News & Announcements

 A Tanzanian passenger plane has crash-landed into Lake Victoria next to the north-western town of Bukoba.
More than 20 of the 49 passengers have been rescued, according to local media reports, but these figures have not been officially confirmed.

Rescue workers and local fishermen are on the scene searching for survivors from the crash which happened on Sunday morning.

Photos show the plane almost completely submerged with only the brown and green tail fin above the water, surrounded by rescue workers and fishing boats.

One end of the runway at Bukoba airport lies right next to the shore of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake.
The Precision Air flight was going from Tanzania’s biggest city, Das es Salaam, to Bukoba via Mwanza when it reportedly encountered a storm and heavy rains.

Precision Air is Tanzania’s largest privately owned airline.

Security agents are on the trail of cyber criminals and their political collaborators who have cloned the accounts of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC).

The criminals generate spurious correspondences to defame Sanwo-Olu by misinforming the public about an alleged plan to compromise the electoral process. This is to whip up public resentment against Sanwo-Olu whose superlative performance and the massive show of support by the electorate are driving the opposition into morbid desperation.

In clear recognition of the popularity of the ruling progressive party which has been at the helm of affairs since 1999, the opposition has concluded that its waterloo in the governorship election is as sure as day.
Unable to accept its imminent defeat and driven by the delusion of incurable optimism, the opposition has chosen to abuse the advancement in digital technology by turning to the criminalization of the digital space, hacking and cloning individuals’ accounts to misrepresent them and damage their reputation.
We have evidence that this evil act is the latest ploy of the opposition to disrupt the harmony that Lagosians have witnessed since the electioneering period began. They will not succeed.

We have drawn the attention of security agencies to this ugly trend, which Lagosians should note and shun in its entirety.

The wife of the former deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, Beatrice alongside her daughter, Sonia, on Monday appeared in a UK court, to answer to claims that she trafficked a homeless man into the country to harvest his organs for herself.

Ekweremadu, and his wife, Beatrice were arrested in June this year and have been standing trial alongside their doctor, Obinna Obeta, for charges bothering on conspiracy to arrange the travel of another person with a view to exploit him and harvest his organ.

It is alleged they conspired together, with others unknown and with another family member Isaac Ekweremadu, to arrange the travel of a 21-year-old man identified as David Ukpo Nwamini, with a view to exploiting him between August 1, 2021, and May 5, 2021. 

They have been accused of facilitating David’s travel from Lagos to London to remove one of his kidneys and use the same for their daughter, Sonia, who has a kidney-related disease and has been on dialysis for some time.

While in court today, the prosecutors claim the plot was to harvest Nwamini’s organ for Sonia’s benefit. 
The prosecutors told the court that the Ekweremadu’s and their doctor were arrested after the young man, who previously lived on the streets of Lagos, turned up at Staines police station, claiming he was the victim of trafficking.

Prosecutors claim Nwamini told police officers he had arrived in the UK on 20 February this year and had been taken to Royal Free Hospital for tests, none of which he consented to. After these tests, Nwamini said he had returned to the house he had been staying in, where he was ‘treated effectively as a slave’. 
Prosecutors claim he escaped the address and was homeless for three days before going to the police.Mr. Ekweremadu and his doctor are on remand in HMP Wandsworth and HMP Belmarsh respectively. They did not appear in court today.

Mrs. Ekweremadu, granted bail at a hearing in July, appeared in court today alongside Sonia.
The defendants were due to enter their pleas but this could not occur today because of further legal argument.

The trial has been brought forward from May 2023 to January 31 2023, at the Old Bailey.
The Ekweremadu and Obeta will next appear at the Old Bailey on 16 December this year.

Twitter owner, Elon Musk, has justified the ongoing mass layoffs at the company, saying that Twitter has been losing $4 million per day because of its large workforce.

According to him, this left the company with no choice but to let some people go.

Musk noted that everyone affected by the layoffs was given three months of severance packages, which is 50% higher than legally required.

He said “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.”

Nearly half of Twitter’s workforce, 3,700, are being laid off in an exercise that saw many receive their job termination notifications via email on Friday. The move came barely one week after Elon Musk took over ownership of the company.

Aside from drastically reducing Twitter’s workforce, Musk has also announced that users would soon begin to pay $8 a month to get/retain their verification badges.

Although the announcement has generated negative reactions from some users, Musk has insisted there is no going back on the plan. He tweeted this morning: “Trash me all day, but it’ll cost $8.”

Amidst Musk’s complaint of a reduction in Twitter ad revenue, more advertisers have vowed to suspend paid advertisements on the platform.

The latest company to do this is Volkswagen, which on Friday said it has recommended to its brands to pause paid advertising on Twitter until further notice in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and will decide about the next steps depending on its evolvement,” Europe’s top carmaker said in a statement.

The decision by Volkswagen Group, which covers the VW, Seat, Cupra, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Ducati, and Porsche brands, echoes similar sentiments by other firms, including GM and General Mills Inc.

Musk had on Friday lamented about a drop in Twitter’s ad revenue, saying “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”

The Lagos State Police Command on Saturday said the autopsy conducted on the corpse of Ifeanyi Adeleke, son of Davido and his fiancée, Chioma Rowland, revealed that he died as a result of drowning.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed the development in a chat with our correspondent.
Hundeyin said, “Autopsy has been concluded. It confirms the boy (Ifeanyi) drowned.”

The PUNCH had reported there were indications that the police might conduct an autopsy to determine whether Ifeanyi died as a result of drowning in a swimming pool at his father’s residence in the Banana Island area of Lagos State.

An impeccable source, who confirmed the development, said it was standard practice for the police to conduct an autopsy in such a case, adding, however, that the police would desist from the move if the deceased family members were against it.

Though the family members are not saying anything yet because they are still in shock but until anybody says stop, the standard procedure is to conduct an autopsy and we are going to follow that procedure just like in any case of death,” the source said.

Explaining further, the source said out of the eight domestic workers interrogated by the police in connection with Ifeanyi’s death, the cook and nanny, whose job was to cater to the wellbeing of the three-year-old boy, had been detained for reasons including the failure to uphold the duty of care of the minor.

As of the time of filing this report, the nanny and cook were said to still be in detention.

The Federal Road Safety Corps has drawn the attention of the motoring public, particularly those who are presently using Lexus NX260, Lexus NX3650h, and Lexus NX400h+ manufactured between March 31, 2021, and April 26, 2022, to faulty programming of the Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) System, which has prompted the Company to recall the categories of the listed vehicles.

This is contained in a statement issued on Friday in Abuja by the Assistant Corps Marshal (Corps Public Education Officer), Federal Road Safety Corps Headquarters, Bisi Kazeem

According to Kazeem, in a memo forwarded by the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the company is also recalling 6,491 Lexus NX260 with defective Electric Parking Brake (EPB) system which was manufactured between April 19, 2021, and July 15, 2022.

He said the withdrawal is specifically premised on the fact that the vehicles will pose a safety hazard to their users thereby leading to crashes.

Kazeem said the Acting Corps Marshal, Dauda Ali Biu is admonishing the general public, particularly dealers and riders of these categories of vehicles, to desist from selling or using the identified motor vehicles on Nigerian roads to avoid any mishap.

American rapper Kanye West now Ye has announced that he will not be talking to anyone for a month.

Ye noted that his 30-day cleanse program will also include abstinence from alcohol, intercourse, and other activities.

He made the announcement via his Twitter handle on Friday. “I’m not talking to nobody for a month,” the rapper said.

He added, “I am taking a 30-day to cleanse. A verbal fast, no alcohol, no adult film, no intercourse. In God we praise. Amen. But my Twitter is still lit.”

Ye is embarking on the 30-day cleanse after he came under fire over his recent outburst of anti-Semitic remarks; an issue which also led to the loss of his billionaire status.

The remarks prompted Adidas to pull the plug on the wildly lucrative footwear deal that made him a billionaire two years ago.

Founder and former CEO of the microblogging website, Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has launched a new social media platform, “Bluesky”.

This came barely a week after a United States business tycoon and owner of Tesla vehicles, Elon Musk, acquired the ownership of Twitter for $44 billion on April 14, 2022, and completed it on October 27, 2022.

Dorsey’s Bluesky has garnered over 30,000 users in just two days after the announcement of the new app.

The report states that Bluesky gives creators independence from platforms and developers and the freedom to design, allowing users to choose their experience as it gives users control of their algorithms.

Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State has appointed a skit-maker and comic actor, Abdulgafar Ahmed Abiola, popularly known as ‘Cute Abiola’, as Special Assistant on Creative Industries.

Cute Abiola, an indigene of Ilorin, is a household name in the fast-growing creative industry in Nigeria.

According to the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the governor, Rafiu Ajakaye, the appointment takes immediate effect.

The governor also appointed Mr Jerry Kolo as Senior Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations.

Mr Kolo, an indigene of the Patigi local government area of the state, was until his appointment the chairman of the Kwara North Development Council (KWANDCO).

AbdulRazaq also similarly named Ogundele Joseph Olabisi as Special Assistant on Community Engagement.

The Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the governor said all the appointments take immediate effect.

Nigerian socialite and internet criminal, Ramon Abbas, better known as Hushpuppi has been sentenced to 11 years in jail by the United States Central District Court in California over fraud and money laundering.

He will however spend nine years in prison as he has already spent two years in detention.

Hushpuppi was in June 2020 arrested in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, over an extensive fraud scheme that has robbed victims of their money in the U.S, Qatar, the United Kingdom, and other places.

He was then extracted to the United States where he was charged with fraud and money laundering and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in money laundering with multiple people within and outside the US to ladder the proceedings.

The socialite however bagged only 11 years in prison after he appealed to US Judge Otis Wright to temper justice with mercy and a lighter jail term after scoring high in cleaning activities while in prison.

Note that Hushpuppi’s Instagram page, which has 2.8 million followers, has vanished from the image-sharing platform. It is however unclear whether it was officially removed from Instagram or if the page was temporarily disabled by someone with access to it.