Michael Ojuroye Initiative (Ngo)

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...