BUHARI MAGIC !!! Kaduna CAN: We’ve paid over N300m ransom to kidnappers in 4 years

The Kaduna state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) says the church has spent over N300 million to secure release of members who have been kidnapped in the last four years.

Joseph Hayab, chairman of CAN in the state, disclosed this in an interview with TheCable on Friday.

He said over 500 members of CAN have been abducted in the state between 2015 and 2019.

Hayab said more than 20 churches, especially, those located in communities along Kaduna-Abuja road have been closed as people living in those areas have relocated as a result of the activities of kidnappers.

“In the past four years, Christians in Kaduna state have suffered a lot. Generally, people in Kaduna state have suffered a lot in paying kidnappers ransom to ensure the release of either their family member or church member or neighbour or someone they know,” he said.

“It is sad to know that the church alone, from our statistics -ECWA Church, Baptist Church, Anglican Church, Catholic Church and many other Churches in Kaduna whose members have been kidnapped, have had to cough out between N200,000 and N8 million to kidnappers to secure their release. In the last four years, the church in Kaduna has paid over N300 million to kidnappers.”

He said the most embarrassing of such ransoms is that of a pastor of Friendship Church Kudenda, a suburb of Kaduna, which the kidnappers insisted that the N600,000 ransom must be accompanied with cigarettes worth N10,000.

He said in Kachia, a reverend father was abducted and a ransom of N1.5 million was paid but he has not been released after three months, “an indication that he might have been killed”.

“In many of our villages along Abuja road, people have abandoned their homes and relocated to places like Buwaya, Gonin- Gora, Romi and other suburbs around Kaduna metropolis as a result of activities of kidnappers,’’ he said.

“These are farmers, they don’t have any work, they keep coming around looking for assistance from us to pay rent and buy food. They are really suffering because no effort is being made to tame or put kidnapping activities in Kaduna state in check.

“Three weeks ago, kidnappers went to Marraban Rido, broke into three houses and abducted three women. I can go on and on to tell you incidences of people being frequently kidnapped and we keep on looking for money to pay the kidnappers.

“We don’t collect our offerings to give kidnappers, our offerings are supposed to be used for evangelism and catering for the needy. Now the money we are supposed to use for evangelism so that evil in the society would be reduced is being spent on paying ransom to kidnappers.

“It has come to a stage that we will not allow this to continue anymore because we have cried enough and no action is being taken and we are even being accused for crying out.

“There cannot be peace when there is no justice, the kind of peace I preach is not the peace of compromise, it is not the peace of lies, and it is not the peace of cheating. It is a peace where you must respect your neighbour, your neighbour respects you and the two of you respects each other.”

Yakubu Sabo, spokesman of the Kaduna police command, was not available for comments as of the time this report was filed. He neither answered calls nor respond to a text message sent.

- THECABLE

Solskjaer backs United squad despite selling key players

Manchester United can ease supporters’ doubts after a relatively quiet transfer window by producing the attractive football which has delighted them in the past, manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said on Friday.

A pall of gloom hangs over Old Trafford with many fans disillusioned with Manchester United’s transfer business in the close season.

This was in spite of the fact that the club signed defenders Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and winger Daniel James.

However, Manchester United lost striker Romelu Lukaku to Inter Milan and midfielder Ander Herrera to Paris St-Germain (PSG) without recruiting replacements.

But Solskjaer said the club would only sign players if they improved the squad.

“There are always going to be fans out there wanting (us) to sign players.

“The way we can clear doubts is by playing football, showing what the team wants to be and the style of football we want to play,” Solskjaer told reporters ahead of Sunday’s English Premier League (EPL) match at home to Chelsea.

“When our fans see that intention, they have always been supporting the team. Within the team and the club, we are feeling very confident and we don’t feel that negativity.

“There is money available when the right players are available. It’s not about a quick-fix, it is about a longer re-build.

“It’s not time to change that attitude when you haven’t got the correct answers from the players you wanted.”

Lukaku, who did not take part in Manchester United’s pre-season matches due to injury, was sold to Inter Milan.

The Belgium international was sold for a reported fee of 80 million euros (89.60 million dollars) on deadline day.

Solskjaer said the transfer was a win-win situation for all parties concerned.

“It was time for Lukaku to go. We got a good deal and he is happy. So, both parties ended that deal as it should be,” he added.

“He was injured for a while in pre-season and he didn’t participate. I just hope that he gets a good start at Inter Milan.”

Solskjaer expects Alexis Sanchez to fill the void after Lukaku’s exit, following a torrid season where the 30-year-old forward scored only two goals in all competitions.

However, the Chilean may not feature against Chelsea after returning late, following his participation in Copa America which ended last month.

“Alexis has come in and trained well… He’s four or five weeks behind the boys and he has not played, apart from the one behind closed doors here. I think he’ll see this as an opportunity to make his mark,” Solskjaer said.

Defenders Eric Bailly and Timothy Fosu-Mensah are unavailable due to injuries, Solskjaer added, but Paul Pogba and new signing Maguire are fit to start.

- PM NEWS

Speaker Oluomo in alleged secret moves to relocate Ogun university to Ifo hometown

There are indications that the Speaker of Ogun State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Olakunle Oluomo, is allegedly working behind the scene to relocate the Moshood Abiola University of Science and Technology (MAUSTECH) to his hometown in Ifo Local Government area of Ogun State.

Sources close to Oluomo told DAILY POST that he had been ”pressing necessary buttons” to ensure that MAUSTECH, which is presently more or less without a location, is sited somewhere in Ifo.


The former Governor of Ogun State, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun, had in 2017 upgraded Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY) Abeokuta to MAUSTECH and relocated the polytechnic to Ipokia in Ogun West.

However, the two institutions could not take off before the exit of Amosun on May 28, 2019.

This was as a result of the different crises that characterised the planned relocation of lecturers of MAPOLY to Ogun State Polytechnic in Ipokia.

After his inauguration on May 29, the incumbent Governor Dapo Abiodun set up a committee to review the two institutions.

While the committee is yet to submit its report, Abiodun reversed Amosun’s policy on MAPOLY, with a bid to restore it to “status quo ante”.

A bill sent by Abiodun to the Ogun State House of Assembly for the amendment of the MAUSTECH Law to return all MAPOLY properties earlier ceded to the university back to the polytechnic, has been passed into law by the lawmakers.

This has since generated reactions from the Egbas, who accused Abiodun of working against their interest by allegedly planning to relocate the university outside Ogun Central.

Likewise, leaders of Ogun West, where the polytechnic was earlier relocated to, have also canvassed that the university be sited in Ipokia as the only public university in the region; adding that facilities are already in place for the take off of the university in Ipokia.

But in the heat of the controversies, Oluomo met with members of some Egba leaders, under the aegis of Abeokuta Club, to assure them that MAUSTECH would not be moved out of Abeokuta. He however did not add that both MAPOLY and MAUSTECH would coexist in the same Ojere campus in Abeokuta.

DAILY POST learnt that the Speaker had plans to ensure the university is not sited in Abeokuta, but in Ifo.

Our sources revealed that the Speaker was not pleased that all federal and state government institutions are being located in Abeokuta only; adding that Ifo and other communities under it are also part of Egbaland.

The Speaker, it was learnt, is leaving no stone unturned to press home his demands as he was said to have advised lawmakers from Ogun West to take their eyes off MAUSTECH and focus on making sure that Ogun State Polytechnic, Ipokia is not scrapped.

Recall that Oluomo played major roles in the upgrade of MAPOLY to MAUSTECH and the creation of Ogun State Polytechnic in Ipokia in 2017, being the Deputy Speaker of the eighth Ogun Assembly.

He represented the former Speaker, Rt. Hon. Suraj Adekunbi, at the stakeholders’ forum organised by the assembly before the passage of the laws establishing both MAUSTECH and Ogun State Polytechnic, Ipokia.

Meanwhile, the Speaker has denied telling anybody he was interested in moving the university to Ifo.

While he was asked by DAILY POST to react, Oluomo simply said, “I did not discuss that with anyone please.”

- DAILY POST

Ghana arrests Nigerian woman for bringing Nigerian girls for prostitution

A Nigerian woman, Chioma Sabina Abaraonye has been arrested by a joint team of Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) and police officers in Tamale, in the country’s Northern Region, for human trafficking.

Abaraonye, 31, is said to have been engaged in the business of trafficking young Nigerian girls to Ghana for prostitution, on the pretence that they were coming to work as sales girls in Ghana.

According to Ghanaweb.com, one of the two ladies she brought in, along with her Ghanaian boyfriend escaped from her clutches and reported her to the police in Tamale. Her boyfriend is now on the run.

According to the report, Abaraonye brought the girls, aged 23 and 26 into Ghana through the Aflao border.

One of the victims, not yet identified, told journalists that when they arrived Ghana , they were transported to Tamale where reality dawn on them that they were not brought to Tamale as sales girls but to work as prostitutes.

She revealed that the suspect and her Ghanaian boyfriend took their hair, part of their nails and forced them to take an oath indicating that they would not reveal their activities to any authority, else they would die.

‘They said they are keeping the hair and nails and if we run , they will make us run mad’.

She said they were made to sleep with men daily and account to their madam at the end of the day.

“We were tasked to bring GH¢ 100 home and if you fail to get the GH¢100 , they will beat and torture you,” one of the victims said.

The victim said she was tired with the maltreatment by the suspect and her boyfriend and wanted to go back to Nigeria.

” I came to report the case because I want to go back to Nigeria, I can’t use my body to make money for somebody and I want her to return my phone and the hair, nails she took from me, “she said.

The Assistant Commissioner of Immigration Northern Region, E. Kofi Owusu, told journalists that the victims were forced to engage in the prostitution in order to repay their madam for the expenses she claimed to have incurred in bring them into Ghana.

Each of the girls were expected to pay back an amount GH¢ 8000 as expenses.

He indicated that the two victims have been transported to Ghana Immigration Headquarters in Accra whiles the suspect  is on admission at the Tamale Teaching Hospital where she is said to be recuperating from a relapse after undergoing an abortion a day earlier to her arrest.

The suspect is expected to be transported to Accra after she is discharged

- PM NEWS

Why breastfeeding mothers can still have sex — Medical experts

Two medical experts, Mrs Subedetu Nafiu, a Family Planning Manager and Mr Olusola Malomo, a Nutritionist, on Friday said that breastfeeding mothers could still enjoy sex while breastfeeding.

The experts spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the just-concluded World Breastfeeding Week at the Ajeromi General Hospital in Ajegunle, Lagos.

The experts debunked the notion that sperm could contaminate breast milk, during sex with breastfeeding mothers.

Nafiu, who is also a child welfare manager, said that there was no relationship between sperm and breast milk and that people should stop spreading false information on whether the child would suck sperm from breast milk.

“This myth makes many women to stay away from performing their marital rights because they are breastfeeding and might cause more harm to marriages.

“There is no relationship between sperm and breast milk flow, a mother is free to meet her husband while she breastfeeds.

“Women should allow their husbands to sleep with them, it doesn’t make the child sick,’’ she said.

Nafiu advised women on exclusive breastfeeding, saying, it is a safe method of family planning that can help space their children.

“The kind of exclusive breastfeeding is the one that the mother did not mix any other thing with breast milk for six months, such woman’s body biologically plans itself towards conception,’’ she said.

To corroborate the information, Malomo also said that no child sucks sperm from mother’s breast and sex doesn’t disrupt any natural nutrient in the breast milk.

“The way the body was made, physiologically, sperm and breast milk cannot meet, let to say it can cause harm to the baby, so enjoy your sex life while you breastfeed,” he said.

- DAILY POST

Insecurity: Why FG must declare security emergency in Southwest – Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Thursday called on the Federal Government to declare security emergency in the Southwest in view of rising wave of insecurity in the region.

Soyinka spoke while speaking with journalists at the Fagunwa Study Group Second International Conference, held in Akure, Ondo State.

Expressing concerns over the spate of insecurity in the region, Soyinka said there was the need for urgent action to be taken by stakeholders to address the issue.

According to him, “As regard the insecurity in the South-West, there is an emergency. There should be a declaration of security emergency throughout the land and measures taken accordingly.

“There are many directions of security lapses, you know it here, especially in Ondo State, it is a calamity throughout the whole nation. There is an emergency.”

Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, at the event, stated that Nigerians were being encouraged and motivated by Soyinka’s writings and activities over the several decades of his engaging years.

“This is because they have elevated in our minds, the art of partisan living, as the biggest ideal of social reclamation.

“Indeed, his life at every station has taught us that to make a meaning of life, a man must set forth at dawn and immerse himself at the epicenter of beliefs, struggles and activities which seek to reclaim society and help it attain its spontaneous fullness of being.” Akeredolu in a report by PUNCH.

- PM NEWS

Bishop Oyedepo blows fire over killing of Living Faith Pastor in Kaduna

Bishop David Oyedepo, founder of Living Faith Church, has reacted to the recent killing of a Living Faith Church pastor, Jeremiah Omolara, by unknown gunmen.

DAILY POST had reported that Omolara, a resident pastor of the Living Faith Church in Romi New Extension, a suburb of Kaduna metropolis, was killed by yet-to-be-identified gunmen.

The incident happened along the dreaded Kaduna-Abuja road when the pastor, his spouse and son were travelling to Abuja, and saw Omolara’s wife being abducted.

However, the son was said to have escaped unhurt.

But speaking during Day 2 of the church’s Week of Spiritual Emphasis on Thursday, Oyedepo released curses on the killers and their generations.

He said, “Just last Sunday night for those of us who may have heard the news, one of our pastors was hacked down by Fulani herdsmen from Abuja to Kaduna.

“I want you to know, that it’s the last they will do (Amen) because I am going to lead you now to release curse of God upon his assailants and all their backers.

“Except I am not sent, their end has come. This evil system will crash. And I am speaking as a Prophet, not as a pastor, like somebody walking on the street. This evil system that has no value for life, this wicked system – Fulani demons, In the name of Jesus, their end has come.

”It is not by force that we live together, nobody has enough stake than me in this nation.

”Holy ghost release your curse on this wicked meh, they just crossed the red line.

“Cursed be these wicked men, cursed be their generations, cursed be their sponsors in the name of Jesus, Any authority or personality backing them their generation is cursed.

”In the name of Jesus whose I am and whom I serve, every gang up responsible for sponsoring these men, I curse your root forever. Everybody stand up and release the curse of God, the curse of the lord and the Curse of the Jesus upon these wicked men.

“Cursed be these Fulani herdsmen, cursed be their generations, cursed be their sponsors in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus Christ, we have cursed,” he added.

See video.

-DAILY POST