The Harbingerngr News

Late Yinka and Josephine Odumakin. *6 months after husband’s death DR. Josephine Odumakin, the widow of late Afenifere spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin, announced delivery of her twin babies, Wednesday, October 27, 2021, in the United States of America, describing it as a dream come true.  Yinka Odumakin died of Coronavirus complications on April 2, this year at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH. In a statement titled: ‘Yinka Odumakin returns, as Joe Okei-Odumakin gives birth to twins’, Mrs. Odumakin, who expressed delight on the miracle birth, said: “Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, widow of the late spokesperson of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, was delivered of bouncing twins - a boy and a girl - in a United States of America hospital, on Wednesday, October 27, 2021.  “The mother and the babies are in excellent health conditions. “The miracle birth fulfilled the wishes of the late Odumakin towards the end of his sojourn on earth to have another baby to be named after him....

THE Poultry Farmers Association of Nigeria (PAN) , Lagos State Chapter has cried over the incessant harassment of its members working in their farms by herdsmen, kidnappers and other farm invaders, saying it has caused untold hardship on the farmers. The leadership of the association led by its Executive Chairman, Godwin Egbede alongside PAN, Ikorodu Chairman, Taofik Suleiman and the association’s secretary, Mr. Olaoye, on a courtesy visit to the Lagos Police Command described the security situation at moment as worrisome, adding that most of its members do not go to farm any longer, while some have lost interest in poultry farming; reasons for the high price of poultry produce. PAN executive members who were received by the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of (Admin), DCP Bassey Ewan on behalf of the Lagos State Police Chief at the State Command Headquarters Ikeja commended the efforts of the Nigerian Police especially in the Lagos Command in tackling the security issues in the...

THE Federal Government has approved extension of the deadline for the linkage of National Identity Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) data verification. The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), conveyed the approval in a joint statement by Director, Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission and Head, Corporate Communications, National Identity Management Commission, Mr. Kayode Adegoke. He urged citizens and legal residents to endeavour to complete the process before the end of the year 2021. The Minister said the extension of the linkage exercise was approved due to appeal by the Mobile Network Operators and other industry stakeholders, soliciting for a further extension to ensure better compliance with government’s directive and to avoid widening the digital divide. He also said that the extension would also provide the enabling environment for the registration of Nigerians in remote areas, diaspora, schools, ...

Chairman, Oshodi-Isolo LGA, Hon. Kehinde Oloyede (2nd right) with his entourage during his inspection to some streets in Oshodi. By Iyabode Ishola THE Executive Chairman of Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area, Otunba Kehinde Oloyede has warned the roadside traders to stop selling on the road paths. The council boss gave the warning when he paid a visit to some streets in Oshodi, to monitor ongoing roads rehabilitation projects. He stated that the traders are causing gridlock and delay in completing the roads rehabilitation projects ongoing on the streets. According to him: "If they fail to move away from the streets, the council will have no option but to use the instrumentality of the law to enforce no street trading in the council. "We are giving you three days to vacate these streets, it is illegal for you to sell on the streets, you have also been causing unnecessary delay in making us complete the roads project in these market areas. "If you fail to comply with...

By Idowu Ajigboteso & Abimbola Oloyede Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer of a children-friendly group, Advocates for Children and Vulnerable Persons Network, ACVPN, Mr. Ebenezer Omojalile, has condemned corporal punishment on children, saying that it is a crime to beat children arbitrarily and inflict injury on them. Omojalile stated this during a discussion on Oshodi-Isolo Community chat platform. He said: “Corporal punishment is a crime, when it inflicts injuries on a victim. Also, corporal punishment is a crime when it causes physical and psychological injury on victims. "In addition, it can make children become more aggressive, backward in education and have phobia for schools, which can lead to truancy.” Speaking on the injury inflicted on the students of Arabic school in Kwara State, Omojalile said: “ACVPN condemns such irresponsible behaviour by the school headteacher. The culprit should not only be suspended, he should be duly prosecuted in the court of law. Nobo...

GOVERNOR Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State , has launched a state-wide Mass Vaccination Campaign against the Coronavirus pandemic.  Speaking during the flag-off ceremony, tagged: Count me in 4 million Lagosians Vaccinated Against Coronavirus, held on the sidelines of the 7th African Conference on One Health and Biosecurity, at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Sanwo-Olu noted that the mass vaccination campaign, which commenced yesterday, will run till Saturday, December 25, 2021. He said: “This first phase saw the vaccination of 400,000 persons with, at least, the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine received from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, and 250,000 persons were also fully vaccinated with the first and second dose of the vaccine. “This has brought the State to a total number of individuals vaccinated with the first dose of either AstraZeneca or Moderna to 1.2 million and fully vaccinated individuals to 550,000 accounting for just about four p...

SUSPECTED smugglers on Wednesday allegedly killed an officer of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), at Fagbohun village around Idogo-Ipaja in Yewa South Local Government Area of Ogun State, while another operative of the NCS was declared missing. It was gathered that the incident occurred when operatives from the Federal Operating Unit (FOU), stormed the village to carry out an operation. The smugglers on sighting the NCS officials opened fire on them, while two officers were reported missing after the melee. A lifeless body of one of the officers was said to have been found inside a river near Ajegun Iyaloosa village.  Confirming the incident, the Public Relations Officer of the FOU in Zone A, Theophilus Duniya, said some suspects have been arrested. Duniya said “The attacked officers are from FOU. One is confirmed dead, while the other one is still missing.  “It happened Tuesday afternoon. They were on  patrol when they were attacked. It was an unprovoked attack that en...

AFTER the expiration of 21 days ultimatum, the Sango-Ota section of the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway was locked down by members of the Nigerian Labour Congress in Ogun State and residents of the area on Wednesday October 27, 2021. This is coming after the NLC had given the Ogun State government and the Federal government a 21-day ultimatum for them to fix the deplorable road. The NLC had on October 6 stormed the Sango portion of the Lagos-Abeokuta highway with a threat to shut down the state if nothing was done within 21 days. The NLC, after the expiration of the ultimatum, mobilised its members to the failed portions of the expressway and blocked the road. The workers and residents gathered at Sango again for the protest, carrying placards with various inscriptions such as “Enough of bad governance”, “Dapo Abiodun, let us enjoy the dividends of democracy in Ogun”, “Dapo, this suffering is too much”, “Hear our cries, Ogun people are suffering”, “Dapo repair our roads, it is our right,” a...

  THE Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere , has insisted that Nigeria must renegotiate the basis of its staying together as a country, saying the problems bedevilling Nigeria would not have arisen if the original Constitution agreed upon by the country’s founding fathers had not been jettisoned. This was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of its meeting held in the country home of its acting leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo. Speaking at the meeting, Chief Adebanjo explained the state of the nation and stated that Nigeria is going through a lot of trauma.  According to the communiqué: “It seriously and comprehensively considered the current political trajectory of the country. The meeting was in no doubt that most, if not, of the problems bedevilling Nigeria would not have arisen if the original Constitution agreed upon by our founding Fathers had not been jettisoned. "During the struggle for independence and the mantra of 'One Nigeria' was being sung, Chief ...

THE Office of Education Quality Assurance, OEQA, has declared that public and private primary and secondary schools in Lagos State are to go on a week-long mid-term break, starting from November 1 to November 5, this year.  A statement by the Director-General, OEQA, Mrs. Abiola Seriki-Ayeni, said all schools are to resume on November 8, 2021, for instructional learning hours by 2021/2022 harmonised school calendar by the OEQA, Ministry of Education.  Seriki-Ayeni said the one-week break would afford schools the opportunity to internally upskill their teachers in various educational and developmental programmes, especially at this time of Coronavirus, where learning has gone beyond the physical four walls of the classroom. She said: "They should also ensure they professionally enrich teachers to aid improved staff performance, effectiveness and efficiency as training and retraining is key to professional development in the 21st century.  "They should use the opportunity to...

A 27-year-old man, Ejiro Tega, is to spend the next 14 months in the Kirikiri Prison for stealing phones from prostitutes, an Ikeja Magistrates’ convicted him. Magistrate Elizabeth Adeola imposed the sentence following  Tega’s guilty plea to a two-count charge of stealing and breach of the peace. She sentenced him to 14 months imprisonment on the two counts but ordered that the sentence should run concurrently. The magistrate, who did not give Tega an option of fine, held that he should serve the jail term with hard labour. Earlier, the prosecutor, Insp Kenrich Nomayo, said that Tega took two prostitutes, Blessing Joseph and Victoria Joseph, to a hotel and stole their phones. He said that Tega stole a Tecno POP worth N63,000 and an Infinix Hot 10 worth N85,000 from the women. Nomayo told the court that the convict committed the offences on Sept. 7  at 9.00 p.m. at Humble Heritage Hotel, Mafoluku, Oshodi, Lagos. He submitted that the defendant lured the said women to the hotel ...

  A man, his wife, and son were killed by a mob in Zangon Aya community, Igabi local government area of Kaduna State for allegedly giving information to bandits. The State Commissioner, Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Kaduna State, Samuel Aruwan, yesterday, disclosed that security agencies reported the killings to the state government. According to the report, Abdullahi Mohammed Gobirawa, his wife Binta Abdullahi and his son Hassan Abdullahi were killed when a mob stormed their home Monday afternoon. “The mob action was in response to the trio’s suspected collaboration with bandits, especially concerning recent kidnappings in the area. After killing the trio, the mob looted and burnt their home.” While “receiving the reports, Governor Nasir El-Rufai expressed his sadness and deep worry at the violent actions of the citizens, and strongly condemned the extra-judicial killings. He stressed that lawful means alone should be adopted in confronting suspicions of criminal...

President, Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba. *Faults threats of sack by govts instead of persuasion  NIGERIA Labour Congress, NLC, has asked workers to take advantage of the Coronavirus vaccines and keep themselves, their families and colleagues at work safe and free from the morbid threats of the Coronavirus pandemic. NLC in a statement by its President, Ayuba Wabba, titled: “The need for workers to take COVID-19 vaccination,” stressed that “the truth is that despite being imperfect, the COVID-19 Vaccine has given all of us a better chance of fighting the virus and staying alive.’ Wabba however faulted the threats by government to sack workers for not vaccinating instead of persuading workers to take the vaccine.   According to the statement “The COVID-19 pandemic has brought some of the biggest strains, stress and squeeze to the workplace. Thousands of workers died. Many of the dead from the global workforce were frontline workers. As at the third week of October 2...

THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has stopped universities and other tertiary institutions running degree programmes from directly admitting candidates on their sandwich, distance learning, part-time and other programmes. The board insisted that, henceforth, all admissions to the various programmes in the nation's higher institutions must be processed through it, warning the institutions against flouting the new rule. "The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board would no longer condone any illegal/irregular admission by any institution,"JAMB announced in its weekly news bulletin, released yesterday through its Head of Media and Protocol,Dr Fabian Benjamin. According to the bulletin, the cessation of the illegal admissions is contained in an advisory issued by the Board. The bulletin read:  "The advisory further made it clear that the new hardline position taken by the Board was informed by the quantum of applications received for candidates for co...

Oshodi-Isolo LGA, chairman, Otunba Kehinde Oloyede begins repairing Ariyibi-Oke road, in Oshodi.  ...One killed, two missing as hoodlums attack community ... Locals, herders' clash: 4 dead, 4 injured, 13 cows killed SEVENTEEN people have been killed in Maza-Kula village in Mashegu Local Government Area of Niger State as suspected armed bandits invaded a mosque in an early morning attack, with many injured and eighteen abducted. But, the state police command said that the incident was understood to be a reprisal attack resulting from a long-standing communal feud. The armed men were said to have arrived in the village in a long convoy on motorcycles and made straight to the mosque where they started shooting sporadically to scare the people. Those who rushed out of the Mosque were reportedly gunned down while others trapped in the mosque were also shot at close range and left in their pools of blood. It was gathered that many, who were scampering for safety, sustained various degre...

Victim: Kehinde Ojo. A 31-year-old woman, Shade Adelowo, who inflicted body injuries on her neighbour’s eleven years old son, Kehinde Ojo, for allegedly stealing N3,000 from her purse, has been arrested by police operatives. The Ogun State Police Command’s image-maker, Abimbola Oyeyemi, who disclosed in Abeokuta, said the suspect, a mother of two, resides at Giwa Oke Aro area of Agbado. Oyeyemi noted that the suspect was arrested following a report lodged at Agbado divisional headquarters by the victim’s mother, who reported that the suspect accused her son of stealing a N3,000 from her purse, consequent upon which she used a razor blade to inflict serious cuts all over his body. Acting on the report, the DPO Agbado division, CSP Kehinde Kuranga, detailed his detectives to the scene where the suspect was arrested. Suspect: Shade Adelowo . He said: “On interrogation, she claimed that the victim, who used to stay with her whenever his mother was not around, stole N3,000 from her purse, a...

By Ayomikun Emmanuel & Ayo Adedigba CRISTIANO Ronaldo's late heading saw Manchester United come from 2-0 down at half-time to produce a stunning second-half comeback to relieve the pressure on Coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with a 3-2 victory against Atalanta on a dramatic Champions League night at Old Trafford. Solskjaer's position at United was firmly in the spotlight Saturday's 4-2 defeat by Leicester and the pressure looked to be mounting on the Norwegian as goals from Mario Pasalic and Merih Demiral saw Atalanta take a 2-0 lead into the interval. The half-time whistle was greeted by boos from the home fans but whatever Solskjaer said to his side at the break worked wonders as goals from Marcus Rashford (53) and Harry Maguire (75) brought the home side level with 15 minutes to play. It was all set up for a grandstand finish and with time running out, it was that man Ronaldo who provided the finishing touch, heading home to complete what was a sensational comeback from ...

YOUTHS in Ondo and Oyo states, yesterday, defied warnings by the Nigeria Police against planned protests, to mark the first anniversary of the EndSARS protests, as they staged peaceful protests in Ibadan and Akure, and lamented the unending police brutality meted out at them. The protesters were, however, monitored by heavily armed policemen and men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps, NSCDC, who were stationed at major flashpoints in the cities. In Ibadan, Oyo State, the protest, which began around 9 am from the Iwo-Road area, lasted about three hours, as the youths moved in groups to Idi-Ape, Agodi and down to the state secretariat main gate, where they were addressed by the Executive Assistant to Governor Seyi Makinde on Security Matters, Mr. Sunday Odukoya. The protesters, who displayed placards with various inscriptions such as ‘End Police Brutality', 'Free Sunday Igboho, Lady K’, demanded the release of nine detained protesters arrested during last year’s End...

THE pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has warned that the trial of IPoB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and persecution of other self-determination agitators, is an ill wind that will blow the Muhammadu Buhari administration and Nigeria no good. In a statement by its General Secretary, Sola Ebiseni, Afenifere said: “Without prejudice to the determination of the case by the court, it is clear that its end will certainly compound agitations on the national question, an ill-wind that will blow the Buhari administration and Nigeria no good.” The statement reads: “With the amended seven-count charge against Nnamdi Kanu, as released by the press, it appears the Federal Government has come to its wit’s end in the case with the Biafran leader and self-determination agitations generally.  “It is time that the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, exercises authoritative superintendence over his office as the Chief Law Officer and Adviser o...

THE Appeal Court, sitting in Lagos, has reserved November 9, 2021, for hearing of an appeal filed by the Lambo branch of Lasunwon Ruling House challenging the installation of Kabiru Shotobi as the Oba Ayangburen of Ikorodu, in Lagos State.  The appellate court, presided over by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, fixed the date to hear the matter, after granting appellants’ motion for extension of time within which to regularise their brief of argument.  The Lambo branch of Lasuwon Ruling House had challenged the judgment of a Lagos High Court, delivered by Justice M. A. Savage, on May 24, 2015, in Suit No: IKD/454/2014, which confirmed Kabiru Shotobi as the Oba Ayangburen of Ikorodu, Lagos State.  The appellants/applicants are Matthew Shodipo, Omobo Sokelu, Shakiru Shodipo, Nurudeen Fakomaya and Albert Ania. They are urging the court to allow the appeal and set aside the judgment of the lower court. The Appellants in their Notice of Appeal filed by their lawyer, Mr Adedamola Solesi,...

VIDEO of the 14-year-old girl allegedly defiled by Nollywood actor, James Olanrewaju, fondly called Baba Ijesha, was yesterday, shown at an Ikeja Sexual Offences Court.  At the sitting, the court played a tape recording of the victim’s interview with Child Rights Advocate, Bisi Kayode.  In the video, the victim narrated how Baba Ijesha allegedly assaulted her seven years ago, when she was just seven years old, and how he tried again recently after she turned 14. The minor said the actor visited the house where she was staying with her guardian, Comedienne Oluwadamilola Adekoya, better known as Princess, and brought out his penis, and then asked her to sit on his lap. She said she was engrossed in the cartoon she was watching on television, so she sat on his lap until she felt something wet on her body. “I didn’t make a sound after seeing his private part. I sat on his laps myself and removed my pant, because of my concentration on the cartoon I was watching,” she said in the ...

ACTING National Leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, has explained that the group’s visit to National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, was not centered around the 2023 presidential election, but to felicitate with him on his recovery.  Afenifere leaders had visited Tinubu to felicitate with him, after undergoing successful surgery in London. They include Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Supo Sonibare, Oba Olaitan Oladipo, and retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, Tunji Alapini. This is coming days after Tinubu returned from a medical trip to the United Kingdom where he underwent knee surgery. Giving details about their visit to the former Lagos State governor, Adebanjo dismissed insinuations that the visit was centered on Tinubu’s rumoured presidential ambition.  Adebanjo said: “There is no noise over 2023. Here is somebody who went to London for surgery and people were trooping there ...

Ebiseni . By Shola Ebiseni  WHILE Nigerians were still battling with the absurdity of the primitive legislation that erected impregnable obstacles on the way of electronic transfer of election results, the Nigerian Parliament, that is, the National Assembly is up with yet another move to strangle the electoral process and by extension, the Nigerian democracy. As the National Assembly was rushing for recess in July, it delved into two pieces of legislations that are of most important effects, one for the economy and the other on the nation’s political life. It was the Petroleum Industry Bill (now Act) which muzzles the main stay of the economy and the Electoral Act which, in the main regulates the nation’s political life.  The NASS decided to take away the last and least vestiges of independence of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. Such little issue as electronic transfer of results was denied INEC which by Section 52 (2) and (3) must take permission from th...