Winners Chapel pastor kidnapped during prayers in Calabar

THE Senior Resident Pastor of Winners Chapel, along IBB Way in Calabar, Cross River State, Mr. Seyi Adekunle, was on Saturday, abducted by yet-to-be identified kidnappers, who stormed the church premises around 8pm.

The development created confusion among members of the church, who had gathered at the church to pray for the success of the Sunday service.

The confusion, according to an eyewitness, stemmed from the fact that the church is located next to the headquarters of the Airport Division of the Nigeria Police in Calabar, but it took officers and men of the division 30 minutes to arrive at the church after they were contacted for an emergency.

The eyewitness, who craved anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the crime, told Southern City News on Sunday that three armed kidnappers entered the church building unnoticed during the prayer session while a fourth person, who was masked, identified the pastor in the midst of the praying group.

Tinubu’s Massive Looting Of Lagos Uncovered…The Chagoury, Remi Tinubu Connection

The  massive looting of Lagos state by the Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has reached monumental proportion. Tinubu whose companies recently conered a multi billion road construction job in Ogun State, has in his pocket all the juicy contract in all the Action Congress’ states.

In retrospect, it might be difficult to come to terms with the fact that an individual could hold the  entire south west  to ransom. There is no doubt that  Tinubu has succeeded in buying the Lagos State government, and he has done this using government funds.
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Whenever someone in Lagos begins to wonder where their 4th mainland bridge went, or what was the fate of the pipe-borne water project, or even where the schools and hospitals had vanished to, there is a silence that contains it all. The largest landlord in Lagos has done as he has pleased, and the rest of the state just has to deal with it. For instance: Number 4, Oyinkan Abayomi (formerly Queens) Drive, Ikoyi: A 5-bedroom detached house on one acre of land which was originally the Lagos State Governor’s guest house since 1979, but which now belongs to Tinubu. The certificate of occupancy of the property valued at N450 million was signed and released to him by Fashola in 2007 shortly after he assumed office.

Saraki holds peace talks with aggrieved Senators

Senate President Bukola Saraki has started reaching out to the All Progressives Congress leadership and colleagues opposed to his emergence as the head of the National Assembly.

A senator, loyal to him, Rafiu Ibrahim, made this known in Abuja on Sunday just as The PUNCH learnt that the APC leadership decided to soft-pedal on its initial opposition to the outcomes of the National Assembly leadership elections in order to stave off rebellion by its lawmakers.

Ibrahim said, “We are currently meeting with our colleagues in the Senate. Apart from the fact that the Senate President has been meeting with those who are aggrieved, we, members of the Like Minds Senators, are also engaging them on one-on-one basis.

“We are also meeting with our party leadership and I think the peace moves are achieving good result. It is in the interest of everybody that we have a united Senate.”

Some members of the Senate Unity Forum, who are loyalists of Senator (Ahmed) Lawan, also confirmed that Saraki and some of his supporters were making overtures to them.

Bashir flies out of South Africa, court case continues

Sudan’s Minister of Information says President Omar al-Bashir has now left South Africa.
The case on request to arrest him for alleged war crimes, however, continues.
Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, was in South Africa for the AU Summit.
Details later…
Court bars Sudanese President from leaving S’Africa

A South African High Court in Pretoria on Sunday issued an interim order preventing Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, from leaving the country over alleged war crime-related charges.

The presiding judge, Justice Hans Fabricius, while postponing the hearing of the case till Monday (today), urged the South African authorities to “take all necessary steps” to prevent Bashir from leaving.

GOD MADE ME SPEAKER – DOGARA

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has stated that if not for divine intervention of the almighty God, he would not have been elected speaker last week.
Mr. Dogara emerged House Speaker, Tuesday, in a keenly contested election defeating former House minority leader, Femi Gbajabiamila (APC Lagos).
Speaking during a Thanksgiving service at Living Faith Church Goshen City, Karu Nasarawa State, on Sunday, Mr. Dogara said the teachings he has been receiving in Living Faith Church in the last 27 years, contributed to his victory.
“I have been a member of this church since 1988 even before I went to the University. The teachings I receive here have defined my life
“If it were not for the teachings we receive on this altar, maybe this victory may not have come.
“We had Goliaths in the run up to the election; there were Tobias and Sambalats. We had Balams who were asked to curse us but God is with us,” he said.
The Speaker said the end of the matter is better than the beginning
“It was Machiavelli who said you should not conquer territories you cannot keep. We have to keep this through prayers,” he said.

I’LL PAY OSUN WORKERS BEFORE JUNE 30 – AREGBESOLA

The Osun State Governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, has promised to pay workers in the state their salaries before the end of this month.
The governor made the promise in a statement issued in Osogbo on Sunday by his media aide, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon.
Most workers are being owed seven months’ salaries.
But the statement was silent on whether the governor would pay the backlog or he would pay part of the salaries.
The statement read in part, “Before the end of June, workers would be paid their salaries.”
The governor stated that he had a great dream for the state and that was why he was in a hurry to begin many programmes which had earned him applause even outside the country.
He added, “The dream has not gone awry and it is a clear vision that Osun must be on its feet, self-reliant and be a reference point in Nigeria. The race to ensure development within the first term of Aregbesola was informed by the fear of what is happening now.
“Aregbesola wanted an Osun State that is self-reliant. That Osun State, almost two decades after its creation, could not boast of tax-paying companies speak volume about the magnitude of the works that awaited the Aregbesola administration.

HOW BUHARI, TINUBU FELL APART

The cordial relations between President Muhammadu Buhari and All Progressives Congress National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, may have gone cold over the alleged overbearing attitude of the latter in the sharing of political offices.
Sunday Telegraph’s investigations revealed that Tinubu’s decision to use his powers as the party’s national leader to provide direction on the party’s postelection future did not go down well with some other top members of the fold. As such, they used the opportunity of the election of leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives to stop him in his tracks.
While Tinubu backed Senator Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila as candidates for Senate President and Speaker, House of Rep[resentatives respectively, his opponents supported Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara for both positions.
Eventually, Tinubu was outsmarted by his opponents, comprising elements from the New PDP who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to APC in 2013. Buhari’s neutrality in Tuesday’s election of National Assembly leaders, sources said, was the latest in steps taken by the President to whittle down Tinubu’s alleged overbearing influence on him. First, without Tinubu’s knowledge, Buhari appointed a transition committee.

TROUBLE OVER LATE ARISEKOLA’S PROPERTIES

Barely a year after the late industrialist and Aare Musulumi of Nigeria, Abdul Azeez Alao Arisekola, passed on, there appears to be controversy over his vast estate.
It is a fact that the late philanthropist didn’t die intestate, as he had prepared his will certified by the Oyo State High Court of Justice in August 2013. It was, however, administered a couple of days after his burial last year by Dr. Oba Otudeko.
Consequently, the liquid and landed properties of the late entrepreneur had been distributed and utilised, according to the details in the will.
Apparently, the properties were shared among 32 children, three wives and three relations. He also lavished his generosity on some individuals, as contained in the will.
However, Society Happenings gathered that the Lister Motors boss lived on credit while alive. Sources close to the family claim that credit institutions that overwhelmed Arisekola with depositors’ funds, which he couldn’t offset before his death June last year, are now literally on the neck of the family.
As a result, the banks, we gathered, have concluded plans, following a court order, to confiscate most of his landed properties that were used as collateral for the credit facilities he obtained from them.
Although the majority of these properties have been inherited by children and families as prayed in his will, we gathered that the properties are set to be retrieved from their new landlords by the banks in order to offset the credit facilities.

OYEGUN IN TROUBLE OVER SARAKI, DOGARA

The crisis in the All Prog re s s ives Congress (APC) over its loss of the National Assembly leadership positions is set to worsen as party leaders are spoiling for a war with the National Chairman, Chief John Odigie- Oyegun, on the matter. Odigie-Oyegun, in what amounted to a volteface by the APC had, last Friday, said the party had accepted the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate president and Hon. Yakubu Dogara as House of Representatives speaker.
The duo had, in defiance of the APC, ran against the party’s official candidates for the positions, Senator Ahmed Lawan and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila. While Lawan had no chance of running against Saraki who was elected unopposed as APC senators, majorly his supporters, were at the International Conference Centre, Abuja for a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, Gbajabiamila lost by a slim margin to Dogara.
An enraged governing party had rejected their elections and vowed to punish them. Last Thursday, APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had said the party would soon set up a disciplinary committee to probe the involvement of members involved in the victories of Saraki and Dogara. But fielding questions from State House correspondents in Abuja a day after Mohammed’s statement, the national chairman had described the election of Saraki as the Senate president as legitimate and that the party had accepted its fate. “Of course, he has been duly elected by his colleagues. End of story.

BUHARI ORDERS RELEASE OF $21M TO MULTINATIONAL FORCE

President Muhammadu Buhari said he had directed that $2m of the $100m Nigeria pledged to the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) be released within the week to defeat the Boko Haram insurgency.
He disclosed this in Johannesburg, South Africa at the weekend while presiding over a meeting of the African Union Peace Security Council at the ongoing 25th AU summit.
The president told the gathering that Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger were, under the auspicies of the MJTF, already working to defeat the Boko Haram insurgency.
“In this regard, the member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Benin met recently where far reaching decisions were taken to immediately put into operations, the Multinational Joint Task Force. To this end, the summit approved the immediate provision of $30m for the Multinational Joint Task Force.
“Consequently, out of the pledge of $100 million which Nigeria made to the Multinational Joint Task Force, I have directed that $21 million be released within the next one week,” Buhari said.
He noted that the continent was faced with conflicts of diverse forms as manifested in the crises in Burkina Faso, Mali, Libya, Central Africa Republic, South Sudan and more recently, in Burundi.
Buhari reminded the leaders of the commitment they had made during the African Union 50th anniversary in 2013 to the objective of “silencing the local guns” in Africa by 2020.
He, however, stated that with just five years remaining, the prospect of realizing that objective appeared doubtful “with pockets, individuals country and the continent as a whole.”