Addressing a press conference along with Rivers State Leaders of Thought at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, Governor Wike said series of events had shown that the Odili family is being targeted, just as he alleged that Friday’s invasion of the residence of Justice Odili by security agents was an assassination attempt.
Gov Wike, on Sunday gave the Federal Government 48 hours to unveil the invaders of Justice Mary Odili’s house.
Since the person who made a complaint against her residence and the personnel who went there are known, government had no reason not to take action against them”, he said
This comes after Mercy announced the launching of her charity foundation.
According to the reality star, the charity foundation is a way for her to help those in need like business owners, sick people, the poor, single mothers, widows, students and homeless children living in the streets.
Mercy also promised to give out N5M to a few people with brilliant business ideas but are struggling to start one.
Taking to her official Instagram page to make this special announcement, the 28 -year-old millionaire wrote;
“The Mercy Eke Foundation is finally here. I have always wanted to give back, and I’m glad…
Nigerian music star, Burna Boy has won the Best International Act at the BET Awards for the third time.
The singer was nominated in the category alongside Aya Nakamura (France), Diamond Platnumz (Tanzania), Emicida (Brazil), Headie One (UK), Wizkid (Nigeria), Young T & Bugsey (UK), Youssoupha (France).
Burna Boy was announced as winner of the category at the event which took place on the 27th of June 2021.
Says drug abuse already stretches across three generations
Deji Elumoye in Abuja and Laleye Dipo in Minna
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, identified drug trafficking and abuse as more threatening to the stability of the nation than banditry and insurgency that are prevalent in some parts of Nigeria.
The president, declared that drug abuse has become so endemic in the country now that it already stretches across three generations of grandparents, parents and their wards.
This is just as the the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has disclosed that within the last five months, no fewer than 2,180 suspected traffickers including five drug barons had been nabbed across the country.
President Buhari, who was represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustaph, spoke at the launch of the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA), an initiative of the NDLEA to mark the United Nations International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking themed: “Share Facts on Drugs. Save Lives.”
The President emphasised that the anti-drug war was more deadly than the insurgency in the Northeastern part of the country or the acts of banditry in the Northwest or the acts of kidnapping that transcends all the geopolitical zones of this country.
According to him, it is a war that is destroying three generations, because there were clips of some grandparents on drugs, parents on drugs, and by extension, their wards and children had also taken to drugs.
“So, this is a war that is targeting three generations in a stretch. So, it is more deadly than even the security challenges that we are having in this country and I believe strongly that every effort must be put in place to ensure that we deal with the issues of substance abuse and trafficking and manufacture so that we can get to the root cause of the mirage of insecurity problems that are confronting this nation and I believe strongly, with every bit of conviction, that if we are able to deal with the issues of drug abuse,substantially, our security challenges will drastically reduce as we walk towards a drug free, Nigeria”.
The President also charged the NDLEA to intensify efforts at ridding the vast forests of the Southwest and South-South regions of the country of criminal elements, who had made the places their hideouts, from where they launch criminal onslaughts as well as for farming marijuana.
President Buhari said: “I am directing the NDLEA to develop a robust risk-communication and community engagement strategy that will not only disseminate the four pillars of the plan to responsible entities, but also deal with destroying production sites and laboratories, break the supply chain, discourage drug use and prosecute offenders as well as traffickers,rehabilitate addicts and enforcement of relevant laws.
I want to particularly draw the attention of the agency to the fact that the use of many of our forests as criminal hideouts is because large swathes of cannabis plantations are hidden deep within those forests, especially, in the Southwest and the South-South.
“You may, therefore, need to drive these criminal elements from such hideouts, because they use it for the growth of these plants and also as a repository for criminal elements to conclude and plan their adventures on our people”.
He, however, called on all families, schools, civil society organisations, professional associations, religious organisations, the academia, community leaders and individuals to work for the common good in order to rid their communities of drug use and trafficking.
“As your President, I will continue to address underlying causes of drug abuse, including poverty reduction, for which my pledge for lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next 10 years and strengthened by the recently developed National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy signposts my unwavering commitment.
I would like to appreciate our stakeholders and international collaborators, especially, the European Union, and the United Nations Office for Drugs and Control, for their unwavering support to our drug control efforts, including the development of our roadmap. Also appreciated are the members of the inter-ministerial committee on drug control, civil society organisations, the academia, for their contributions and efforts to our National Drug Control initiatives.
“The war against drugs is a war that must be fought by all, it is therefore my pleasure, to declare on behalf of the good people of Nigeria, a War Against Drug Abuse (WADA), not just as a slogan, but a call for civil action for all Nigerians to take active part in this war”.
Shedding more light on their current efforts, Chairman of the NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd) put the cash value and drugs seized in the past five months since he assumed office at over N90 billion adding that over 2,180 traffickers had been arrested, including five drug barons controlling different cartels across Nigeria.
He also revealed that a record 2.05 million kilograms of drugs were intercepted and seized across the country; and 2,100 drug offenders prosecuted with 500 already jailed by courts.
According to him, “While the statistics are impressive, we wouldn’t deceive ourselves that we have succeeded in cleaning the Augean Stable in five months. We have only made a head start. We need to sustain the momentum. We need to win the drug war. We cannot afford to be complacent.”
Marwa said going by the available statistics, Nigeria ranked the highest users of cannabis worldwide, adding that revelations from kidnapped victims have collaborated the facts that illicit substances were enablers of insecurity currently plaguing the country.
He said: “It is not difficult to conclude that drugs have been catalysts of terrorism, kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery and various violent conflicts that are currently Nigeria’s albatross. The enormity of the danger of drug abuse calls for an urgent need to nip the problem in the bud. This is the reason we have redoubled our efforts in the past five months with the Maxim of Offensive Action.
“Today, it is a glaring fact that Nigerian youths are involved in drug abuse. Over the years, an undesirable subculture had flourished whereby adolescents and young adults wantonly indulged in the abuse of illicit substances. They not only became addicted to conventional substances such as cannabis and prescription opioids, such as tramadol and codeine, they also experimented with dangerous mixtures leading to novel psychotropic substances such as ‘monkey tail’ and ‘skoochies’.
“In the context of that warped reality, they also normalised the smoking of cannabis as we have seen in some popular music videos and on social media. ‘High’ became part of their social media. So, it wasn’t surprising, when research began to give us bleak statistics. The National Drug Survey 2019, for example, indicated that cannabis is the most commonly abused substance by an estimated 10.6 million Nigerians, some of whom started smoking as early as 19 years of age.
“The Global Drug Survey 2019, also, cited cannabis as the most abused substance with West Africa having the highest abuse prevalence. The World Health Organisation on substance abuse also stated unequivocally that cannabis is the most widely used illicit substance in Africa, with the highest prevalence, between 5.2% and 13.5%, found in West Africa. Ladies and Gentlemen, West Africa, by implication, means Nigeria”.
The NDLEA boss linked the successes recorded by the agency so far to the resolution of officers and men of the NDLEA to clean up Nigeria and make the country drug free.
He said: “And in this campaign, we are tackling the scourge of drug abuse and trafficking on all fronts. In addition to the arrest and prosecution of drug offenders, we have worked out intensive drug abuse awareness and sensitisation programmes targeting different groups, with an emphasis on youths. In this regard, my administration has thrown the door open to all for partnership in the fight against abuse of illicit substances. It is to this end that we have set up a Special Purpose Committee to involve stakeholders in the cause.”
Also speaking, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, called on the President to approve the appointment of 10,000 additional workers for NDLEA, which he said was currently “understaffed”, “underfunded”, and “ill-equipped”.
Gbajabiamila, who was represented by Chairman, House Committee on Drugs and Narcotics, Hon Francis Agwu, said the NDLEA was using weapons used during the civil war, stressing the need to fight the menace of drugs abuse in the country as all crimes were enabled by narcotics drugs addiction.
According to him, the National Assembly was working to amend the Police Trust Fund Act to ensure that other policing agencies like NDLEA benefitted from the pool, adding that efforts would be made to guarantee accelerated endorsement of the president after its amendment.
“If the surge in crimes must be minimised, then, we must fight narcotics drugs addiction,” he said.
In a goodwill message, the United Nations General Secretary, Antonio Guterres, lamented that the world drug problem remains an urgent challenge that threatens to exacerbate damage impact and hinder a healthy recovery.
Represented by Oliver Stolpe, the Country Representative, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the UN Scribe urged law enforcement agents to go after the criminals at the upper level of the drug trafficking chain, who reap the highest profit and wreak the greatest havoc.
Guterres said, the 2021 world drug report of UN, showed that death and crime attributed to disorders have nearly doubled over the past decade, adding that while new HIV/AIDS infections among adults have declined worldwide but not among people, who injected drugs, which accounted for 10 per cent of new infections in 2019.
He, however, claimed that international cooperation had helped to limit the proliferation of new psycho active substances but the problem was shifting to poorer regions, where control systems were weaker, drug sales continued to rise and non-medical use of pharmaceutical such as Tramadol and Codeine was expanding.
He too agreed that drug trafficking and organised crime fuel and perpetuate circles of violence and conflicts, adding that armed groups and terrorists profited from the illicit drugs trade, even as the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has left millions of people more vulnerable to drug crime and illicit drug cultivation.
In a related development, the Niger State Commander of the NDLEA, Mr. Haruna Kwatiche, has said bandits, kidnappers and terrorists operated after consuming hard drugs, which usually gave them fake confidence and strength.
Kwatiche, who disclosed this in Minna, Saturday, said these categories of people often claimed they did not know how and why they embarked on such acts after being arrested and when the effect of the drugs had worn out.
Speaking at an event to mark this years United Nations International Day Against Drug Abuse and illicit Trafficking, Kwatiche said the country should rise up to stop the circulation of hard drugs by bringing all peddlers under the law if the activities of bandits kidnapers and terrorists were to be reduced to the barest minimum in the country.
He admitted that 90 per cent of other crimes and criminalities were committed under the influence of drugs and warned that, “Until all stakeholders join hands together to fight this menace, crimes and criminalities will continue to increase
“The NDLEA is committed to confronting circulation and consumption of hard drugs frontally” the Niger commander declared, adding that to achieve this the Agency required the support of all the major stakeholders in the states of the federation.
The Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Ahmed Ibrahim Matane, commended the NDLEA for its renewed war against drug abuse and illicit trafficking in the state and assured the agency of government’s support in order to reduce the menace of drug abuse in the state.
Borno state Commissioner for Health and Human services, Julian Bitrus, has issued a query to the provost, College of Nursing and midwifery, Rukaiya Shettima Mustapha, for suspending some students under the claim, that that they failed to join others, in welcoming President Buhari on June 17 in Maiduguri.
The Commissioner, described the provost as being mischievous against Borno State Government, because she acted on her own, without recourse to any official at her supervising ministry and without any directives from anyone in the state government.
In the query with reference number MOH/PER/752 V.I and dated Friday, June 25, the commissioner demanded that the provost responds within 48 hours, to advance compelling reasons why a disciplinary action should not be meted against her.
The commissioner said while Borno has about eight state owned tertiary institutions, it was curious that only at the college of nursing and midwifery, that students were suspended, including with signed letters addressed to them, in apparent effort to embarrass the state government
The commissioner said, even though it is a normal practice that students join in welcoming visiting Presidents all over Nigeria, such acts are voluntary. More so that students constitute far less than thousand of residents who freely trooped out to welcome the President in all parts of Maiduguri.
The commissioner explained that it was unbelievable to the ministry, when news came about the action taken by the provost, and hence, the ministry took time to investigate and confirm the act before issuing a query.
The commissioner was concerned that the provost may have simply used the president’s visit to get at some students she may have had issues with.
Juliana noted that, Heads of States and Presidents have been visiting Borno since 1976, and students do join in welcoming them, and no one ever expected 100% compliance in any public mobilization.
The commissioner further said, that if any issue involving students was to be raised, how come it was not the Borno State University, which the President Commissioned or schools around projects Commissioned by the President.
The Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Hakeem Odumosu, says 21-year old UNILAG Student Chidnma Adora Ojukwu, who was earlier today paraded for allegedly killing the Chief Executive Officer of Super TV, Micheal Usifo Ataga, Conspired with some other persons who are currently now at large to carry out the crime.
A statement released by the spokesperson of the State Police Command, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, Odumosu disclosed this while parading the suspect.
A case of murder was transferred from Maroko Division of the command to the State Criminal investigation Department, Panti Yaba, for discreet investigation.
The fact of the case is that, on 15/06/21 at about 1700hrs, One Chidnma Adora Ojukwu, a 300 level, undergraduate of the University of Lagos, conspired with others, now at large, and allegedly murdered one Micheal Usifo Ataga, m, 50, by stabbing him severally with a sharp object at a short Serviced Apartment, Situated at No 19, Adewale Oshin Street, Lekki, phase 1, Lagos.
The prime Suspect Chidnma who has earlier booked for the apartment on 13/6/2021 secretly, left the apartment after the deed has been done on 15/6/21 at about 1730hrs.
The suspect was tracked and arrested in her resident at No. 5, Akinwunmi Street, Alagomeji, Yaba-Lagos. During search, the prime suspect and mass communication Student of the University of Lagos, was caught with a blood- soaked cloth, ostensibly worn on the day of the incident.
The Suspect confess to have stabbed the deceased with a kitchen knife after a struggle. She further confessed to have taken the knife away while leaving the scene and dispose same in a dust bin at her residence.
It has also been revealed that the suspect equally stole the deceased iphone.
Investigation is ongoing to arrest other accomplices. However the case will be charged to court as soon as investigation is over.
Business man and actress, Tonto Dike’s ex-husband, Olakunle Churchill has corrected an Instagram user who had an opinion about how he describes his youngest son, King Churchill Oladunni.
The fight started after Churchill shared a photo of himself and his son with current wife, actress Rosy Meurer, with capture that had “Real King Churchill” in it. An IG user who feels he prefers his son with Rosy to his son with ex, Tonto, asked him not to choose one son over the other.
However Churchill was quick to correct the user, stating that the term ‘real’ was just used to create an Instagram page for the infant.
Former miss Minna, Sandra Benede is a year older today, June 22, and to celebrate her special day, she took to her Instagram page to share a saucy video of her showcasing her assets.
We have friends who have family that live in the building. We don’t even know if they are OK, some of them are OK, we don’t know if the rest are OK.
“It’s very shocking, we are shook. It’s not like processing in our minds yet. “Samuel Balkany said.
“We saw this happen, it was by far the most horrific thing that I’ve seen.
We just see a cloud of dust coming our way
Shmuel Balkany was on a walk with his brothers and dog when “we hear a really big rumble, “he told ReliableNewsMedia.
“And we taught that it was a motorcycle like Classic, early in the morning, so we turn around and all we can see was a cloud dust coming our way. We are just like what is going on? So we started rushing towards there. We pull our shirt over our face so we don’t get any dust in our eyes.
A rescuer reached an arm under what looked like a Collapsed wall. Its reinforcing metal bars now pointing skyward, inorder to help the survivor, who was wearing a dark shirt and pajama pants.
The survivor slowly learned over, laying their body over a rescuer’s right shoulder and draping their legs over the bigger person’s chest. The survivor was lowered onto a white stretcher and the team carried the person away.
Shortly after that, at least six stories up, a trio of survivors and what looked like a dog climbed from a balcony into the bucket atop a fire truck’s elevated ladder. The bucket then slowly descended.
Four people were taken to hospitals, and at least seven others were treated at the scene. Jadallah said.
The cause of the Collapse wasn’t immediately known. The building was undergoing roof work, but it’s not known whether this was a factor in the Collapse, Surfside Mayor Charles W. Burkett Said.
At least one person died in the Collapse.
Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a state of emergency declaration to allow state resources for the disaster response.
Enter your JAMB registration number/Email address in the required column
Step three
Click on check my result
The portal will be able to load your result as soon as is ready.
How to check JAMB result via SMS
You don’t really need to stress yourself because JAMB portals will send you your result through SMS, but that only if your number match with the same number you used in your JAMB registration details.
Welcome To Abaeme Maureen's Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.