30 years old Man Kills mother over alleged Witch craft

A  30-year-old man in Chugiri in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State has confessed that he killed his mother because she was allegedly responsible for his misfortune.

The suspect, Vwang, father of five, living in Chugiri village also accused his mother of using her witchcraft to kill his father, and two of his siblings as well as another woman and her child in the village.

Vwang said he and his children had been suffering from ill health due to his mother’s alleged evil activities.

He said it was common knowledge in the village that his mother was a witch and on the fateful day, he had approached her to stop the act but out of annoyance he had hit her on her forehead, resulting in her losing her balance and hitting the back of her head on the floor.

“She spent about a week in the hospital before she finally died,” he said.

The state Commissioner of Police, Chris Olakpe, who paraded Vwang and 16 other suspects arrested for various offences, explained that the suspect who was a secondary school drop-out had gone to look for menial job but because he was unable to get any, blamed his mother for his misfortune and beat her to death.

Other suspects paraded included a psychology student of a university, who was an alleged accomplice to a soldier who allegedly went to a house at the state low-cost housing estate in Jos to rob but was apprehended.

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ASUU: ‘We’ll shut down Nigeria – Labour

…Gives FG one-week ultimatum

Labour activist and General Secretary, National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, Joe Ajaero has given the Federal Government one week to resolve its differences with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) or cripple the country with the mother-of-all-strikes.

Ajaero who was speaking during the opening of a training workshop organized for labour leaders in Enugu, threatened to ally with other unions across the country to join ASUU on a solidarity stike if the impasse persists.

He said: “If ASUU issue is not addressed, we will shut this country alongside other unions. We will ally with other unions and make sure that nothing works in this country.”

Ajaero said government was being insensitive to the plight of Nigerian students because the children of the rich are studying outside the country.

“This is not a strike based on demand, it’s based on agreement. As government, you must honour your agreement. Here, there’s no social security, the price of food is high, the same goes for electricity tariff. We are going to join our children to stay at home and let them run the system,” he threatened.

The labour leader said that the time has come to bar public office holders form sending their children to schools abroad or travel overseas for free treatment, noting that not until then, will government take the various institutions serious and put things the way they should be.

Ajaero however, reassured electricity workers that the union would ensure that everybody receive their entitlements before the final handover to private investors and urged them to make good and judicious use of the money and not go on spending spree.

“They are playing politics with us but all we have told them is to give us our entitlements and we will handover tomorrow. They said before the end of this week; if we don’t see evidence of payment, we won’t handover.”

According to him, the workshop is to prepare them for better management of the funds through skill acquisitions and entrepreneurial skills and urged them to take the workshop serious.

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New Music: Iyanya - Le Kwa Ukwu

 

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Close Up Loves Naija Concert holds today

The Close Up Loves Naija Concerts featuring MI, Olamide, Burna Boy, Chidinma, Phyno and DJ Jimmy Jatt, holds today at Silverbird Galleria in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja. For more information, log on to www.facebook.com/closeupng

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Police nab three teenage stowaways at Lagos airport

The teenagers

The Airport Command of the Nigeria Police Force has arrested three teenagers for allegedly attempting to illegally board some international flights in Lagos.

Commissioner of Police for the command, Salahu Waheed, said the suspects, Lateef Popoola, 13; Amadi Joshua, 14; and Ukpabio Onyedikachi, 14, were arrested at different times at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja.

Waheed, while handing over the suspects to their mothers, said there was a need for their respective state governments to rehabilitate them like the Edo State Government did with teenage stowaway, Daniel Ihekina, who was arrested on August 24, 2013 after sneaking into the tyre compartment of a Lagos-bound Arik plane.

He said, “These boys were found at different times at Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. Their aim was to get into any plane and travel out of Nigeria.

“I decided to hand them over to their parents so they will be well taken care of and stop dwelling on the fantasy that you can just come into the airport, enter a plane and travel.

“Their state governments should try to rehabilitate them just like Edo State did for the stowaway in Benin.

“Lateef Popoola is from Ogun State; Amadi Joshua is from Ebonyi while Ukpabio Onyedikachi is from Abia State.

“The airport is not a place that you can just come into and travel. There are formalities. We don’t want to see these children here again.”

The teenagers, who spoke to PUNCH Metro, said they had been nursing the idea of travelling abroad, adding that they were not ready to execute their plans yet.

Lateef said he went to the tarmac to observe how aeroplanes take off and land.

He said he was able to gain access to the runaway by sneaking into an airport apron bus, but was arrested shortly after alighting.

He said, “I am not in school, I dropped out in Primary three. I was arrested last week Wednesday. I actually wanted to travel but I have yet to decided where I will go. So, I just went to the tarmac to see the aeroplanes.”

Lateef’s grandmother, Adunni, said she had no idea that her grandson was nursing the idea of travelling out of the country. She said she had been responsible for his upkeep  since his mother abandoned him at infancy.

“I did not know that he wanted to travel. I just did not  see him last week and I started looking for him all over the place. It was on Saturday that I finally found out that he had been arrested,” she said.

Onyedikachi and Joshua were said to have been arrested after asking some security agents where Malaysia flights were boarding.

After being questioned, the boys, who were both in SS1, said they had no travel documents and were immediately arrested.

Police said Onyedikachi’s brother was in Malaysia and it was possible that the teenager wanted to travel out to see his brother.

Onyedikachi, however said, “We were at the departure area of the airport. We did not attempt to travel out. We were just loitering and wanted to see the aeroplanes. We did not want to travel out on that day.”

Onyedikachi’s mother berated her son for his escapade. She said she had warned him and Joshua to be well behaved at all times.

She said, “I had no knowledge of what they did. Onyedikachi is well taken care of and is not suffering. I don’t know what pushed him to do this.”

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Electricity workers commence nationwide strike tomorrow

■ Protest FG handover of PHCN to investors on Monday
By Bimbola Oyesola, Lagos and Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Nigerians may from tomorrow, experience a nationwide power outage, as electricity workers yesterday vowed to embark on an indefinite strike due to government’s inability to complete their severance payment before handing over to core investors on paper yesterday in Abuja.
The workers, who had picketed the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) headquarters in Abuja and Lagos as well as other state capitals warned that nothing would stop the action except government resumed payment of their remaining allowance as initially agreed.
The workers, under the umbrella of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and the Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies (SSAEAC), vowed to resist the planned handover of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) by the Federal Government to core private investors without settling all agreed labour issues.
The General Secretary of NUEE, Mr Joe Ajaero said the picketing, which commenced at 6a.m yesterday was in protest of a statement credited to the Vice President, Namadi Sambo that the government had completed the payment of the workers’ outstanding entitlements.
“But that statement is different from what is coming from the President, who has just acknowledged that the workers still had outstanding,” he said.
Ajaero, who is also the deputy president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) however, noted that the Minister of Labour, Chief Emeka Wogu, in a telephone call had assured the unions that he would contact his power counterpart to ensure that the strike was averted.
He noted that based on Sunday’s directives, all the states of the country and the Federal Capital Territory had been put on red alert to resist the physical take-over of PHCN facilities by core investors.
Ajaero lamented that the handing over showed that  it was no longer speculations that the Federal Government was bent on handing over PHCN facilities to investors without conclusively settling labour issues.
“The position of government is not only unfair and condemnable, but is a direct affront on the economic, social and physical well being of the workers and their families.
“It now behoves on us to pick up this challenge to ensure that our socio-economic lives and those of our family members are not terminated unduly.”
Ajaero insisted that the handing-over plan of PHCN to investors was not proper as “over 5,000 casual workers of PHCN were not captured during the biometric exercise carried out by the government leaving their fate hanging on a balance.”

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Again, Boko Haram massacre 40 students in Yobe

…4 travellers in Borno
…Jonathan, Atiku condemn killings
From TIMOTHY OLANREWAJU, Maiduguri, and JULIANA TAIWO-OBALONYE, ABUJA
It was a bloody Sunday in Gujba, a sleepy town in Yobe State, when gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram Islamists stormed the state’s College of Agriculture and killed more than 40 students, some of them in their sleep. The insurgents were said to have launched the coordinated attacks in the early hours of yesterday. The attack was coming as four travellers were slaughtered in renewed attacks on motorists near Benisheik town in neighbouring Borno State.
Giving an account of the killings, a student who does want to be mentioned said: “The attackers had sneaked into the male hostel around 1am when the students were fast asleep, set the hostels, administrative block and some of the classrooms ablaze before opening fire on students who attempted to flee the scene.”

A statement signed by Abdullahi Bego, Special Adviser on Press Affairs and Information to Yobe State Governor Ibrahim Gaidam, confirmed that 40 students were killed in the massacre at dawn. “Forty students were killed by criminals and terrorists while four others were injured during the attack,” the media aide said in the statement.
He said that the Governor had visited the injured persons on admission at the Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital, Damaturu even as he (Shema) described the attack as “devastating, heinous and barbaric.” According to Bego, the governor also pledged that government would foot the medical bills of the victims while commiserating with the families of the deceased, and those injured in the attack.
“Governor Gaidam is calling on the military and other law enforcement operatives in the state to intensify surveillance and patrols, to deal more effectively with the prevailing security challenges. Although, there is increase in troop movement and  deployment of more military hardware in the North-East, people are yet to see the kind of action that will effectively nip criminal and terrorist activities in the bud, the governor said in the statement.
Recall that yesterday’s attack came barely two months after a similar attack on a secondary school at Mamudo in which 42 students were reportedly killed. Gunmen had set ablaze the students hostels at the Government Secondary School on July 6, killing 42 students and a teacher. The development prompted the state government to shut down public schools in the state for two months in order to enable it construct perimeter fences around them.
In Borno, the insurgents returned to Benisheik  last Saturday, where four passengers, including a woman travelling in a Volkswagen Golf car were attacked. The incident occurred at Malumti, a village near Benisheik where the militants had killed about 140 people mostly travellers, two weeks ago.
Sources said the Islamists dared the military men on patrol as they waylaid the Golf car. “They killed the driver and three men but spared the woman. The car and its passengers were coming from Damaturu,” a resident claimed. The insurgents however, set ablaze the car. As if that was not enough, the attackers reportedly returned on Sunday morning, hijacked a truck conveying food items from Maiduguri, evacuated the items, loaded them into a waiting vehicle and burnt the vehicle after allowing the driver to flee.
“Many vehicles trying to use the road today, (Sunday) on their way to Yobe, Bauchi, Kano, Jigawa and Jos were stopped in the morning. Many of them had to return to Maiduguri with their passengers,” Saleh Ali, a trader told Daily Sun .
Reacting to the incidents yesterday, President Goodluck Jonathan,  condemned the killings describing them as depressing in the wake of the 53rd independence celebration.
Speaking during the 53rd Independence Anniversary Interdenominational Service, at the National Christian Centre, Abuja, he said anybody in his shoes would be short of  what to tell Nigerians nor words to comfort the families of the affected students. “If you are wearing my shoes, what courage would you have to stand here before Nigerians, what message will you send to Nigerians, to the parents of these young people, our future leaders, students in school of Agriculture? would you say that the killing of these students is political?”, the President asked.
In a related development, the Senate President, David Mark, condoled with the government and people of Niger State over the ill-fated boat mishap in the River Niger near Malilli village in which no fewer than 42 persons have been confirmed dead.
Former vice president Atiku Abubakar also described the Gujba killings as ‘senseless and tragic’, saying, it casts a ‘horrible image’ on the events marking the 53rd National Day Anniversary. “As a father, I am deeply saddened by these senseless murders. These were young Nigerians studying agriculture with a goal of helping to feed our nation.
“We must urgently review our strategy for confronting these cowards. The murders at the Yobe State College of Agriculture are further proofs that we need to have a rethink on how we provide security for our nation.” Quoting late American civil rights hero, Dr. Martin Luther King, (Jr.) as a rallying point for Nigeria, Atiku said: “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war. We must organize ourselves better to provide dignity and security for Nigeria.  To defeat terror, we must use much more potent, unbeatable weapons: democracy, education and opportunity, ” the former vice president advised.

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