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Nigerian man and his Indian wife arrested for duping man on social media

Police on Good Friday, April 14, arrested a Nigerian national identified as Nagbu Orajuka and his Indian wife outside a church in Bhandup, Mumba, India for allegedly cheating a resident into paying them close to Rs. 14 lakh using a honey trap.

The complainant, Sandeep Singh, an IT professional received a friend request on Facebook from the female accused, who had set up an account in the name of Mercy John, in October last year. The profile had a picture of a Causasian woman, and she identified herself as a London-based businesswoman while chatting with Mr. Singh.

Mr. Singh exchanged numbers with her and they started chatting on WhatsApp. The woman then told him that her husband named Valentine was running a herbal seeds import business and had recently lost his supplier, and that Mr. Singh could make a fast buck by supplying the seeds to her husband. 
Confirming the arrest, Deputy police commissioner (zone 7) Sachin Patil said:

"We have arrested a Nigerian national and his Indian wife who had made a Facebook account in the name of Mercy John and duped an IT professional from Bhandup."

"He lost at least Rs 11 lakh that he transferred to them under various pretexts. We suspect their involvement in more cases and have got their custody."

"The incident took place in November 2016, when the Bhandup resident received a friend request from one Mercy John, who claimed to be a UK national, " he added.

He accepted the friend request and soon started chatting with her on WhatsApp. 

"She told him she worked for a UK-based pharmaceutical company which used to get herbal seeds from the US, but was no longer sourcing it from there. She told him that India had a supply of these herbal seeds used in medicines, and if he took up the supply, he would make a profit,” said Avinash Kanade, inspector, Bhandup police station.

The victim took the bait and went to the ‘Indian supplier’, buying seeds worth Rs 2.5 lakh. He gave these to a representative of the ‘pharmaceutical company’, who met him at BKC, the police said. The representative, a Nigerian national, told him the quality of seeds was excellent and placed an order for more seeds, for double the amount. The IT professional then paid another Rs 6.5 lakh and purchased more seeds, officers said.

Thus under various pretexts, the accused got over Rs 11 lakh from him. He got suspicious after John stopped answering calls.

The victim then approached the Bhandup police, which found out that some of these calls were made from Delhi. A police team led by police sub-inspector Jalinder Lembhe went to Delhi and found the address of the Nigerian national who had met the victim at BKC.

Eventually a constable pretended to be a courier employee reached Orajuka, who had been identified as the accused by then, officers said. His arrest led the police to his wife Niharika Deep, who had been running the fake Facebook account, said the police. Deep has also been arrest. Their laptops have been seized and are being analysed.

The Bhandup police had obtained CCTV footage of the area where Mr. Singh had met Valentine and retraced his movements to the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, where they established that he had come to Mumbai from Delhi," said Mr Patil.

"With the help of some local informants in Delhi, we traced the two accused posing as Valentine and Mercy John. They were picked up outside a church on Good Friday, after which we brought them to Mumbai and arrested them. We are trying to apprehend the person who posed as the supplier,"

Plane delayed after couple's fight turned violent just before take-off

A plane full of passengers was delayed after a married couple started wrestling on the tarmac in a blazing row before take-off.

The couple ended up brawling on the floor - with the husband pinning his wife to the ground and swinging his fists in the direction of her face - as they clashed.

The flight was delayed by around half an hour as airport staff struggled to bring the quarrelling pair on the tarmac into order.

The husband and wife were filmed shouting at one another at the bottom of the steps leading onto China Eastern Airlines Flight 5843 - which was minutes away from leaving Changshui International Airport.



According to staff at the airport, the pair began raising their voices while standing in the queue. They then apparently refused to board the 11am flight to Chengdu in the neighbouring province in southwest China.

Shouts quickly descended into a physical fight- and at one point, the man even manages to lose his T-shirt after it is tugged off by his spouse.

He is later shown pinning her to the ground. 
Airline staff were called to break up the fight between the couple - but footage of the bizarre incident shows the violence escalated.

Kunming City authorities were eventually called and the couple were denied access to the plane when they eventually stopped fighting.

Flight MU 5843 took off with a 28-minute delay, eventually landing in Chengdu at 12:36pm local time.

The unnamed couple, however, has been arrested and are now under investigation.
Police said the pair were in the middle of a divorce. 

Presidency May Extend Whistle-Blowing Policy To Weapon Recovery

The Presidency has expressed delight in the success so far recorded by the Federal Government’s whistle-blowing policy in the war against corruption.

It is, therefore, considering applying the same policy to the issue of illegal weapons in the hand of citizens.

It has also commenced efforts aimed at strengthening the policy.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists on Wednesday.

Shehu said the enthusiastic response of Nigerians to the whistle-blower policy had boosted the tempo of the anti-corruption crusade of the administration.

Consequently, he said the government was considering ways of enhancing the structural capacity of the whistle-blower mechanism.

He said the government was considering empowering the mechanism by either bringing it under the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption or any other body to imbue the process with a strategic national purpose.

“The government thinks that the whistle-blower mechanism is too important to be left without a strategic, national direction,” he said.

Shehu commended the zeal and patriotism of Nigerians in responding positively to the incentives of whistle-blower policy, which was intended to expose hidden looted funds, saying ‘no public policy can succeed or go far enough without public support and participation and when the citizens realise they are victims of corruption, they may feel encouraged to join the efforts to expose looted funds’.

The presidential spokesman explained that the huge amounts of looted funds being recovered by the EFCC and the whistle-blower efforts ‘is a revelation about the mindless, callous and reckless scale on which Nigeria had been robbed by unpatriotic and egregiously selfish public officials’.

He said the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 was a divine intervention in response to the desperate cries of Nigerians for urgent change, adding that ‘stealing by officials under a democratic government at the expense of people’s welfare is the worst betrayal of the voters’ mandate’.

The presidential spokesman also indicated that the government was getting suggestions to bring the issue of illegal weapons under the purview of the whistle-blower policy.

“Yes, it is true; the Presidency has received suggestions that call for the whistle-blower policy to be extended to the possession of illegal weapons by powerful individuals in the country.

“The government will look at all that and make a pronouncement.

“Nigerians would be encouraged to expose the presence of illegal weapons in the homes of powerful politicians and other public figures who may use those deadly arms for sinister political agenda,” he said.

Shehu said patriotic Nigerians exposing looted funds deserve all the encouragement and protection to sustain their enthusiasm with a view to encouraging more citizens to participate in this aspect of the anti-corruption crusade. - Punch

Nigeria Should Break Up Now Or Get Restructured -Femi Fani Kayode

 Femi Fani Kayode, on Wednesday reacting to the recent assertions made by, Tanko Yakasai, a founding member of Arewa Consultative Forum, said that Nigeria should break now or be restructured.

Recently, Tanko had said that it was the people of the south west that are “misleading the Igbo” into wanting to break out from Nigeria.

According to him, “I say enough is enough! The only way forward is to restructure Nigeria or break her.

“Whether anyone likes it or not I have spoken the bitter truth. I have reflected the minds and hearts of millions of people from the south and the Middle Belt.

“Whether they wish to acknowledge it or not, the truth is that If the core north does not retrace its steps, not only will Nigeria break into two or more pieces but people like Professor Ango Abdullahi, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai and all those that come from that zone will suffer immeasurably as a consequence of it.” 

Meningitis Killed 745 Nigerians So Far- FG

The Federal Government, on Wednesday, said 745 persons had died in 8,057 suspected cases of Cerebrospinal Meningitis across the country since the outbreak of the disease.

The government also expressed its commitment to continuing to intensify efforts to stop the deaths and further spread of the disease in the worst-hit states of Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Kebbi and Niger.

A statement by the Technical Assistant, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Lawal Bakare, said to increase awareness of the outbreak and coordinate response across states, the northern traditional rulers committee on primary health care held a meeting with the governors from the North. May God give them wisdom on how to stop this. Lawal's words below.


“As of April 17, 2017 (Monday), 8,057 suspected cases of meningitis had been reported across the country; 230 (3 per cent) were laboratory confirmed.

“A total of 745 deaths (9.2 per cent) have been recorded.

“Of the 8,057 cases, 7,519 (93 per cent of cases) have occurred in the five states that have reached outbreak levels for CSM serotype C.”

According to him, during the meeting, state governors reaffirmed their commitment to immediate and concrete actions towards halting the outbreak, while traditional rulers also said they were ready to continue to raise awareness in their and jurisdictions.

Fayose wants FG to upgrade prison facilities

He said, “We would pardon some inmates but we have to follow due process. We must have the facts and figures before approving their release.

 “We have come to see the facilities in the prison and see how we can help. We have seen the facilities here and we are not happy.

“The buildings here houses almost 200 people but whatever their offences, they are still entitled to good condition of living. We therefore appeal to the Federal Government to upgrade the facilities available for prison inmates in the state.”

*** Is Fayose preparing for his future abode ***