Month: January 2020

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A MEMORABLE JANUARY.

 

I was still ruminating on the success of yesterday when I saw a recognition that I wasn’t expecting in the nearest future.

My journey into writing started as a hobby and as a means of having my voice and views known across board.

However, something like this that started as an innocent passion met waves of fury and envy from those who lack the opportunity of knowing what their passion and purpose are all about.

Since,them I have never relented in pushing the best of my efforts out on different platform.

Towards the end of last year,by Providence and coincidence,I ran into a platform known as “autranum” and within a space of few days I have my published e-books in PDF format on this platform.

Now,you can trace three different e-books to me as the publisher with other manuscript warming up to be thrown out for readers consumption soon.

Never know that I would be picked out as the “writer of the month”yesterday.The first recognition ever since I started on this journey.

Glory be to God and thanks to everyone who deemed it fitting for me to be recognized.

This month is ending with this and it is a fact that I am breaking limits this year.

Thanks to “autranum”

I am grateful.

 

©mlstcommunication 2020

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Nigeria’s Lagos slams brakes on motorbike taxis

Nigeria’s traffic-choked economic capital Lagos has announced sweeping bans on the motorbike taxis plying its perilous roads set to come in to force from next month.

The state government has barred motorbike taxis and motorised rickshaws, known locally as okada and keke, from swathes of the city over what officials described as “scary figures” for fatal accidents in recent years.

“Lagos State Government on Monday wielded the big stick against the menace of commercial motorcycles and tricycles,” the authorities wrote on Twitter.

 

“The lack of regard for the Lagos traffic laws by the Okada and tricycle riders had resulted in preventable loss of lives.”

The ban, which starts February 1, covers numerous central districts and suburbs of the chaotic megacity of 20 million people and major highways and bridges across Lagos state.

The ubiquitous motorbike taxis and rickshaws are seen as a vital — if sometimes hazardous — way for many Lagosians to negotiate the notorious “go-slow” traffic jams that clog the streets.

Motorists in one of Africa’s biggest cities face an obstacle course of tailbacks and potholes that can turn the daily commute into an ordeal lasting hours.

 

The bikes also offer a key source of income for thousands of low-skilled young men living in the city where unemployment and the cost of living are high.

Many of the drivers are unregulated but a slew of ride hailing apps have sprung up that have improved oversight and safety controls in the sector.

Lagos authorities have previously sought to ban the two and three-wheelers from main roads and bridges but enforcement has often been lax.

 

SOURCE:

 

MSN

 

 

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Coronavirus: FG shuts down Chinese supermarket in Abuja

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has shut down Chinese-owned Panda Supermarket in the Jabi area of Abuja as part of measures to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.

The FCCPC said in a series of tweets that it had confiscated some frozen food items illegally imported from China.

The pictures of some of the frozen food items posted on Twitter showed that they had expiry dates of 2089 which further aroused suspicion that they were not certified by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.

 

The agency said in a series of tweets, “The FCCPC inspected Panda Supermarket, Jabi, on credible reports that it discriminated and had a concealed area for Asian nationals. The allegation was confirmed. Seafood and animal products imported illegally from China were discovered. 

“The store was closed for cautionary reasons considering the Coronavirus. Products with expired and irregular shelf life were also discovered at Panda. Regulatory activities to remove all such products from the supermarket continue.”

The Federal Government had earlier in the week assured Nigerians of its readiness to strengthen surveillance at five international airports in the country to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.

The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, said the government would also set up inter-multisectoral committee to scale up surveillance and vigilance.

“The risk of importation is possible in all countries. However, the ministry wishes to assure all Nigerians that the capacity to detect, access and respond to this and other public health challenges are put in place,” he had said.

The minister said that in addition, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control had set up coronavirus group and was ready to activate its incident system for coronavirus if any case emerged in Nigeria.

First identified by Chinese researchers with the pathogen behind a mysterious illness that had sickened 59 people in Wuhan, Hubei in 2019, a city of 11 million in central China, coronavirus is a group of viruses common among animals but now confirmed that it could also infect humans.

 

 

The large family of viruses can cause diseases ranging from common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome otherwise known as SARS.

The disease has spread to Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, as authorities of that country confirmed 1,975 cases of the new coronavirus, while death toll from the virus rose to 56.

It had also spread to the US, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Australia, France and Canada.

 

SOURCE:

 

MSN

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Abacha/Ibori: Nigeria to receive $321m, €6m, explains how money will be spent — Daily Post Nigeria

Nigeria and the Island of Jersey will soon sign an agreement with the United States Government for the repatriation of 321 million dollars looted by former Head of State, late Gen. Sani Abacha. NAN reports that Island of Jersey is self-governing and has its own financial and legal systems and its own courts of law.…

via Abacha/Ibori: Nigeria to receive $321m, €6m, explains how money will be spent — Daily Post Nigeria

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OPL 245: Nigerian witness testifies in Italian court — Vanguard News

The trial of Shell & Eni is ongoing in Milan, Italy, Valori, an Italian newspaper has reported. Italian authorities had asked prosecutors to produce Isaac Eke, a Nigerian witness who is a retired Assistant Inspector-General of Police, in the ongoing probe of the $1.1billion Malabu oil scandal. Eke was brought up by defendant Vincenzo Armanna,…

via OPL 245: Nigerian witness testifies in Italian court — Vanguard News

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Angelique Kidjo: Legend that dashed Nigerians’ hope at the 2020 Grammys — Vanguard News

By Josephine Agbonkhese Nigerians were disappointed last Sunday when at the 2020 Grammys in Los Angeles, USA, Beninese singer-songwriter and actress, Angelique Kidjo, was announced the winner of the World Music Album category for which one of their indigenous music stars, Burna Boy, was also nominated alongside three others. That was Kidjo‘s fourth Grammy win…

via Angelique Kidjo: Legend that dashed Nigerians’ hope at the 2020 Grammys — Vanguard News

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Senate Committee screens Obiora for CBN Deputy Gov post — Vanguard News

Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief The Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions, yesterday screened Dr. Kingsley Obiora for the position of Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, urging him to bring his wealth of experience to bear in the task of assisting the Bank achieve its mandate of ensuring…

via Senate Committee screens Obiora for CBN Deputy Gov post — Vanguard News

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Make Your Home Look Expensive With These 31 Buys From H&M, Zara and Arket — Who What Wear

Homeware fever is sweeping the high street right now, with everyone from H&M to Zara getting in on the interiors action. You’d be forgiven for thinking that affordable fashion and home accessories wouldn’t be a winning combination (after all, how can you beat IKEA for purse-friendly buys?) but the reality is so much chicer than you could imagine. Scrolling through…

via Make Your Home Look Expensive With These 31 Buys From H&M, Zara and Arket — Who What Wear

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7 Perfect Outfits to Wear in 20-Degree Weather — Who What Wear

Some people will tell you that April 25 is the ideal date for mild temperatures. But we’ll agree to disagree. Coming up soon, that 20-degree seasonal transition is certainly weather at its best. But it’s also a time that requires some painfully strategic layers: enough to stay warm but not so much coverage that your…

via 7 Perfect Outfits to Wear in 20-Degree Weather — Who What Wear

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Maryam Sanda sentenced to death for killing husband

The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on Monday, convicted and sentenced Maryam Sanda to death by hanging for killing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello.

Delivering judgment, Justice Yusuf Halilu said “every available evidence” had proved that Maryam “fatally” stabbed her husband to death in Abuja on November 19, 2017.

Justice Halilu said, “The concept of justice is tripled in nature, justice to the deceased, Bilyaminu, whose life was cut short in a brutal manner and whose innocent blood cries to high heavens for vengeance, justice to the perpetrators of the crime, who cannot be denied the benefit of the procedure ordained by God in the Garden of Eden that is fair hearing or fair trial, justice to society whose membership has been depleted by one.

 

 

“I am left in no doubt that the defendant has not just failed but woefully failed to explain the death of the deceased bearing in mind her discredited colourfully dressed evidence.

“I am more than convinced that the defendant fatally stabbed the deceased with the same knife she threatened him with which she has also mentioned in her statement to the police with the full knowledge was not just probable or certain.

“When I come to terms with the fact that the person involved here is the accused person’s lawfully married husband and who has a baby with him at the time of his gruesome murder.

“This is not just sad and unfortunate but indeed wicked. While I am in sympathy with the position of the accused person, a young mother, two children, whose father by her inhuman action sent him to an early grave, my sentiment will not go far to free the accused person from the long arm of the law. After all, it is indeed in law that sentiment has no place in judicial process, particularly when the sentiment is against the law.

“Clearly, with every available evidence before me, I have come to the irresistible conclusion that you, Maryam Sanda, are guilty of the murder of Bilyaminu, your husband, who you indeed killed in cold blood. You are hereby convicted for the murder of Bilyaminu as charged.

“In view of the fact that you were the only one last seen with him and now that your story of ‘sisha’ bottle has been discredited beyond doubt that same was broken after the death of Bilyaminu, I ask you both questions in view of the evidence of PW1, PW2, PW3, PW4 and exhibit A,B,C and G, which are all unanimous on the injuries inflicted on the deceased. And the fact that you threatened to cut the private parts of the deceased severally.”

The police on November 24, 2017 arraigned Maryam alongside her mother (Maimuna Aliyu), brother (Aliyu Sanda) and their house help (Sadiya Aminu) on two counts of culpable homicide and an ancillary offence.

Maryam was a nursing mother and also three-month pregnant when she was arraigned.

She was delivered of her second baby girl during her two years and two months’ trial.

The prosecution in the first count accused Maryam of stabbing her husband.

The incident was said to have occurred in the couple’s apartment at 4 Pakali Close, Wuse 2 Abuja about 3.50am on November 19, 2017.

The three others were accused of causing the “evidence of the offence to disappear” by “cleaning the blood from the scene of crime with the intention” of shielding her “from legal punishment.”

On April 4, 2019, Justice Halilu in a ruling on the no-case submission filed by the four defendants after the prosecution closed its case with six witnesses discharged the three other defendants but ruled that Maryam had a case to answer.

Maryam, who had been attending the trial since November 2017 having her face covered with a veil, called one other person with herself as the two defence witnesses.

Justice Halilu dismissed her claim that her husband fell on the shards of a broken ‘sisha’ bottle during a fight between them.

Maryam had claimed that a fight broke out between them after she saw the picture of a nude girl on her husband’s phone.

The judge noted from the testimonies of Ibrahim Mohammed, the first prosecution witness and the friend of the deceased and Usman Aliyu, the fourth prosecution witness, who were both in the house before and after police visited there, the ‘sisha bottle’ was only broken after the death of her husband.

The first prosecution witness had earlier witnessed the scuffle between the couple and had to retrieve a knife from Maryam three or four times, thus preventing her from carrying out her threat to cut off her husband’s private parts.

“I am fortified by the unshaken evidence of PW1 and PW4 to conclude that the ‘almighty sisha’ bottle was broken and the living room was scattered to serve as a smokescreen, all carefully stage-managed to cover Maryam Sanda’s action,” the judge ruled.

He held that although there was no eyewitness to the incident and there was no confessional statement by anyone admitting to the commission of the crime, there was enough circumstantial evidence pointing to the guilt of Maryam as the killer of her husband.

The judge ruled, “From the totality of the evidence of the defendant, who was the last person to be seen with the deceased when he sustained the injuries that eventually led to his death, coupled with the surrounding circumstances that led to the death of the deceased, evidence of PW1, PW2, DW1 And DW2 (the accused) as reproduced in the body of this judgment, it is now very irresistibly clear that the defendant, fatally injured the deceased by stabbing him in the heart region, thigh, back, using the same knife which she had threatened to use on the deceased with the premeditated intention of killing him.”

Maryam, who appeared in court wearing a black flowing dress with a black veil covering her face, ran out of the courtroom through the door next to the dock weeping profusely when Justice Halilu pronounced her guilty.

Her mother and other relatives broke down in tears.

In the middle of the confusion the defence lawyer, Regina Okoti-Eboh, attempted to make a plea for allocutus (plea for mercy), but the judge said he needed to rise for the courtroom to restore to calm.

Her father was also pacing up and down the courtroom and intermittently seen with her daughter trying to pacify her.

Justice Halilu said the offence for which the convict was convicted being one based on Section 221 of the Penal Code, there would be no room for allocutus.

“It has been said that thou, shall not kill. Whoever kills in cold blood shall die in cold blood.

“Maryam Sanda should reap what she has sown. It is blood for blood.

“She is hereby sentenced to death by hanging until she dies,” the judge said.

 

SOURCE:

 

MSN

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