News & Announcements

A 33 – year old single lady identified as Ifeoma Ossai has landed in Police net after killing her 50-year-old landlord, Monday Surulere Oladele, with his manhood over a disagreement arising from an electricity bill.

The Daily Crucible learned that Ms Ifeoma Ossai who was said to be irked during an ensuing argument over the light bill  allegedly thrust both hands into her landlord’s private part, grabbed the manhood and used the ‘joy stick’ to pull him about until he slumped to the ground unconscious.

The police spokesman in Ogun State, Abimbola Oyeyemi who confirmed this on Tuesday, stating that the landlord was quickly taken to the State General Hospital Ota for emergency medical attention but the doctor on duty at the health facility confirmed him dead.

Oyeyemi, a Deputy Superintendent of Police(SP), said the suspect was, however, nabbed after one Olaleye Taiwo reported the incident to Sango Ota divisional police headquarters.

The police spokesman added that the Divisional Police Officer( DPO) for Sango Ota division, CSP Saleh Dahiru, despatched detectives to the scene, had the suspect arrested and subsequently taken into custody for investigation.

Oyeyemi states, “The suspect was arrested following a report lodged at Sango Ota divisional headquarters by one Olaleye Taiwo, who reported that his brother, Monday Oladele has a disagreement with his tenant over the payment of an electricity bill, and in the process, the said tenant grabbed the manhood of the deceased and dragged him with it.

“The landlord fell unconsciously on the ground and was rushed to General Hospital, Ota where the doctor on duty confirmed him dead.

Upon the report, the DPO Sango Ota division, CSP Saleh Dahiru, quickly led his detectives to the scene where the suspect was promptly arrested and taken into custody for investigation.

“On interrogation, the suspect claimed that the deceased asked her to pay for electricity bill, but she insisted that until water is directly connected to her apartment as promised by the landlord before she packed in she will not pay the electricity or any other utility bill.

“This led to a scuffle between them consequence upon which the suspect grabbed the manhood of the deceased and dragged him with it.

“The deceased subsequently slumped, and he was rushed to the hospital but was pronounced dead by doctor on duty.The corpse has been deposited at the hospital mortuary for postmortem examination.”

Meanwhile, the Commissioner of Police, Frank Mba, has given directive for transfer of the suspect to Homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation Departments for further investigation and diligent prosecution.

On a classy evening filled with the glitter of Government officials, Ambassadors, Consuls and Honorary Consuls, representatives of International Organizations, the Dutch Community, corporate executives, and special guests, gathered at the Country Lodge Hotel, into the warm embrace of the host, the Honorary Consul of the Netherlands Madam Binta Jalloh who in her usual radiant smiles welcome guests to the opening of the Honorary Consul of the Netherlands in Sierra Leone.

The well-attended event testified to the continued strong bilateral relations between the Netherlands and Sierra Leone.

Speaking at the occasion, Madam Jalloh, highlighted her early days as a 15-year-old on arriving the shores of Europe and the culture shock she experienced but held on to her dreams with reference to Walt Disney’s words that, “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” “If you can visualize it, if you can dream it, there’s some way to do it.”.  

Furthermore, she emphatically noted, to the admiration of the audiencethat “I have come a long way and I must say that my confidence has never wavered, especially when it comes to serving both Sierra Leone and the Kingdom of the Netherlands; My appointment as the Honorary Consul for the Netherlands in Sierra Leone undoubtedly shows a promising good relationship between the two countries. Being that I am the daughter of both countries.”

Madam Binta Jalloh expressed her willingness to work hard within the dictates of the rules that govern her position and to showcase the opportunities available for partnership and cooperation in the various sectors that include but are not limited to the construction of megastructures, roads, bridges, dredges, logistics equipment, and water.

And she also promised to consolidate the ties between both countries through various opportunities for foreign direct investment.   

It would be recalled that the former Dutch Ambassador Rom Strikker during one of his visits to Sierra Leone did express plans to establish an honorary consulate in Freetown, which has become a reality.

The event was attended by dignitaries such as Katja Lasseur (Deputy Head of Mission) and Bram Van Opijnen (First Secretary and Policy Adviser), both from the Dutch Embassy in Accra Ghana.

The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has again called on the “Obidient” family and all men and women of goodwill to remain calm, prayerful, and alert to the events in the country.

Speaking Friday through his Media Adviser, Mr. Valentine Obienyem, Obi urged Nigerians to ignore the news being circulated where he was quoted as saying that he never lost an election; that he would fight and “bleed to death until” his mandate is restored; that he would drag “INEC until there will be no life left in them”; that he was “looking forward to jailing all that partook in this scam and fraud called election”, among others.

Obi described the news as not only false but also mischievous, misleading, and out of character.

He said that insofar as he believed that the election was gravely flawed, as being attested to by everybody that was part of the process, he would continue to pursue the recovery of the stolen mandate through the legal process.

“I have worked through similar paths in the past and was successful. I shall follow the same path without endangering the relative peace in the country, which is actually what those election riggers are striving desperately to upset,” Obi said.

“We’re exploring a standalone, decentralized social network for sharing text updates,” Meta, which also owns Instagram, said in a short email statement.

“We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” the statement added.

The media reports said that Meta’s new app would use technology to allow it to be interoperable with niche network Mastodon and other platforms — enabling users to broadcast posts to people on other networks.

This would be a clear break from the usual practice by tech giants, where platforms such as Instagram or YouTube are kept behind technological walls and operate using company servers under strict rules.

Mastodon runs from decentralized computing servers, with no central management or authority calling the shots.

Ondo State Police Command announced on Saturday that it has started an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of a mother and her infant inside their room in Owo, the seat of Ondo State’s Owo Local Government Area.

According to information, the five-month-old infant was already dead when the 29-year-old woman, Tawa, and her husband were discovered on Friday.

On Thursday night, the group claimed to have gone to bed healthy.

According to a source, the couple purchased a new generator a few days prior to the incident, and on Thursday night before turning it in for the night, they ran the generator. This raises the possibility that the generator’s fumes caused the incident.

The source claims that the family was met on Friday in a critical state. The mother passed away at the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, where doctors were attempting to save the husband’s life while the wife was already dead and the baby had already passed away.

The source said, ” When the deceased’s elder sister did not see her at work on Friday afternoon, she became worried. So she and some co-workers went to their house to check them.

“When they got to their house, they met the door locked and had to break in forcefully and were shocked to see the couple in a state of coma while their baby was already dead. So they rushed them to the FMC where the wife died at the hospital and the husband in a critical condition.”

When reached, Ms. Funmilayo Odunlami, the state public relations officer for the police command, verified the event but stated that the reason for the death was still under investigation.

The PPRO said, “We can’t say exactly what caused the incident for now. Some are saying it was caused by generator fume, but an empty bottle of snipper was also found in the room. So it may be that the couple sprayed snipper into the room before going to bed. So investigation is ongoing on the matter.”

The remains of a 28-year-old National Youth Corps Member, Oreoluwa Aina, who was involved in the Lagos train accident which occurred on Thursday, March 9, have been laid to rest.

Aina was among the six victims who were confirmed dead by the state government.

The late corps member, who was serving with the Curriculum Services Department of the Lagos State Ministry of Education in Alausa was buried on Saturday at Atan cemetery.

The delegation of the state government led by the Commissioner for Education, Folasade Adefisayo, was present at the burial.

Femi Aina, the father of Oreoluwa Aina, a National Youth Service Corps member, who died on Thursday when a Lagos State Government staff bus collided with a train in the PWD area said his daughter was preparing for her master’s in the United Kingdom, UK, after the service year before the unfortunate incident.

The heartbroken father disclosed this during an interview with PUNCH.

“She was preparing to go to the United Kingdom for her Master’s programme after her youth service ends in May, but unfortunately, all her plans had been dashed. She happened to be the first grandchild of my parents and she stayed with my mum here in Lagos because our dad passed away last year, so she had always been with her grandmother. She was dear to everyone around including church, school and at work. Her death is a great loss,” he said.

The 28-year-old lady was buried on Saturday at the Atan cemetery, Lagos.

Excerpts from the interview below:How did you receive the news of your daughter’s death?

I was in Abuja watching the television around 9 am when I saw the incident. An hour after that, I got a call that my daughter was involved in it. That was when I knew what I saw on TV was actually happening to me. Then I immediately called my younger brother and sister in Lagos. I later received two more calls in another 10 minutes and by then, she was already in the ICU (intensive care unit). They were attending to her and at the same time calling me from there. I even heard some of the staff members praying for her. So, I rushed to the airport to get any available flight back to Lagos but when my plane was ready to take off by 4 pm, I was told that she had passed away.

When was the last time you communicated with her?

On Wednesday, my younger brother’s wife celebrated her birthday. She recorded the birthday and sent it to us. We all laughed at the video and the following morning (Thursday) she sent a WhatsApp message to me saying, “Daddy how was your night? Hope you slept well,” and I replied, “All is well” and there was no response after then. I even thought she did not respond because she ran out of data, not knowing that she was already involved in an accident.

Were you aware that she used to board the staff bus?

I know she boarded the staff bus, but not every day. If not for this cashless nonsense policy, she would not have followed that bus. But she did not have cash, so she had to follow the bus. She had just N200. They just kill people anyhow in this country.

Did she share any of her aspirations with you?

Yes, many of them. She planned to travel to the UK for her Master’s programme, and she was already into catering. She was part of a thrift society and they even called me from there yesterday to inform me about it. She was saving money to start a mobile food business. Even though she had plans to study more, she was just trying to do things. She was also into music and she recorded in the studio. We are a member of The Apostolic Church and she was a staunch member. I learnt she was even the one that led the song last Sunday. She had so many plans and she was just about to fly. It was just this youth service which is mandatory that she wanted to complete and then fly.

What is your assessment of the response of the state government to the incident?

Sincerely, I was impressed. When I arrived in Lagos, I went straight to LASUTH and I saw how the victims were being attended to. I saw different injuries with different segments and how they were trying to help everybody. They tried their approach to that level of emergency. They were trying to salvage whatever they could.

What is your take on the driver?

I am not happy with the driver at all. The driver had caused a lot of damage. I learnt they want to do a mental test for him. Let the law just take its course. I can’t say what is on my mind.

What do you expect the state government to do following this incident?

The governor was here yesterday and we spoke at length. The government needs to carry out a re-evaluation of our drivers, especially those who carry such a large number of people. A lot can be done to evaluate people so that we keep our lives in their hands. Possibly, the way they do for pilots, if we can value our lives like that, this thing could have been averted because my thinking is that the driver must have been doing something like that before now. This cannot be the first time. When they are doing roadworthiness, they should also do mental worthiness or whatever they can call it. We hear tankers falling on cars in this same Lagos, things that are not meant to happen normally. We can take them seriously as doctors who spend seven to ten years in school because they want to treat a human being. But we just give a driver a license to convey close to 95 people in a bus at a time and we don’t know the health or the mental state of such a person. We take them as just drivers but our lives are in their hands. So, if there is anything the governor can do to evaluate them if possible – constantly.

Pope Francis has declared he is open to revisiting the institution of celibacy and has suggested that priests may soon be permitted to engage in sxxxxual activity.

There is no conflict for a priest to be married, Francis declared in an interview that was released in Argentina media last week. In the Western Church, celibacy is a short-term prescription.

It is not eternal in the same way that priestly ordination is permanent.

The Roman Catholic Church did not mandate celibacy until the 11th century.

Because clergy without spouses were more likely to leave their money to the church, the change was made in part for financial reasons.

Because of Jesus’ example, the Church presently mandates celibacy for priests.

But, as the Catholic Church deals with the fallout from child abuse scandals across the globe, there are mounting calls to abandon the norm.

The German Synod recently approved a motion asking the Pope to lift the celibacy requirement for priests.

Francis’ openness to reviewing celibacy marked a shift from his position in 2019 when he said: “Personally, I think that celibacy is a gift to the Church. I would say that I do not agree with allowing optional celibacy, no.”

Francis responded “Yeah, yes” when asked if he would be willing to have the rule reviewed. In actuality, every member of the Eastern Church is to wed those that desire to. They decide the option to marry or remain celibate exists before ordination.

The Eastern Church is a division of Catholicism that accepts the primacy of the Pope while giving room for local customs and liturgy.

The Eastern Church, which permits priests to wed and practices customs like Coptism, has a much lower number of documented abuse incidents than the Western Church.

He did, however, say that exceptions may be made for priests in remote regions.

Last weekend, Germany’s Catholic Church agreed to a spate of liberalizing measures, including the blessing of same-sxxx marriages and the admission of women as deacons, or priestly aides. In response to the clerical abuse scandal, the review was initiated in 2019.

Francis also addressed increased divorce in an interview released on Friday by Argentine media site InfoBae, stating that young people were often too eager to marry.

“Sometimes [one] goes to a wedding, and it seems more like it’s a social reception and not a sacrament,” he said. “When young people say forever, who knows what they mean [by] forever.”

He added: “A wise lady once told me: ‘You priests are very smart. To be an ordained priest, you have to spend six, or seven years in the seminary. To get married, which is for a lifetime — because a priest can leave for us it is for a lifetime— they give us four.”

Ademola Adeleke, the governor of Osun State, has warned commercial banks in the state not to continue distributing old naira notes to clients if they do not intend to return them as deposits.

The governor expressed concern about how commercial banks are mistreating state residents by refusing to take outdated currency notes even after customers had been paid with them.

This was said in a statement released on Monday in Osogbo by his spokesperson, Malam Olawale Rasheed.

Adeleke claimed that he had received numerous complaints from customers of banks who claimed that the institutions had rejected deposits of outdated currencies and that this had had an adverse effect on the general people.

“I have received several calls from Bank customers across the state. The deliberate refusal of banks to collect old notes is creating serious economic complications for residents of the state.

“For the banks to issue old notes and refuse to accept old notes as a deposit is highly unacceptable,” the statement said.

The governor, however, called on the Central Bank of Nigeria to direct the banks operating in the state to correct the anomalies.

“The state director of the CBN is specifically requested to direct the banks to halt this unhealthy practice.

“If banks will not accept old notes as deposits, they must stop issuing old notes for withdrawal. The current pain being inflicted on our people must stop,” he said.

Prof. Christianah Adeyeye, Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, has stated that Nigeria will not support the movement to legalize cannabis for recreational use because it lacks the financial resources to combat its illegal production, cultivation, and use.

The International Narcotics Control Board’s (INCB) 2022 Annual Report has also been released by the organization.

Speaking in Lagos at the release of the INCB Annual Report, Availability Supplement, and Precursor Report for 2022, Adeyeye said that the 2018 National Drug Use Survey found 14.4% of persons aged 15 to 64 used drugs, or 14.3 million people overall.

She emphasized that it is rather high when compared to the adult population’s global yearly frequency of 5.6% in 2016.

According to her, the problems caused by the sale and use of drugs don’t just affect those who use them; they also have larger health, social, and economic repercussions for the family, the neighborhood, and the entire nation.

She said: “The report also revealed that cannabis is the most commonly used drug. An estimated 10.8 per cent of the population or 10.6 million people, had used cannabis in the past year.

“The average age of initiation of cannabis use among the general population was 19 years. Cannabis use was seven times higher among men (18.8 per cent among men vs. 2.6 per cent of women), while the gender gap in the non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids (such as tramadol) was less marked.

“Consequently, Nigeria will not support the trend of legalization of cannabis for non-medical use as our country lacks the financial capacity to fight cultivation, production and illegal use of the substance.

“Consequently, Nigeria will not support the trend of legalization of cannabis for non-medical use as our country lacks the financial capacity to fight cultivation, production and illegal use of the substance.

“Narcotics and Psychotropic substances are indispensable for the relief of pain and suffering and are controlled within the framework of the three international conventions as they possess abuse liability and produce dependence in users. They are classified not on chemical nature but on the potential for abuse and the need for medical use of the substance.

“One of the control objectives is to ensure availability solely for medical and scientific uses while minimizing the possibility of diversion to illicit channels and abuse. The policy thrust of NAFDAC is to ensure availability, access and rational use while preventing illicit use and abuse. The international drug control conventions are thus interpreted to mean improved access to controlled medicines to enable countries to meet their drug needs.

“In order to ensure adequate availability of controlled medicines, the agency in conjunction with the Federal ministry of health carried out two quantifications of narcotics and estimation of psychotropic substances and precursors in 2017 and 2019. The results of these surveys provide the evidence-based estimation of our national annual requirements of these substances and enable the country to develop measures to achieve that delicate balance between access and control,” she said.

Addressing, retired Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa, Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), stated that the annual global launch aims to make adjustments and fill with member state demands as necessary.

Marwa, who was represented by Mrs. Victoria Egbase, stated that over the years, INCB had collaborated with member nations and international organizations in order to forward the goals of the conventions on international drug control.