Six First Ladies cover Thisday Style magazine...(photo)
Six state First Ladies cover today's edition of Thisday Style as they create awareness for breast cancer. Can you guys identify the states of the First Ladies...?
Doctor claims 12-year-old stepdaughter of Nicki Minaj's brother was penetrated as his rape trial get messier
The rape case involving Jelani Maraj, the brother to female rapper Nicki Minaj is getting more complex after a new evidence was revealed by a child abuse expert
According to graphic testimony, the medical records of the 12-year-old victim who is Maraj stepdaughter suggest she was penetrated.
On Friday, Dr. Aaron Miller, a child abuse expert testified as a witness for the prosecution, saying the girl's medical exam serves as proof that she was subjected to sex, Page Six reported.
'I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that [the girl's] medical exam can prove penetration,' Miller said on the stand as he showed the jury examination photos at Nassau County Supreme Court.
But in cross-examination, Maraj's attorney David Schwartz implied the medical evidence could have been caused by the girl, now 14, sleeping with another teenager, according Page Six.
“Assume the patient has a boyfriend who is 15 and she’s having sex for six months,” Schwartz asked the doctor. “Are those findings consistent with having sex with a 15-year-old boyfriend?”
The judge did not allow the doctor to answer the speculative question, citing speculation.
The prosecution claims Maraj raped the girl as often as four times a week in 2015, soon after he married her mother Jacqueline Robinson.
At the trial's opening arguments on Thursday, Schwartz told jurors that Robinson forced her way to marry the accused so that she could try to get money out of his famous sister.
He added that Robinson forced the alleged victim and her younger brother to lie to authorities about the rape allegations as part of her extortion plan.
Schwartz said Robinson allegedly told Minaj: 'I can make the charges go away for $25million.'
Nicki Minaj is expected to take the stand at her brother's child rape trial and tell jurors that the mother of the alleged victim did offer to make the accusations disappear in exchange for money.
Photos from the wedding of Bukola Saraki's daughter
The wedding of Tosin, the daughter of Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to her husband, Adeniyi Olatunde Olukoya, took place in Ilorin, Kwara state yesterday October 21st. See more photos below
Photo credit: Facebook
FG files an application before the federal High Court seeking permanent forfeiture of all money laying in Commercial Banks without BVN
The Federal Government through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has filed an application before the Federal High Court seeking the permanent forfeiture of any balance in a bank account without a BVN. An interim order of foreiture was granted by the court on the 17th Oct for the banks to show cause within 14 days why the balances in such accounts should not be forfeited to the Federal government. The present practice is that banks only permit deposits into such accounts. No withdrawal is allowed. Should the Federal government succeed, the money would be forfeited permanently. See copies of the court papers below...
Why is Everyone Afraid of President Buhari?' – Dele Momodu writes
Read his article below...
Fellow Nigerians, I often wonder why an average Nigerian politician is so squeamish. They love and crave power but eventually prove too timid to do the needful. The comfort power provides seems to be what matters most to them, but, certainly not the pain it may attract. God bless all those who fought for the democracy we seem to be bastardising today. It is difficult to pick out the Obafemi Awolowos, the Sir Adesoji Aderemis, the Nnamdi Azikiwes, the Anthony Enahoros, the Funmilayo Ransome-Kutis, the Wole Soyinkas, the Aminu Kanos, Abubakar Rimis, the Alfred Rewanes, the Waziri Ibrahims, the Fela Anikulapo-Kutis, Gani Fawehinmis, the Moshood Abiolas, the Kudirat Abiolas, the Abraham Adesanyas, the Alani Akinrinades, the Bola Tinubus, the Bolaji Akinyemis, and such others in the crowd today. These were men and women who were not afraid of tyrants and tyranny.
The reason for the poser on this page this week is simple and straight-forward. I never imagined that a day would come, at this time and age, when supposed democrats would voluntarily throw away their freedom, like many of our leaders seem to be doing at the moment. Less than two years to the next Presidential elections, only three aspirants have demonstrated the guts to come out in the open to express their ambition publicly, former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Ekiti State Governor, Dr Peter Ayodele Fayose and former Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido. The fourth person who has expressed his intention privately to me is my friend and brother, Mr Alistair Soyode, the Chairman of BEN Television, United Kingdom.
I really don’t care if they win or not but I salute their audacity to challenge the status quo. You can never, and will never, win if you don’t try first. There would have been no President Barack Obama or President Donald Trump if they failed to throw their hats in the ring. I know so many over-qualified Nigerians who want to contest but are being bogged down by trepidation or abject fear. They only express their dreams in hushed tones. I call them jelly, lily-livered beings. I feel sad anytime I read in the newspapers about full-grown men abdicating their God-given inalienable power to demi-gods with feet of clay.
Let me say categorically that Nigeria will never change unless we change our style of doing things. How can we do the same things repeatedly and expect the same failures to evaporate and vamoose? I’m now convinced that we need our whizz-kids to step out and leap forward to grab power as soon as possible. No one would say we have not been patient enough. Our serial experiments have not yielded the desired results. We had our fair share of coups. We fought a most atrocious civil war.
However, despite all this and when given the opportunity, we choose to largely vote for the dregs of society above visibly talented candidates. We have recycled leaders. Former Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo departed in 1979 but resurrected in 1999. Now Major General Muhammadu Buhari who was sacked in 1985 catapulted himself back to power in 2015. Even President Ibrahim Babangida who stepped aside in 1993 attempted to sneak back in 2003 but President Obasanjo bullied him into submission and he perished the thought without as much as a whimper.
Recall, that the man who took over from President Obasanjo in 2007, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who was already the Governor of Katsina State, was the brother of Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, and his emergence was to ostensibly compensate their family for the death of Shehu in prison, under the Abacha regime. In short, it has been a relay race by military Generals and their acolytes and cronies.
I’m happy that Buhari has fulfilled his own dream. I voluntarily supported him and owe him my love and prayers till 2019 when that contract would expire. I pray that God will grant him the wisdom to understand and appreciate the treacherous nature of politics and politicians. I see how Governors are falling over themselves to visit him and pay homage to HE who must be obeyed and worshipped. I wish to admonish Baba not to believe this monumental scam of the highest order.
If and when tomorrow comes, Baba will be stunned at how these same latter day disciples will turn against him 360 degrees. I can place a bet on that. Everyone is afraid today because of the palpable fear of EFCC. No more. No politician wants to be roughened up for any reason. Their strategy is to pretend like rattlesnakes and pounce on the prey without warning. I foresee Buhari as one such quintessential prey. These guys are not going to extend this regime of fear by another four years. Buhari would have to go on a blistering offensive to come back to power in 2019. I’m sure, he’s going to be cajoled into believing that he’s the Messiah Nigerians have waited for all this while, until they pull the rug from under his feet.
I remember one of Chief Moshood Abiola’s favourite wisecracks “aponle ni ‘foreman’, enikan o le se ise eeyan merin” (the appellation of Foreman is a mere exaggeration, no man can do the job of four men). There is a limit to what Buhari can achieve in less than two years to come because time flies at supersonic speed. By this time next year, he must be on the campaign trail if indeed he wants to return to power in 2019 and his Party has nominated him as candidate.
Since politics is a game of numbers, he would have to travel round Nigeria and plead for votes. You can force people to support your tenure in power but you can’t intimidate people to vote for you because you will never see the minds of voters. According to a popular political song in the First Republic, “boo roju mi, o rinu mi, demo ni mo wa…” (You may be able to see my face but you can’t read my mind, I’m a member of Demo (National Democratic Party) …]. Such is life.
The truth I want to tell today, as a major supporter of Buhari in 2015, is that his goodwill has weakened and waned drastically and dramatically. Minus the favoured members of the inner caucus of this government, things are no longer at ease within the ruling party. Is there anything Baba can do to redeem himself, his party and floundering government? Of course yes, I believe in miracles.
He must listen to the cries of the people. He should concentrate on building institutions instead of pursuing handpicked individuals. He should unleash the talents that abound in every part of Nigeria instead of seeking to please any section. It is always better to be a national hero than a local champion. Nigeria is too divided at the moment and this is not good for national development. I still have faith in Baba’s ability to do the best for this country. It is clear to me that this is the legacy that he wants to leave behind albeit that this has not yet been achieved.
The government must be restructured before Nigeria itself can be restructured. The recent mess in NNPC was as a result of excessive and unnecessary officialdom and bureaucracy. The President need not be the Minister of Petroleum. The functions of the Minister of State in relation to the Board of NNPC should be clearly delineated if at all there is any role for him. Such ridiculous overlaps we recently saw should never have happened. We should stop over-concentrating power in one man. It has been said that “absolute power corrupts absolutely…”
Ministers must be allowed to do their constitutional duty, in accordance with the provisions of section 148 of the 1999 Constitution, of meeting regularly with the President and the Vice President to (i) determine the general direction of domestic and foreign policies of the Government (ii) co-ordinate their respective activities in the discharge of their executive responsibilities and (iii) advise the President generally in discharge of his executive functions other than those functions where he must be advised by other persons. The revelations coming from the NNPC debacle where we now know that it is possible for a Minister of State of a crucial ministry such as the Petroleum Resources not to see the President for months on end should never be allowed to happen. Regular meetings with Ministers and the Vice President as envisaged by section 148 is not, cannot and should not be limited to the weekly Federal Executive Council meetings.
The regular meetings should also include meetings with groups of Ministers and even individual Ministers. That is surely the intendment of the Constitution. As it is with the Federal Government, so it should be with the State Governments, as similar provision for the States exists in section 193 of the 1999 Constitution. The corollary of this is that both at Federal and State level Ministers and Commissioners must be appointed as early as possible into the administration. The situation where President Buhari did not nominate and appoint Ministers until more than 4 months into his administration and Governor Rauf Aregbesola did even worse by waiting almost 3 years to select his cabinet must never happen again.
The Civil and Public Service must become transparent and accountable again. Civil and public servants are there to serve us as their nomenclature indicates. They are not meant to be overlords creating fiefdoms where the general populace become their serfs or even worshippers in some cases. A truly restructured viable and vibrant civil and public service is the lynchpin for a proper democratic, fair and just society.
It is insensitive and inappropriate for Government to expect the best of these workers if they are not properly remunerated not to mention, the present scenario, where even the ridiculous wages that they are paid are paid many months in areas. It is the same insensitivity that extends to the illogical policy of no work, no pay! Imagine the chaos and calamity if the workers through the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) also decided that there would be ‘No pay, no work’! A properly structured government would be faced with no such conundrum and the nation can only be better for it.
Courageous Nigerians must step forward and herald the much needed change in governance. They do not have to wait on President Buhari’s decision as to whether he will seek a second term or not before showing their hand. They would be doing the nation a wealth of good if only what they achieve is to provide stiff opposition to the President and an opportunity for the people to truly use their votes. Otherwise, the Nigerian public would simply have been short-changed and disenfranchised as usual by the political class because again they would be limited in their choice of candidates.
North Korea declares itself a "full-fledged nuclear power"
In an open letter addressed to parliaments in a few countries, North Korea has declared itself a "full-fledged nuclear power" and accuses US President Donald Trump of "trying to drive the world into a horrible nuclear disaster."
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop whose country also recieved the letter called the message "unprecedented," noting that North Korea usually chooses different means to communicate.
According to CNN, the document, dated September 28, appears to have been distributed about a week after Trump's address to the United Nations General Assembly, when he said "the United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea."
In the letter, North Korea condemned that statement as tantamount to a declaration of war, something North Korean officials said shortly after the speech. The United States denied that Trump had declared war on North Korea, which is also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The letter said: "If Trump thinks that he would bring the DPRK, a nuclear power, to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance."
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called the letter "basically a rant about how bad Donald Trump is" during an interview with 3AW Mornings with Neil Mitchell.
"It's North Korea that is threatening to fire nuclear missiles at Japan and South Korea and the United States. It's North Korea that is threatening the stability of the world," Turnbull said.
See a copy of the letter below...
No administration has done more in its first 9 months than mine' - Donald Trump
In his latest series of tweets, the US President Donald Trump lists of his administration's achievement in its first 9-months and says perhaps no other administration has done more.
President Buhari says the Nigeria-Pakistan Joint Commission will be revamped
President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday in Istanbul said the Nigeria-Pakistan Joint Commission will be revamped as a veritable platform to strengthen economic and trade relations between both countries.
He gave the assurance at a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Shahid Khakan Abbasi, on the margins of the ninth D-8 summit in Istanbul, Turkey. The President, who expressed satisfaction at the level of defence and military cooperation between both countries, however agreed with the Prime Minister that there was still room to do more.
He regretted that same could not be said on the economic and trade fronts, which he said had fallen far short of what can be achieved by both countries.
''Nigeria-Pakistan cooperation is very historical. Military training has been very consistent and I am impressed by the efficiency of officers trained in Pakistan. But the performance of our countries in relation to trade and industrial cooperation had been very disappointing,’’ President Buhari said.
While noting that Nigeria had failed to use past earnings to create a commensurate level of socio-economic development, the President assured that his administration had identified the problems, and was ardently working to promote national development through international trade, industrial growth and the improvement of infrastructure.
He then urged Pakistan to take full advantage of the new climate of investment promoted by his administration. ''There are a lot of opportunities, for us to harness, in the manufacturing sector, agriculture, commerce, solar energy and the electricity sector,'' the President said.
On the fight against terrorism, President Buhari told the Pakistani Prime Minister that Boko Haram terrorist group remains degraded. ''We have moved them out from their strongholds in the North East, we have denied them space and even their attacks on soft targets are becoming less often. Even the opposition [party] recognises that there is a considerable improvement of security in the North East,'' he said.
In his remarks, Abbasi said both countries had similar prospects and challenges, including large population, key regional players in economy and security; the fight against terrorism, improving governance and the domestic economy. He said Pakistan will continue to share experiences with Nigeria in the fight against terrorism towards developing effective strategies and results.
In line with this promise, the Pakistani Prime Minister presented a manual on strategy and tactics of dealing with terrorism to the President, which he said, had been put together by his country's army.
On the Joint Commission, which next meeting falls on Pakistan to convene, the Prime Minister said his country is now ready, adding that he would personally receive the Nigerian delegation any time. He also requested President Buhari to undertake a state visit to Pakistan at the earliest possible time.
Meet the pretty women fighters who helped defeat ISIS in Raqqa
These Kurdish female fighters celebrated in Raqqa this week after the defeat of ISIS militants, whose brutal rule over the city has come to an end after almost four years.
The women said they fought the battle both for the Kurdish cause and to liberate the women of Raqqa. Recall that ISIS ruled the Syrian city with a barbarity that gripped the world, and women in particular experienced an oppression many never thought imaginable.
They were forced to cover their bodies head to toe or risk public lashings. ISIS also captured and sold girls and women as sex slaves, particularly Kurdish-Yazidi minority women trafficked into Raqqa from northern Iraq.
Shanda Afreen has been fighting ISIS for four years. According to her, 'the leader Abdullah Ocalan -has concentrated on women's freedom, so we are fighting to free women and to liberate people mentally. Our fight is not only against ISIS, our fight is against the chauvinist mentality against women"
20 year old Avrim Difram has been fighting ISIS for 3-years! She recalls losing several fellow fighters. But it has made her all the more determined to keep fighting. "We are fighting to free the people who are under oppression and to free the leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey," she told CNN.
Wulat Romin, 24, has been fighting ISIS for a year and half, joining the battle in Raqqa, Tabqa and Al-Hol. "I fight for the freedom of the Kurdish people. I fight against injustice, for righteousness in general. And I fight for the freedom of women in particular" she said.
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