4 dead as tricycle collides with train in Lagos

Four people have been killed as a tricycle collided with a moving train at Iju area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

The incident occurred around 6:52am on Tuesday at Iju Ishaga area of Ifako Ijaiye, Lagos.

General Manager, Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA, Adesina Tiamiyu confirmed the incident, saying that four people lost their lives.

He said the agency received a distress call via the emergency toll-free number 112/767 regarding an accident at the Iju area, Shina Peters Road, Iju Ishaga on Tuesday, at about 6:52 am, saying this prompted the immediate activation of the agency’s Response Team and other stakeholders to the scene of the incident accordingly.

“On arrival at the scene of incident, it was gathered that a tricycle with five people on board had a collision with a moving train at the aforementioned address.

“Further information gathered at the scene revealed that the immediate cause of the incident was due to reckless driving on the path of the tricycle driver trying to cross the rail crossing.

“Unfortunately four (4) persons (three adult males and one adult female) lost their lives. One adult male escapes unhurt,” he said.

According to him, the agency’s Response Team and other stakeholders, which included Lagos State Neighbourhood Safety Corps, Lagos State Ambulance Service (LASAMBUS), Nigeria Police Force and the State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit (SEHMU) were responders at the scene of incident.

Tiamiyu said the Agency Team recovered the dead bodies and handed them over to SEHMU to be moved to the mortuary.

He, however, advised motorists, especially tricycle operators to always exercise patience when crossing railway line to avoid unnecessary loss of lives in the State.

- PM NEWS

POS fraudster arrested in Ondo, exposes trick used against shop owners

A 26-year-old man, Damilola Arowolo has been apprehended by the police after he was caught swindling shop owners via fake bank alert.

Arowolo, a graduate from the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, was alleged to have serially manipulated the POS machines of shop owners in Akure, the Ondo state capital, while posing as a potential buyer.

Owning up to the crime, Arowolo, who graduated in 2013, stated that he was lured him into the illicit business by one of his friends.

“I’ve only been involved in this act for only three weeks.

“What I do was that I normally walk into any store with an ATM [card] which has no fund in it.

“After inserting the card in their POS, I immediately push a bank alert message to their phone.

“It was one of my friends that thought me the trick.”

While urging the public to be conscious of who they transact business with, the Ondo State Police Commissioner, Undie Adie, emphasised that investigation is on towards curbing the new trend.

“It has become necessary at this point to alert members of the public to a new method being adopted by some con men to defraud people.

“These unscrupulous elements go to commercial outlets including shops, hotels etc and purchase goods and services and ask to be allowed to pay through POS .

“They then proceed to manipulate the POS and generate credit alert without the account being credited. A case in point is that of one Arowolo Damilola ‘m’ 26yrs of age, of Ijoka Road Akure, who recently defrauded one Olusola Ayodeji through this method after buying some wares from his shop.

“The suspect has confessed to defrauding many other innocent people.

“Investigation is on and the suspect will be arraigned in court.”

- DAILY POST

NAPIMS’ ex-GGM, Dafe Sejebor, arrested in US for ‘human trafficking’

Houston Police Department has arrested Dafe Sejebor, former group general manager of National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), over his alleged involvement in human trafficking.

Sejebor was arrested along 46 others in an investigation that lasted 10 days with focus on Fort Bend County and the Katy areas of Texas.

Sejebor was retired from NAPIMS, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), in August 2015.

According to Click2Houston, the 47 suspects arrested include 27 woman and 20 men.

It added that eight were confirmed as victims, including 2 juveniles, another eight charged with sex and human trafficking-related offenses.

Some of those charged with sex and human trafficking also face other charges related to unlawful possession of weapons, and narcotics charges and possession of controlled substances, tampering with evidence and prostitution.

“We are here to help, first and foremost. We understand the problem of human trafficking. We understand what it does to the victim, how to fix the victim,” said John Wall, an officer with the Houston police department vice-division.

“We understand they are scared to come forward, but we are going to do everything in our power to keep them safe, give them the services they need to move forward in life.

“If you think about it, children (and) young adults spend and an enormous amount of time on social media, and they are vulnerable. They don’t understand the risk involved in talking to individuals they don’t know on that type of forum.

“And, at the end of the day, we hope we can put the trafficker where he belongs, and that’s in prison.”

- THECABLE

13 die in Adamawa road crashes

Two separate road crashes along Ngurore – Mayo-Belwa highway in Mayo-Belwa LGA of Adamawa State have claimed the lives of 13 people and caused injuries to 21 others.

A source said Tuesday that the first accident. which happened on Monday night claimed six lives while three others were badly injured.

The Information Officer of Mayo-Belwa Local Government Area, Kabiru Kelly, said the accident, which involved a Sharon bus occurred when the driver attempted to avoid a pothole lost control and rammed onto a pole.

He said the dead had been taken to the Yola Specialist Hospital while the injured victims were receiving treatment at the Mayo-Belwa Cottage Hospital.

According to Kelly, the second accident was a head-on collision involving a Hummer bus and a Toyota starlet.

“The second accident happened when the driver of the bus tried to overtake a heavy duty vehicle and rammed into the oncoming Starlet car,” he said.

He added that the second accident almost wiped off a whole family, explaining, “A father, his wife and their four children who were on their way from Jalingo to Zamfara were involved.”

The council information officer added that the bodies and injured persons were deposited at the Mayo Belwa General Hospital.
Contacted Tuesday evening, the Adamawa State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Hussaini Muhammad, said he was yet to get a briefing on the accidents.

- DAILY POST

Interpol provides EFCC new tracking, Intel-sharing application against organised crimes

The International Criminal Police Organisation, (Interpol) has provided the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) with an application that will enhance intelligence sharing in the tracking of money laundering and terrorism-financing organised crimes.

It also comprises a database to be supervised by the National Central Bureau (NCB), which is an interface between Interpol and national law enforcement agencies of countries through a i24/7 Gemini Project global communications system.

Within the Commission, the application, it was learnt would be managed by its Information and Communications Technology Department.

EFCC spokesman, Tony Orilade disclosed this in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja.

He added, “An elated Acting Chairman of the Commission, Ibrahim Magu witnessed the demonstration of the new application at the Commission’s Abuja headquarters.

“Noha Amer, Interpol’s Project Officer, who led the delegation of the global police to the Commission disclosed that the U.S was funding the project in four African countries, to wit: Nigeria, Niger, Mali and Libya in a move to detect and interdict stolen and illicit funds by organised criminals, mainly in the area of terrorism-financing, such as in the manner as it happened in Libya.

“She explained that the project will see to the training of the Commission’s operatives on programmes that include, Interpol policing capabilities and standard operations.

“The training will commence after the installation of the NCB database”.

Amer, according to Orilade further explained, “that the NCB plays an integral role and was at the heart of Interpol in terms of information gathering and sharing.

“NCB is the cornerstone of the Interpol in liasing with the law enforcement agencies of other countries, especially in terms of cross-border investigation, operations and arrest.”

It was gathered that the NCB serves as a tool for timely dissemination of information and, that the Interpol will equip the NCB with the necessary equipment to go with i247 extensions, saying that the i24/7 accommodates IT database.

Also, Christophe Nakobyan, the Interpol’s Project Officer II, also explained, “that the i247 platform as a closed group for law enforcement agencies is a safer form of connectivity than Yahoo and Whatsapp, and gives access to information sharing, with optimal level of security.

Noting the dangers law enforcement agencies face from hackers, Nakobyan disclosed, “we have ten thousand attacks by hackers per day but at the moment it is very safe as no hacker has been successful.

“The Interpol receives over five billion request in a year in the database for information”.

Besides, Nakobyan stated that the database will even advance countries’ cooperation to the extent that it will allow each organisation share information and the information shared will be strictly owned by the sharing commission which will be at liberty to decide what kind of information to share, whom to share with and which service to render to other law enforcement agencies.

Other members of the delegation are Eleyatt Nahah, ACP with Interpol, Sylvester Uzoefuna Jnr, C Udendi, Emmanuel Handan, Akubo Jerry and Chuks Nwaogbo.

- DAILY POST

FG to compensate codeine manufacturers with N1bn for seized products

The federal government says it will spend over N1 billion to compensate manufacturers of codeine-containing cough syrup who had their products seized or withdrawn from circulation.

Moji Adeyeye, director-general, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), disclosed this on Monday in Lagos.

The government had in May 2017 banned the production and importation of codeine and tramadol in the country following a BBC documentary exposing the abuse of codeine-based cough syrup.

Some companies were also shut down for illegal production and distribution of the products but were later reopened.

According to Adeyeye, over two million bottles of codeine were seized from companies across the country in a bid to curb the use of the syrup by youth to get high.

She explained that some companies where the products were recalled from were producing legally and not guilty of any wrongdoing, hence the move by the government to reimburse them.

“It is about a year ago when the documentary about codeine was made which led to the Ministry of Health banning the product,” Adeyeye said.

“Since that time, we have been having a series of meeting with many government agencies and committees such as National Security Adviser group, the Presidency and the Ministry of Health.

“The final point is that we recalled about 2.5 million bottles of codeine and then put them on hold. This is sad because some companies did not commit the crime.

“So we put all the codeine on hold including the powder that they are using to the syrup. It will cost about N1 billion plus to reimburse these manufacturers.

“We are working on whatever the Ministry of Health is doing now to reimburse those companies affected. We just called a meeting about the last two weeks on it.

“The amount that is tied to the companies and they will be reimbursed because most of them legally produce the product in spite of the bad distribution channels.

“In tackling fake and substandard products, we do raids and many a time, our staffs don’t sleep, they keep vigil, mainly to intercept those drugs in concert with the Nigerian Customs Service.

“We are also working with the local manufacturers to make sure that their products attain the international standard.”

Meanwhile, the house of representatives has proposed a fine of N2 million and a two-year jail term for organisations that will go against the ban on tramadol and codeine in the country.

According to the proposal, individual offenders will be liable to N500,000 fine and two years imprisonment or both on conviction.

- THECABLE

SINATORS !!! Senate passes 2019 budget, injects N10bn

The Senate on Tuesday passed the 2019 Appropriation Bill into law and added N10 billion extra, raising the budget from N8.906 trillion to N8.916‎ trillion.

According to the Senate, the N10 billion extra was meant for Service Wide Vote‎.

This is N86 billion higher than the proposal of N8.83 trillion presented by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly for the 2019 fiscal year.

The lawmakers passed the bill during Tuesday’s plenary after considering the report of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on the 2019 Appropriation Bill presented by Senator Danjuma Goje.

A breakdown of the budget estimate reveals that statutory transfer is N502.58 billion, N2.25 trillion is for debt servicing, recurrent expenditure gets N4.65 trillion, and N2.94 trillion is earmarked for capital expenditure.

Following the consideration of the report submitted by Senator Goje, the lawmakers resolved to approve the total sum of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

They also adopted the recommendation of the Appropriations Committee which proposed that N10 billion be added to the service-wide votes to support the victims of crises in Zamfara State.

Thereafter, the Senate dissolved into the Committee of Supply for the consideration of the 2019 Appropriation Bill

Channels TV reports that the bill was then read the third time and passed by the lawmakers.

In his remarks, the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, commended his colleagues for the efforts that led to the passage of the bill and called for its complete implementation by the Executive.

He said, “I want to thank our colleagues, particularly for their understanding and for us to be able to meet today’s deadline in passing the bill and (I) thank the Committee on Appropriation too.”

“I hope that with this budget passed, the Executive will also ensure the full implementation of the budget for the benefit of Nigerians as a whole,” Senator Saraki added.

- PM NEWS

Boko Haram massacre 21 villagers in Adamawa

Boko Haram fighters have massacred 21 people when they raided a village in Adamawa, northeastern Nigeria and set it on fire, residents said Tuesday.

The militants, packed into four trucks and flanked by gunmen on motorbikes, swept into the village of Kuda in Adamawa State late on Monday afternoon, firing as they came.

Villagers fled the attack but returned on Tuesday to bury the dead left amid the charred wreckage of their homes, AFP reports.

“They opened fire on residents, killing 21 people,” said community leader Maina Ularamu. “They burnt several homes.”

Ularamu lost three brothers-in-law in the attack.

“Two-thirds of the village has been burnt,” said resident Paul Waramulu, speaking to AFP by telephone from the village, giving the same toll of those killed.

Waramulu said the fighters had looted food supplies before setting fire to buildings.

Many villagers were terrified and were still hiding in surrounding bush, and those who came back did so to give funerals to those killed, he added.

The village of Kuda lies in the Madagali district of Adamawa state, some 285 kilometres (177 miles) north of the state capital Yola.

There was no immediate official response from the army or police.

The attack is the latest in a long line of massacres carried out by Boko Haram in the area, who have hideouts in the dense forests nearby.

The decade-long jihadist conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions from their homes.

The violence has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon, prompting a regional military coalition against the jihadists.

- PM NEWS