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After a much contested and drawn out period of time, the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has chosen Yahaya Bello as the party’s New candidate for the Kogi State Governorship supplementary election slated for  December 5, 2015 . According to a top APC chieftain, the decision was made last night by the party leadership. Bello, who came second in the August 29, 2015 party primaries, will replace the late Abubakar Audu on the APC ticket after the demise of the latter on Sunday, November 22, 2015 at the peak of the collation of the election results. Few days ago, the late Audu’s running mate in the inconclusive poll,  James Faleke, wrote both the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and his party, the APC, telling them why he ought to be declared G‎overnor-elect after the death of Audu having jointly secured votes substantially required by the Constitution to win an election. At about the same time, some leaders of the Kogi State...

The police in Lagos have arrested a 54-year-old man, Michael Bisa, for allegedly selling fake phones to customers in the Oshodi area of the state.   PUNCH Metro learnt that Bisa, who hails from Effurun, Delta State, was arrested by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad on Saturday at about 5pm.  According to the police, Bisa allegedly swindled members of the public by disguising as a mobile phone seller in the area, selling bars of soap to them instead.  Our correspondent gathered that the police recovered bars of soap, shirts, some amount of money and envelopes from the suspect.  Bisa, a father of four, said in his statement that it was poverty that drove him to sell bars of soap as mobile phones.  He said, “What I did to my customers is called exchange. The people who came to me to buy mobile phones would be shown a real phone. But while we were discussing the price, I would carefully hide the phone in a white handkerchief and ...

The Bayelsa State Police Command on Monday debunked reports that former President Goodluck Jonathan was attacked in the state.  The state’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Butswat Asinim, said persons peddling the rumour were mischievous.  Asinim said a group of hungry youths mistook a convoy of the former President for one of the governorship candidates in the state.  The PPRO, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), said the youths traditionally followed the convoy, perhaps, for alms, only to discover it belonged to Jonathan.  He said on realising it was Jonathan’s convoy, the youths who had followed him up to his house in Yenagoa, pulled back and took to their heels, adding that security operatives pursued and arrested some of them.  He said: “There was no attack on the former President. The youths mistook his convoy for a governorship candidate engaging in campaigns. “But when they discovered on getting to the entrance of hi...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arrested a former Minister of State for Finance, Bashir Yuguda, and a number of top officials from the office of the National Security Adviser over the controversial arms procurement scandal surrounding former NSA, Sambo Dasuki. Multiple sources at the EFCC told PREMIUM TIMES Mr. Yuguda was arrested Monday afternoon and was currently being quizzed by detectives. Our sources said a huge amount of money; “running into billions” was allegedly traced to the former minister from funds meant for arms procurement. “The funds were directly transferred to him from the NSA office and he has been unable to explain the rationale for the transfer,” a source said. “The transfers were made to his account between December 2014 and May 2015.” Also arrested over the same matter, according to our sources, are some senior officials at the NSA office, including the director of finance. “The suspects are being grilled by crack detectives an...

Talented indigenous rapper Olamide is also the boss at Yahoo Boys No Laptop (YBNL) record label.  The recently bereaved singer and Shakitibobo crooner has revealed why his record label is yet and will not sign up any female artist. Baddo, as Olamide is fondly called by fans revealed this in an interview with HIP TV recently.  Olamide said is not willing to sign on any female artistes on his label because of their life span in the Nigerian music industry. Olamide said the life span of women is short in the industry and that once a lady artist has given birth to a child and lose her sexiness, then her market value depreciates.  For Olamide to sign on a female act he said the lady must be three times hungrier than he is. Olamide said he is not looking for a diva but money.

The running mate of the late Abubakar Audu in the Kogi State Governorship election, James Faleke, has picked Audu’s son, Mohammed as his running mate.  Announcing the decision in Lokoja, Faleke called on the All Progressive Congress to endorse them for the governorship race.  Faleke denied reports that his relationship with the late Audu’s family had broken down. He added, “I carry the moral burden as I believe many others here today do, mine being more, to defend the interest, vision and the leadership tenets of our great leader and therefore state clearly that we are more united than ever before without cracks in the political family. ” The development adds a new twist to the drama that is playing out following the death of Audu on November 22, the same day the Independent National Electoral Commission declared the election inconclusive.  Although lawyers differ on the right course of action, INEC authorised the APC to replace its late candidate, a decisi...

Nollywood actor, Saint Obi, who has been away from the acting industries for years upon years has revealed that he has now turned to music. The actor celebrated his birthday recently and to mark the special day he announced his entry into the music industry. According to him,  “I am a natural late bloomer but whenever I arrive, perfection is all I exude. I am firm believer in giving back to society, especially our young ones. There are so many talented Nigerians who have been looking for platforms that will give flight to their talents without any success. This led to the creation of Agwhyte Music Label. At the moment, Agwhyte music label is starting with a group called, A.M. Krew made up of D-Style & Wit Moral as well as my humble self. We are dropping 3 massive joints titled You & I, Imagine and Sarakute.”

There is currently an outbreak of violence at the headquarters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja. About 1, 000 youths are at the secretariat of the party where APC leaders are holding a meeting over the Kogi state election,The cable reports.  They came in buses marked ‘Dekina’, a local government area in the‎ state. On sighting Yahaya Bello, who arrived at 2:48pm, they went out of control, attempting to attack him.  It took the effort of security agents to smuggle Bello from their midst. The youths are believed to be supporters of James Faleke, running mate to the late Abubakar Audu, and Bello, the preferred choice of the APC for Saturday’s supplementary election. More to follow…

Barcelona pair Lionel Messi and Neymar were on Monday named on the shortlist for FIFA's prestigious Ballon d'Or along with double reigning title holder, Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid.  While Portuguese Ronaldo has triumphed over the last two seasons, Argentinian Messi has previously won the coveted award four times while Brazilian Neymar makes the shortlist for FIFA's World Player of the Year for the first time.

Former Aviation Minister, Fani Kayode has exposed what he called the callousness of President Muhammadu Buhari  marred with human right abuses, a high massacre of innocent civilians and mysterious “ missing” of soldiers in the battle against insurgency. The former Minister via Twitter, blasted the President who he claims is “junketing around the world” while suicide bombers continue to wreak havoc on the nation. He posited that the recent raid on former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa’s home simply because he was a friend of the former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, who he said was under “illegal house arrest” over the purchase of arms made during his tenure. Barely 24 hours on Buhari’s arrival from Iran, had he again sneaked out to the Commonwealth Heads of State meeting in Malta. Buhari’s around the world junketing was on Friday November 27, 2015 preceded by a bomb explosion that rocked through the ancient city of Kano leaving fifteen people dead with at least f...

A Lagos State High Court presided by Justice Lawal Akapo has adjourned till 11th of December, the trial of senior pastor and prophet of Synagogue Church of All Nations, Temitope Joshua over death of 116 persons, mostly South Africans, in a building within the church premises that collapsed last year. The trial scheduled to commence today was stalled by absence of four engineers who were to be arraigned alongside the Synagogue church’s board of trustees. Only a person appeared in respect of the Church’s board of trustees. Oluwaseun Abimbola, counsel to the defendants told the court that the contractors were not served with court papers by the Ministry of Justice, and therefore had no cause to appear before court. Lagos State’s Attorney General, Adeniji Kazeem said no valid physical addresses were found for the contractors, which he said was reason that the Ministry could not locate or serve the court papers on the engineers. The judge, while ordering that proper court noti...

Read the full report below The Federal Government has reached out to some leaders of thought in the South-East to intervene in the growing pro-Biafra protests in that part of the country. President Muhammadu Buhari has also received the assurances of state governors in the geopolitical zone that the issue has being adequately addressed. The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said this in an interview on Saturday. Adesina, who responded to question on whether the President was considering inviting leaders of the protesters for talks or will use South-East governors and other leaders of thought to reach out to them. Adesina said, “Government is in communication with credible leaders of the South-East on the Biafra issue. “At the last Council of State meeting, one of the governors from the region assured council members that the issue was being looked into. “The leaders of thought are working already. The President is concerned about ...

The Oyo state police command have arrested and paraded one Wasiu Adetunji Lawal, a middle aged man who went to a church in search of a wife but ended up stealing and selling off the vehicle of the church pastor in Ibadan, Oyo state. Paraded along with Wasiu Adetunji Lawal, Isiaka Babatunde, Jamiu Rahman, Wasiu Adelani and Abdulazeez Ahmed. Narrating what happened to Tribune, the victim, Pastor Akorede Aderounmu said "The suspect (Lawal) came to our church, looking for a lady to marry. After a while, he got close to me. One day, he said he wanted to help me repair something in my car. He had earlier said that he was an auto dealer. He disappeared with my vehicle for three months before it was recovered from the person he sold it to in Kaduna. Before his arrest, I called him severally but he always told me that he would soon bring the car, unknown to me that he had already sold it. I never instructed him to sell the car as he claimed.”. The state Commissioner of Police, Le...

I have been amused, reading a number of jokes concerning the frequency of the President, Muhammadu Buhari’s foreign trips. Questions have been raised about why so many visits, and what are the benefits Nigeria is getting? I will make it clear from the beginning that the critic is entitled to his and her opinion and nothing said here is intended to silence him or her. Criticism goes with the territory and as it is often said in a wisecrack, if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen. President Muhammadu Buhari came into office under the mantra of change. While Nigerians are yearning for change, you need someone who will set up the infrastructure, both at home and abroad for it. President Buhari is busy doing that. The change is manifest in where he visits and what he does. In the delegations accompanying him abroad, President Buhari has slashed the numbers, bringing them down to a tolerable or the bearable minimum. He went to the United Nations General Assembly i...

The minister of Transport, Mr Rotimi Amaechi has ordered a probe into the financial activities of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron, Akwa Ibom State and N18 billion remittances to the institution by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) in the last five years. The move to begin a full audit of the institution’s finances followed allegations of financial recklessness and large scale fraud levelled against the academy’s rector, Mr Joshua Okpo. Ekpo was said to have stirred the hornet’s nest after series of accusations he levelled against NIMASA for starving the school of funds through the agency’s alleged flagrant refusal to release the statutory five per cent subvention funds to the school. The minister was said to have summoned the management of NIMASA to his office and asked why it was sitting on the subvention of MAN, Oron. However, the bubble burst when the minister was told by the acting director-general of NIMASA, Mr Haruna Jauro...

Civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), has said that it received several documents from the World Bank totalling over 700 pages on information about the spending of recovered assets stolen by the late General Sani Abacha, with some of the documents showing that the loot was spent on roads, electricity, education, health and water. This information was disclosed by SERAP’s Executive Director Adetokunbo Mumuni in a statement on Sunday. The organisation said: “SERAP can confirm that last week we received several documents from Ann May of the Access to Information Team of the World Bank following our Access to Information Request to the Bank. “We also received a letter dated November 24, 2015 from Mr. Rachid Benmessaoud, Director of the World Bank in Africa. “In total, SERAP has received over 700 pages of documents, which we are now closely studying and scrutinising with a view to discovering whether the documents contain details that N...

A highly placed security source confirmed the arrests to a correspondent of SaharaReporters. He added that the officials’ arrest was connected to the ongoing investigation of a $2 billion weapons contract scandal involving Mr. Dasuki, the erstwhile National Security Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan.   The embattled former NSA, Sambo Dasuki, has been under intense pressure from law enforcement authorities over his alleged role in orchestrating the stealing of $2 billion meant for a massive arms contract. The allegedly stolen funds were intended to purchase weapons to fight Islamist terror group, Boko Haram.  Agents of the Department of State Services (DSS) raided Mr. Dasuki’s home as part of the widening investigation into the alleged heist. Mr. Dasuki, who denied stealing from Nigeria’s funds for the purchase of arms, has reportedly made a statement to investigators.  Subordinates of Mr. Dasuki who were arrested include Shuaibu Salisu, who was Mr. D...

The Former President was granted a doctorate degree in political science by the Tai Solarin University of Education. Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he is not happy with the expanding rate of un-job in Nigeria. As per Punch Newspapers, the Obasanjo said if nothing is done to address the issue, "the nation may be perched on a barrel of black powder."  He said this on Saturday, November 29, 2015, at the sixteenth and seventeenth conference of the Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ijebu Ode, Ogun State. In his words,  "If there is no occupation for the unemployed to sustain themselves furthermore to add to the advancement of the nation then, we will all be perched on a barrel of explosive.  "We ought to have the capacity to break the cycle of neediness, through occupation and riches manifestations. We can accomplish this at both the government, state, neighborhood, family and individual levels. "We should all consider instruction to be a devi...

Some hoodlums started a street fight on Olorogun Street, Odo Eran, in the Itire area of Lagos State on Tuesday, during which a 21-year-old stabbed a landlord, identified as Alawu Lateef, to death. PUNCH Metro learnt that Lateef, who was a father of three, had intervened in the fight, and asked the hoodlums to leave the area, when one of them, identified as Lati Elepo, stabbed the landlord. It was gathered that the father of three slumped, while residents arrested Elepo before he could escape with the other hoodlums. The matter was said to have been reported at the Itire Police Division. Our correspondent learnt that the hoodlums, numbering six boys, had come from Osindero Street to meet one Balogun, who they claimed owed them about N30,000. It was learnt that when the hoodlums did not meet Balogun at home, they started to make trouble on the street. The landlord, Lateef, who worked as a panel beater, was said to have asked Elepo to leave the area with his gang members. The hoodlum...

Music star, Wizkid, took out time to reply a fan on Twitter who tweeted about what he would do with 13 billion pounds. The tweeter user tweeted with the hastag ‘#With13billionponds’. He went on to say he would make Wizkid his ‘house boy’, if he had that kind of money. Wizkid replied his tweet in the most epic way saying as for that amount of money, he would willingly clean his house and wash his car too. Nice one! lol..

in Share TB Joshua, general overseer of ‎the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), will be arraigned before a Lagos state high Court in Ikeja on Monday, over the deaths of 116 persons during the collapse of a building in the church. Bola Akingbade, deputy director, public affairs of the Lagos state ministry of justice, confirmed this in a statement issued on Sunday, saying the engineers of the affected building will also face charges. “The trustees of ‎Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) will on Monday, November 30, 2015 be arraigned before a Lagos state high court in Ikeja over the collapse of a six-story building in the church on September 12, 2014, which led to the death of 116 persons,” the statement read. “Senior Pastor of the church, Prophet T.B Joshua is one of the trustees. The trustees will be arraigned before Justice Lawal Akapo alongside the engineers that constructed the collapsed building.” The engineers – Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatir...