Nigeria Now Has One Active Ebola Case- health Minister!

The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, has said Nigeria has only one active case of the infectious Ebola virus.

Giving an update on government's effort to contain the disease yesterday during a press-conference in Abuja, Chukwu said: "Today is the 37th day since the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) was imported into Nigeria by a Liberian-American. As of today (yesterday), Nigeria has had 13 cases of EVD, including the index case.

"However, seven of the infected persons were successfully managed at the isolation ward in Lagos and have been discharged.

"Two of the treated patients, a male doctor and a female nurse, were discharged yesterday (Monday) evening, having satisfied the criteria for discharge.

"As I speak with you, Nigeria has only one confirmed case of EVD, a secondary contact of Mr Patrick Sawyer's and spouse of one of the physicians who participated in the management of the index case. She is stable but still undergoing treatment at the isolation ward in Lagos."

He explained that so far, all the reported cases of Ebola in Nigeria had their roots in the index case, the late Sawyer, adding: "This is an indication that thus far, Nigeria has contained the disease outbreak."

The minister, however, refused to be drawn into a hasty conclusion that the virus had been completely eradicated in Nigeria, maintaining that it had been contained but not yet eradicated.

"We cannot say we have eradicated the Ebola virus" Chukwu explained, "We can say we have contained it; every case so far have been traced to one source. Secondly, we have kept the disease in one location in Lagos." Continuing, Chukwu said: "Excellence is a journey, it is not a destination, as every country of the world remains at risk; every citizen of the world remains at risk."

The minister, who was joined at the briefing by the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, assured the global community of the Nigerian government's commitment to remain vigilant. He also took time to explain that Ebola patients who had been declared free of the virus and discharged cannot spread the disease.

"They may be healthier than some people; they are more certain that they are free. They are the safest. If you want anybody to come to your house, these people are the safest," he said, in the bid to stem the stigmatisation of patients who have survived the disease.

The Minister of Health also decried the rumour making the rounds that the N1.9 billion federal government intervention fund released to combat Ebola was meant for a jamboree.

Chukwu, who expressed concern over the culture of impunity by Nigerians with regards to public funds, promised that the money would be used judiciously.

He said: "The money was made available for an emergency; it is not an Ebola Fund. I hear even villagers are asking for their own share. Nigerians are always asking for money to share."

He also clarified the rationale behind Federal Government's disbursement of N200 million to Lagos State, stating that it was meant to tackle the spread of the Ebola virus.

"The money was given to support Lagos State Government because the state had been spending its own funds. The job of preventing the outbreak of an epidemic is not a state duty, it is a federal government responsibility," he maintained.

The Lagos State Government also confirmed that two additional victims of Ebola have been discharged, thereby bringing the number of survivors to seven; disclosing that it had not received the N200 million, which the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved last week for the containment of the virus. In his words, "is yet to get a dime from the federal government to boost the containment and management of the virus".

The state's Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, who gave the update alongside his information counterpart, Mr. Aderemi Ibirogba, and Special Adviser to the Governor on Media, Mr. Hakeem Bello, said 331 contacts "have been followed up so far".

At the briefing, Idris advised Lagosians not to panic, stating that getting infected with Ebola was not an automatic death sentence.

"This has been buttressed by the recovery of seven confirmed suspects, who have been re-integrated successfully with their families and communities. The common trend among the recovered cases is their early presentation for supportive treatment. "There is no need to hide friends and relations we suspect have come down with the disease. The earlier they are brought for screening and surveillance, the better the outcome," he said.

He, however, said an additional 10 contacts "were listed on Monday, raising it to 331. Of the number, 159 have been cleared and discharged on completion of the 21-day surveillance".

Environmental Palava In Lagos State!

The rather shameful habit of clearing gutters during environmental sanitation hours or construction of roads, then abandoning the dirt by the side of the drainage only so that it flows back into the gutters/ drainage when it rains again, has so eaten deep into most Lagosians, it has become a habit that needs to be redressed, if indeed we really look forward to a clean Lagos.

The eye/ saw scene from pictured above and below, at Ilaje bus-stop, Lekki area of Lagos state,  just near where the construction work is going on, is a reflection of what is obtained at most busy places, especially after the weekly or monthly environmental sanitations.

Roving Informant hereby appeals to appropriate authorities over seeing these areas to do something, Eko o'ni bajeeoooo.

Boston Marathon bombing survivor marries nurse he met while recovering!

"Every negative event contains within it the seed of an equal or greater benefit". these words from Napoleon Hill, is what could best describe the story of Boston Marathon bombing survivor James Costello and Krista D'Agostino, a nurse who cared for him during his rehabilitation, as they tied the knot recently in a wedding donated by local businesses. 



In an early appearance on the media, in December 2013, Costello said that being injured in the bombing was a blessing in disguise because it led him to meet D'Agostino, who was working a six-week temporary stint as a traveling nurse at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.



Costello had been transferred there after undergoing multiple surgeries at Massachusetts General Hospital following the bombing on April 15, 2013. It led to a romance that resulted in engagement during a 10-day trip to France in December. "One thing that she hates that I always say is I’m actually glad I got blown up,'' 



Speaking with Savannah Guthrie on Today in December, Costello said. "I wish everyone else didn’t have to, but I don’t think I would have ever met her if I didn’t, so I’m pretty happy." 

 Reports says Hyatt Regency Boston donated use of its location for the wedding, and wedding planner Rachael Gross donated her services to organize the event that included 150 family members and guests. 

The photography, flowers, video, and cocktails were all donated, and D'Agostino was resplendent in an Allure Couture gown encrusted with Swarovski crystals that was donated by Bella Sera Bridal Boutique in Danvers, Massachusetts. 



Costello's Brooks Brothers suit and the attire for the wedding party was also donated. Costello was reportedly the subject of one of the most widely - viewed images in the wake of the blast. 

A photographer captured Costello staggering through the streets with his clothes shredded and his legs burned. 



Less than two years later, he beamed as he and D'Agostino made their first appearance as husband and wife. The two are now on their honeymoon in Hawaii. 

Military Performance Against Boko Haram Unimpressive!

After a meeting in Kaduna, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) today said the military's performance in the crackdown against Boko Haram is unimpressive.

The forum challenged Federal Government and the military to rise up and dislodge the sect from areas it seized from Nigeria.

The forum, in a press statement signed by its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Muhammad Ibrahim, and sent to SaharaReporters' New York office stated:

The meeting discussed exhaustively the security challenges in the North, especially the capture of some towns and villages by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states. 

According to reports, the meeting resolved to issue the following statements, and expressed deep concern about the rapid escalation of the security challenges in the North-East, particularly the capture of large portions of the territories of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states by the Boko Haram insurgents, despite the state of emergency and the heavy presence of the military.

Reports indicate that the Boko Haram insurgency appears to be on an unstoppable advance to over run more territories of Nigeria. Our military effort to checkmate the advance of the insurgents in their quest to conquer more parts of Nigeria, especially in the North East, is not yielding the desired result. 

The performance of the military and other security agencies in combating the insurgency is therefore unimpressive, considering the past performance of our military and the police in peacekeeping operations outside the country, like in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan etc., and recently Mali. Why is our military now failing to quell such a rebellion by a band of insurgents?

The ACF calls on the Federal Government to, as a matter of extreme urgency, investigate and unravel the actual reason for the failure of the military to live up to their past performance. ACF urges the Federal Government to quickly take all necessary measures to reclaim the territories captured by the insurgents and restore the territorial integrity of Nigeria.

Source: Sahara Reporters

A Knock on the Door, a Stranger, Then a Killing at a Rural Summer Home!

A woman is alone at her home on a quiet country road. It is early morning when there is a knock on the door. A man, a stranger, is on her porch asking for help. He has run out of gas, he says. He needs to use a phone. The woman, in an act of kindness, obliges. 

The woman was Mary E. Whitaker, 61, an accomplished violinist who lived in Manhattan and spent her summers in her home in far western New York, near Lake Erie. 

The man was a homeless drifter, Charles Sanford, 30, according to law enforcement officials. And he was not alone last Wednesday morning when he knocked on Ms. Whitaker’s single-story home at 8448 Titus Road, on the Westfield-Sherman town line in Chautauqua County. Hiding nearby, the authorities said, was his accomplice, Jonathan Conklin, armed with a .22-caliber rifle and a plan. Mr. Conklin, the authorities said, wanted to rob Ms. Whitaker so he could live like a “rock star,” using whatever they stole to buy drugs and other goods. 

But the plan, as laid out in court documents, quickly turned bloody. By the time the deadly robbery was finished, Ms. Whitaker had been shot twice, stabbed in the neck once, and left to die bleeding in her garage. Mr. Sanford and Mr. Conklin, 43, fled in her car, with little more than some checks and her credit cards, the authorities said. 



They drove to Pennsylvania, where they were arrested on Friday. The court documents filed in United States District Court in Buffalo offer a graphic and disturbing account of what the police believe happened. For her friends and loved ones, Ms. Whitaker’s violent end remains incomprehensible. 

Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf posted a tribute on Facebook to her friend that seemed to capture the general sentiment. “Going to speak from my heart,” Ms. Dorman-Phaneuf wrote, calling Ms. Whitaker “a very, very rare and gentle human, who thought deeply and carefully about what mattered, and made you feel like she saw who you truly were when you were near her. 
“She was killed yesterday with a gun. She has a family and scores of friends and colleagues who are completely at a loss for how to process her being taken.” According to court documents, Mr. Sanford and Mr. Conklin met in a homeless shelter in Erie, Pa., several months ago. 



Early last week, Mr. Sanford told Mr. Conklin he was looking for a new place to stay, and Mr. Conklin told him he had an idea. Late on Tuesday, a mutual acquaintance drove the pair to Sherman.  “Conklin and Sanford slept for a few hours in a clearing near an old railroad trestle,” according to an affidavit filed in federal court. Before dawn, the two set off to an apartment near a bar in downtown Sherman. Mr. Conklin told Mr. Sanford that the person who lived in the apartment owed him money, and they robbed the place, taking multiple shotguns and a .22-caliber rifle, the affidavit states. It was around 5 a.m. when the pair set off again. 

After walking for a while, they arrived — at random, the authorities believe — at Ms. Whitaker’s home, a green ranch-style house atop a hill and opposite a sunflower field. Investigators said Mr. Sanford had told them that Mr. Conklin said he intended to rob the house so he could “live like a rock star.” The plan was for Mr. Sanford to ring the buzzer and ask to use the phone, saying he ran out of gas. Mr. Conklin, with the rifle at the ready, hid. When Mr. Sanford first rang the buzzer, around 7 a.m., there was no response. So he pounded on the door. Ms. Whitaker eventually answered and gave her phone to Mr. Sanford, who made two calls. Mr. Conklin burst out of the shadows, announcing, “This is a robbery.” Ms. Whitaker screamed. Mr. Conklin fired. The gunshot hit her in the chest, according to the account provided by Mr. Sanford. 
She then lunged for the gun, grabbing it by the barrel. Another shot rang out. She was hit in the leg. But she was still alive. Mr. Sanford dragged her into the garage, he told the authorities, adding that Mr. Conklin ordered him to use his knife to finish the job. 

Mr. Sanford told investigators that he tried to cut her throat but could not get the blade to penetrate deeply. She was left bleeding on the floor, where she died. (Her body was found later that day by a fellow musician who was concerned when she could not reach Ms. Whitaker. Mr. Sanford and Mr. Conklin scoured the home for valuables, found some credit cards and a checkbook, and then fled in Ms. Whitaker’s gray Chevrolet. The next day, after returning to Erie, they set about on their shopping spree. They called a woman who they knew to be addicted to crack and offered her drugs if she posed as Ms. Whitaker to shop at a local Walmart. She bought a large flat-screen television for the two men. Mr. Sanford and Mr. Conklin were arrested on Friday after they were recognized on surveillance video using Ms. Whitaker’s credit cards at a convenience store, the authorities said. They were charged with federal crimes related to the home invasion and robbery and are being held without bail in the Chautauqua County Jail in Mayville. As the state continues to investigate the killing, Ms. Whitaker’s friends remain devastated. 

For more than two decades, Ms. Whitaker played with the Westchester Philharmonic and toured widely, including once with Barbra Streisand. In the summers, she played with the Chautauqua Institution's Orchestra. Her last concert there was the night before she was killed. Jason Minter, 44, a neighbor of Ms. Whitaker’s in the Inwood section of Manhattan, said that “everyone is in shock.” Mr. Minter called the crime “the most random awful thing anyone can imagine,” adding that her killing was “confusing, bizarre and disturbing all at the same time.”
Source: The New York Times

Chibok Parents to Nigerian Government: Tell Us if Our Daughters are Dead!

Parents of the schoolgirls kidnapped from a secondary Chibok in Nigeria’s North-East state of Borno have urged the Nigerian government to confirm if their daughters were already dead, and hand over their bodies for burial.

The parents said they would rather welcome such news and prepare for the funeral than wait endlessly for update on the fate of their children abducted by Boko Haram April 14.

The solemn call came Friday, more than four months after armed insurgents stormed Government Secondary School in Chibok, loaded more than 200 girls on to trucks, and drove them away in the dead of the night.

For weeks, officials of the Nigerian government denied the abductions took place, and accused critics of sponsoring the reports to embarrass the government.

While the government failed to rescue the abducted girls, security operatives clamped down on protesters in Abuja demanding more action from the government.

President Goodluck Jonathan acknowledged the kidnappings only three weeks after, sparking international outrage. Mr. Jonathan later met with some parents of the abducted girls July, more than three months after the attack.

At least 200 of the girls have remained in captivity despite a multinational support from the United States, United Kingdom, France and Israel. The four countries have provided intelligence and specialist support to assist the Nigerian military search and rescue the girls.

On Friday, marking 130 day of the girls’ abduction, over 50 protesters marched from the Unity Fountain to the National Secretariat demanding that the girls be returned alive.

The demonstrators distributed flyers and stickers. They chanted: “What are we demanding for? Bring our girls back and alive” as they marched.

One of the leaders of the march, Hadiza Bala-Usman, told PREMIUM TIMES that the parents of the abducted calls were asking the Federal Government to bring back the bodies of their children if they were dead already.

“The parents said they would rather know that theirs daughters are dead and their bodies brought back and buried so as to put an end to this endless wondering about the status of their children” she said.

“They are calling on the Federal Government to help them search for the bodies of their children; that’s if they are dead. It’s better for them to know that their kids are dead and the bodies are brought back.”

Ms. Bala-Usman said the march was aimed at promoting continued awareness around the girls’ abduction.

An official of the Centre for Democracy and Development, Jibrin Ibrahim, who was also at the protest ground, said the march was to remind the Federal Government of its responsibilities.

“Today is 130 days since the abduction of the girls. Since they were abducted, our government promised us swift action, to search and rescue them; that, has not happened. We are therefore out on the street to remind the government that they have a responsibility to rescue these girls and return them to their parents and homes,” Mr. Ibrahim said.

President Jonathan back from Germany!

Information revealed that President Goodluck Jonathan arrived the country on Monday from Germany after a four day trip, where he was said to have gone to for "a private visit."

It was gathered that the President, whose jet touched down at the Presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at about 4:32pm local time, was received by his chief of staff, Brig.-Gen. Jones Arogbofa (retd.); minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Muhammed, and the acting Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba.

Clad in a pair of navy blue suit, a white shirt and his trademark Niger Delta hat, Jonathan went directly into his official residence where he was also received by family members and some close aides on arrival at the Presidential Villa.

He is expected to lead the Federal Government delegation to a service of songs being organised in honour of the late former Minister of Information, Prof. Dora Akunyili, at the Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Pro-Cathedral, Garki, Abuja on Tuesday.

It was reported that President Jonathan left the country last Friday, a day after his special adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, had issued a terse statement to the effect that he would be back in the country early this week after a private visit to that country in the company of few of his aides.

News had gone round that the President travelled to Germany to treat an undisclosed illness.

While a dinner for members of the just-concluded 2014 National Conference on Thursday was reportedly cancelled due to the president's illness, effort to reach the President's media team to confirm the said report was futile.

However, speaking to Newspaper on Sunday night, Presidential Spokesman, Abati, allegedly described the report of the president's ill-health as "the figment of the writers' imagination."

According to him, President Jonathan had the right to go on private visits and that was not only hale and hearty but also treating files in his hotel room.

He said, "Before leaving Nigeria, I issued a statement that the president will be embarking on a private visit to Germany with a few of his aides. On Saturday, I sent out a statement that the president spoke with the Falconets on the telephone. I also sent out the video and audio of his conversation with the players where he promised to stay awake and watch the final match.

"The NTA and some other broadcasting stations aired the video and audio. There are also photographs out there showing the president when he was leaving Nigeria and when he was arriving in Germany. The president is hale and hearty. In fact, he is treating files in his hotel room.

"Are these not enough proofs that Mr. President is not sick as they want Nigerians to believe?"

Abati further recalled that a similar private visit embarked upon by the President to Germany last December had sparked reports that he had gone "in search for treatment for ill health.

Well, what matters now is that the President is back, and he is hale and hearty, contrary to reports.