Michael Ojuroye Initiative (Ngo)

BY: FUNMI OJUROYE 13th SEP. 2013 Human rights activist, Mike Ozekhome, who was kidnapped for two weeks, returned home on Thursday to a rousing welcome. A cow was slaughtered to entertain people who had come to make sure that he was indeed save and sound. The lawyer, who was kidnapped between Ehor and Ekpoma Road in Edo State and released on Wednesday, narrated his ordeal to well wishers at his home on Mike Ozekhome Lane, Igando, Lagos State. While addressing the crowd in company with his wife, Josephine and son, Ilugbekai, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria called for a four-minute silence for the four policemen from the Ehor Police Division, who were killed while attempting to rescue him. He said, “My ordeal began on Friday August 23, 2013. I left Benin at 2pm for my home town. “I ran into the kidnappers some minutes past 3pm. It was my driver, Chinedu, who noticed that a vehicle had been used to block the road and he told me that the people were armed robbers. So, I told hi...

BY: FUNMI OJUROYE  13th SEP. 2013 Human Rights Lawyer, Mike Ozekhome has charged the federal government to constitute an amnesty programme for kidnappers in Nigeria. Ozekhome, who made this charge at his Igando home in Lagos after being freed by his abductors, also called on the federal government to declare a state of emergency. He said “I therefore call upon the federal government of Nigeria to institute an amnesty programme for this volatile, very angry, very very desperate youth of Nigeria” whom he said “believe rightly or wrongly that they have been shortchanged by the nation which is why they have taken up arms”. He further suggested that the FG “declares a state of emergency on youth unemployment, lack of capacity building, educational decay, infrastructural decay” which he noted “gives birth to crime”. Mr. Ozekhome appealed to the government not to neglect the families of the four policemen who were killed while trying to rescue him from his abductors. “It was ...

BY: FUNMI OJUROYE  13th SEP. 2013 Thirty seven people were killed when a fire swept through a wooden psychiatric hospital in northwest  Russia  overnight Thursday, regional investigators said.   "During a fire in the Oksochi psychiatric hospital 37 people died," regional investigators said in a statement. Ten people have already been pulled out of the debris in the village of Luka 220 kilometres southeast of Saint Petersburg, the statement said.   The fire, which according to preliminary information was sparked by a patient smoking in bed, quickly spread through the wooden structure housing at the all-male facility in Luka village in the region of Novgorod.   Around 60 patients and personnel were believed to be inside the hospital when it caught fire and around 20 were evacuated, the committee said.   In April, a fire that ravaged a psychiatric hospital in the Moscow region killed 38 people, most of them patients engulfed by flames as they sl...

Lawyer, activist and Pastor Bamidele Aturu stopped by the studio of Sahara Reporters Media Group. Omoyele Sowore spoke to him on a myriad of issues including the PDP split, The 'Lagos Deportations' and other issues. He also touched on a few personal matters.

US marks 12th anniversary of 9/11 attacks NEW YORK/WASHINGTON - Amid moments of silence and a reading of victims' names, Americans paused in solemn ceremonies Wednesday to cherish the memory of the nearly 3,000 innocent people who died when hijacked jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field 12 years ago. More than a thousand people gathered at the National September 11 Memorial plaza in lower Manhattan, New York City, for the annual reading of victims' names from both 1993 and 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, against the background of playing bagpipes and tolling bells. The solemn ceremony was held around two reflecting pools in the footprints of the twin towers on the former World Trade Center complex. Participants first observed a moment of silence at 8:46 am EDT (1246 GMT), the time when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower and there was a second pause at 9:03 am when United Airlines Fligh...

2015 Stalls Jonathan's Talks With 'Rebel'  Governors Two issues stood between President Goodluck Jonathan and seven aggrieved governors of the party in their efforts Tuesday night to resolve the dispute that caused the break of the party, Daily Trust learnt yesterday. The issues included the governors' demand that Peoples Democratic Party national chairman Bamanga Tukur be removed and that President Jonathan should not rush into declaring for re-election in 2015. The meeting is scheduled to resume Sunday. "I can tell you that Sunday's meeting will determine the way forward," a source at the meeting said. The source said Jonathan had earlier conceded to the first three demands of the governors which included that the Adamawa State PDP leadership backed by Governor Murtala Nyako be restored and that the suspension on the Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi from the party be lifted. When the governors raised the third issue on the leadership of th...