Unknown Gunmen Shoot Dead Lagos White Cap Chief!

LAGOS:

Unknown gunmen in the early hours of yesterday morning have shot dead a Lagos white cap chief, Chief Kayode Adeshina, the Onimole of Lagos at his home located at Iga Idugaran Street, Isale-Eko, Lagos Island, Lagos.

 late Chief Kayode Adeshina

The 73-year-old chief was said to have been killed around 3am yesterday in his palace at House No. 5, Onimole Palace, Iga Idugaran Street, Lagos Island.

Children and relatives who were with the deceased when the unidentified gunmen struck said they were scared, as they could not do anything to help the old until he gave up the ghost.

According to one of his children, Oyinlola Ikuforiji, “the gunmen stormed the palace around 3a.m and made straight to the chief’s room where they found him sleeping. He was rudely woke up from sleep and a gun was pointed at his forehead.

He pleaded with them to spare his life but they in turn demanded that he gave them money. But, he told them that he had no money on him and was afterwards shot at, until he passed on few minutes later”.

It was gathered that immediately after shooting him, the killers started ransacking the palace, as they locked up the entire house, including the room where the old man was shot.

When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Command, Ngozi Braide confirmed the incident, saying police had commenced investigations into the matter, as she assured that the perpetrators of the heinous crime would soon be and brought to book.



Word for the Day:“In an age of hope men looked up at the night sky and saw “the heavens." In an age of hopelessness they call it simply “space.” ― Peter Kreeft

Thames torso boy was victim voodoo killing!

Pioneering scientific police work has confirmed that an African boy whose torso was found in the Thames in 2001, was the victim of a voodoo-style ritual killing.

A scientist using nuclear technology has established that the unidentified five - six year old, named Adam by detectives, almost certainly came from Nigeria.

And ground-breaking forensic work has even narrowed the location to one of three areas of the West African nation.

Now a senior detective and a Government forensic scientist have travelled to Nigeria to gather further evidence which they hope will not only lead them to the boy's home village but also to his identity.

Last night a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: 'The main thrust of the investigation is to try and identify who murdered Adam, and to do this we need to establish who he really is.'

It is the first time that the examination of radioactive isotopes has been used in a British criminal investigation. Isotope levels in bone reflect the geology of the area where someone has grown up.

The extraordinary forensic work also involved the detailed analysis of a sinister substance in the boy's stomach which has now been positively identified as a 'black magic' potion.

Scientists also made a microscopic examination of pollen found in his lungs and intestine which proved he had been in the London area for at least 72 hours before his death.

Detectives think he was brought to Britain specifically for a human sacrifice.

Speculation that the killing involved witchcraft has been rife since the black boy's body - without head, arms or legs - was found in the Thames near London's Globe Theatre on September 21, 2001 by a man walking across Tower Bridge.

Police frogmen also recovered a set of candles wrapped in a cotton sheet. Daubed in felt tip on the sheet was a West African name - Adekoyejo Fola Adeoye. Part of the name was also on the candles.

A post-mortem revealed another potentially vital clue. In the boy's stomach was a concoction of minerals and vegetable matter, which police suspected was fed to him as part of the ritual killing.

Forensic tests revealed that 'Adam, was a five or six-year-old boy from Nigeria who had been poisoned 48 hours before his death and was paralysed but conscious when he was killed.

Officers believe his death was a ritualistic killing and he had been poisoned with an extract from the carabar bean.

The potion included tiny clay pellets containing small particles of pure gold, a clear indication that Adam was Britain's first-known victim of a Muti ritual killing, prevalent in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Muti murders are carried out in the belief that the body parts of children are sacred. They command large sums for use in medicines said to provide good luck, virility and business success. The bodies are often disposed of in flowing water.

Much of the scientific analysis-in the Adam case has been conducted by Professor Ken Pye, head of the forensic geoscience unit at Royal Holloway University of London, who also worked on the Sarah Payne murder inquiry.

The only clothing on Adam was a pair of orange shorts, exclusively sold in Woolworths in Germany and Austria.

Det Insp Will O'Reilly, who is leading the investigation and who earlier this year travelled to Johannesburg in South Africa in the hunt for clues, has been liaising with his counterparts in Germany and Belgium over two similar child deaths.

A black teenager was found dead from an apparent ritual killing in Frankfurt while the mutilated torso of a white child was found in Belgium.

A 31- year- old asylum seeker of West African origin, was questioned was arrested in connection with his death in July 2002,after clothes in her Glasgow tower-block flat were found to have come from the same shop as Adam's shorts.  but she was deported to Nigeria months later.

Mrs Asaguede came to police attention after social workers became increasingly alarmed at her boasts about knowledge of human sacrifice.

DNA tests have since established that Mrs Asaguede is not Adam's natural mother but detectives are still anxious to trace her husband and to establish the whereabouts of their own young son.

The couple, who also have two daughters, aged six and seven, had lived in South London but are also known to have connections in Germany. Mrs Asaguede is on police bail pending further inquiries.

In December 2001 a £50,000 reward was offered for any information leading to the successful conviction of those responsible, and in April 2002 Nelson Mandela made a global appeal for information about the murder.

Ten years on Det Ch Insp Dunn said they would continue to do all they could to bring Adam's killers to justice.

"This is a case which is hugely important for the people of London and the people of Nigeria that we successfully conclude this investigation.

"We must not have any further cases of people being brought into the country for criminal slaughter."

"If you do bring trafficked people and those people come to harm, then we will leave no stone unturned in seeking you out," he warned.

Word for the day;“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

“What Nigeria and the Super Bowl have in Common”-Christiane Amanpour!

   

Nigeria’s persistent power cuts was recently compared to the black out which occurred at the largest sporting events in the United States, the Super Bowl by CNN’sChristiane Amanpour.

On Sunday 3rd February 2013, there was  a 35 minutes black out at the event watched by over a hundred million people in 180 countries. This launched a blizzard of tweets, with many coming from Nigerians who were amused to know they are not the only ones with electricity challenges.

Amanpour parodies the epileptic power situation in Nigeria and its connection with the black out at the Super Bowl, noting some of the tweets from Nigerians:

“Power outage at the Super Bowl on Sunday. Suddenly, Nigeria doesn’t look as dark anymore.”

“If they had the Super Bowl in Nigeria, the power coming back on would be the real surprise.”

Amanpour recalled the interview she recently had with President Goodluck Jonathan where he said Nigerians were pleased with the government’s commitment to improve power and that there was considerable improvement in electricity supply in Nigeria.

This interview was followed by several tweets from Nigerians who denied the President’s claim.  

CNN interviewed some Nigerians who complained about the epileptic power supply in Nigeria and their growing dependence on the use of generators.

Amanpour concluded her report with this funny tweet from a Nigerian 

“Nigeria should bid to host the next SuperBowl. At least we have standby generators. 

Word for the Day: Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes- Peter Drucker 

Mali Conflict Deaths!

French forces have killed several hundred Islamist militants in Mali in a month-long conflict, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said.

The militants were killed in air strikes and direct combat with French troops, he said.

France says it intends to start pulling out of Mali in March, and has stressed the importance of African Union forces in ensuring security.

Air attacks and sporadic clashes are continuing in several parts of Mali.

France has deployed about 4,000 troops, and thousands more from the African Union are also there.

'Significant number'

Mr Le Drian said the militants died in air strikes on vehicles carrying fighters and materials, or in ground fighting in the town of Konna at the start of the campaign and later in the town of Gao.

He said French troops had inflicted "great damage on the jihadist terrorist groups", saying "several hundred, a significant number" of Islamist fighters had been killed.

The BBC's Thomas Fessy in Mali says it is unclear how the French made their assessment of the numbers of dead.

France has suffered only one fatality, a helicopter pilot killed at the beginning of the operation.

French experts had earlier suggested the Islamist alliance could probably muster about 3,000 fighters overall.

Mr Le Drian said Malian forces had also taken prisoners including high-ranking militants who would "have to answer to Malian courts and international justice".

French forces are continuing to carry out air strikes in mountains north of Kidal where Islamists have taken refuge.

Earlier, the French military said some 1,800 soldiers from Chad had entered Kidal.

Chadian soldiers 

Mr Le Drian said the town was now under the control of French forces with "the support of African and in particular Chadian forces".

Meanwhile, pro-autonomy Tuareg rebels said they had occupied the north-eastern town of Menaka, but their claim could not be verified.

Tuareg rebels

Analysts say the Tuareg fighters, who initially joined forces with the Islamist rebels, are seeking to maximise their territorial claim on the region.

Mali's future

The French intervened in Mali in January, fearing that al-Qaeda-linked militants who had controlled Mali's vast north since April 2012 were about to advance on the capital, Bamako.

In an interview published on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said French soldiers could start leaving Mali in March.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius 

"We will continue to act in the north where some terrorist havens remain,".

"I think that starting in March, if all goes as planned, the number of French troops could be reduced."

Meanwhile, officials from the UN, EU, African Union, the World Bank and dozens of nations met in Brussels to discuss Mali's future.

They are considering how elections can be held in July, as well as the financing of an international military force and humanitarian assistance.

Word for the Day: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ― Aristotle,

Jonathan leads 5 former presidents to centenary celebration

Nigeria:  


     
 President Goodluck Jonathan led five former Presidents and Heads of State on Monday evening to inaugurate the nation's centenary anniversary celebration.

                                

Former military Heads of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (rtd), Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar, former Presidents Shehu Shagari and Olusegun Obasanjo also graced the occasion held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa.
The anniversary will hold on Jan. 1, 2014.

The British colonial administration amalgamated the Southern and Northern Protectorates which make up the Nigerian nation on Jan. 1, 2014.




The Senate President, Sen. David Mark, his Deputy Sen. Ike Ekweremadu, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, his Deputy, Chief Emeka Ihedioha and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mukhtar also attended the event.

Senate President: David Mrak

State Governors, Ministers, Presidential aides, captains of Industry, members of Diplomatic Corps were present at the occasion.

Speaking at the occasion, Jonathan said that the amalgamation of 1914 was not a mistake but an act of God. He said that the amalgamation created ``a unique entity of the globe called Nigeria; a beautiful country richly blessed and which had turned out innovative people across the world.’’

The president said that beyond the endowed natural resources, ``Nigeria is blessed with unique collection of people specially created by God.’’

``The one Nigeria consciousness which has kept the nation together must be safeguarded.’’
The president said that it was a unique act of God that the country had survived a civil war and several other daunting challenges.

``The unity of Nigeria is indivisible and non-negotiable, we must remain the forward looking people that we are".
``I see a united, powerful and prosperous nation that will make the generation yet unborn very proud.``Arise, we shall and prosper we will,’’ he said.

Jonathan, Buhari, a 120 year-old man from Zungeru in Niger state who witnessed the 1914 amalgamation and two children, representing the younger generation lit the centenary torch.

In a welcome address, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Sen.
Anyim pius Anyim said that in line with the directive of the President, the celebration would involve all Nigerians and its sponsorship would be wholly private sector driven.

He said that he was amazed at the response of Nigeria to support the celebration and make it strong, colourful and fascinating.

Anyim said that the centenary celebration would be used to replace pessimism with optimism to make the country rise above its challenges.

He said that the celebration would generate over 15,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Gowon described Nigeria as ``a unique nation, a nation of diverse, strong and hard working people.’’

He said that not many nations could survive 100 years of cohesiveness in-spite of the diverse nature of the nation and several challenges Nigeria had faced.

Unveiling the centenary logo, he declared: "May the emblem symbolise a rallying point for the unity of the nation, ``May it be a reminder of our, entity, unity and oneness of the nation which in not negotiable and serve as a symbol of peace, unity and prosperity.’’

Obasanjo recalled his 2003 national broadcast where he asked ``If you cannot love Nigeria and be positive about it and make contributions to its progress, then I should ask you what sort of Nigerian are you?’’.

He tasked Nigerian to remain focused in the quest for making Nigeria a ``humane, just and progressive’’ nation.

Obasanjo after the remarks presented the centenary theme: ``One Nigeria, Great Promise’’.

Speaking in same vein, Abubakar said that Nigeria was in the league of countries like, India, China, Egypt, Ethiopia and Amenia for surviving 100 years and more of co-existence in spite of daunting challenges.

He said that the nation should use the opportunity of the centenary celebrations to lay the foundation of a new nation.

``There is every reason to celebrate in songs and dances.

``One nation, indivisible Nigeria has come to stay,’’ he said.

Abubakar thereafter presented a centenary theme song titled: ``This Land, Celebrating 100 years of Nigeria" which was subsequently performed by a theme of notable Nigerian musicians led by Onyeka Onwenu.

News Agency of Nigeria reports that Tambuwal launched the centenary web portal – ``www.nigeriacentenary.com.ng’’ while the Senate President launched the centenary lottery.


On the other hand, A human rights activist, Ms Ann-Kio Briggs, Bishop Mathew Kukah and former president of Botswana, Mr Festus Mogae, yesterday disagreed over the planned centenary celebrations slated for January next year.

The Federal Government is planning to mark the 100th anniversary of the amalgamation of Northern and Southern protectorates in 1914.

The trio spoke yesterday at the 10th Daily Trust Dialogue in Abuja. While Briggs opined that there was no reason for the country to celebrate the event, Kukah and Mogae disagreed, saying there were cogent reasons for the celebration.

Briggs described the amalgamation as a forced union saying God did not put Nigeria together but that colonial masters forced Nigerians together.

She also attributed mutual distrust among various ethnic groups and structural imbalance as the creation of colonial masters and responsible for the poor state of Nigeria.

Ms Ann-Kio Briggs

However, Kukah said though Nigeria has its own challenges, it has achieved some developments. He said not all Nigerian leaders were bad and called on critics not only to look at minuses over the years. He said the most important thing was for Nigerians to seek ways to address the challenges and move on.

Bishop Mathew  Kukah

Mogae, who was the chairman of the dialogue, said Nigeria has every reason to celebrate its 100 years of existence. He said if there were no reasons to celebrate, he wouldn't have visited Nigeria.

former president of Botswana, Mr Festus Mogae

He said even though Nigeria has not achieved its full potentials, it has recorded some developments that even a blind man can see.

Word for the Day:  But to practice leadership, you need to accept that you are in the business of generating chaos, confusion, and conflict-Ronald Heifetz

US kidnapper killed, 5-year old safe

A US gunman and murder suspect who snatched a five-year-old boy and held him for a week underground in a bunker besieged by police has been killed and the child is safe, the FBI said Monday.

Police had earlier identified the abductor as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired trucker. The motive of the January 29 abduction in the town of Midland City in the southern state of Alabama remained unclear.

"At approximately 3:12 this afternoon, FBI agents safely recovered the child who's been held hostage for nearly a week," said FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson, who is in charge of the Mobile, Alabama division.

"Within the past 24 hours, negotiations deteriorated and Mr Dykes was observed holding a gun. At this point, FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."

The five-year-old boy hostage, known only as Ethan, was taken from the scene to the hospital and is believed to be in fine condition. The child was reportedly taken to nearby Flowers Hospital but is not believed to be injured.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Steve Richardson addresses the media near Alabama

said Richardson, ". Sykes had continued to demand “4 minutes on all major networks” to tell his story.

Dykes’s believed that the government was harboring and hiding aliens that threatened to take America’s weapons.

During a televised news conference, Stephen E. Richardson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Mobile, Ala. division, said that during the last 24 hours, negotiations deteriorated and Dykes “was observed holding a gun.”

That’s when authorities decided that the boy was in eminent danger, so they made a move to rescue the boy.

The subject is deceased."

Dykes is thought to have shot dead the driver of a school bus when he seized his young hostage, retreating to an underground room on his property and defying calls for his surrender.

Ala. Gov. Robert Bentley said in a statement that he was “thankful that the child who was abducted is now safe.”

Gov. Robert Bentley

He continued: “At the same time, we also want to remember the family and friends of the bus driver – Charles Poland, Junior. This man was a true hero who was willing to give up his life so others might live. We are all inspired by his courage and bravery.”

Dykes, a retired Alabama trucker, was a decorated Vietnam-era veteran described as a loner who railed against the government.

Word for theDay: “God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas; but for scars.” -― Elbert Hubbard

China/ Japan Conflict!

                              

The spat between China and Japan over disputed sovereignty on a group of small islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkakus by the Japanese and Diaoyus in China, is taking dangerous overtones. China is sending planes and surveillance vessels to test its claims, with Japan taking counter-measures. Taiwan too has entered the fray, as the alternative China, with Japanese firing water cannons at a Taiwanese boat carrying a group of activists wanting to land on the disputed islands.

                             

The trouble began on Aug. 15, when Japanese authorities arrested 14 Chinese citizens from a Hong Kong-based vessel after some of them staged a protest by landing on one of the islands. The landing of Japanese activists on one of the disputed islands further intensified tensions. In response, anti-Japanese protests, some violent, spread across China, apparently chaperoned and approved by the police.

Japan's defense minister, Itsunori Onodera

The governor of Tokyo, a well-known nationalist, further angered Chinese activists by announcing that he wanted to buy three of the disputed islands from their owner, a Japanese citizen. He said he believed that Japan’s central government was not doing enough to defend them.

The next week, the Japanese government announced that it had bought all of the islands from their private Japanese owners for nearly $30 million. It said it acted in the hope of forestalling further conflict, but China accused Tokyo of stealing the islands and dispatched two maritime enforcement ships in a show of force.

In late September, the Japanese Coast Guard used water cannons to disperse fishing boats from Taiwan near the islands, which are also claimed by Taipei.

In October, China announced that it would not send its finance minister or central bank chief to the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Tokyo. The decision was a clear sign of China’s displeasure with Japan’s handling of the dispute over the islands.

The last-minute cancellation, confirmed by Japanese officials on Oct. 10, came as a Japanese news agency reported that Tokyo may try to defuse the standoff by officially acknowledging for the first time that China also claims the islands.

On Oct. 11, a senior Chinese diplomat made a secret visit to Tokyo to hold talks aimed at defusing tensions between the two countries, according to a Japanese government spokesman. The spokesman, Osamu Fujimura, said Luo Zhaohui, who leads the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Asian Affairs Department, met with Shinsuke Sugiyama, the director general of the Asian and Oceanic Affairs Bureau at Japan’s Foreign Ministry.

According to a statement from the Japanese ministry, the diplomats “exchanged opinions” on the dispute and held preparatory talks for a higher-level meeting between the two nations to take place at an unspecified date.

In December, a Chinese military surveillance plane entered what Japan considers its airspace near the disputed islands, the Japanese Defense Ministry said. Japan scrambled fighter jets in response, but the Chinese plane left before they arrived, according to Japanese authorities.

The ministry said the plane’s incursion was the first known violation of Japanese airspace by a Chinese plane since they began keeping records some 50 years ago. China considers the airspace its own, because it is laying claim to the islands that Japan has controlled for decades.

Tokyo lodged a formal protest with Beijing, which swiftly retorted that it was the Japanese who had encroached.

Looking back at the historical experience of the two major powers of our times, Britain and the United States, the dominance over oceans and sea-lanes was a prerequisite for regional and global primacy. Indeed, this is how China was humbled during the opium wars of the 19th century and reduced to a semi-colonial status. Now China wants to establish its sway over the South China Sea and over the disputed (with Japan) islands in the East China Sea.

When the communists won the civil war and established the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the US was the dominant military power ruling the waves in much of the world in the midst of a Cold War, with China on the Soviet side. After intense internal ideological and power struggles, and a serious rift with the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s overlapping into the 1980s, China started to emerge slowly as a power in its own right under the stewardship of Deng Xiaoping. Deng was a practical leader with emphasis on learning from facts and not too infatuated with communist ideology, though he was a strong upholder of the Party’s monopoly on power. He wanted to modernise China and build it into a strong and powerful nation. But he also advised that China should bide its time while building its strength.

Deng’s successors obviously believe that the time has come for China to assert and reclaim its power and national interests. And these interests include recovering what it perceives to have been historically its sovereign territories and waters in the South China Sea and other maritime territories, including the Senkaku/Diayou islands, controlled by Japan. In the regional political power play, China once had an advantage over Japan as its atrocious war record in China and other Asian countries created a kind of aggrieved brotherhood, revived now and then over specific issues like the ‘comfort women’, Asian prostitutes that Japanese soldiers used during wartime.

But with China’s rise and its determination to consolidate and expand its power, it is now simultaneously involved in sovereignty disputes over islands in the South China with a number of regional countries like Vietnam, the Philippines and others, and with Japan in the East China Sea. That is creating an aggrieved brotherhood of a different kind against China, with Japan increasingly regarded favourably. The most welcoming of Japan in this respect is the Philippines, with its own serious maritime dispute with China. Japan and the Philippines have become strategic partners agreeing to collaborate to resolve their territorial disputes with China. And they have expressed ‘mutual concern’ about China’s increasingly assertive claims.

Vietnam is another country with a serious maritime dispute with China in the South China Sea, and has lately drawn strategically close to the United States. Both Japan and the Philippines have their security pacts with the United States, as does Australia. But Japan is not without its own problems, arising from a serious maritime dispute with South Korea, which too is a US ally. The US has been urging both its allies to resolve their dispute but the signs so far are not propitious.

Even without the US security connection, Japan is not an inconsequential power, though constrained militarily because of the US-imposed post-WW11 pacifist constitution. There has been a slow erosion of that position, with US support, as Washington has been urging Japan for quite some years to play an important regional military role as its ally. With Shinzo Abe as Japan’s new prime minister, known for his ultra-nationalist views, Japan will raise its defence expenditure and take measures to get rid of the relevant constitutional provision constraining its military power.

China is already an ascendant military power with its defence budget reportedly doubling over the last six years. It seems determined to uphold its perceived national interests, which is its great strength with the Chinese people. While the government might not be playing the military band, the country’s senior military officers are not holding back their frank views. This was recently the case with Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu of China’s National Defence University in an interview with John Garnaut, China correspondent of The Sydney Morning Herald. He said colourfully, “America is the global tiger and Japan is Asia’s wolf and both are now madly biting China.” He hypothetically raised a scenario of nuclear retaliation by raising the WW11 analogy when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and asked, “...how do you know it wouldn’t receive another nuclear bomb?” And said, “The world would hail if Japan receives such a [nuclear] blow.” He amplified, “I don’t want to mention China here [presumably, the country that might deliver the blow], as it is sensitive.” And he had a message for Australia not to follow the US or Japan into any military conflict, saying, “Australia should never “play the jackal for the tiger or dance with the wolf.” 

Though Colonel Liu said his views did not represent government policy, at the same time he emphasised that his views were consistent with what the political and military leaders thought, if not what they said. In addition to the interview, Liu also provided written comments accusing the US of creating “a mini-NATO” to contain China, with the US and Japan at its core and Australia within its orbit.

Having taken such a strong public stand on the sovereignty issue, the Chinese government would find it difficult to retreat from that position. Japan will equally be averse to making its sovereignty over the islands an open issue. If so, China and Japan are heading for a showdown of some sorts in the not-too-distant future. And that won’t be pretty regionally and globally.

In a region devoid of rules like those that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union when their ships and planes crossed paths, the possibility of a deadly accident is high. In addition to the radar scares, the two sides have exchanged threats, with Japan stating that its fighter jets would fire tracer bullets near Chinese aircraft if they strayed too near the rocks. A retired but influential Chinese army general responded that such an act would constitute a “first shot".

The new chief of China’s Communist Party, Xi Jinping, has even taken to urging the People’s Liberation Army to “prepare for war.”

Word for the Day: “ We boil at different degrees. ”— Ralph Waldo Emerson