EFCC arrests CBN officials, 16 bankers for recycling N8bn

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has said five top officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria and 16 others are to be arraigned for alleged complicity in a currency fraud running to N8bn.
The Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said in a statement on Sunday, said the suspects were to be arraigned for circulating defaced and mutilated notes at the Federal High Court, Ibadan, Oyo State, on June 2, 2015
Uwujaen said the16 other suspects to be arraigned alongside the CBN bigwigs were members of staff of various commercial banks in the country.
He said the suspects would be arraigned on five counts at the high court.
The EFCC spokesperson added that all the suspects now in custody connived to recycle the defaced and mutilated currencies they were asked to destroy by substituting the notes with newspaper cuttings in Naira note sizes.
Uwujaren stated that the operatives of the commission waded into the matter following a petition that the sum of N6.5bn was recycled by a syndicate involving top officials of the CBN in Ibadan, Oyo State.He explained that the fraud was partly responsible for the failure of the monetary policy of the government as mop up exercises by the CBN failed to address the effect of inflation on the economy.
He said, “The Economic and Financial Crime Commission has concluded arrangement to arraign in court, five top executives of the Central Bank of Nigeria implicated in a mega scam involving the theft and recirculation of defaced and mutilated currencies.

Ugandan woman's agony as granddaughter 'sold' to Americans

The first time Jaja, a Ugandan woman, saw her one-year-old granddaughter, she was in the arms of an American man who she was told had "bought" the child.
The toddler was sitting with the man and his wife, eating biscuits and drinking juice, as they sought legal guardianship over her in Uganda's High Court.
"I was in great pain," the girl's 47-year-old grandmother said. "I was sure, since they had bought the child, there was no way we would get her back."
Although informal adoption is common across Africa, less educated people sometimes use the term "bought" when they see white foreigners with African children, because of the assumption that their wealth has helped them to adopt the child.
It can take years to formally adopt a child in poor countries with cumbersome, overburdened legal systems.
In Uganda, foreigners can secure legal guardianship in a matter of weeks, sometimes before the child's birth parents realise what has happened.
Uganda's parliament is poised to debate tighter legislation that would ban legal guardianships in the East African country where families are regularly bribed, tricked or coerced into allowing their children to be adopted overseas.

Tutu blasts govt for 'humiliating' S.Africa

Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Saturday blasted the South African government for humiliating the country by allowing the president to get away with spending $24 million of taxpayers' money on home improvement work.

"When the South African government denied His Holiness the Dalai Lama a visa to attend the Nobel Laureates Summit in Cape Town last year, I called them a lickspittle bunch," said Tutu in a statement.
"Our police minister's performance in clearing the President of any responsibility for the Nkandla spending, gave new meaning to the word."
South Africa's ombudswoman last year found that President Jacob Zuma had "unduly benefited" from the work on his private residence at Nkandla -- which also included a cattle enclosure, amphitheatre and visitors' centre -- and recommended that he repay some of the money.

Mother's boyfriend arrested in death of missing 6-year-old

A frantic search for a 6-year-old Northern California girl turned into a homicide investigation on Saturday after detectives announced they are nearly certain that a small burned body discovered in a rural area about 100 miles away belonged to the missing child.
The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department said the 25-year-old boyfriend of Jadianna Larsen's mother was arrested on a murder charge early Saturday and was being without bail in the girl's death. They identified the man, Juan Rivera, as Jadianna's caretaker and said he reported her missing on Thursday night.
Sheriff's deputies, search and rescue teams and volunteers had been looking for the girl since then. Rivera told investigators before his arrest that he woke to find Jadianna missing from her apartment after he experienced a medical emergency that had caused him to lose consciousness.

The body that authorities think was Jadianna's was discovered 10 hours before her reported disappearance by volunteer firefighters putting out a vegetation fire on a Glenn County road about 1 ½ miles west of the interstate that runs north from Sacramento, Sheriff Richard Warren told The Sacramento Bee (http://bit.ly/1KF2wo4 ).

Hawaiian fisherman dies in struggle with swordfish he speared

A Hawaiian fisherman died when a swordfish he had speared in a harbor on the Big Island struck him in the chest with its sharp bill, officials said.

The man, a captain in the charter fishing business, on Friday morning saw the swordfish in the Honokohau small boat harbor and jumped into the water to catch it, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Witnesses say he speared the fish but it struck him in the chest with its spear-shaped bill, according to the department.
Onlookers pulled the unresponsive man out of the water and performed CPR until paramedics took him to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, the department said in a statement.
The man was not named in the statement but local television station KITV identified him as 47-year-old Randy Llanes.

"He was a tough guy, he was such a tough guy that everyone's scared of him, the whole harbor's scared of him," Kalina Llanes, the man's sister-in-law, told the station.

She added that those who knew him well were "not scared of him because he has such a big heart."

KITV showed an image of the fish, which according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources measured 3 feet long with a bill that extended another 3 feet, lying dead at the water's edge.

Killing of 6-month-old baby: Bereaved mother pleads for justice -

Since her only child was violently taken from her back and flung to the ground at the peak of a bloody clash between loyalists of Ajoriwin of Irawo,Oba Musiliu Ademola, and her husband, which allegedly resulted in the death of six-month-old  Azeem, Mrs. Wahab Adijat has been a shadow of herself. Irawo is  in Atisbo Local Government area of Oyo State.

It doesn’t require  a soothsayer to know that she was  shattered. The pain of a woman losing any child for any reason at all is a bitter pill to swallow. When she walked into Vanguard office in company of her husband, Wahab Idowu; their counsel, Mr. Remi Alli; and the second wife, one could tell from her swollen eyes that an unimaginable tragedy had  befallen her. As young as she is, it seemed  the whole world had collapsed on her.
Before she opened her mouth to explain  the fracas that claimed the only child of  her five-year  marriage, stream of tears  filled her eyes. At her first attempt to talk, her voice faded and when she had mustered enough composure to speak, uncontrollable and intermittent sobs  accompanied  her response.
After calming down, she  recounted  how one Ojo Baloosa allegedly snatched her baby from her  and caused him serious injuries that led to his death two days after.
She said, “I was at home on that fateful day when some people came to me. Sensing what could follow their unfriendly countenance, I took to my heels with the baby strapped to my back. The  uninvited guests  pursued me. Ojo Baloosa caught up with me and kicked my legs from behind and I fell on my face with the baby.
“To my surprise, he took my baby from me and flung him away. I stood up to prevent them from hurting the innocent baby.

Woman who stabbed husband to death, remanded in Bayelsa

Mrs. Victoria Ambakadrimo, the 28-year-old woman that stabbed her husband, Late Barr. Henry Gagariga, to death with a kitchen knife on the throat around 11pm of Wednesday, February 4 after a quarrel in Bayelsa has finally appeared before a state high court in Yenagoa for the first time.

The presiding judge, Justice A.S Rotimi, adjourned proceeding to 18th June 2015, to enable the prosecuting (the state) hand over certain forensic evidences to the defence counsels before hearing commence.

However, an appeal by the prosecuting counsel to have Victoria remanded at the Okaka medium security prison in Yenagoa until final judgment is read was granted.
Though frail looking Victoria pleaded not guilty to the one count charge of murder leveled against, she sobbed over and again as she was escorted to prison at the end of the court session.

U.S Vice President's son dies of brain cancer

Former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, son of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, died on Saturday after battling brain cancer, the vice president said. He was 46.

"The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words," Vice President Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

"We know that Beau's spirit will live on in all of us, especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter," he said.

Beau Biden had announced last year he planned to run for governor of Delaware in 2016.

He was diagnosed with brain cancer in August 2013 and underwent surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. After getting a "a clean bill of health" in November of that year, his cancer recurred in the spring of 2015, the vice president's office said.

He sought aggressive treatment and had been hospitalized this month at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center outside Washington. His family was with him when he died.

NURTW leader shot dead by Police, members storm highway in protest

National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) members were on Saturday, May 30, on rampage in Kwara to protest the killing of their leader who was allegedly shot dead by the police.

The union members in Ajase, Irepodun Local Government Area of the State blocked the highway, refusing any vehicular passage.

The pandemonium broke out after the Union leader, Akeem Laduba, was supposedly shot dead by a police patrol team.

Laduba, who was the Chairman of Ajase-Omu-Aran-Kabba unit of NURTW was said to have been killed along Igbaja-Ajase-Ipo Express Way, Kwara.

An eye witness told NAN, anonymously, that the deceased was trying to intervene in a brawl between the police team and a commercial motorcyclist.

According to the source, Laduba was on his way to Offa, a nearby community, when he stumbled on a police patrol beating up a commercial motorcyclist in the early hours of Saturday.

The source alleged that it was in the process of the deceased trying to intervene in the matter that he was attacked by the policemen who had queried the rationale behind his intervention.

We Have Not Banned Anyone From Travelling – Buhari

Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, has said that officials of past administrations, including ministers, are entitled to their full rights and privileges under the constitution and must not be subjected to any undue harassment and intimidation at the airports or at other points of entry and exit.

                 

“We have not banned anyone from travelling,” he said in a statement released on Saturday by the Head of President Buhari’s Media Team, Garba Shehu.
Responding to some cases of “V.I.P stoppages” at the airports as reported to him, President Buhari directed all agencies under the government to run their affairs in full compliance with extant rules, regulations and the constitution.
“Unless otherwise directed by the courts, no law-abiding citizens should be barred from travelling abroad. We must treat fellow citizens with courtesy and respect.
”Officials at the borders and other points of entry and exit should conduct their affairs in strict compliance with due process.

UN honours four fallen Nigerian peacekeepers, 122 others

The United Nations, on Friday, honoured 126 men and women who died in 2014 while on peacekeeping missions.

Among them are four Nigerians, namely: Lance Corporal Silas Danyawu and Lance Corporal John Julius from the UN-African Union Mission in Darfur; and Corporal Adama Ike and Sergeant Rabiatu Musa, who both served with the United Nations Mission in Liberia.

In an online statement marking the International Day of UN Peacekeepers, the organisation’s Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, stressed the “invaluable contribution” of peacekeeping to the history of the UN and reaffirmed his commitment to improving the effectiveness of ‘blue helmets’ in the coming years.

The annual event is commemorated on May 29 each year to salute peacekeepers who served in some of the world’s most volatile and dangerous environments.

He said, “Since its beginning in 1948, UN peacekeeping has evolved into one of the main tools used by the international community to manage complex crises that threaten international peace and security.