Ghanaians arrested for allegedly robbing a truck driver with acid

The Inspector-General of Police-Intelligence Response Team (IRT), has arrested two Ghanaians for allegedly robbing a truck driver of his vehicle and goods with acid.

The Force spokesman, DCP Jimoh Moshood confirmed the arrest to newsmen on Tuesday in Lagos, stressing that the suspects carried out the crime in Edo on Dec. 9, while they were arrested in Enugu State.

Moshood said that the suspects allegedly poured raw acid on Taiwo Adesanya after robbing him at the Olukwu area of Benin City of his truck with goods.

He said that the suspects, Eric Aidan and Matthew Kwasha, are notorious criminals who specialise in killing their victims with raw acid after dispossessing them of their belongings , especially vehicles.

The image maker of the force, who said that the suspects were currently being detained at IRT Cell in Ikeja , Lagos, noted that their mode of operation was to seek employment as driver and conductor in haulage companies.

He said while in such company, they study the company and perfect ways to divert their employers goods and sell the vehicle.

Moshood said after selling the goods, they would relocate to another place where they would apply for the same position in another company, stressing that their last operation was the incident of Dec. 9.

He said that after they attacked the driver who was sleeping from the long journey with raw acid , thinking that he was dead , they snatched his truck loaded with 600 bags of sugar and dragged him out of the truck.

The image maker said that the owner of the truck petitioned the I-GP following the attack on the driver and the diversion of the sugar worth over N10 million the driver was carrying to Benin City.

According to Moshood, based on the petition, the I-GP directed the Commander IRT, DCP Abba Kyari to investigate the matter, stressing that upon the directives, Kyari directed CSP Phillip Rieninwa, IRT commander in Lagos to go after the suspects .

“The team led by CSP Rieniwa swung into action and tracked the suspects to a shrine in Nsukka, Enugu State, from where they were apprehended.

“They have confessed to the crime and they will soon be charged to the Court. The victim, who survived the acid attack, was able to recognise the suspects,” he said.

- PM NEWS

12 soldiers killed as troops repel Boko Haram attack in Yobe

The Nigerian Army on Tuesday said its troops repelled attack by Boko Haram insurgents at a military formation in Kukareta, Damaturu Local Government Area of Yobe State.

The Army In a statement by Col. Onyema Nwachukwu, the Deputy Director, Public Relations, said the insurgents had on Monday at about 6: 30 pm, attacked a Military Forward Operational Base, in Kukareta community of Yobe.
Nwachukwu said that the gallant troops engaged the insurgents in fierce battle and repelled the attack, killing many of them, adding that a soldier was wounded in the attack.

He disclosed that 13 soldiers and two police personnel also lost their lives when they ran into an ambush by the insurgents on Damaturu-Maiduguri Road.

“In another encounter; troops of 1 Division on escort duty along Damaturu – Maiduguri Road, yesterday fought through an ambush staged by Boko Haram terrorists.

“The gallant troops engaged the terrorists in a fire fight, courageously wading through the ambush. Sadly, thirteen military and a police personnel including an officer, paid the supreme price while extricating themselves from the ambush.

“A clearance operation to pursue and eliminate the Boko Haram terrorists’ ambush party is still ongoing,” he said.

According to him, bodies of the gallant soldiers and the wounded were evacuated, adding that the wounded soldier was currently receiving treatment.

- DAILY POST

‘He’s a victim of circumstance’ — Kwam 1 speaks on son’s arrest for ‘fraud’

Wasiu Ayinde Marshal, a Fuji musician better known as Kwam 1, says his son Sultan Anifowoshe is not a fraudster.

Anifowoshe was recently arrested alongside six others in the US over an alleged $2 million cyber-crime.

Commenting on the development, the veteran musician said his son was not involved in the crime and was simply a victim of circumstance.

Kwam 1 said Anifowoshe’s release on bail is proof of his innocence.

A statement issued by Kunle Rasheed, his media and publicity director, reads: “Our attention has been drawn to the news circulating that Sultan, K1 De Ultimate’s son was arrested alongside five other people in the US over Two million Dollars fraud.

“There is no doubt that my son was among those that were arrested but what is however not true is claims that he is a fraud. We can confidently say that he was not in any way involved in the crime, which explains the reason why he was the only person that was released on bail.

“The bail given to Sultan indicates that he is not involved in the crime; he is only a victim of circumstance who happened to be at a wrong place at a wrong time.

“Many detractors are quick to celebrate the news because to them, they want to get to the father. But the truth will always shine as light over darkness.

“Sultan, we believe will be given a clean bill of health at the next adjournment.”

- THECABLELIFESTYLE

Margaret Thatcher and Stephen Hawking shortlisted to feature on new £50 note

Professor Stephen Hawking and Margaret Thatcher have been named on a shortlist of British figures who could feature on the new £50 note.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney announced earlier this year that the new polymer note would celebrate British achievement in science.

The Bank said only people making a contribution to scientific fields would be deemed eligible, but the former Conservative prime minister has been included on the latest list.

The rightwing blogging site Guido Fawkes launched an online petition for the former Conservative prime minister to become the new face of the £50 note in October.

Although Baroness Thatcher – who got a degree in chemistry from Oxford and briefly worked as a research chemist for food company J Lyons – was first nominated before the science restriction was announced, she has been put forward for the final shortlist.

A spokesperson for the Bank said: “She had a degree in chemistry, [and] went on to work as a research chemist – famously working on the research team which helped invent soft scoop ice cream.”

While Baroness Thatcher did work on emulsifiers in ice cream, among other projects, the frozen dessert was actually invented in America, more than a decade before J Lyons and Co partnered with the US firm Mister Softee to introduce it to Britain.

The Bank said nearly 230,000 nominations were made in the six-week nomination process which ran until 14 December, with the list now whittled down to 992 eligible names.

Other figures put forward include Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, Rosalind Franklin and Dorothy Hodgkin, as well as Magnus Pyke and Marie Stopes.

The Banknote Character Advisory Committee will go on to look at the shortlisted names and will reveal the winner in the summer of 2019.

The note will be the last upgraded to a plastic polymer version, with the £20 no longer being manufactured out of paper from 2020 when it will be replaced by a design featuring artist JMW Turner.

The new £50 will replace the current paper note which features industrial revolution pioneers Matthew Boulton and James Watt.

Others who are on the shortlist are Alice Vickery, the first woman to qualify as a chemist and pharmacist, author and natural scientist Helen Beatrix Potter and Peter Mansfield, a pioneer of the MRI machine.

- Indy100

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reveals his plans for Man United players

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plans to unleash the pace of Anthony Martial , Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard and Marcus Rashford on opposition defences. 

The Norwegian says attacking philosophy is in the walls of Manchester United and that he has every intention of making his side play that way. 
The 1999 treble winner took charge of his first game on Saturday, leading his former side to a 5-1 win.
Under Jose Mourinho , United would often be guilty of sitting back and playing defensive football. At times the Old Trafford crowd would event chant 'Attack, attack, attack'. 

But with Solskjaer now in charge United fans might get what they want. 

"They've [players] not said anything to me about any handbrake (under Mourinho)," said Solskjaer. "But we spoke in the team meeting about how when we get one, we want to get two. When we get two, we want to get three."

He added: "It’s not always going to happen like it did [at Cardiff] but you have to try and create chances and grind it out, but it worked and with the blistering pace we have up front I don’t think any team would like to have Martial, Pogba, Lingard and Rashford running at them.

"So why should we stop them? The attacking philosophy is in the walls of Man United. That’s tradition, that’s history, that’s how we play and want to play."

- MIRROR

Zainab Ahmed: Yacht, private jet owners to pay luxury taxes from 2019

Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, says owners of yachts and private jets will begin paying luxury items from 2019.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Monday, the minister said excise duties would be introduced in some areas while taxes would be reduced for small and medium enterprises.

“We are exploring the way to increase taxes as well as reduce taxes in some sectors. For Small and Medium Enterprises, what will happen is to reduce taxes. But there are some special taxes that we will be looking at imposing,” she said.

“For example, luxury taxes. If you have a private jet, we will be taxing you specially for that. If you have a yacht, we will be charging you for that and also in terms of excise duties, there are also some new areas where excise duties will be introduced.

“We haven’t got all the approvals but one of the major areas might be that of carbonated drinks produced in the country.”

According to Ahmed, the Whistleblower Unit has recovered over N8.5 billion and $465 million among others from the 1,051 investigations conducted from tips received.

“Based on verification outcome by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), we have also paid over 2,000 former workers of our defunct national carrier- Nigeria Airways Limited,” she said.

Patience Oniha, director general of the Debt Management Office; Mary Uduk, acting director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Babatunde Fowler, executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) were also present at the briefing to give an account of the activities of their agencies.

-THECABLE

Poju Oyemade: Pastors can associate with politicians as long as there isn’t money exchange

Poju Oyemade, the senior pastor of Covenant Christian Centre, says pastors can associate with politicians, as long as there is no monetary or material inducement involved. 

Oyemade, who said he will not criticise any pastor publicly, said the giving of gifts blinds the receiver, and often affects their judgement.

When asked about the association between some pastors and politicians, he said: “Let me tell you one thing I am not going to do, I am not going to criticise pastors publicly”.

“I won’t do that. If I feel there is anything wrong with anyone who is in the ministry, I think we have structures and channels to correct the people.

“However, in terms of association, I cannot say somebody is wrong because he is found to be associating. However, it is important — this is what is important — it is important, that no form of monetary inducements is done because it is the giving of the gift that blinds people and affects your sense of judgement.

“Provided there is no exchange of material things in terms of association, it is fine.”

SIMPLE ESSENCE OF CHRISTMAS

Sharing the essence of Christmas with Nigerians via Channels TV, Oyemade employed the analogy of a man trying to save ants from a maze, as told by Billy Graham, the great evangelist, to simply explain the Christmas message.

“I will use an analogy I learnt from the great Billy Graham to explain the essence of Christmas, which has to do with the birth and the entrance of Christ in the earth,” Oyemade said.

“The way in which he described it is like an ant lost in a maze and trying to find its way out, and you as a human being which is more bigger, much intelligent than the ant is trying to help that ant to get out of the maze.

“But what you realise is that everytime you put your finger in to try to guide it out of the maze, it gets scared by the size of your finger; that is the relationship between God and man.

“In other words, God looks at man and sees he has lost his way on the earth, and tries to help him by using His hand to try to navigate his way through, He finds out every time He puts His finger in, man gets scared, so decides to run away from him.

“So He says; the only way I can do this, is to become an ant, and God says is to become a man, and then gets into the maze of life with man, and then like an ant gets in and then shows the other ant the way out.

“So the one, which is lost follows that particular ant, and finds its way out. That is the essence of Christmas. The entrance of God into humanity, in order to guide the affairs of man correctly”.

He said Christ has a very powerful message on leadership, which is the message of peace.

“The Bible says Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. The message of Christmas to leadership is about peace,” he added.

The 50-year-old convener of The Platform Nigeria asked Nigerians not to sell their votes in the 2019 elections.

- THECABLE

Death toll in Indonesia Tsunami hits 429

Indonesia says it will build a new warning system capable of detecting tsunamis caused by undersea landslides, days after giant waves triggered by a volcano killed at least 429 people.

Installation of the new structure of buoys would start next year, a government agency told the BBC.

It is thought that activity by the Anak Krakatau volcano set off undersea landslides, causing Saturday’s tsunami.

Officials say some 150 people are still missing and 16,000 have been displaced.

Rescue workers, helped by heavy lifting equipment, are going from village to village, sifting through the debris looking for survivors in badly hit areas on the islands of Sumatra and Java.

How will the new system work?
The new mechanism would work by detecting the size of waves, Iyan Turyana, a spokesman for the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, told the BBC’s Indonesian service.

The existing technology failed to predict the tsunami that devastated coastal towns around the Sunda Strait, between the islands of Sumatra and Java.

The system has been set up to monitor earthquakes, but not undersea landslides and volcanic eruptions, which can also generate deadly waves.

Due to lack of funds, vandalism to the buoys and technical faults, there has been no operational tsunami warning system since 2012.

But experts say that even if there had been buoys near the volcano, there warning time would have been minimal, given how close Anak Krakatau is to the shoreline.

-PM NEWS

U.S. govt shutdown to last until agreement on border wall – Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the partial shutdown of the federal government was going to last until his demand for funds to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border is met.

The U.S. government partially shut down on Saturday, and there is not yet any sign of tangible efforts to reopen agencies closed by a political impasse over Trump’s demand for border wall funds.

“I can’t tell you when the government is going to reopen,” Trump said, speaking after a Christmas Day video conference with U.S. troops serving abroad. “I can tell you it’s not going to reopen until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they want, but it’s all the same thing. It’s a barrier from people pouring into the country, from drugs.”

He added: “If you don’t have that (the wall), then we’re just not opening.”

Funding for about a quarter of federal programs – including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Agriculture – expired at midnight on Friday. Without a deal to break the impasse, the shutdown is likely to stretch into the new year.

Reuters reports that Building the wall was one of Trump’s most frequently repeated campaign promises, but Democrats are vehemently opposed to it.

- PM NEWS

Gunmen kidnap 2 Catholic priests in Anambra

Unknown gunmen have kidnapped two Catholic priests at Nneyi Umeri area of Anambra.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday a source said that the clergymen were abducted while on their way back from Onitsha on Monday evening.
The source, who craved anonymity, said the kidnapped priests were serving in Umueze Anam in Anambra West Local Government Area of the state.

He said the victims were returning to prepare for the visit of Cardinal Francis Arinze to the town before they were abducted by the hoodlums.

“The priests are working at St. Teresa’s Catholic Church, Umueze Anam, and were kidnapped at Nneyi village, Umuleri area, at about 7.30 pm on Monday,’’ he said.
Confirming the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Haruna Muhammed, said a patrol team attached to Otuocha Division recovered a light grey Toyota Corolla car marked FST 689 FL which was abandoned on the Nneyi Umueri road.

He said preliminary investigations revealed that the car belonged to a reverend father, who was allegedly kidnapped by yet to be identified gunmen.

Muhammed added that security personnel were working to rescue the victims.

- DAILY POST

Boko Haram beheads Gov. Gaidam’s security aide

Members of Boko Haram terrorist group, yesterday, beheaded one of the Governor Ibrahim Gaidam’s security aids in Kukareta, a suburb of Damaturu, the Yobe
State capital.

The deceased, who goes by the name, Inspector Ahmed, alongside his colleagues, was returning to Damaturu after an official assignment in Maiduguri.

It was gathered that they met the Boko Haram insurgents who dressed in military uniform at a roadblock.

The gallant Police Officer, it was learnt, approached the terrorists to inquire from them the reason for blocking the high way.

The insurgents outrightly shot Inspector Ahmed and subsequently beheaded him, while the remaining police escorts ran back without any attempt to rescue their colleague.

A police source who does not want his name to be published confirmed the killing and the beheading of the Inspector.

The source described the incident as unfortunate, saying the Inspector passed away when the police command in the state needed him the most.

“However, from God we came and to him we shall return. We have no authority to query God.

“We leave it as an act of God and ask God to forgive his sins. The best we can do to him is to continue to work and defend what he died for”, the source said.

Recalled that Boko Haram insurgents stormed a military base in Kukareta village yesterday.

- DAILY POST

How airport cleaner turned wealthy pastor in PH, Rivers

Founder of Omega Power Ministry (OPM) Worldwide, Apostle Chibuzor Chinyere, has revealed the secret behind his success after working as an airport cleaner, security man and a recharge card vendor.

Apostle Chinyere recounted how he started life as a young man about 15 years ago in Lagos, selling mobile phone recharge cards and cleaning toilets at the Murtala Muhammad Airport, Lagos.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that his existence had been destined and guided by God.

The 45-year old pastor said the experience of neglect, rejection and poverty changed his perception of life and catapulted him to where he had found himself today.

“I was motivated to doing the right thing because 12 years ago, I was a homeless man, I had nothing; I was selling MTN recharge card in Lagos. I am always pained seeing the poor people suffering.

“The first time I travelled to Lagos, I slept under the bridge. I later became a cleaner at the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), where I also cleaned the airport toilets.

“Go to MMA Lagos and ask of Chibuzor, everybody knows me there as a cleaner; it is not a secret. I posted the picture on the church Facebook wall.

“At times, when I am travelling or coming back from my journey, I stop at the airport to greet my former colleagues, and I gladly share what I have with them.

“In fact, I had to establish one of them and he is now doing well in Port Harcourt,” Apostle Chibuzor said.

According to the pastor, his major concern in life having tasted poverty, is to see the children of the poor get quality education no matter the circumstance.

This, he said, led to the establishment of the OPM free schools in Bayelsa, Rivers and Abia as well as a Foundation for Humanitarian Services.

He told NAN that he used the offering and tithes from church members in 150 branches across the globe to ameliorate the sufferings of the poor people and the less privileged in the society.

Apostle Chibuzor Chinyere (Right), in his days as a cleaner at the Murtal Muhammad Int’l Airport Lagos

“We started this free school when we had only one branch of the church about 10 years ago; we also operate a free restaurant, where Muslims and Christians go to eat.

“The free school is located in Bayelsa, Rivers and Abia, and we want to spread it all over Nigeria.

“The OPM Foundation is also behind the construction of free estates where people live without paying a kobo as rent; we have skill acquisition centres where people come and learn different skill.

“We rehabilitate both militants and armed robbers and feed them every day. We also rehabilitate commercial sex workers and also give them accommodation and we are also feeding them.

“They are now doing legitimate businesses,” he said.

NAN reports that the foundation’s other achievements include empowerment, alms-giving and commissioning of a free Computer Training Centre at Elele prison in Rivers.

Others are the award of university scholarship to the poor apart from the free nursery, primary and secondary schools education.

It has also commissioned free tailoring centre and provided water borehole to the people of Rumuji and other communities in Rivers, to alleviate the problem of water scarcity in the Area.

- PM NEWS