An auction house in Switzerland is set to sell 25 luxury cars including Ferraris, Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis that Geneva authorities seized from Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, son of Equatorial Guinea’s president for-life in a money-laundering probe.
Swiss authorities say the sale Sunday by auctioneer Bonhams is expected to fetch some 18.5 million Swiss francs (dollars), with the proceeds going to a charity to benefit the people of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.
The auction comes after the Geneva prosecutor’s office announced in February it had closed a case against the son of President Teodoro Obiang, and two others following a probe of money laundering and mismanagement of public assets.
Swiss authorities seized the cars and ordered the sequestration of a yacht in 2016.
The yacht was released in the arrangement announced in February, under which Equatorial Guinea agreed to pay Geneva authorities 1.3 million Swiss francs “notably to cover procedural costs,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The standout lot in the auction is a white-and-cream Lamborghini Veneno roadster, one of only nine such versions produced, that has been driven only 325 kilometres (201 miles), Bonhams says.
It is expected to fetch at least 5.2 million francs.
A Ferrari “LaFerrari” – featuring Formula 1 and GT inspiration – is set to fetch at least 2.6 million francs.
Senior Pastor, Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare has opened up on a trending video on social media about his 2023 presidential ambition.
He said the trending video of him saying he would become Nigeria’s next President was merely an expression of his aspiration.
According to him, what God showed him was his personal business, saying that he had a right to aspire to the highest office.
“It is the true expression of my political ambition. Whatever God has shown me is my private ambition,” Bakare said in a report by the Nation.
He explained that the video was about one year and seven months old.
Bakare said nothing could change it because he was born for that purpose to be president.
According to him, while Buhari is number 15, he would be the 16th president of Nigeria.
In his words in the trending video, Bakare said: “I will succeed Buhari as President of Nigeria, nothing can change it. I am number 16, Buhari is number 15. I never said it to you before. I am saying it now and nothing can change it.
“In the name of Jesus, he is number 15. I am number 16. To this end was I born and for this purpose came I into the world. I have prepared you for this for more than 30 years.”
Veteran actress, Joke Silva is a year older today and she is very thankful to her creator. According to her, it's been 58 years and the journey hasn't been perfect but she is grateful for all the blessings!
''58 years ..the waters did not drown me the fire did not burn me... I smelt of smoke sha....thank you Lord for your many mercies... for your many blessings.🙏🏽💃🏾'', she wrote while sharing the above photo.\
TBoss recently lost her father and now she says the only regret she has now is that her daughter never met her father. According to Tboss the late man would have loved his grandchild if they met.
Fast rising actress, Sylvia Ukaatu, in a chat with Sunnewsonline has narrated her only regret in life, saying she took a blood oath with a former lover when she was just 18. According to Sylvia every attempt for her to get married as proved abortive with suitors disappearing on the day of their introduction.
While opening up to Pearls news, she says she wants the youths to learn from her own experience. Hear her;
“It all started when I was 18-year-old,” the role interpreter narrated amidst sobs. “I fell in love, deeply in love. I was so carried away at that tender age. I was lured into taking a blood oath with my then lover. I never knew the repercussions behind such move. I was young, naive and in love.
“We played along. I was happy. I was eager to settle down. Then love became sour. I tried to walk away. I begged to be freed but the guy refused, so I kept to myself and started living life to the fullest. Even when he travelled out of the country, I had so many failed relationships without knowing what was behind it.
''Suitors were coming, but on the day of introduction, they would cancel without explanation. I waited for many years for him to come back. But he never did. I desperately wanted to start a family, but that wasn’t forthcoming. I tried so many relationships but they all failed.”
She continued with tears roling down her cheeks:
“The guy finally came back last year and we spoke at length. I told him we should break the oath if he’s no longer interested in marrying me, but he ignored me. Then, a few months ago, my brother called me and said I should go and search for my fiancé on Facebook, that the guy just got married. I quickly rushed to Facebook and checked. I was shocked to discover that truly he just got married, but I laughed it over. Now, I can still feel the pains deep inside my heart. I want to warn the young ones out there. Love is not enough for blood oath.
The guy deceived and used me. I ignorantly allowed myself to be caged for years. Let the youths learn from my experience.”
Director General, National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), Chief Olusegun Runsewe, on Saturday again bombed Nigerian cross-dresser, Bobrisky, saying his impact on society is worse than Ebola -- the deadly virus that killed thousands in West Africa a few years ago.
Runsewe, said Bobrisky, arguably the only well known closet queen in Nigeria, poses serious hazards to Nigerian youths.
Runsewe said if Bobrisky’s activities were not promptly curtailed, the resultant effect would be worse than Ebola outbreak.
He urged the youths to stop imitating Bobrisky, by remaining responsible and good ambassadors of the nation.
”Bobrisky is a national disaster, an embarrassment to the country, engaging in cultural corruption as a cross-dresser and we have to start to curtail his activities before it gets out of hand
”We will not allow Bobrisky to destroy the future of our youths and the unborn Nigerians,” he said.
Runsewe said that when the cross-dresser’s birthday was halted in Lekki, Lagos by the police recently, it was revealed that he had been training some Nigerian youths to toe the same line with him.
He said immediately the cross dresser’s party was halted a good number of the boys he was training left him. “So that was an achievement”, he said.
According to him, Bobrisky’s activities negate the culture and tradition of the nation and he could be excused to go to other climes where such culture of being a cross-gender would be tolerated.
Runsewe urged parents to guide their wards not to emulate Bobrisky but take after responsible celebrities in the society.
Beauty Ogere Siasia, the 80 year-old mother of former Super Eagles skipper and coach, Samson Siasia, has been released by her abductors, after 10 weeks.
She was kidnapped on July 15 by heavily armed gunmen who invaded her Odoni country home in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
It was the second time in four years Madam Siasia would be taken away.
Over 200 people were arrested for violating the sanitation law in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital.
The offenders were convicted by a mobile court and made to pay between 500 and 1000 naira as fine, while the underage and students carry out the sanitation before they are allowed to go after the exercise.
Addressing newsmen after the three hours sanitation exercise, the permanent Secretary, Kwara state ministry of environment and forestry, Malam Amosa Isiaka Al-Amin urged the residents of the state to ensure they keep their environment clean to prevent diseases.
He commended the sanitation official for ensuring total compliance for the period the exercise lasted.
It has been confirmed that the death toll of the Yellow Fever outbreak in Bauchi State has risen to 16 out of the 20 confirmed cases following the alleged rejection of vaccination by some citizens in the affected communities in the state.
The confirmation was given by the Executive Chairman of Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency (BSPHCDA), Dr Rilwanu Mohammed while giving an update on the situation during an interaction with newsmen in his office in Bauchi on Friday night.
Rilwanu Mohammed disclosed that since the outbreak of yellow fever about a month ago, no fewer than 119 suspected cases were recorded out of which 20 cases were confirmed and 16 of the victims died.
He said: “We realised that all the people that rejected vaccination are the ones dying. The last three victims four days ago refused the vaccine and all three were infected. They took them to a traditional healer who did his own work but the two were still unconscious. They were later taken to Bauchi but all of them died.”
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has advised Nigerians evacuated from South Africa following the xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals to prepare to return to South Africa. He made this known after meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The ex-Head of State has met with Ramaphosa in South Africa, where he said the issue of Xenophobia was discussed. Obasanjo made this known on Saturday at his Abeokuta residence when reporters asked him what he discussed with President Ramaphosa.
Obasanjo said, “I took the opportunity of being in South Africa to actually pay a courtesy call on President Cyril Ramaphosa and he quickly granted me the opportunity. One of the major things we discussed was this issue of xenophobia or Afrophobia.
“The President told me that there was so much at stake and whatever mistake we had made, we had to correct it. And I think that was a very good statement and I know that he meant it, because he immediately said ‘what can we do or should we do?’”
He advised South Africans to tread softly on the issue of foreigners seeking opportunities in their country.
He said, “The idea of thinking or saying that foreigners are taking your jobs should be killed, because most of these foreigners paid something into the country.
“I met more than two Nigerians who are doing legitimate businesses and the turnover runs into millions of dollars and they employed 50 to 60 South Africans.
“All these must be expressed and must be shown that Nigerians in South Africa are not drug peddlers and criminals; there are many of them that are genuine businessmen and professionals and who are making meaningful contributions to the economy and the social life of that country.
“I think that is all we must be doing and be saying and my joy is that President Cyril Ramaphosa is ready to do what needs to be done to stop these incidents and to put the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa on the right track.
“One of the things they are going to do between South Africa and Nigeria is that they are going to have what we established during my tenure – that we called bilateral commission.”
On the Nigerians evacuated from South Africa, Obasanjo said, “I hope they will go back to South Africa from what I heard from President Ramaphosa. Like I said, the meeting that President Buhari and President Ramaphosa will have during the first week of October should smooth the ground. And the right statements and the right action coming from both sides should encourage our people to go back.
“But, as I have always said that Nigerians living outside Nigeria must try to be good citizens of wherever they live.”
The Federal Government will, on Monday, arraign Sahara Reporters publisher and convener of #RevolutionNow protests, Omoyele Sowore, before the Federal High Court in Abuja.
He is to be arraigned on seven counts of treasonable felony, money laundering and cybercrimes which was instituted against him by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation.
The Department of State Service, which has been detaining the former presidential candidate since August 3, continues to hold him in custody in violation of the court order granting him bail six days ago.
Justice Taiwo Taiwo, who earlier on August 8, granted the DSS permission to hold the activist for 45, had on September 24, granted him bail. Despite meeting the bail condition on September 25, Sowore has not been released by the DSS.
The actress and mom of two who has worked over the years on her body showed off her hot bod in a red number. she simply captioned the photos '' s.e.x.y''. Lol, when you know you are hot!
President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the detention and dehumanisation of about 300 boys and men found in a building at Rigasa, Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
The police had raided the building, rescued about 300 victims and arrested seven teachers of the Islamic centre, including its proprietor, Mallam Ismaila Abubakar, who insisted he did nothing wrong than teach the detainees Islam.
But some of the victims as young as five years old said they had been held captive for years. They said they were tortured, s3xually abused and starved. Many of them, with visible injuries, had metal chains around their ankles.
The Presidency while reacting to the incident in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu said;
“We are glad that the Muslim authorities have dismissed the notion of the embarrassing and horrifying spectacle as an Islamic school.
“The place has indeed been described as a house of torture and a place of human slavery.
“The President holds the view that children will be safeguarded from roaming the streets and protected from all evil influences that assail idle hands and minds when they are sent to school.
“When he inaugurated the National Economic Council for the year 2019/2023 at the Presidential Villa, in Abuja, President Buhari warned that keeping children away from school was a criminal offence.
“He also stressed the need to take seriously and enforce the statutory provisions on free and compulsory basic education, citing Section 18(3) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which he said placed on all of us (public leaders and political office holders) an obligation to eradicate illiteracy and provide free and compulsory education.
“He added that Section 2 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act provides that every government in Nigeria shall provide free, compulsory and universal basic education for every child of primary and junior secondary school age.
“It is indeed a crime, he stressed, for any parent to keep their pupil child out of school for this period.
“While the government at the centre has introduced a number of programmes, including the school feeding programme, which is now in 32 states in the country, with 9.8 million children beneficiaries to encourage school enrolment and enhance the health and learning capabilities of pupils, state and local governments are obliged under the law to ensure that every child of school age goes to school throughout the crucial nine years of basic education.
“To stop unwanted cultural practices that amount to the abuse of children, our religious and traditional authorities must work with the federal, state and local governments to expose and stop all types of abuse that are widely known but ignored for many years by our communities.”
A seven-year-old boy from the Madubi Local Government Area of Kano State has lost his life after spending about three years in chains and starvation.
Sunday Punch learnt that the deceased’s father, Muhammad Ujujud, had chained him and his sister, Binta, for the period before the boy, whose name had yet to be ascertained, died on Monday.
It was gathered that Binta, 12, who had become emaciated, was rescued on Wednesday by officials of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons who were alerted by residents of the area.
The neighbours had complained that Ujujud rarely provided for the children.
Punch correspondent learnt that Ujujud, who was reportedly battling heart-related disease, slumped while in NAPTIP custody and was rushed to a hospital where he also gave up the ghost.
NAPTIP Zonal Commander in Kano, Mr Sheu Umar, who confirmed the incident, said the agency had yet to find out why Ujujud dehumanised the children.
He added that Ujujud’s wife and stepmother of the victim had yet to open up on the reason for the torture.
A 25-year-old woman, Blessing Stephen, has confessed to trading all her three kids for N500,000.
Stephen was a member of a child trafficking syndicate recently smashed by operatives of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team. Other arrested members of the syndicate are a self-acclaimed doctor, Una Godwin 58; Blessing John 27; Israel Ariyo 33; Itoro Anthony; 40 and Mforbong Ntoro, 48.
The operatives had launched a manhunt for one of the suspects, John, who abandoned a four-year-old boy in a church in the Ketu area of the state.
John was said to have abducted the boy, Ojo, at Ikota Housing Estate in Ajah sometime July 2019 and sold him in Akwa Ibom State to Ntoro for N350,000.
City Round learnt that Ntoro’s neighbours were alarmed by Ojo’s incessant cries and became suspicious, which forced the woman to return the child to John, asking her to get a baby as replacement.
John reportedly brought Ojo back to Lagos and abandoned him inside the church located along the road on the pretext that she wanted to pick some loads on the other side of the road.
Punch correspondent learnt that the church reported the incident at the Ketu Police Station and the boy was later reunited with his parents.
Consequently, a petition was addressed to the IRT to fish out the suspect.
The team tracked down John a few weeks ago in Ibadan, Oyo State, and she led them to arrest her accomplices, Stephen and Ntoro.
She told the police that it was hardship that made her to engage in child trafficking, adding that she needed money to treat an ailment she was battling with.
Former Big Brother Nigeria contestant, Kemen Ekerete, has the unenviable record of being the first housemate to be disqualified from the show.
He turned 30 some days ago and shared a post on social media, writing on losing his job in a multinational company at 26, battling depression and ill health, and how fitness helped him to be the man he is today.
In a chat with Sunday Scoop, the fitness enthusiast also stated that he was ashamed to be called a former BBNaija contestant.
Speaking shortly before Tacha was eventually disqualified from the current edition of the show, Kemen said, “Many people till today still don’t know the basis for which I was disqualified. Did Big Brother officially put out a publication on why I was disqualified? It was only assumed Big Brother disqualified me because they thought I molested Tboss.
There was a video which many thought showed that such action happened and Tboss and I saw the video. We analysed the video together and I know I didn’t do it.
Tboss also knew she didn’t feel anything. We are in a country where people don’t want to know the truth and everyone has their opinion. I think the game is lawless and watered-down now. I know I didn’t do what I was accused of and I’ve genuinely forgiven anyone who tried to drag my name through the mud.
I’m still good friends with people they thought I’d be sworn enemies with and I’m living a good life. Now, I’m ashamed if anyone calls me an ex-big brother housemate because the show doesn’t represent the show I went for. All my housemates are wonderful people and but for the show, I wouldn’t have met them. My rage is not because I think a particular housemate should leave. My rage is that a lot of lawlessness is being condoned in the house. Standing on the reason for my disqualification, many people in this house shouldn’t still be in.”
However, Kemen also maintained that he had no regrets. He said, “Everything that has happened (to me) had to be that way for me to learn a lesson, get more serious and become a better person. I don’t have any regrets. Maybe if I had discovered certain things a bit earlier, I could be in a better place than I am now. But even that isn’t certain because sometimes, things don’t work out the way one plans.”
Mexican crooner José José, the elegant dresser who moved audiences to tears with melancholic love ballads and was known as the “Prince of Song,” has died at the age of 71.
Mexican artists’ association ANDI confirmed the death in a Twitter post Saturday. Multiple media outlets said the singer had died of pancreatic cancer at a hospital in South Florida.
José José, whose real name is José Rómulo Sosa Ortiz, climbed to the top of the Latin charts in the 1970s with slow songs such as “El Triste” or “The Sad Man,” and “Amar y querer” or “Love and want.” The power of his voice and ability to sing technically difficult tunes in a wide register made him a treasured cultural icon in Latin America.
José José’s music also became popular in countries including Japan and Russia.Mexican crooner José José, the elegant dresser who moved audiences to tears with melancholic love ballads and was known as the “Prince of Song,” has died at the age of 71.
Mexican artists’ association ANDI confirmed the death in a Twitter post Saturday. Multiple media outlets said the singer had died of pancreatic cancer at a hospital in South Florida.
José José, whose real name is José Rómulo Sosa Ortiz, climbed to the top of the Latin charts in the 1970s with slow songs such as “El Triste” or “The Sad Man,” and “Amar y querer” or “Love and want.” The power of his voice and ability to sing technically difficult tunes in a wide register made him a treasured cultural icon in Latin America.
José José’s music also became popular in countries including Japan and Russia.
They may no longer be a couple, but when it comes to daughter True, Khloe Kardashian and her basketball player ex are clearly on the same page.
On Saturday, Tristan Thompson shared footage from a trip to Universal Studios in Los Angeles with the couple's toddler.
And the delightful one-year-old could be seen Facetiming her mother during the outing, in the Instagram video.
The NBA player, 28, set up his phone so little True could check in with her mom.
And the tot sweetly kissed the screen when she saw Khloe.
'This made my heart smile,' he wrote on Instagram. 'I choose to not share too much about my kids on social but this video I couldn’t resist,' he added.
'One of my most cherished and prized roles is being a Dad. Daddy loves you!'
