British MP arrested for serial sexual assault

An unidentified British MP and former minister was arrested on Saturday after police received allegations of rape, sexual assault and coercive control.

Daily Mail said the lawmaker is a member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s conservative party.

A woman in her twenties reported to police she had been assaulted and forced to have sex, the Sunday Times reported.

The woman was a former parliamentary employee, it said.

London’s Metropolitan Police said it had received on Friday allegations relating to four separate incidents between July 2019 and January 2020.

“A man in his 50s was arrested on Saturday, 1 August on suspicion of rape and is currently in custody in an east London police station,” the police statement said.

Police did not confirm any further details about the arrested man’s identity or occupation.

-PM NEWS

Sarri blasts Ronaldo, other Juventus players over attitude after winning Serie A title

Juventus manager, Maurizio Sarri, has hit out at his players, over their “mental decline” after they won the Serie A title.

The Italian champions finished their league campaign with a 3-1 defeat to Roma on Saturday night.

It saw a 39-match unbeaten home run dating back to April 2018 coming to an end.

Juve were crowned champions for the ninth straight season, despite winning just two of their final eight league matches and Sarri claims his team dropped off after beating Lazio on July 20.

“A little fear can do us good. After Lazio we felt the championship was won and we had a mental decline,” Sarri told Sky Sport Italia.

“Now we have to be good at having an opponent’s consideration. We will start from 1-0 [down] and it will be very difficult in these conditions.”

- DAILY POST

NAFDAC DG: Water is the only thing pharmaceutical companies don’t import

Mojisola Adeyeye, director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), says the only thing pharmaceutical companies do not import is water.

Speaking when she appeared as a guest on Sunrise Daily, a programme on Channels Television, Adeyeye said there is need for more efforts on local production.

She highlighted the effects of importation and how it has affected the availability of medical supplies in the country in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were over-dependent. The only thing that the pharmaceutical companies do not import is water. The ingredients are not there and you cannot manufacture ingredients, whether active or non-active in the country without support from the government. That is part of what the government is doing,” she said.

“You cannot set up active pharmaceutical industries without training the personnel; without having solid science foundation.

“That is changing now. There are two or three companies now that are going to be making some pharmaceutical ingredients. We think importation is the best thing, but it is the worst thing that could have happened to us.”

Adeyeye maintained that the Buhari administration is committing resources to address the situation, but called on other stakeholders to focus efforts on improving capacity, even within tertiary institutions.

“I actually see a brighter future for Nigeria because COVID-19 woke us up from our comatose state as a country. The health sector was neglected for decades and what the Buhari administration is doing right now is phenomenal. It is something to know that a neglect took place; it is another thing to start finding excuses,” the NAFDAC boss said.

“The current administration has now committed a lot of money towards the health sector — from the primary health to the tertiary, to pharmaceutical companies, to researchers.

“Before COVID-19, we had huge problems and COVID-19 kind of opened the Pandora’s box for us because we were over-dependent. From the universities, the university system is weak to produce graduates that cannot really strengthen the pharmaceutical industry. The regulatory system was weak and I use ‘was’ because NAFDAC is no longer what NAFDAC was three years ago. I knew a lot about regulatory science before I joined NAFDAC and there were things that were done wrong.

“But we cannot live in the past. It is what are we doing right now. If a regulatory system is weak, the pharmaceutical industry will be weak. So, what we are doing now is building internal capacity and that we cannot see on the air.

“What I mean by internal capacity is making sure we use quality management system and right now as we speak, we’re going through WHO audit which is a very tasking and arduous process and it is the best thing that could happen to NAFDAC.”

- THECABLE

At 78, Ebenezer Obey says he will remarry soon

Juju music maestro, Evangelist Ebenezer Obey says he is set to remarry very soon.

Obey, who lost his wife in 2011, said he would soon get married, but not to a younger woman.

In an interview with the Nation, he said the companionship of a wife is a good thing and not against God’s rule.

“So, I am here, I can marry at any time; not just for the sake of marriage as it is, but for the sake of companionship, because what else do I want?

“I have children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren. So I have been blessed. It is not like I am looking for a wife that would conceive babies. As long as I still have life, you will hear when the time for marriage comes.”

Obey added that he would never marry a young lady at his age, but that he would marry a woman who is 60 years and above.

“Marry a young lady? It’s a foolish old man that will say he wants to marry a young lady. The young lady has just started her life and definitely is virile and strong.

“Someone like me should be thinking of a woman who is 60 or above. And when I do it soon, everyone will know,” he said.

According to him, he still missed his first wife and that he had seen her in his dreams so many times.

- PM NEWS

World tops 18m COVID cases in 3 days amid WHO doom forecast

The confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpassed 18 million on Saturday night, just 3 days after hitting 17million and as the World Health Organisation warned that the pandemic would be protracted.

According to the tally by tracking agency worldometers.info, COVID-19 cases are now 18,023,614, as at Sunday 0630 GMT.

The new grim height was reached with rising cases in the United States, Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, Peru and Chile.

The United States sits above the leaderboard with 4,764,318 cases and over 157,000 deaths.

On Saturday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the coronavirus pandemic would be lengthy and could lead to “response fatigue”.

The WHO declared the global emergency just six months ago.

Since then, over 680,000 people have died and the number will keep increasing until a vaccine arrives.

South Africa is by far the hardest hit country in Africa, accounting for more than half of diagnosed infections, although President Cyril Ramaphosa said the fatality rate is lower than the global average.

Health authorities had been expecting a surge in cases after the gradual loosening of a strict lockdown that was imposed at the end of March.

Nigeria on Saturday also announced it would ease a lockdown in the commercial capital Lagos, allowing churches and mosques to reopen next week.

An emergency WHO committee reviewing the pandemic “highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this Covid-19 pandemic”, noting the importance of sustained community, national, regional, and global response efforts.

“WHO continues to assess the global risk level of Covid-19 to be very high,” it said in its latest statement.

The agency also said the effects of the pandemic “will be felt for decades to come”.

Mexico overtook Britain to become the third hardest hit country in virus deaths – after Brazil and the United States – with more than 46,600 fatal cases.

Although many Latin American countries have begun relaxing stay-at-home measures, the virus is spreading quickly across much of the region, which has now recorded more than four million cases and almost 200,000 deaths.

Half of them are in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro said he believes “nearly everyone” will catch the virus eventually, after himself recovering from it.

The outlook was bleak in Asia as well, where India and the Philippines reported record increases in new daily infections.

“We are waging a losing battle against Covid-19, and we need to draw up a consolidated, definitive plan of action,” said an open letter signed by 80 Filipino medical associations.

Japan’s Okinawa declared a state of emergency after a record jump in cases on the islands – many linked to US military forces stationed there.

The pandemic has spurred a race for a vaccine with several Chinese companies at the forefront, while Russia has set a target date of September to roll out its own medicine.

However, US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said it was unlikely his country would use any vaccine developed in either nation.

“I do hope that the Chinese and the Russians are actually testing the vaccine before they are administering the vaccine to anyone,” he said.

As part of its “Operation Warp Speed”, the US government will pay pharmaceutical giants Sanofi and GSK up to US$2.1 billion (S$2.89 billion) for the development of a Covid-19 vaccine, the companies said.

- PM NEWS

COSMETIC DEVELOPMENT !! Amaechi: Without loans, there will be no development

Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, says there will be no development of infrastructure if Nigeria stops taking loans.

Speaking on the controversy around loans from China, the minister said the Buhari administration had to rely on loans when it took off in 2015 because there was no money on ground.

A house of representatives panel had raised the alarm over clauses conceding Nigeria’s sovereignty to China in a loan agreement.

The clause, described as “lethal” by the panel, is in article 8(1) of the commercial loan agreement between Nigeria and Export-Import Bank of China.

Speaking at a programme on AIT, the minister said contracts signed with China do not cede the country’s sovereignty.

He said the clause is only a diplomatic agreement between both parties to ensure payment is made accordingly.

“Whether it is the ministry of finance that signed it or the ministry of transportation, the issue is that nobody will give you loan free of charge. There must be an agreement and such agreement must contain some terms. That doesn’t mean that you are signing away the sovereignty of the country; no country will sign out its sovereignty,” he said.

“What clause 8 does is to say to you, I expect you to pay according to those terms we have agreed. If you don’t pay, don’t throw your immunity on me when I come to collect back the guarantee that was put forward, that is all.”

The minister said clause is a standard feature in every agreement to ensure the lending country receives its money.

“When we stop collecting the loans, then we stop developing because there was no money when we came into government; by the time we came, the money had been blown away,” he said.

“What you do is, you give a sovereign guarantee and that guarantee is the immunity clause they are talking about. When we say I give you a sovereign guarantee and we get immunity clause, the immunity clause is that if tomorrow I am not able to pay you and you come to collect the items that we have agreed upon, these are items that I am putting down as guarantee. I can waive my immunity and say no you can’t touch it, I am a sovereign country.

“So, they are saying if you are not able to pay, don’t stop us from taking back those items that will make us recover our funds. Is China our father that will give us money for free? It is a standard clause in every agreement, whether it is America we signed it with, whether it is Britain, any country would want to know that they can recover their money.”

The minister had earlier said China will not approve Nigeria’s request for loans if the national assembly continues to probe the loan agreements the country has with lenders.

- THECABLE

Boko Haram: Saboteurs in military behind lingering crises in Northeast – Governor Zulum

Borno State Governor, Professor Babagana Zulum, has said that the explanation given to him by the military field commanders on the attack on his convoy and general security situation in Baga town was not acceptable to the government and people of the state.

Zulum, who spoke to newsmen in Maiduguri on his experience during his trip to Baga, the fishing town in Borno, said he was saddened with what he saw and experienced in Baga.

He, therefore, called on the people of the state to rise up in support of the government and against saboteurs in the military through collective efforts in order to win the ongoing fight against insurgency in the northeast.

Zulum told newsmen that there are over 500 people in Kukawa town when he arrived and the government was able to distribute food to about 80 households.

According to him, there was no way the government or any NGO can reach the 500 people in need of assistance in that area with the current security situation in the area.

He said if the people are still living in camps and nothing is done to move them to their various villages, the security issues may linger for a while.

He observed that there are over 10 million people from Baga town who are farming on the shores of the Lake Chad in the past, but today the story is different as there are no people living in Baga.

While expressing bitterness on the attack on his convoy in Baga, Professor Zulum said, there are about 1,200 soldiers stationed at mile 4, which is only about 4km to Baga town, but they could not liberate the town.

“We were there and you saw what happened. The soldiers were shooting and we all have to make a turn. This is not acceptable. But we can neither blame the President or the Army Chief on this.

However, the authorities must begin to look into what is happening on the ground with our soldiers in the frontlines and take a decisive step to ensure these soldiers enter and clear Baga town.

“If this is not going to happen, our people need to wake up and do the needful even if it takes us recruiting two to three thousands of hunters and join them with our police force to launch attacks on those criminals and clear Baga town to restore peace and confidence in that part of the state.

“I cannot explain why these have to linger with 1,200 soldiers in Baga, 1,007 soldiers in Cross aside officers, 450 soldiers at mile 4 and 1,900 soldiers in Monguno.

“They told us there are no soldiers, but there are soldiers in all these places with the number to safely prosecute the campaign to liberate this area. The issue is not about fighting men or equipment, the authorities need to come down to look into what is informing this lack of zeal to fight amongst our soldiers,” Zulum said

The governor added that, if nothing is done urgently to contain the crises and the people continue to fold arms or hide in their fears, these crises would not end soon.

-DAILY POST