1.3 million people in need of aid as CAR disarmament drive fails to capture militia leader!

Troops conducted house-to-house searches for several hours in a neighbourhood of Bangui believed to be a base for attacks against Muslims.

Automatic weapons, grenades, knives and ammunition were reportedly confiscated.

More than 250 military personnel were deployed in the disarmament drive.

The peacekeepers hope to secure the northern district of Boy Rabe.

It is a base for the anti-balaka militia - formed in response to killings by Muslim rebels and now blamed for their own revenge attacks.

However, operation was not entirely successful as some of the militia refused to disarm and one of its top leaders, Patrice Edouard Ngaissona, escaped capture.

The city's chief prosecutor said Mr Ngaissona was "the big fish who had to be detained", according to AFP news agency.

The United Nations refugee agency has described the situation as "a humanitarian catastrophe of unspeakable proportions".

The UN's World Food Programme says that about 1.3 million people - a quarter of the population - are in need of aid.

Court acquits ex-Speaker, Bankole, of contract inflation, embezzlement of N874 million!

A Federal High Court in Abuja discharged and acquitted former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole friday, of contract inflation and fraudulent embezzlement of public funds totalling N874 million while in office.

Evoh Chukwu who presided over the case, cleared the former Speaker of any complicity in a 16-count charge brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

The Commission had dragged Mr. Bankole to court for allegedly being involved in the purchase of two bullet-proof Range Rover vehicles, two non-bulletproof Range Rover, three Mercedes Benz S-Class 600 cars, 400 units of DSTV system, 400 television sets, 800 units of desktop computers, 100 units of Sharp Digital photographers, and 400 units of Laserjet 2600N.

Purchases the commission said contravened Section 17 to 56 of the Procurement Act No. 14 of 2007.

Relying on the testimonies given by six witnesses called by the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Chukwu said no error was committed in the process leading to the award of the said contracts to warrant the Speaker being asked to enter his defence in trial.

The judge said the prosecution, led by Festus Keyamo, failed to establish a prima facie case against Mr. Bankole to justify the demand that he should enter defence in the N874 million contract fraud against him.

Stating that the prosecution could not prove that the former Speaker colluded with others to commit the crime as covered by counts 3, 6, 9, 12, 13 and 14 of the charge.

“From the totality of the testimonies of the six witnesses, nothing shows any act of collusion on the part of the accused person,” the judge said.

“Nothing shows that he interfered with the process of the award of the contracts. No mention about anybody fronting for him was made by the prosecution witnesses and the process was also said to have complied with the requirements.

“Based on the totality of these witnesses’ testimonies, I hold that there is nothing to justify his being called to enter his defence as none of the essential ingredients have been proved by the prosecution”

Mr. Chukwu noted that the court would be engaging in inquisitorial trial if it insisted that the accused must prove his innocence.

According to him, in line with Nigeria’s adversarial criminal procedure, the prosecution must prove its case against the accused.

“In the end, the no-case submission of the accused person succeeds. The accused is hereby discharged and acquitted,” the judge said.

An Abuja High Court had previously acquitted the former Speaker of charges bordering on breach of trust and illegally obtaining loan of about N9 billion for the lower legislative chamber.

Gaza fisherman hooks statue of ancient Greek god Apollo!

Jwdat Abu Ghrb initially thought it was a corpse, when he spotted a dark shape in the waters off Gaza, where he was fishing. It was a life-size bronze statue, believed to be a 2,500-year-old depiction of the ancient Greek god Apollo. A green spot had formed on the leg of the statue, which is exposed to the air. 




Ghrb described the half-ton object as "treasure pulled out of the sea." 

 Petrified, he narrated the incident: "I put on my goggles, dove underneath and still couldn't tell what it was. I resurfaced and got some help from other people and family members and came back, and after full four hours of trying we managed to get it out of the water and I was shocked by what I found." 

"I thought it was made of gold; I was going to be rich," Ghrb said. "So I took it home to hide it." 

Other people got involved, as a local armed brigade took control of the statue, while another person listed it for sale on the online auction site eBay, with a starting price of about $500,000, according to authorities. 

The posting raised suspicions among officials in the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the Interior Ministry in Gaza, which is governed by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. 

The Ministry opened an investigation into what they suspected was an illegal attempt to sell the work of art. Authorities there asked that the statue, as a historical artifact found in Gaza, be handed over but they have hidden it from public view.

A gold store in Gaza however, a man who displayed video of the statue told said that he has custody of it and that it is in safe hands. Government officials promise that the statue will not be sold and that they will start restoration and display it after an investigation into its discovery is completed. 


Authority are working on a plan for the statue to be displayed in world-class museums around the world. Museum authorities in Geneva, Switzerland, have offered to help repair and preserve the statue, and plan for its eventual display in Gaza. 

Goldie remembered a year after!

Exactly one year after her sudden and untimely demise, Goldie Harvey is remembered with smiles for the short time she stayed.



RIP Goldie.

Kelly Rowland arrives Lagos For Dare Art Alade’s Concert!

Kelly Rowland is currently in Nigeria for Dare Art Alade’s Love Like a Movie Concert which will hold on Saturday February 15th at Ocean view grounds, Eko Hotel, Lagos

Photos below:

Two years after, Septuagenarian begs police to release corpse of murdered son!

IGP M.D Abubakar

Andrew Ogazi, a 76-year-old security guard in Umuahia, on Friday appealed to the Abia Police Command to release the corpse of his son, Ugochukwu Ekwuruke, for burial.

The 37-year-old Ekwuruke was allegedly murdered in cold blood by his friend, one Tochukwu Azuonye, on October 10, 2012.

Mr. Ekwuruke reportedly bled to death when Mr. Azuonye allegedly stabbed him in the hand with a beer bottle in a bar at Itaja-Amaegbu Olokoro in Umuahia South Local Government Area of the state.

Mr. Ogazi told journalists that trouble started when Mr. Azuonye approached the deceased at the bar and requested for a bottle of drink from him or the payment of the N200 debt he (deceased) owed him.

According to him, the suspect allegedly attacked the deceased with a bottle before fleeing the scene, leaving him to bleed to death.

Mr. Azuonye has been in prison custody in Umuahia since 2012.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ogazi, who works as a guard in a government agency in Umuahia, said that the case, instituted in an Umuahia High Court by the police, “has lingered for too long”.

He explained that his family had been in court over the matter more than 18 times “without an end in sight”.

He urged the police to withdraw the case “without further delay” so that he could take the remains of his son for burial.

“I am no longer interested in the case; Police should end the case so that I will go and bury my son.

“The more he stays in the mortuary, the more I continue to mourn his death,” the septuagenarian said.

He said that he had left everything to God “for justice”.

He said: “My other worry is the mortuary bill which is piling up.

“For more than one year now, the mortuary bill has continued to increase and it will be difficult for me to pay it.

“I am a security guard and my monthly pay is meagre to pay the bill.”

He, therefore, appealed to the Police and government to help him by releasing the corpse for burial.

Italy’s Prime Minister Steps Down Amid Party Dispute!

Prime Minister Enrico Letta of Italy resigned on Friday, the day after his own Democratic Party voted to replace him with the party’s new leader, Matteo Renzi, the 39-year-old mayor of Florence.  Shortly before meeting with President Giorgio Napolitano to formally relinquish his post, Mr. Letta sent out his thanks to his supporters, adding, “Every day as if it were the last one.” 

It was a pointed reference to the many difficulties and hurdles he faced over the past ten months as the head of a coalition government of traditionally antagonistic political parties cobbled together after inconclusive elections last year. The coalition’s perceived limitations, and especially its inability after nearly a year in office to draft economic reforms to efficiently combat the decline of the euro zone’s third-largest economy, gave impetus to the Democratic Party’s demands for change, starting with Mr. Letta’s resignation. “The time has come to     emerge from the quagmire,” Mr. Renzi told Democratic Party leaders on Thursday, shortly before calling a vote to replace Mr. Letta. Mr. Renzi became party secretary in December after winning a hard-fought primary. Campaigning on a reform agenda, Mr. Renzi earned the nickname “demolition man,” for his stated ambition to shake up Italy’s entrenched political system. 

After accepting Mr. Letta’s resignation, Mr. Napolitano said he would consult with political party leaders on Friday and Saturday to evaluate his options, which theoretically could include new elections. But Mr. Napolitano has made clear that he does not intend to call new elections until changes are made to Italy’s electoral law, which many blame for producing the stalemate that has marked Italian politics in recent years. It is widely expected that Mr. Napolitano will ask Mr. Renzi to form a new government, which will then require parliamentary approval. Some opposition leaders criticized the Democratic Party for toppling the government as a consequence of internal party politics and called on the president to ask for a vote in Parliament to formally mark the end of Mr. Letta’s government. Mr. Napolitano dismissed the request as unnecessary.

“Parliament will be able to express itself on the origins and the reasons of the crisis when it will be called on to give a vote of confidence to the new government,” the president’s office said in a statement Friday.