student of the Faculty of Management Sciences at the Regent University in Ghana, was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. He was caught with 1.745 kilogrammes of dried weeds that tested positive for cannabis, popularly called Indian hemp. The suspect was found in possession of the drug during the inward screening of passengers on an Africa World Airlines flight from Accra, Ghana, according to NDLEA Lagos Airport Commander, Hamza Umar. He said: “An undergraduate was found in possession of two parcels of cannabis weighing 1.745kg during routine search of passengers. The drug was hidden inside his bag containing personal effects. He was immediately arrested and the case is under investigation. “The suspect, who repor...

By:  TOBI AWORINDE Anjolaoluwa Botoku Nine-year-old Anjolaoluwa Botoku, who passed English and French at credit levels in the 2013 November/December West African Examination Council exams, talks about her aspirations in this interview with TOBI AWORINDE Why did you decide to enrol for the examinations? It all started when my brothers were studying for an exam and they were so serious about it. I asked them, “Why are you so serious?”  They told me that the exam was hard, so they had to study well for it. I then told them that there was no big deal in sitting for an exam. I later checked their books and discovered that what they were reading was not really tough.  I told them and they said I was claiming to know everything. That challenged me to register for the exams. I wanted to prove to them that I was not boasting. How old are your brothers? The first is Babajide. He is studying telecommunications engineering in a private university. He is in part t...

More than 300 people on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship have become ill during a voyage, the Centers for Disease Control said on its website. According to the statement, 281 of the 3,050 passengers and 22 of 1,165 crew members of Explorer of the Seas reported vomiting and diarrhea. In a statement to CNN, Royal Caribbean International said those who fell sick have responded well to over-the-counter medication being administered on board the ship. Janet Diaz, spokesperson for Royal Caribbean International, told CNN that the ship skipped a planned stop in Haiti on Saturday and sailed directly to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where it underwent an extensive sanitizing. The agency said the cause of the illness was unknown. Diaz told CNN the use of special cleaning products designed to kill norovirus will continue to be used throughout the voyage. All responses are being coordinated closely with the CDC, she said. Noroviruses spread easily and are a common cause of gastroenteritis, which p...

By:  ARUKAINO UMUKORO Miriam (left) running after a car Street kids who beg to survive tell ARUKAINO UMUKORO that they would rather go to school than beg From a distance, our correspondent watched as five-year-old Garba Isa and nine-year-old Kabiru Mohammed went after motorists and passers-by, begging for alms on the LASU-Igando Road, Iyana-Iba, Ojo, Lagos. Sometimes, they appeared frustrated; at other times, they seemed animated and forceful, peering into the windows of vehicles as if their lives depended on the motorists. They were not alone. Many other children, boys and girls of different ages, beg at the intersection. Our correspondent spotted another child, who looked no more than six years old, giving some naira notes to a woman who looked like his mother. In a flash, he disappeared to continue his ‘trade’ for the day, just like Isa and Mohammed. They spoke to SUNDAY PUNCH about their plights. “My father is dead, while my mother is struggling to take c...

Keshi Super Eagles Chief Coach, Stephen Keshi, on Saturday said he did not panic when his team was down 0-3 against Morocco in a quarter-final encounter of the African Nations Championship. Keshi told newsmen in a post-match conference that he charged the boys to show the stuff they were made of in the second half of the pulsating encounter. “I told them that in the second half I will want to see a different character, the type of character we brought against Bafana Bafana. “So, they took on from there, and for now, we are not going home. “There was one thing going for us, and we capitalised on it; we knew the Moroccans were good when they were with the ball, and poor when they were not with the ball. “We began to use our strength to exploit the weakness of the Moroccans, and inflicted whatever damage we could inflict on them. “That was how the match was won, ’’Keshi said. In the same vein, Chigozie Agbim, the Captain and the goalkeeper of the Nigerian team, said that that, in sp...

Three bombs hours apart hit Cairo police headquarters and policemen in the Egyptian capital Friday killing at least five people on the eve of the anniversary of the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak. The first bomb struck the Cairo security directorate around 6:15 am (0415 GMT), killing four people and wounding more than 70, the health ministry said. Hours later, another bomb, a small makeshift device, was set off near a police vehicle close to a metro station, killing one person, according to the health ministry. That was followed by a third outside a police station on a road leading to the Giza pyramids. The attacks came a day before police were to deploy across the capital for the third anniversary of the uprising against Mubarak, with Islamists calling for mass protests against the new regime. “They don’t want the people to to celebrate,” the January 25 anniversary, interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim said of the assailants, adding he expected large crowds to take to the...

As the three-day nationwide warning strike called by the Joint Health Sector Unions, JOHESU, in league with the Association of Health Professionals ends today, services were paralysed for the second day in most health institutions nationwide. This was even as the striking members of the Joint Health Sector Unions, JOHESU, meeeting with the Labour Minister, Chief Emeka Wogu and his counterpart in the Ministry of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, was inconclusive. It was said that both parties could not agree. The striking unions had earlier vowed not to attend any conciliation meeting that lacks government representation, insisting that this was the only guarantee that decisions taken would be implemented. In Lagos, the general atmosphere in most hospitals visited showed that the strike was total, and only medical doctors were around to render services, which was a difficult exercise due to inaccessibility of support services from nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, laboratory ...

The Imam of Federal College of Technology, Yaba Mosque, Imam Saeed Salmon has said that Islam also believes in the second coming of Jesus Christ, emphasising that any Muslim who does not believe in it is not a true follower of Prophet Muhammed. Kaaba-Mecca Salmon who made this known at a special lecture held at the Lagos Central Mosque, Tinubu, said,  Jesus is a messenger of God and would still return to a mosque in Damascus. “The second coming of Jesus Christ is a doctrine that every Muslim must believe. The teachings of prophet Muhammed talks extensively about this. The Qua’ ran Chapter 4:157-159 teaches this but the teachings of Islam does not support that Jesus was killed or resurrected, rather, he was raised by Almighty Allah to his majesty.” “Jesus is coming again to refute the claim of the Jews that he was crucified and to correct the doctrine of the Christians that he is the son of God. Again, the second coming of Jesus is to establish that there is a close relationship...

For allegedly destroying 10 palm trees on a land and threatening the owner’s life, a 49-year-old man, Babatunde Talabi, on Thursday appeared before an Ota Magistrates’ Court in Ogun. Talabi, whose address is unknown, is facing a three-count charge of malicious damage, threat to life and conspiracy The Prosecutor, Insp Olajide Michael, told the court that the accused committed the offences on Nov. 27, 2013 at about 11.45 am at Okiki Village, near Atan, Ota. The prosecutor said the accused, and others now at large, maliciously damaged 10 palm trees valued at N100,000 on the land of one Mr Lasisi Abolade. Michael said the offences committed contravened Sections 86 (1), 451 and 516 of the Criminal Code Law of Ogun State of Nigeria, 2006. The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge. Section 451 prescribes a penalty of two years imprisonment for malicious damage to property. The Magistrate, Mrs Titi Bello, granted the accused bail in the sum of N100, 000 with one surety in lik...

Maheeda on set Controversy sells and true, controversial singer/rapper Maheeda hangs on to it for life as she releases her highly anticipated "Naija bad Girl" video which had rained criticisms on her after she released behind-the-scene raunchy pictures of the video shoot True to the pictures earlier circulated Maheeda was completely nude in some scenes in the video. But then, she was gracious to have a clean cut version put out for those who just can’t stand it. Nudity, however may not be the only issue she has to contend with in this work. Already those who have watched the video are alleging she is a lame rapper. True, her delivery was weak, with shabby lyrics that could literally be counted. Aside her body, only the hook in the chorus made some kind of a lasting impression. An army of critics builds again and it only causes a reminder of the same treatment controversial actress turned singer Tonto Dike got last year after she released her singles ‘Hi’ and ‘...