The Rivers State Police Command had confirmed the killing of a former aide to the state governor, Mowan Etete, who was shot dead alongside his brother on Saturday.
It was gathered that Mowan, who was a former Special Assistant to the Governor on Political Matters and his brother were killed by unknown gunmen at his residence in Andoni.
Unconfirmed report also has it that there were skirmishes in Abonema, Okrika and Bonny LGA, where some security agents were said to have carted away election materials.
President Muhammadu Buhari has defeated the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar at his polling unit in Adamawa state.
But jubilation broke out following the announcement that Buhari scored 186 votes while Atiku got 167 votes.
Atiku’s loyalists say a difference of just 19 votes is good, because the unit has been historically won by Buhari, who has stood in every presidential election since 2003.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has cancelled elections in Bonny and Akuku-Toru local government areas of Rivers State after voting failed to take off in the areas on Saturday.
Soldiers reportedly shot and killed people in some areas.
The commission’s spokesperson in Rivers State, Edwin Enabor, said elections in the areas would now hold on another date to be set by the commission.
“In Bonny, there was no election at all,” said Mr Enabor, adding that: “the exercise there has been postponed. It will hold on another day.”
A resident, Opuade Abbey, said the area had been taken over by armed security operatives including soldiers.
Elsewhere, in Okrika Local Government Area, Mr Enabor said sensitive materials for one ward was diverted.
“Therefore voting did not hold in the affected registration area (ward). The position of the commission is that election will be conducted separately for that registration area later.”
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and his wife Dolapo Osinbajo have voted in the presidential election on Saturday at the Code 33, Unit 2, Victoria Garden City (VGC), Lagos.
Speaking with newsmen shortly afterwards, Osinbajo expressed optimism that the exercise would be fair, credible and peaceful.
Voting commenced at 10:34 a.m., due to late arrival of officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Osinbajo who arrived the unit at 10:28 a.m., voted at 10:53 a.m. while Dolapo voted at 10:55 a.m.
The 2019 presidential election is turning out to be a keenly contested race thus far. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the Femi Okunnu polling unit, Lateef Jakande, Ikoyi.
The said polling unit is where the APC governorship candidate in Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, voted in the presidential poll...
The Punch reports that PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar polled 52 votes to defeat APC's Muhammadu Buhari who got 48 votes.
Everywhere the PDP won in last election due to high population of Igbo voters in Lagos are said to be under attack by APC thugs; from Ago Palace Way to Isolo, Amowu, Ajeromi, etc. The thugs are chasing people away, burning already tumb-printed ballot papers and there is no Police or Army to "shoot at sight".
A lady shared the disturbing clip where someone was shouting "this country is something else, they just burnt our votes".
This is even as innocent Nigerians were on the run, fleeing from the rampaging political thugs.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, PhD, has casted his vote in his polling unit in Ogun state. He spoke with journalists briefly before returning home, urging the two leading contenders for the office of President, Buhari of APC and Atiku of PDP to accept the outcome.
He said the winner should be magnanimous and the loser should accept it in good fate.
The desperation is sickening. From shooting party agents to diverting voting materials and now to outright snatching in the presence of voters. Why is election such a deadly battle in Nigeria if politicians just want to serve?
A police DPO and an Army captain openly stole voting materials in Other area of Rivers state, as confirmed by the INEC official. Nigeria is in trouble if those who are asked to "shoot" ballot box snatchers are the ones now snatching ballot box for government. Sigh!
R. Kelly's maintaining his innocence despite being charged with 10 counts of s-xual abuse, but he thinks he's screwed anyway ... because he's already lost in the court of public opinion.
Sources close to the singer say he believes it will be impossible for him to get a fair trial in the aftermath of Lifetime's docuseries, "Surviving R. Kelly," and nonstop media coverage -- especially in Chicago.
As one source put it ... "There isn't a person in Cook County who hasn't heard all the hateful things said about him."
TMZ is told R. Kelly believes ... even if he presents evidence proving his innocence, the jury will still find him guilty.
The sources continued saying, he’s moved on from panic attacks and has been in a depressed meltdown for days.
While Nigerians are out voting for who will lead them in the next four years, immediate past Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose is out battling the EFCC. According to Fayose, operatives of EFCC are at the moment at his hotel – Spotless Hotel in Ekiti, destroying everything available.
The ex-Governor claims, they gained access to the hotel through the fence. His tweet above says it all.
Model, 23, who put her virginity up for sale with a notorious online escort agency claims to have secured a fee of £2M from an unnamed Tokyo politician.
Mahbuba Mammadzada, 23, from Azerbaijan, hit headlines last year for announcing her controversial money-making scheme, and claimed this week the auction had finally come to a close.
According to online agency Cinderella Escorts, the winning bidder is an unnamed 'politician from Tokyo', with a London lawyer and a Munich football player coming in at second and third place respectively.
The winning bidder will be able to have a doctor check Miss Mammadzada to make sure she is still a virgin before sleeping with her at a hotel in Germany.
It is understood that Cinderella Escorts will take up to 20 percent of the money as their part of the deal.
Mahbuba, who is based in Turkey, sparked a fierce debate last summer when she publicly announced plans to sell her virginity, saying she wanted to make her mother 'proud'.
The 23-year-old said: 'My mum did everything for me, now it is my turn. I want her to be proud of me.'
Mahbuba is one of Azerbaijan's most successful models, but said she needed the cash to pay for a house for her mum and finance her studies abroad.
She chose to auction off her virginity through the notorious Cinderella Escorts agency where young women sell s-x to wealthy, often older, clients.
Miss Mammadzada, who registered with the agency under the pseudonym Maria, even recorded a video in which she explained her plans.
She said that she hoped to sell her virginity for at least €100,000 (£90,000) to buy a house for her mum, fund her university degree abroad, and travel the world. The final sum was more than 20 times the amount.
Miss Mammadzada says she even has a certified medical note confirming her virginity.
The model, currently based in Turkey, said she hopes to work with the Brave Model agency, based in the Italian city of Milan, but says she still wants to help her family back at home.
Last year, she walked down the same catwalk as Paris Hilton in a Turkish fashion show, called the Land of the Legends.
She has more than 32,000 followers on Instagram and her bio reads: 'I don't care about anything but me. I'm always doing things I can't do. Yes, I'm a model, no I eat a lot. All the time.'
The Peoples Democratic Party has sued President Muhammadu Buhari over his directive to the security agencies to deal ruthlessly with ballot box snatchers during the general elections.
“I really gave the military and police order to be ruthless,” Buhari had said on Monday.
“Anybody who thinks he has enough influence in his locality to lead a body of thugs to snatch ballot boxes or disturbs the voting system, will do so at the expense of his own life.”
In a suit filed before the Federal High Court in Abuja, the PDP asked the court to declare the directive as unconstitutional, unlawful and void.
The party also sued the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mohammed Bello, before a High Court in the FCT over the “gigantic broom” erected by the All Progressives Congress near Abuja city gate.
The PDP urged the court to issue an order compelling the minister to investigate the allegations of intimidation and illegality that the structure may cause.
The party said this followed the FCT administration’s failure to take action against the broom, which it said was an “improper structure”.
A PDP chieftain in Bayelsa State has raised an alarm following the hijacking and stealing of ballot boxes in his community. The man, who's the PDP candidate for Bayelsa East Senatorial district, Chief Ipigansi Izagara said the election materials were hijacked in Nembe Basambiri and Okoroba areas of the state.
According to him, the shooting and hijack of materials were sponsored by the APC supporters and alleged that one person has been killed and five others injured.
He said the armed attack against PDP members started around 10pm on Friday with chasing out of PDP members in the area, “they have hijacked materials from our area with the assistance of soldiers."
Also speaking, a chieftain of the PDP from Okoroba community in Nembe council, Benjamin, also alleged that in ward 11, 12 and 13 of the area, the materials have been diverted with the aide of security agents.
“We have been waiting and did not see materials and ad-hoc staff from INEC. We learnt that they have been hijacked. Am at my unit 13 and no hope of voting,” he said.
This picture is going viral on the social media, and it's from a video that captured President Buhari obviously 'peeping' to see who his wife, Aisha, actually voted for. We don't think that was necessary.
Operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Imo State Police Command have arrested a three-man gang of armed robbers and kidnappers that have reportedly been robbing road users while disguising as members of the National Youth Service Corps (Photos).
Parading the suspects, Police Commissioner, Dasuki Galadanchi, said
the arrest of the syndicate was a major breakthrough for the command. The CP, who commended the Commander of SARS, Victor Geoffrey, and his team for their bravery in apprehending the suspects, said one locally made pistol and one foreign made pistol were recovered from the gang.
Names of the suspects are Obinna Opara, 32; Kalanwa Goodluck, 32; and Chimamkpa Eziria, 17.
CP Galadanchi listed one Mrs Maria Chijioke and occupants of a Toyota Sienna as the victims of the suspects.
The CP said, “The suspects were arrested between January 21 and 24, at Umerelu Ikwerre Local Government Area in Rivers State, as well as at Mgbeshi in Ohaji and Egbema LGA of Imo State.
“They have made useful statements to the police and confessed to robbing and kidnapping unsuspecting road users along Port-Harcourt-Owerri Road. They also confessed to wearing NYSC uniforms and stopping drivers to seek assistance from them after which they would kidnap occupants of such vehicles for ransom.”
He urged motorists to be mindful of the kind of people they assist, especially on highways.
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar alongside his first wife, Titi, have cast their votes in Jada, Adamawa State, amidst hailing from his supporters at the pulling unit.
He was also asked if he will accept the result however it goes.
The former vice president told journalists that he was impressed by the way things were going at his polling unit, hoping that same will be replicated in other parts of the state and the country at large. On if he would accept the result of election, Atiku simply said, "I'm a democrat".
One of the five suspected killers of the ex-Chief of Defence Staff, Air Vice Marshal Alex Badeh, has revealed his role in the murder of the man who rose to become Nigeria's most senior military officer during the immediate past regime.
The suspect, 25-year-old Shuaibu Rabi, confirmed that he got money.
The man, a native of Bade area of Kaduna State, said he got N25,000 out of the money they stole from the late Badeh’s car.
The former CDS was ambushed and killed on December 18, 2018, along Abuja-Keffi Expressway by some gunmen on the way from his farm. Badeh’s driver was also shot and his friend, who was also in the vehicle, kidnapped by the gang.
The arrested suspects had confessed to killing the retired military officer in order to dispossess him of money he supposedly wanted to use to buy farmland in the Panda area of Nasarawa State.
But his family had dismissed the suspects’ claims as a cover-up, insisting that Badeh did not discuss any plan to acquire land with them.
In his latest confession, Rabi, who was arrested alongside four others – Yahaha, Maube, Aliyu Usman, aka Ciroma, and Ibrahim Abdulahi – by operatives of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team, said Maube invited him for the operation.
The suspect, who spoke through an interpreter during the week, said he was armed with a Dane gun and joined four other members of the Ak-47 wielding gang to open fire on Badeh’s car.
He said, “Before last Christmas, I went to the market in Panda and I met with Ciroma. He told me that there was a big man who has a farm in Panda and that the man was coming to buy another farm within the area. He said he wanted us to rob the man when he brought the money for payment. That was on a Friday.
“Ciroma told me that the man was coming on a Tuesday to pay for the land. On that Tuesday, I went to my own farm and told a friend about it. We called Ciroma to know if ‘the job’ was still feasible and he asked us to come. We left together with another friend called Baso to meet Ciroma on a farm. He gave me a Dane gun. He also gave guns to some other members of the gang.
“When the operation started, Ciroma and the other members were in front of me and my friend. When we sighted the vehicle carrying the man, we started shooting. At that point, I can’t tell who killed the man. Ciroma brought out a bag from the vehicle and he gave me N25,000. He promised to give me more money later.”
Narrating how he organised the alleged robbery operation, Ciroma said he had hired two of the guns they used for the operation from his friends.
Ciroma, who has eight children, said the attack was masterminded by Maube, who was allegedly aware of the purported farmland the slain former CDS wanted to buy, as well as the arrangement for the payment.
He said, “Maube lives in Kare, close to Panda area. He told me that there was a rich man (Badeh) who has a farm in his area and he would need some guys to rob the man. I contacted Shuaibu (Rabi), whom I met in Gitata Market and told him about the plan and he got interested. Three days later, Maube called me and said that the man was on his farm and that I should call my guys.
“I called Shuaibu and told him that the man was around. Shuiabu came with two persons, Yahaya and Baso, to meet me at the market. Alhaji Maube then called me and said that the man had left his farm and was driving through Panda Road. Alhaji Maube took a motorcycle and followed the rich man from behind while six others and I laid in ambush for the man at Zomgo area (of Nasarawa State).
“One Ibrahim Abdulahi, who was carrying Alhaji Maube, on a motorcycle, brought two guns to us. As soon as the vehicle he was in appeared, Abdullahi pointed it out to us and we came out from hiding and started shooting. I don’t know who fired the shot that killed the man.”
Ciroma added that when he opened the car, he found a bag containing money. He said he gave the money to Abdullahi for onward delivery to Maube, who did not come to the scene of the attack.
He said it was the following day when the news of Badeh’s murder was everywhere that he knew the person they killed was a former CDS.
On how he was arrested, 35-year-old Ciroma, a cab driver, stated that he was waiting for passengers at Panda market when a bus conveying policemen blocked his car.
“I am a cab driver and I usually ply Abuja-Keffi Road. I make N4,000 daily. I thought the operation would fetch me more money. I have two wives and eight children,” he added.
But Abudullahi, 26, who is a native of Kare in Nasarawa, told City Round that he did not know about the robbery until the gang struck. He also said he did not know the contents of the bag Maube asked him to deliver to the gang.
He said, “I am a farmer and I ride a motorcycle because I need extra money to fend for my family. Alhaji called me on a Tuesday in December 2018, and he asked me to take him to Panda area. We stopped by at his shop and he went in to bring a bag. I don’t know what was in the bag. He then asked me to take the bag to Gitata and hand it over to Ciroma.
“Ciroma and Shuiabu collected the bag from me, after which they asked me to wait around. I went to the back of a farm and waited. A few minutes later, I heard gunshots and Ciroma called me to come for the bag I had given him. He also gave me another bag containing money and he asked me to give the bag to Alhaji Muabe.”
The Senior Special Adviser on Security Matters to Governor Udom Emmanuel, Capt Iniobong Ekong (Rtd) has been abducted. He was said to have been picked at midnight by soldiers. The state Commissioner for Information, Akwa Ibom State who confirmed the abduction said Capt. Ekong is being held incommunicado at an unknown location in Port Harcourt.
The state Police PRO, Odiko McDon said the police was yet to receive such information.
