Kidnappers of Osun Speaker’s wife jailed 27 years

An Osun State High Court sitting in Iwo, yesterday, sentenced five persons that had been standing trial over the kidnap of the wife of Osun State House of Assembly Speaker, Alhaja Muibat Salaam, to 27 years imprisonment each.

The convicts, Chukwudi Okereke (40), Ogbole Ochijile Elijah (25), Okonkwo Lucky (33), Kaikine Mahah (35) and Nwadinnor Philip (30) were, last year, arrested in Ilaro, Ogun State, by the Police.

They were said to have conspired, while armed with AK-47, and kidnapped Mrs. Salaam, who was returning from her shop in her Honda Accord car with number plate OSHA02 at 8p.m. around Oke-Oyo Road in Ejigbo area of the state on October 9, 2012.

According to the prosecution, led by the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, Mr. Adewale Afolabi, the convicts had confessed to the kidnapping of the Speaker’s wife in their individual statements to the police during investigations.

Judgment

Delivering his judgment, which lasted for over an hour, Justice Moshood Adeigbe said that the prosecution had been able to establish their case against the defendants.

Justice Adeigbe said: “The confessional statements were clear that the accused persons met at Royal Hotel in Agbor, DeltaState, where they planned the kidnap, perfected it in Lagos and carried it out in Ejigbo.

“The exhibits also showed that the five accused persons kidnapped Mrs. Salaam, forced her into a trailer and dragged her into the bush on their way to Lagos, before Ogun State Police Command arrested them.

“I hold that the prosecution have established their case and therefore found the five accused persons guilty of conspiracy, kidnapping and unlawful possession of firearms.”

Although the defence counsel, Messrs Sam George and Fredrick Komolafe, prayed the court to temper justice, Justice Adeigbe maintained that the five convicts deserved the full punishments for their offence, saying that the act was heartless and condemnable.

Jail terms

For the count of conspiracy, Justice Adeigbe ruled that each of the five convicts is sentenced to seven years imprisonment, while he sentenced them to 10 years imprisonment for the count of kidnapping and 10 years for the charge of unlawful possession of fire arms.

Justice Adeigbe, however, noted that each term of the sentence shall run concurrently since the counts arose out of the charges of the same act.

Reacting to the judgment, the defence counsel said that they will appeal the judgment, saying that his clients were found guilty based on confessional statements.

He said the confessional statements were not verified, adding that the best option was trial within trial to authenticate the confessional statements.

Rumours of sacrifice, Agagu and Oduah

The crash of the Associated Airlines flight 361 on Thursday, October 3, 2013 in which about 14 persons died is quite tragic and regrettable. Coming at a time when the Federal Government and the aviation authorities have done so much to build on the nation’s enviable safety record is very ironic and paradoxical.

The facts on ground do not, however, lend credence to suggestions that Nigeria’s airspace is unsafe. In fact, the Nigerian airspace has never been safer than it is presently, given the quantum and quality of the safety-critical equipment and infrastructure, as well as certified manpower that the present administration has put in place in the past two years. A quick take:

Apart from the remodelling of airport terminals across the country- a critical component of aviation safety and security which everyone can see; a lot has been done in the area of safety infrastructure. Particular note must be taken of NAMA’s Total Radar Coverage of Nigeria, TRACON, which even the greatest critics of the Aviation Ministry concede is working excellently well; instrument landing systems, airfield lighting and multi-lateration equipment, NIMET’s Doppler Weather Radars, Wind Shear Alert Systems, and Accident Investigation and Prevention, AIPB’s Scientific Laboratory, amongst several others.

There is also NCAT’S state-of-the-art training equipment and simulators as well as NCAA’S Revised Civil Aviation Policy which places high premium on safety.   It is therefore absolutely false, incorrect and misleading to suggest, as some commentators are doing in the wake of the Associated Airlines crash that it is all about terminal rehabilitation and nothing else.

While we take every constructive criticism in good faith, we are totally averse to the ones that are self-serving, false, mischievous and ill-motivated. Femi Fani-Kayode’s latest vituperations against the Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah, fall squarely into this category. Femi Fani-Kayode had a woefully failed career as Aviation Minister. Now, he is trying his hand as a social critic and public commentator. Tragically, he is failing again, very woefully at that.

For the records, Fani-Kayode served as Aviation Minister for six months (November 2006-May 2007), during which period he is gloating that the nation did not record any plane crash. That no plane crash occurred during these short six months cannot be a laurel worthy of any mention for anyone with higher goals, standards and expectations. But since Fani-Kayode lacks any sense of high achievement, we cannot blame him for living up to his understandably low expectations.

If we were to take six months as the average, I doubt if Oduah whom he is vilifying today would be a culprit. But this is beside the point. The real question to interrogate is what exactly, in terms of projects, policies, institutional reforms or safety infrastructure Fani-Kayode put in place as Minister that ensured that no plane came down from the skies during his watch? Absolutely nothing!

As far as records show, he was clueless, frightened to take any     initiative whatsoever and eventually exited without any garlands. Regrettably, he left a trail of retrogressive missteps still haunting the aviation sector today by the scandalous recruitment of hundreds of misfits into managerial positions in the aviation parastatals! The bulk of the crisis of institutional bankruptcy suffered in the agencies today, and for which Oduah has been busy cleaning up, is directly traceable to this policy of nepotism and ethnic empowerment enthroned by Fani-Kayode during his short sojourn as Minister.

It is therefore very fraudulent for Fani-Kayode to claim credit for what he contributed absolutely nothing to achieve. The 2006 Civil Aviation Act, the closest ‘achievement’ he could have stretched his hands to lay claim to, was already completed and awaiting passage in the National Assembly when he was redeployed to the Aviation Ministry. He did not make a single input to that document.

Far from any positive contribution to the growth and development of the aviation sector, Fani-Kayode left a catalogue of very inglorious imprints on the aviation landscape in his short sojourn in the sector. If anything, what we saw, and still see of him is sheer display of ignorance, arrogance and impunity.

For instance, as Special Assistant to President Olusegun Obasanjo, long before he was appointed Minister of Culture and Tourism, Fani-Kayode displayed what later emerged as a cultivated culture of impunity when he refused that his Police Orderly be disarmed or drop his arms and ammunition while trying to board a plane at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos in accordance with international best practice.

When all effort by security operatives to stop the Orderly from carrying the weapons on board failed, then FAAN Airport Manager, one Mr Okuyiga telephoned the pilot to report the danger posed by Kayode and his Police Orderly to other passengers with their dangerous weapons.

Again, when the pilot’s entreaties to Kayode to see reason why Aviation rules and regulations disallowing weapons on board should be obeyed failed, the pilot put off the engine of the aircraft and ordered every passenger out of the plane.

It was only the outrage that other frightened passengers expressed, and their insistence that Kayode and his men cannot be allowed on board with dangerous weapons that saved the day. The Orderly, left with no other choice, surrendered the weapons and the plane departed.

Fani-Kayode never forgave the airport manager and waited patiently for his day of vengeance. Providence would give him the day of reckoning he had been waiting for when he was redeployed, months later to the Aviation Ministry. Expectedly, his very first assignment as Minister was to transfer the very experienced, professional Manager who insisted that global best practice in the Aviation industry be upheld, to a nondescript airport in the Northern part of the country.

It is very instructive that in the entire diatribe against Oduah, Fani-Kayode never claimed any other ‘achievement’ beyond the puerile claim that no plane crashed under his watch! If anyone were to claim credit for the safety record attained during that period, it should in fact be the immediate past Director-General of the NCAA, Dr. Harold Demuren, and not Femi Fani-Kayode.

We cannot therefore hazard comparism between Oduah and Femi Fani-Kayode because there is absolutely no basis for comparism. What the present aviation Minister has achieved is so glaring and substantive that attempting to put her side by side with the loquacious Fani-Kayode is a huge disservice and insult to the psyche of Nigerians who know where we are coming from as far as aviation in Nigeria is concerned.

Fortunately, Oduah has rolled up her sleeves and is currently cleaning up the mess left by Fani-Kayode and his ilk.

Fani-Kayode would do more scandalous things in his very short stint in the ministry. As Minister of Aviation, he not only rejected a report professionally carried out by the then Accident Investigation Bureau into the Bellview air crash of 2005-a very serious and unacceptable interference by all aviation standards, but more so, orchestrated the doctoring of that report into a new one which expectedly exonerated all the stakeholders indicted in the original report.

At the end of the day, the doctored Report turned a no-guilty verdict on the NCAA and Bellview and concocted the fallacy of the existence of a bomb which allegedly exploded and caused the fatal crash. Don’t forget that by making Oduselu to preside over a case for which he was previously indicted, he was acting both as the Jury and the Judge! We are also aware of the several Aviation Correspondents and Newspaper Editors whom Fani-Kayode attempted to compromise to sell the bomb-in-the-aircraft voodoo.

Fortunately, no one fell to the devilish bait. The ghost of the bomb-in-the-aircraft scare was finally laid to rest when the US National Transportation   Safety Board (NTSB) commissioned the FBI to carry out ballistic investigation into the tragic crash which categorically dismissed the probable suggestion of a bomb explosion mid-air.   The nation is yet to fully recover from this scary contraption ingeniously manufactured by Fani-Kayode just to protect his friends and business partners!

Now, a man with such high moral depravity and scant regard for basic rules and regulations in the aviation sector certainly lacks the moral and professional credentials to stand as judge in a case where Princess Stella Adaeze Oduah, a Minister who, within a very short span of two years, has beaten all the odds and re-written the chequered history of the Nigeria Aviation Sector, may be standing trial. If anything, the likes of Fani-Kayode ought to be eternally grateful to Oduah for cleaning up a sector that he and his ilk had desecrated and raped in the past.

It is very instructive that in the entire diatribe against Oduah, Fani-Kayode never claimed any other ‘achievement’ beyond the puerile claim that no plane crashed under his watch! If anyone were to claim credit for the safety record attained during that period, it should in fact be the immediate past Director-General of the NCAA, Dr. Harold Demuren, and not Femi Fani-Kayode.

We cannot therefore hazard comparism between Oduah and Femi Fani-Kayode because there is absolutely no basis for comparism. What the present aviation Minister has achieved is so glaring and substantive that attempting to put her side by side with the loquacious Fani-Kayode is a huge disservice and insult to the psyche of Nigerians who know where we are coming from as far as aviation in Nigeria is concerned.

Thus lacking in any substance as far as the aviation sector is concerned, it is therefore understandable why Fani-Kayode would go superstitious, alluding to some unknown spirits operating in 10-year cycles and bringing down planes from the skies! This is the highest display of ignorance by an otherwise lettered individual. But such is the tragedy of Nigeria, that people with little knowledge of a field, and a rabid disdain to learn, are thrust into positions of responsibility.

Durban - Disbarred lawyer Koobashan Naicker has admitted he was drinking...

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Lawyer Koobashan Naicke with instructing attorney Mervyn Maistry, finally pleaded guilty to causing the deaths of dance teacher Carmen Hunter and Gillian and Connor Bell in a car crash more than two years ago

Durban - Disbarred lawyer Koobashan Naicker has admitted he was drinking and taking drugs before he caused a multiple-car pile-up on Durban’s Athlone Bridge, killing dance teacher Carmen Hunter and mom and son Gillian and Connor Bell in March 2011.

But he specifically denies he was “under the influence”, saying instead he ought to have realised the combination of alcohol and cocaine together with a medical condition - a detached retina - would have resulted in “gross negligent and reckless” driving.

This was the essence of a plea read out by Naicker’s advocate, Christo van Schalkwyk, in the Durban Regional Court on Monday in which he pleaded guilty to eight charges including three of culpable homicide and one of reckless driving relating to the accident.

The other charges, one of driving over the limit (with a blood alcohol level of 0.26) and three of negligent driving, were committed from May 2009 to February 2011 - raising questions as to why these offences were not dealt with properly at the time.

The latter charge related to another accident in Riverside Road, just more than a month before the fatal bridge crash.

Naicker, in his plea, admitted that he had entered an intersection and, failing to keep a proper look-out, had smashed into a car driven by Fathima Beebee Cassim. He fled the scene.

It was while describing the events relating to this charge that he raised, for the first time, the “eye condition”, saying it was the reason why he had not kept a proper lookout.

“My peripheral vision was affected as well as my depth perception, which made it difficult for me to judge distances and speed.

“Driving the vehicle under these circumstances was negligent,” he said.

Six weeks later, after drinking and snorting cocaine - and still suffering from the same eye condition - he again got into his white Mercedes and drove at excessive speed on to the bridge and, according to the written plea, “failed to avoid a collision with a motorcycle” (being driven by 19-year-old Hunter).

He said he was reckless in that he did not stop, but then crashed into other vehicles.

He admitted causing the deaths of Hunter, Bell, 32, and eight-year-old Connor, saying they were due to his negligence.

While initially granted bail on condition that he not drive, this was cancelled on evidence that he had broken this condition. He then brought a fresh application on new facts and was released without the “no driving” condition.

In spite of his plea on Monday, he remains a free man until at least the end of January.

Van Schalkwyk argued that his bail should be extended so that he could properly brief a criminologist, psychologist and his ophthalmologist who would testify in mitigation of sentence.

The State - which will argue for imprisonment - is preparing to counter these reports.

Audrey Bell, the grandmother of Connor, who attended court yesterday, said:

“He robbed two little girls of their mother and big brother… if he was really sorry, he should have pleaded guilty last year when he said he would.”

Regarding the plea, she said: “He is just full of excuses… I am going home now to break the news to Jason (her son) and tell him that he is still out. He is going to be so angry.”

Argument on sentence has been set down for January 30 and 31.

 ASUU STRIKE: Herbalists Back ASUU,lol

Students have called on the Academic Staff Union of Universities not to betray them in the on-going strike. They said they would not like a situation when the strike would be called off without achieving anything.

This came as herbalists in Oyo State pledged their support for ASUU.

According to the President of the herbalists in the state, Dr. Arunoyemi Asanlaye,“We are in support of ASUU on the on-going strike”.

The students in large number at a town hall meeting, tagged, Save Public Education Campaign, which was organised by ASUU, UI chapter at the Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan Monday showed their displeasure at the seeming docility and indifference of the Nigeria Labour Congress calling on the labour union to embark on solidarity strike to force government to respond to ASUU demands.

Dr. Olusegun Ajiboye, Chairman, ASUU UI chapter, said the union would use any method to actualize their demands clarified that the struggle was not about the salaries of lecturers but the funding of education in the country.

Ajiboye said, “We are using so many methods. We cannot tell you when to move to Bodija Market. That is part of our strategies.

Instead of begging ASUU, the government should declare a state of emergency in the education sector”.

Responding to the call by the students, Mr. Bashir Olanrewaju, NLC Chairman in Oyo State, said, “By Wednesday, we will come out with a more proactive stance on the strike. Though, students have called on us to go on strike, we will not go on strike now. We will only mediate. If an affiliate has a problem, joining it in strike will collapse the whole system.

We have never been docile about the incident”.

Prof. Remi Raji, lecturer at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, said, ”Government should look at the NEEDS Assessment report. It is almost a year now that the 169 recommendations had been made and nothing has been done
 salary demand is just one out nine demand of asuu

The Koko Master to release a mixtape.

The Koko Master to release a mixtape.

Oct 17, 2013

The Koko Master D’Banj will be releasing a mixtape soon. The project is part of his collaboration with Hennessey Artistry. 

The Hennesy Artisty finale also takes place tomorrow at the Federal Palace Hotel in Lagos and will see D’Banj performing alongside Olamide, Phyno, Kay Switch, Chidinma, Seyi Shay, Pucado, Vector, Sean Tizzle and Show Dem Camp.

An overview of the Salbardi area in which the dinosaurian remains are found (top), the reconstruction of the Ulna bone (above left) and a complete egg

An overview of the Salbardi area in which the dinosaurian remains are found (top), the reconstruction of the Ulna bone (above left) and a complete egg

IANS/Amravati, Maharashtra

Fossilised bones and eggs of gigantic dinosaurs at measured around 18-20m and weighed 10-13 tonnes, have been discovered from the Salbardi area, around 60km from Amravati  in eastern Maharashtra, a geologist said yesterday.
The discoveries were made after nearly six years of efforts by a team led by A K Srivastava and his doctorate student R S Mankar, both from the Department of Geology, SGB Amravati University.
“These remains have been found in the sedimentary rocks, geologically known as ‘Lameta Formation’ deposited during the Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) period,” said Mankar.
Following detailed studies of the discovery, the two experts have interpreted that around 66-71mn years ago, there was a huge lake in which these Lameta sediments were deposited.
During that period, a species of dinosaur, Titanosaurus Colberti, belonging to the Sauropod Family, also inhabited the region and laid eggs, Mankar explained.
The dinosaurian remains now exist in the form of small fragments of bones and complete eggs of the animals, which are firmly fixed in the rocks and hence irretrievable, said Mankar.
The discovery has been published in the latest issue of the prestigious journal Current Science, Srivastava said.
From the finding, the geologists have presumed that the Titanosaurus Colberti was a giant reptile measuring around 18-20m long and weighing up to 13 tonnes.
It was a herbivorous animal with a short and deep neck, long forelimbs and a short tail, but could not survive after the Late Cretaceous period because of hostile conditions which developed due to high temperatures and release of hazardous gases during the volcanic activity forming the Deccan Trap Basalt.
Mankar said this is not the first dinosaur remains that have been found in India – earlier too there have been discoveries in Nagpur and Chandrapur in Maharashtra.

shilpa shetty won`t be acting for the next 18month

Actress Shilpa Shetty has turned film producer with " Dishkiyaaoon", but she has no immediate plans of coming back to face the camera. She says she will start acting only once her son Viaan begins to understand her work.

At the launch of her husband Raj Kundra's book "How Not To Make Money", Shilpa was asked about her comeback plans.

She said: "(I will take) At least another year-and-a-half... till Viaan is able to communicate with me and understands (my) work. Then may be I will think of doing a film."

Until then, the 38-year-old said she happy working on the small screen and with endorsements. She had judged dance reality show "Nach Baliye 5", and she will return to the space for the show's new season.

"TV is easier, and for endorsements, I can command when I want to work. It's kind of suited to my current role - being a mother, the most wonderful role of my life. I am enjoying it," she said.

Viaan was born May 21, 2012.

Shilpa says she has taken a sabbatical from the movie world as films are too time consuming.

"Honestly, it is a self-imposed sabbatical. My priority definitely is Viaan at the moment. I haven't thought about films really, it's just too time consuming," Shilpa said.

A teaser poster of Shilpa's first production "Dishkiyaaoon" was released recently.

Starring Harman Baweja and Sunny Deol, the action thriller, produced under Shilpa and her Raj's banner Essential Sports and Media Pvt Ltd. in association with Eros International, will also introduce newcomer Ayesha Khanna.