The Ondo State Government has reversed the order of the Deji of Akure, Oba Aladetoyinbo Aladelusi, to close markets over traditional festival celebrations.
The monarch ordered the closure of markets to observe the annual Aheregbe Festival on Friday, but the government criticized the order, claiming it infringed on the fundamental human rights of Akure residents.
The state’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mrs. Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, stated that the decision was reached at the state Executive Council meeting and that the closure would have been limited to Oja-Oba (Oba’s Market) in Akure.
The statement urged Akure residents to go about their normal business on Friday and beyond, urging them to be law-abiding and move about freely in the pursuit of happiness.
Ekiti State Government has dissociated itself from the purported advertisement circulated online asking unsuspecting individuals to apply for N5bn Federal Government Palliative funds.
This was contained in statement signed and issued out today to the newsmen by the Commissioner for Information, Hon. Taiwo Olatubosun as read in part:
“It has come to the notice of the Government of Ekiti State that some fraudsters masquerading as agents of the State have placed advertisements in some online platforms asking unsuspecting members of the public to apply for the N5 billion Federal Government palliative funds.
“The Ekiti State Government hereby unequivocally disowns all online and any other form of advertisements requesting for applications to benefit from the palliative funds.
“The good people of the State are therefore advised to ignore all unauthorized advertisements purportedly placed on behalf of the State Government.
“The Government has its official channels of communicating its decisions to the Public. Members of the public are also urged to contact the Office of the State Commissioner for information for clarifications and enquiries”.
There was panic in Tinumola area of Osogbo, the capital of Osun State on Wednesday when a tenant reported to be an officer of the Directorate of State Security Service (DSS) allegedly stabbed his caretaker, Omosola Oladele after an argument over payment of an electricity bill.
The crisis ensued on Tuesday night when fellow neighbours reported the DSS officer who was simply identified as Tifase to the caretaker about his nonchalant attitude to bills in the house.
According to the Nigerian Tribune, an eyewitness disclosed the DSS officer stabbed the caretaker with a dagger after he asked him about payment of an electricity bill.
The 60-year-old caretaker, Oladele narrated his ordeal on hospital bed that “One of the tenants of the storey building reported to me that NEPA people came to cut light because they’ve paid the current electricity. She said that only two people, Tifase and one other person, have not paid.
“NEPA would have disconnected the light if people didn’t intervene but he angrily told me ‘they should cut it’. One of the eyewitnesses told him he should apologise for the utterance but instead, he went inside and came out with a dagger and stabbed me.”
While narrating the incident, one of the eyewitnesses, Comrade Morounkola Tosin, said that the issue started on the 16th of August when the occupants of the house needed to pay electricity bills.
“Some people have volunteered to pay the electricity bills but what they are asking for was a refund before he came out with a dagger to stab Mr Oladele.
“We rushed Mr Oladele to hospital and I went to report the case to Dada Estate Police Station. Before I came back from the police station I met some DS’s operatives who said they cannot hand him over to the police because he is their operative.”
Confirming the incident, the Osun State Commissioner for Police, Kehinde Longe spoke with News reporter on a phone call and said that he was yet to be briefed about the incident at the time of the call.
The chairman of the Senate committee on appropriations, Solomon Adeola, on Monday, said soldiers operating checkpoints around the Ikeja axis of Lagos state allegedly robbed and killed his aide, Adeniyi Oluwatosin Sanni, on Saturday, August 5, 2023. Senator Adeola made this revelation in a statement he personally signed and made available to reporters in Abuja through his media aide, Kayode Odunaro.
Shortly after the incident, Adeola said he had information that Sanni was stopped at a checkpoint around the Ojodu-Berger area of Lagos on his way to his home at Isheri by “security agents.”
He added that the deceased was asked to provide the documents of the car he was driving, which he did through a call to his wife who sent all the documents to his phone through a WhatsApp message.
The senator noted that when the wife called a while later, the late husband told him soldiers were still checking the vehicle’s particulars.
It was gathered that that was said to have been their last conversation before she was informed of the discovery of Sanni’s corpse, riddled with bullets, at the Toyota Bus Stop area of Oshodi, close to a military barrack.
Adeola said: “I am of the firm belief, based on available facts at the disposal of the Police that my aide was killed by a syndicate of soldiers operating under the newly deployed Commander of 9 Brigade, Ikeja Cantonment of the Nigeria Army, Brigadier General Nsikan John Edet, through mounting of checkpoints and robbing of lone occupants of cars.
“Top police sources familiar with the investigation informed me that a similar brutal killing and armed robbery occurred around the same Ojodu- Berger late Thursday night of August 17, 2023, resulting in the killing of another Nigerian whose body was discovered around Iyana-Ipaja after he was taken away by soldiers from the checkpoint.
“Unknown to the soldiers, the occupant of the car they killed and took away his car was the second car in a convoy of two heading towards the same destination. The first car passed the soldiers checkpoint but the second car was stopped to check his vehicle’s papers.
“On noticing the absence of the second car after a while, the occupant of the first car (name withheld) placed a call to his colleague in the second car who informed him that he was being taken to Iyana-Ipaja by the soldiers at the checkpoint.
Senator Adeola further stated: “That was the last he heard from him and his dead body was later discovered dumped on the road just like Mr. Sanni.
“The survivor in the first car reported the case to the Police and a pattern of armed robbery and killing in the area involving men in Army uniform was established.”
Adeola, therefore, called on the Chief of Army Staff, Major General Taoreed Lagbaja, to direct the fishing out of the killers of his aide for further investigation, prosecution, and justice for the deceased.
He said such a pattern of killings and armed robbery had been established against soldiers mounting late-night checkpoints around Ikeja with similar unreported incidents in recent times around Ikeja.
He added that the Nigerian Army cannot be seen to condone or harbour rogue elements robbing and killing innocent Nigerians within its fold.
According to him, “Till date, the black Toyota Camry of Mr. Sanni, his phones, and other valuables are yet to be recovered.”
The Lagos State House of Assembly on Wednesday confirmed 22 out of the 39 cabinet nominees sent recently by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for screening.
Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, who presided over the day’s sitting, said the confirmation followed rigorous and detailed screening of the nominees by a ad-hoc committee led by the Chief Whip of the House, Hon. Fatai Mojeed.
He commended the committee for its effectiveness and urged the confirmed nominees to always remember that they are in office to serve the people of the State and not individuals.
He also promised that the House would continue to do its best in the interest of the State.
The confirmation was done through a voice vote as Dr. Obasa mentioned the name of each of the nominees.
However, the lawmakers rejected 17 of the nominees.
Those confirmed include: Hon. Layode Ibrahim Mr. Mobolaji Ogunlende Dr. Dolapo Fasawe Hon. Bola Olumegbon Mr. Idris Aregbe Ms. Abisola Ruth Olusanya Mr. Moruf Akinderu Fatai Mr. Kayode Bolaji-Roberts Engr. Abiola Olowu Mrs. Toke Benson-Awoyinka Dr. Oreoluwa Finnih- Awokoya Mr. Yakub Adedayo Alebiosu Mr. Lawal Pedro SAN Mr. Tunbosun Alake Mr. Gbenga Oyerinde Dr. Adekunle Olayinka Dr. Jide Babatunde Mr. Afolabi Ayantayo Mr. Tokunbo Wahab Mr. Olakunle Rotimi-Akodu Mr. Jamiu Alli-Balogun Mr. Abdulkabir Ogungbo
Those not confirmed by the House include:
Mrs. Folashade Adefisayo Prof. Akin Abayomi Mr. Yomi Oluyomi Mrs. Folashade Ambrose Ms. Barakat Bakare Mr. Gbenga Omotosho Engr. Olalere Odusote; Dr. Rotimi Fashola Mrs. Bolaji Cecilia Dada Mr. Sam Egube; Mr. Olalekan Fatodu Mrs. Solape Hammond Mr. Mosopefolu George Engr. Aramide Adeyoye Mr. Seun Osiyemi Mr Rotimi Ogunwuyi Dr. Olumide Oluyinka
Before the exercise, Hon Mojeed Fatai briefed the House on the outcome of the screening exercise.
Eromosele Ebhomele Media aide to the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly.
The immediate past Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has restated his commitment to progressive ideals and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State even as he stated that political parties are amalgamation of different interests and tendencies.
Ogbeni Aregbesola renewed his commitment to the party during the launch of Omoluabi Caucus of the All Progressives Congress in Ilesa, on Tuesday, August 22, 2023.
Describing the Omoluabi Caucus as one of the many caucuses in the state, the former two-term governor of Osun, noted that the caucus is not a faction of the party, but a union of like-minds in the state.
“The Omoluabi Tendency is a caucus within the All Progressives Congress (APC); actually one of the caucuses in the state. We are not a faction. We are the genuine foundation members of the party and we have no intention of abandoning the ship of the party as it navigates the most turbulent waters. We are no sprinters, but long-distance runners and we will still be standing when all the fair-weathers have gone.
“A political party is actually an agglomeration of interests and tendencies. Reading well from the United States where we borrowed the Presidential System, we can see that the Republican Party is made up of big businesses, nationalists, religious right and others. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is composed of welfarists, labour unions, ethnic and sexual minorities and others.
“What we have come to do here today is to renew our commitment to the path of progressive ideology and politics as inherited from our great past heroes, beginning from Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin, Chief Abraham Adesanya, Chief Bola Ige and others in the pantheon of progressive politics too numerous to mention.
“Emerging from the ashes of the near annihilation of our party in the governorship election of 2022 and the general election earlier this year, we should rise up and renew our strength and reclaim our place in the political firmament in Osun.
“We have been at this juncture before, after the 2003 election in which our party lost the stakes and was at its nadir in the state. At that point, likeminded progressives under the banner of Oranmiyan emerged to begin a movement that mobilised our members and the people of the state into a veritable electoral machine that won the 2007 governorship election which ushered an epoch making two term administration in the state and handed over to a successor from our party,” Ogbeni Aregbesola stated.
Ogbeni Aregbesola stated that it is clear the people have not rejected the progressives in Osun, giving the warm reception accorded to his tendency; they were only unhappy with the managers of the party at that time.
“Given the enthusiastic and heartfelt reception accorded us by the people anytime we are in the state, it is clear that they did not reject us or our party. They are only not well pleased with the individuals who have turned our party to personal fiefdom and abandoned the path of progressivism and the interest of the people.
“Our party failed principally because of indiscipline and lack/loss of focus. This is manifested in form of lack of character and incompetence. Character is the mental and moral qualities required in an individual to occupy certain office or perform certain task. Competence is the skill required to get specific task done. It is bad when one of the two is absent, but it is always catastrophic when both are absent. It is beyond disputation how the absence of these virtues spelt doom for our party in the recent past.
“These virtues are integral to the Omoluabi ethos in Yoruba belief system. When we were at the helm here, we not only lived this ethos, we made conscious effort to revive and promote it among the generality of the people of the state. We should therefore consciously return to this path of rectitude and distinguish ourselves as Omoluabi in its most pristine form,” Ogbeni Aregbesola charged members of the newly formed caucus”.
After the formal launch of the caucus, the group adopted its charter which includes; Progressivism, Omoluabi Ethos, Discipline, Competence and Inclusivity as its core values.
Members of the caucus are drawn from each ward of the 332 wards in the state and were represented by five members each from each of the local governments in the state.
The General Overseer of Deeper Life Church, Pastor Williams Kumuyi says Nigerians should be rest assured that God will rebuild the nation through President Bola Tinubu.
Speaking in Osogbo, Osun State on Tuesday, August 22, he said: “Let’s forget the past. This is a new day and I believe; we all believe that we’re going to see new things for our country through our President and through the members of the cabinet. Good things will happen.
If you look at the new ministers one by one, you’ll see the good things they’ve done either as state governors in the past or as former ministers and I would say they have been carefully chosen. If we support and accept them and if we are not criticising their every step, we believe that God will walk through them and use them as instruments to build our nation.
God will perform a miracle in the heart of our leaders and their hearts will be towards the people and the wisdom to lead us and do everything that will benefit us as a country, the Lord himself will do it in their hearts.”
Reacting to the post, an Instagram user identified as @tide_benison commented thus:
“I will be surprised to even see any Nigeria men of God in heaven cos with all this evil and atrocities this politicians committed you still see the so called men of God supporting them.”
The traditional worshippers in Oyo state have appealed to the state governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde to establish a board for the religious body in order to strengthen their religious practices.
They made the appeal during a thank you visit to the Oyo State House of Assembly, in appreciation of the effort of lawmakers towards the approval of August 20 as annual Iseese Day by the state governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde.
Speaking with newsmen shortly after the visit, the Araba Olu Iseese of Ibadan and Chairman of Araba & Oluawo of Oyo State, Chief Ifalere Odegbola, explained that the board when put in place would aid the governor’s aspirations on the culture and tourism sector of the state.
Chief Odegbola, expressed belief that the development would not only boost the state’s international relations, it will improve its internally generated revenue as well serve as a regulatory body for the traditional worshippers in the state.
Also speaking, the Aare Isese of Oyo State, Chief Omikemi Egbelade said the purpose of the Isese Day being celebrated on the 20th of August yearly was not only to promote cultural heritage but to ensure that cultural values among children and youths do not go into extinction.
He decried the situation where children have little or no knowledge about their family heritage, calling on parents, guidance and stakeholders to instill in their wards the importance of traditional history to national development
Chief Odegbola and Chief Egbelade, however, commended Governor Seyi Makinde, the speaker of the house, Mr. Adebo Ogundoyin and the assembly members for their supports at ensuring the annual Iseese Day see the light of the day.
The stalwarts of Peoples Democratic Party PDP in Oyo West Local Government stormed Oyo State Secretariat today to protest against what they referred to as alleged imposition of PDP candidate for Oyo West Local Government in the forthcoming council election.
The PDP loyalists who carried placards with various inscriptions stormed the State Assembly today to register their grievances.
The Spokesman of the Group, Comrade Olayiwola Jeleel Olalekan while speaking to ODUDUWA NEWS said they would not accept any attempt to impose candidate in their local government.
He said the Party has already settled down for a candidate after the screening, stating that they followed due process based on the zoning arrangement. He said the incumbent chairman was from Zone A and that their usual tradition is to select from another zone.
He further averred that there was an internal party primary held at Rt Hon Olawale Atilola’s residence known as Walat Court, Oyo London area, Ojongbodu, Oyo State on Wednesday, 12th July 2023, which had in attendance all 23 stakeholders as well as 17th Chairmanship aspirants. The primary produced Engr. Seyi Makinde’s ex-Campaign Director General in Oyo West Local Government, Hon. Afolabi Idris (Aloma) who emerged with 13 votes out of 23 votes while other aspirants got one vote each.
“In our traditional way, the leaders and stakeholders agreed in the spirit of fairness, unity, and equity to announce Hon. Afolabi Idris (a.k.a Aloma) as the party’s candidate for the forthcoming local government election.
“Going by the consensus arrangement and endorsement by the party stakeholders and other aspirants reaffirmed the Candidacy of Hon. Afolabi Idris popularly known as Aloma as the Party’s candidate”, said by the Group’s Spokesman.
He however called on Governor Seyi Makinde and other PDP stakeholders to prevail on the party leaders not to tamper with the mandate given to Aloma and respect the people’s choice that has been duly elected by the party as against the imposition of the incumbent Local Government Chairman as candidate.
The Deputy Speaker, Hon. Fadeyi while addressing the protestors assured them that their protest letter will be delivered to the Speaker and that they would address it at the stakeholders’ meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP.
Fadeyi while assuring them of ensuring justice charged the protestors to continue to be law abiding as their grievances have been duly noted.
An Abeokuta Magistrates’ Court on Friday remanded a 37-year-old man, Taiwo Ishola, for killing his younger brother’s two children
The defendant whose address was not provided is facing a one-count charge of murder.
The Police Counsel, F.A. Oyewole who moved a motion in relation to Section 306 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Laws of Ogun, prayed for an order to remand the defendant.
Oyewole asked for the defendant’s remand for 60 days in the first instance at the Oba Correctional Centre pending advice from the state Director of Public Prosecution (DPP).
According to the counsel, Ishola committed the offence on Aug. 5 at about 5:30 p.m. at Mile 6 area of Obafe road in Abeokuta.
He said the defendant killed one Promise Ishola, 9, and Testimony Ishola, 7, the sons of his younger brother Idowu Ishola.
Oyewole also alleged that the defendant used a matchete to cut the children’s heads and other parts of their bodies, leading to their death.
The counsel explained that the defendant went to the younger brother’s house and picked them with a motorcycle when their parents were not around.
He said when the parents of the deceased came back from work and noticed their children were not at home, they went searching for them.
It was then a co-landlord in their area told them they saw the kids with Taiwo who is his elder brother.
When the defendant was asked, he said he did not see the children, which made the co-landlord to declare that he was a suspect.
This prompted the deceased children’s father to report his brother to the police. Upon his arrest and during investigation, the defendant made a confessional statement that he killed his two nieces inside the bush.
The police later went to the scene of the crime and found the remains of the children. Oyewole however said the offences committed contravenes section 316 and 319 of the Criminal Code Laws of Ogun 2006.
The Chief Magistrate, Mrs Esther Idowu, ordered that the defendant be remanded at the Oba correctional centre, pending legal advice from state DPP. She thereafter adjorned the case until Oct. 16 for mention. We
