Michael Ojuroye Initiative (Ngo)

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...