TheNewsGuru

Tag: Family

  • Eight family members killed in house fire

    Eight family members killed in house fire

    Eight members of a family died after a fire believed to have been caused by an electricity malfunction broke out at a house in Northern Bangladesh, rescuers said on Thursday.

    Firefighter Sirajul Islam said three people died immediately when the fire began to burn after the family went to bed on Wednesday night inside their locked one-storey tin-roofed home in Joypurhat district’s Arambagh.

    He added that five others were rescued when local residents and firefighters broke open the locked gate to the home, located almost 280 kilometres north-west of the capital Dhaka.

    The rescued people all later died in hospital, district police chief Rashidul Hasan said.

    Four children and two women were among the deceased, he added.

    An investigation has been launched into the incident.

    dpa/NAN

  • Family from hell – Francis Ewherido

    By Francis Ewherido

    I have written more articles on paedophilia, rape and incest than any other topic since I started this column about five years ago. So when the story of the 13-year-old Ochanya Elizabeth Ogbanje broke, my mindset was “the same old story” and decided not write on it.

    I rationalized my decision that by the time the article comes out today, it would be over two weeks since Ochanya died and the story would be stale news. After all, Nigeria is a theatre and new movies debut every day. But something inside me kept rumbling. The opposite of the reason I did not want to write is the reason I am writing today. I want this case to be on the front burner till we see the end.

    For the few, who might not know, this is the story out there. At age five, Ochanya left her village where there were no schools to live with a relative, Felicia Ogbuja and her family, so that she could go to school and live a better life than her peasant farmer-parents. From age eight, the son of the relative, Victor Ogbuja, started abusing her sexually. He was caught and reported to his father, Andrew Ogbuja, who probably feigned anger and scolded his son.

    But Mr. Ogbuja’s real anger was probably that his son got there before him. He was probably waiting for Ochanya to mature a little before he started sleeping with her.

    But once he found out that his son had beaten him to it, he joined the son in the rape and sodomisation of Ochanya. They stuck their filthy d**ks in every openings they saw in Ochanya’s mid-region. The fact that the young Ochanya was a minor and her sex organs were underdeveloped was inconsequential. They drugged and sexually abused Ochanya until she developed vesicovaginal fistula (VVF) and the accompanying complications that eventually took her life on October 17.

    I have a nine-year-old daughter. She is even a year older than when Victor started abusing Ochanya before his equally perverted father joined him. They took turns to gradually destroy this young and beautiful soul. I have heard of parents who killed their children’s abusers in fits of anger. Empathising with these parents, I will be very lenient if I were a judge and such cases came to my court.

    Many people have been wondering where Felicia Ogbuja, mother of Victor, wife of Andrew Ogbuja and aunt of Ochanya, was over the years when the abuse took place. She was very much under the same roof, but claimed ignorance. This is atypical of an ever-vigilant African mother. My takes are: One, she did not give a damn about what happened to her young relative. Two, her house (you cannot call it a home) is Sodom and Gomorrah where everything goes. She might also be doing her own thing while her husband also looked the other way. Three, I wanted to suggest that she might be a slave-wife who could not challenge her husband. But then I thought, even if she could not challenge her husband, what about her son, who started the abuse. Oh, she was not aware!

    People like the Ogbujas should not be part of humanity; they are sub-humans. A singular abuse could have been explained as a mistake, but repeated abuse over five years is evil and subhuman. Both father and son are very lucky. In some places that I know, they would have been history by now like Ochanya. And to think that Andrew Ogbuja is even well educated and heads a department in a polytechnic makes it even more annoying. We need to pay more attention to details in this part of the world. How can a deviant like this be part of the formation of people’s children? He might be innocent until proven guilty, he should be suspended from the school system until the case is decided.

    That is exactly what the Knights of St. Mulumba have done. Last Wednesday, they appropriately took up a full page newspaper advertorial to acknowledge his membership of the order. They also acknowledged his innocence until proven guilty, but suspended him from the order until he proves his innocence. I was shocked when I stumbled on the photo of Andrew Ogbuja and his wife in Knights of St. Mulumba uniform. So Ogbuja is a worthy brother, as the knights refer to themselves, I said to myself. But this act is very unworthy even of a non-soldier of Christ, not to talk of a soldier of Christ, as the knights pride themselves. The knights must take a second look at the criteria for recruiting new members. In those days, the criteria were stringent and they also did due diligence. The knighthood is neither a status symbol nor a place to shore up your respectability. It is a higher calling to service in Christendom and your lifestyle should reflect it.

    As I was writing, I read about a 42-year-old man, who allegedly sexually abused a two-year-old daughter of his neighbour. And the idiot was denying, even when he ejaculated into the little girl, the incriminating semen was still there, and she said he is the culprit. People have been asking, why are we hearing of more cases of rapes, incest and paedophilia these days? Is it that they went unreported in the past or we are having more cases? Whatever the true position is, the society, law enforcement agents and the judiciary should do much more. We are simply not doing enough. Suspects who have money and connections still get away with these heinous crimes. In addition, some cases are being swept under the carpet in the guise of family matter. I have asked in the past and I ask again, what is family matter about paedophilia, rape or incest? These are crimes, not civil matters, and it behoves the government and its agencies to bring culprits to book and get convictions for the victims.

    `Consequently, the financial status of the victims or their families should not be an issue. But it is in Nigeria. Victims from poor families are denied justice, while suspects with money, even little money, go scot free. That was the case with Ochanya until the good people of Benue State brought it to the front burner. All people of good conscience in religious places, within families and in schools must continue to fight against all forms of sex abuse, especially against minors. Incidentally, many of the cases of these heinous sex crimes happen in these same places. Therefore, sex education should be taught at home, in schools and in religious places so that they can act as check and balance against one another. Outside these three places, children scarcely have any other place of refuge. At least one of them should provide the child refuge at any time.

    Sex has become so cheap and commonplace that you wonder why people have to commit crime to get it. Even if you strip it of morality, sex must be consensual and restricted to majority (adults). Ochanya and other victims of sex abuse must get justice. That is the minimum expected from a decent society that we claim to be.

  • Family political meetings – Francis Ewherido

    By Francis Ewherido
    The party primaries are over and we now have a clear idea of politicians who want to rule and represent us from 2019 to 2023.
    Some are incumbents; others are aspiring to replace the incumbents. Government is arguably the biggest external factor shaping family life in Nigeria.
    Government plays a major role in our sources of livelihood, education, health, infrastructure, etc., in Nigeria. Being aloof of who governs or represents us is no longer an option.
    This is not only about belonging to a political party, not everybody has the stomach for what we call partisan politics in Nigeria. But even as imperfect as our democracy is, I know that power still belongs to the people. Electoral malpractices or not, voters will determine who governs them in 2019.
    Consequently, the electorates need to start asking critical questions. The major challenge though is that the electorates are confronted with multi-faced afflictions; they are mentally and physically pauperized, perplexed and totally drained. They do not even realize the enormous powers they wield anymore.
    But the voters must still remember that they are “afflicted in every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (II Corinthians 4:8-9).
    They still hold the ace and it is time to deliver the joker.
    Family units must come together and begin to ask critical questions. Judgment day is here and the criteria for judgment are the very promises each political office holder made. How has your family faired? How far have these promises been fulfilled? If you are satisfied with the level of fulfillment of previous campaign promises, you may vote for the candidate again.
    But if he has not fulfilled his promises, he has to tell you why. If you are satisfied with his explanations and you feel he is better than his challengers, vote for him. But if a better candidate is challenging him, let “better” take over from “good.”
    But where he does not even deem it fit to tell you why he failed, vote him out. Also where he does not even know he has failed or thinks his mediocre performance is good enough, vote him out.
    As for other contenders for positions, what are their antecedents? Nobody drops from the sky. They must have held positions before, either in the public or private sector.
    Are they the kind of people who understand our peculiar needs and can put policies in place to solve them? Do their campaign promises suggest that they understand the issues dear to the people they want to govern. The latter must be better than the former.
    Also the electorate need to have some clarity of what they really want so that they can know what to demand and expect from the candidates asking for their votes. Right from the national to state levels, what are the critical issues now? Nigerians need a better performing economy. We need jobs, we need stable electricity. We need good roads, good rails and other efficient means of transportation. .
    We need a friendly business environment so that the small and medium scale businesses that employ millions of Nigerians can strive again. We need to retune our educational system to suit our current circumstances. We produce too many graduates who are not functional to themselves and the society. We need a new health system that takes care of everybody’s basic needs at a base cost and can also handle the more complicated cases that costs millions of Naira. Since many Nigerians cannot afford expensive medical treatment, we need to come up with a functional health insurance scheme to help make advanced medical treatment affordable to the ordinary Nigerian.
    Nigeria has enormous potentials, but we need leaders who have the capacity and courage to unlock these potentials for the rapid transformation of Nigeria and Nigerians. Our growth is currently being stunted because of the economic and political weakness of the confederating units (we are not a operating a federation in the true sense). We need a true federal system of government. The federal government is too big and powerful and it is an impediment to the speedy development of Nigeria. We need to take some powers from the central government and create stronger regional units closer to the people, not these ineffectual local government areas. We need men of courage and intellectual capacity both in the executive and legislature to do this.
    In this onerous task of charting a new course, let us put gender consideration by the side. The truth is that just like the men, some of the women, who have been in government, have been good while others have been horrendous. What we need are courageous and visionary Nigerians, male or female. Gender considerations should be secondary.
    In addition, Nigeria has competent people from all parts, so even if we want to bring in zoning or federal character, each zone should bring its first 11. We do not need mediocres at this critical stage of our development.
    A source of worry though is the allure of immediate gains. People going into elections are being drained. Voters collect money before they vote, delegates collect money before voting; everybody is just into what I can get now. Notwithstanding what you choose to do on the short term, please let us focus on the long term.
    What can N5000 or even $5000 immediate gain do for you over the next four years? But good roads, good schools, good health care system, strong economy can do you and your family a world of good over the next four years. These are issues we should be concerned with.
    Now, I know many of our people are illiterates and even many who can read and write need guidance. Beyond your immediate families, those among us with the capacity need to move around and enlighten those around them so that the scales can fall their eyes.
    We need a new paradigm. Do not be encumbered by ethnicity, gender, religion, party affiliations and lure of personal and immediate gains. Let us elect people who have the capacity to fix our society.
    The power is in the hands of voters. Voters come from family units, so the power is in the hands of families. When they say Nigeria has 87 million people who are extremely poor, it is not just statistics; they are talking about fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, children, cousins, nephews and nieces.
    They are talking about families. Nigerian families must take their destinies in their hands, beginning from now.

  • Online scammers using Baba Sala’s name to make money- Son

    Online scammers using Baba Sala’s name to make money- Son

    The family of the late Moses Adejumo, popularly known as Baba Sala, has advised unwary members of the public against falling for the ruses of some fraudsters who have opened an online account for the funeral of the comedian.
    The oldest son of the comedian, Rev’d Bamidele Adejumo said the family had not opened any account for the burial of his father contrary to the claims of some fraudsters.
    Bamidele noted that the family was embarrassed that some persons had opened a fake account and asking funds from members of the public.
     
    Speaking in a chat with Punch, he said: “We have not opened any PayPal account or any online account. The claim is false information. The family has not asked for anything from anybody. We have not met and nobody is soliciting anything from anybody yet. If we will be expecting anything from any fans, admirers or anybody at all, it will be freewill donation.
    “We have not opened any PayPal site or any intent account for people to donate to. Anybody who wants to donate anything to the family should please come to the family in Ilesa. Such people can come with pressmen and take photographs to document it.
    “They should have standard record and avoid fraudsters. They should avoid fraudsters, who are posing as members of the family.”
     

  • Disaster: Generator fumes kill family if eight in Cross River

    The decomposing bodies of 8 Cameroonian refugees were discovered in their room in Ikom, Cross River State today July 28th.

    According to reports, the dead persons were refugees who fled Cameroon following the trouble in their area and sought solace in Cross River state after crossing the border.

    People suspect they might have died from generator fumes and might have been dead for days considering the decomposing state of their bodies.

    The bodies have been evacuated while investigation is ongoing

    Graphic photos below:

     

  • Otedola fire accident: 9 bodies have been matched to 9 families, says LASG

    The Lagos State Government says nine bodies from the Otedola Link Bridge fire incident which occurred on June 28 have been successfully matched to the families.

    In a statement, the Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, said that 11 families had showed up at Lagos State DNA and Forensic Centre (LSD&FC) for testing and only nine families had been matched.

    “”On July 5 2018, samples from the incident were picked up by LSD&FC staff from the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) Forensic Pathologist, under secured chain of custody.

    “”Reference DNA profiles were generated at LSD&FC from representative family members and compared to the DNA profiles generated from the victims’ samples received from the Forensic Pathologist.

    “”Based on the DNA analysis performed at LSD&FC, all victim samples were successfully matched to relatives’ samples.

    “”Nine bodies have been successfully matched to nine families, out of the 11 families that showed up at LSD&FC.

    “”They are now ready to be handed over to the rightful families for necessary burial arrangements.”

    He said “collection of the remains would commence from 10.00am July 28 at the Seminar Room of the Pathology & Forensic Medicine Department of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja.

    The commissioner said that this was the first time unidentified victims of a mass disaster had been successfully identified locally using DNA technology.

    He said that the identification process was completed in less than four weeks after the incident as against over six months when the practice was to take samples abroad for analysis.

    ““I also wish to note that rigorous effort is made in ensuring that errors are reduced to the barest minimum in order not to compound the agony already being experienced by the bereaved families.

    “”As a government, we share the concerns and anxiety of the affected families and associates on the identification and the need for prompt release of the remains of their loved ones.

    ““However we believe that the thorough investigation which was conducted is in the best interest of all concerned.

    “We wish to reiterate that the entire cost of management and treatment of the surviving victims and DNA forensics for the dead and their families was borne by the State Government, “ Idris said.

    He said that some of the victims of the accident were currently being treated at the Trauma & Burns Centre, Gbagada General Hospital and LASUTH and were responding to treatment.

    According to him 10 patients were admitted at the state’s various hospitals, two died, three have been discharged and five are still on admission.

    NAN reports that the idris had on July 2 confirmed 12 casualties in the June 28 petrol tanker explosion on Otedola Link Bridge.

    According to him, 10 of the victims, including a minor, died at the scene of the accident, while two others died at the hospital.

    NAN

  • Watch: Femi Otedola sets Instagram ablaze, dances with daughters

    Though Nigerian Billionare oil mogul, Femi Otedola is new on Instagram, he already has a verified account and enjoying massive engagement online.

    The revered entrepreneur who joined Instagram in February set the photo sharing site on fire by posting a video last night which has enjoyed a lot of views.

    In the video posted, the billionaire was seen dancing to Davido’s hit song, Omo Baba Lowo, with his daughters.

    No one knew what triggered the dance but it has generated a myriad of opinions from Nigerians .

     

     

     

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BgJEDU2jS_S/?taken-by=femiotedola

    You can only have a fulfilled sex life, if you experience it before marriage- Jane Obi

  • Melaye, family hold thanksgiving to mark Birthday, New Year celebrations

    Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Dino Melaye will on Sunday (tomorrow) along with his family members hold a special thanksgiving service to mark his Birthday and the New Year.

    This was revealed in a statement signed and released on Saturday by the Senator.

    Read full statement below:

    “The year 2017 has come and gone with its social, economic and political turbulences. Many were blown away, many were injured and many remain unshaken in the turbulent year up till the New Year 2018 – this is not by our might or any other power save for the mercy of one and only God.

    As a living testimony of God’s immeasurable love for mankind since my birth and as sanctioned by the Holy Bible in the book of 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” – that in whatever condition we find ourselves, we should remain grateful to the Almighty God.

    In view of the foregoing and by the special grace of God, I will step out along with my family members for a special Thanksgiving Service in my honour tomorrow, Sunday, January 7, 2018.

    The thanksgiving service, which will commence by 9.30am prompt, will take place at the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Central Parish located on Aminu Kano Crescent by Globalcom office in Wuse 2, Abuja.

    Kindly join us to celebrate God’s faithfulness”.

  • Osinbajo, family jet out to UAE on vacation

    Osinbajo, family jet out to UAE on vacation

    Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and his family on Wednesday travelled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on his annual vacation.

    This was revealed by the Vice President’s spokesperson Laolu Akande, in a tweet Wednesday.

    “VP Osinbajo, his wife & children have been resting abroad on his annual leave. He is expected back in the country this weekend from the UAE,” Akande said.

  • Mandela’s family fumes over disappearance of $22m during funeral preparations

    The family and close associates of late Nelson Mandela have expressed “indignation and dismay” at allegations that officials stole and misspent $22m intended for the anti-apartheid icon’s memorial events after his death in 2013.

    The country’s anti-corruption watchdog last week said it had uncovered evidence that millions of dollars disappeared during preparations for Mandela’s memorial and funeral.

    Officials are alleged to have inflated costs, awarded tenders fraudulently and generally mismanaged the huge state occasion which drew leaders from around the world.

    Mandela’s eldest grandson, Mandla, said on Wednesday that the whole family had reacted with “utter indignation and dismay” to the allegations.

    “We find it incredulous that while we, as a family, a nation — and indeed the world — were mourning the loss of our elder, icon, leader and statesman, some people were allegedly conniving to profit financially by shamelessly siphoning off funds,” he said in a statement.

    “The guilty parties should face the full wrath of the law.”

    Mandela died on December 5, 2013, aged 95, and was buried at his home village in Qunu in the country’s southeast on December 15 at a funeral attended by presidents, royalty and several celebrities.

    The Public Protector watchdog said around 300 million rand ($22m) of state funds intended for the memorial and funeral was misspent.

    “It is unfathomable that a legacy built on principled action, integrity and a high degree of ethical standards should be so sullied and allegedly be associated with such criminal intent,” said the family.

    Opposition parties were among the first to raise the alarm, demanding a probe into how taxpayers’ money earmarked for the memorial and funeral services was used just a month after the events had concluded.

    Mandela’s long-serving personal assistant Zelda la Grange described the funeral planning process as “chaos” in a revealing memoir published six months after his death.

    “I had never experienced such chaos,” she wrote of the events to commemorate Mandela’s life, saying that plans were changed every few minutes.

    “One could not help but wonder whether it was just eight years of bad planning, wasting money on foreign travel to consult with other countries about events of this magnitude,” she said, “or whether it was a deliberate attempt to exclude from Mandela’s funeral people who were not allied with the right people.”