SCHOOL CHILDREN SAVED FROM ‘SUSPECTED RITUALIST ‘

 This vehicle was burnt by an irate mob along Ikorodu /Ijebu road in Ikorodu area of Lagos.

According to an eyewitness account, the bus driver was said to have been given a hot chase when some vigilant road users noticed the shouting of one of the occupants for help.

With the assistance of some 'Okada' riders, the driver was given a hot chase and was later apprehended. On inquiry, it was discovered that most of the occupants were school kids picked after school hours in front of their school.

It was also discovered that the driver has taken the kids beyond their bus-stops. The only kid shouting was the one fully aware of the fact that the bus driver has driven past their bus-stop. Sensing danger, the boy decides to shout for help.

A close look shows some of them feeling drowsy according to an eyewitness account. This made the irate crowd who had already gathered to demand for an explanation from the driver. The man later confesses to the fact that he planned to deliver those kids for ritual.

The angry crowd after rescuing the kids sets the vehicle ablaze and would have set the driver ablaze if not for the prompt intervention of the police who whisked the culprit away. The incidence happened about three months ago.

PDP 'REBEL GROUP' LOSES BID TO RE-OPEN OFFICE

The Alhaji Kawu Baraje-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party on Monday lost its bid to obtain an order of court to re-open its secretariat in Abuja which was sealed off by the police on September 7.

The Lagos High Court in Ikeja presided over by Justice Ganiyu Safari refused to grant the order, saying the faction failed to back its allegation with sufficient evidence to show that it was the Alhaji Bamanga Tukur-led PDP that used the police to seal off the secretariat.

Safari said he could not give an order for the re-opening of the secretariat when none of the respondents, including Tukur, had any “direct control” on the police.

While re-affirming its September 2 ruling in which he ordered parties to maintain the status quo, he urged the Baraje faction to file any evidence in its possession linking the respondents to the sealing of the secretariat.

The judge also said the claimants were at liberty to file a separate application against the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, if they had evidence to show that the police had sealed off the secretariat on their own volition.

Counsel for the Baraje faction, Mr. Robert Emukpoeruo, had alleged that it was the Tukur-led executive that used the police to seal off his clients’ secretariat.

Emukpoeruo alleged that the action was in breach of the order of the September 2 ruling which asked parties to maintain the status quo.

He said, “After they filed papers they deployed and stationed Armoured Personnel Carrier in the secretariat.

“We are praying your Lordship to order them to move their APC from the secretariat whether injunction has been granted or not; or whether injunction is being sought or not.”

In his response, counsel for Tukur and others, Mr. Ajibola Oluyede, argued that it was the Baraje faction who had flouted the September 2 order by going ahead to set up a secretariat after the court ordered the parties to maintain the status quo.

He said he was contemplating filing a contempt suit against the respondents for allegedly flouting the order.

Oluyede, who described Emukpoeruo’s allegation as a “mere emotional outburst,” argued that the claimants failed to adduce any evidence to back the allegations and that the police had, out of their discretion, sealed off the secretariat.

He said, “Under that circumstance, only the police can tell your Lordship what prompted them to seal off the offices. So it is only the proper respondents that can answer that question. Unfortunately, they are not here. My clients are not the proper respondents.”

Both parties also disagreed on what was truly the status quo referred to in the September 2 ruling.

Oluyede said the “status quo ante” referred to the “legal National Executive Committee” that was in existence before “some rebels” went to announce another faction of the party.

But Emukpoeruo said the status quo was referring to the state of the affairs before APC was deployed in his client’s secretariat.

Earlier, there was a squabble over who was to represent the Tukur-led PDP, but the court later ruled that it would only accord recognition to Oluyede for being the one to first file response to the suit and the only counsel on record.

Oluyede maintained that he was instructed by Tukur on the telephone to enter defence for the respondents.

But the two other lawyers, Messrs Onwuka Igwe and Emeka Etiaba, had laid claim to separate instructions from the National Legal Adviser of the party, Mr. Victor Kwon, to represent the respondents.

Baraje, Dr. Sam Jaja and the Secretary of the ‘New PDP’, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola; and the PDP (as the fourth defendant), had filed the suit against Tukur and three other members of his National Executive Committee.

The other defendants in the suit are the Deputy National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus; Women Leader, Dr. Kema Chikwe; and the National Publicity Secretary, Olisah Metuh.

The claimants stated in their interlocutory application dated September 2, 2013 that they are suing “for themselves and on behalf of the National Executive Committee of the PDP elected on August 30, 2013.”

PASTOR KUMUYI DISOWNS ‘PROPHETESS’

Pastor William Kumuyi, General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry has disowned the controversial videos of a ‘prophetess’ and others who claimed to have died, gone to heaven and came back to narrate their extra-terrestrial experience.

In the controversial videos being sold all over Nigeria, two women and a boy claimed they died, went to heaven and came back to narrate what they said God showed them.

One of such CDs is that of a Sierra Leonean woman, simply called Sister Linda Ngaujah. Linda said she died and was shown happenings in heaven and hell and that many of the members of a large church on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway are on their way to hell and that the founder of a leading church in Lagos should repent as he allegedly acquired his powers from the devil, saying that a Bishop of another large congregation and his members are not even recognised in heaven.

She added that women who used rubber and wool to plait their hair will go to hell as it is a sin and that the only way for people to be prepared for heaven is to go back to the old Deeper Life Bible Church’s method of dressing.

The video CDs released by Linda is causing serious controversy in the church of God as some women in Deeper Life, who plait rubber hair have vowed never to do so again as they want to get to heaven.

Some female worshippers have even shaved their hair in one Christian Assembly in Ikorodu, saying that they don’t want to have anything to do with attachment as they want to get to heaven.

Another person who claimed to have gone to heaven said she saw the late wife of Kumuyi, Biodun, in heaven and narrated her encounter there.

Other CDs were released by Margaret Amure from Church of God Mission, who also claimed to have gone to heaven and another 10-year old boy from Edo, named Samuel.

Reacting to this development on Sunday during the church service, Pastor Kumuyi warned members of his church not to have anything to do with such CDs as these are the last days where many people would come up with different things to deceive the church of God.

Kumuyi urged members of the church not to waste their money on such CDs, saying that the church should not rely on purported CDs of people who claimed to have gone to heaven to come back to produce CDs to sell to people narrating their encounter.

He referred to Linda’s CD which said people need to dress like Deeper Life to get to heaven, saying that “if you dress like Deeper Life without salvation and sanctification, will you get to heaven? These are the last days.” - PMNEWS

CHILD MARRIAGE: STELLA DAMASUS, SANI YERIMA CLASH ON AL JAZEERA

Stella / Yerima

Nollywood actress Stella Damasus and Senator Yerima were both guests on ‘The Stream’ a programme aired on International News Network Al Jazeera. They went head-to-head on the controversial issue of Child marriage.

  

Senator Yerima re-affirmed that he married his fourth wife when she was 14 years and they both now have a son together. He said he finds nothing wrong with his actions, claiming that his 14 year-old wife had reciprocated his feelings.

Stella Damascus counter-argued, citing several Child rights charters signed by Nigeria concerning marriage and the rights of the girl-child. She insisted that those breaking the agreements should be labelled criminals and prosecuted.

JONATHAN STORMS OUT OF RECONCILIATION MEETING; ACCUSES OBASANJO OF BEING BEHIND PDP CRISIS -PREMIUM TIMES

President Goodluck Jonathan lashed out at former President Olusegun Obasanjo, accusing him of being the mastermind of the intractable crisis in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, reliable presidency sources have said.

“Obasanjo created the problem, he should go and solve it,” Mr. Jonathan was quoted as saying at a meeting he held with leading members of the Abubakar Baraje’s faction of the party on Sunday night.

The reconciliation meeting was called a day after former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, seven state governors, and some other party top guns walked out of the party’s national convention in Abuja and then announced the formation of a parallel faction.

Mr. Obasanjo was not at the meeting but both men had worshipped together at the Aso Rock chapel earlier that day.

Sources at the meeting said after the “dissident” governors, led by Kano State Governor, Musa Kwankwaso, tabled their grievances; a livid President Jonathan fumed about how opposition elements within his party were trying to blackmail him to submission.

He then suddenly rose from his seat and stormed out of the meeting saying, while going away, that he was no longer in the mood for any reconciliation talk and that Mr. Obasanjo, who created the mess in the party in the first place, should be allowed to clear it.

“We were shocked when the president walked out of the meeting in anger saying he had grown increasingly frustrated by Mr. Obasanjo’s destabilizing antics,” one of our sources said. “He pointedly accused the former president of being behind the crisis.”

Another source said as the president hurried away, the chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, Tony Anenih, ran after him pleading with him to return. He eventually returned.

The president’s adviser on political matters, Ahmed Gulak, as well as his senior special assistant on public affairs, Doyin Okupe, did not answer or return calls to their mobile telephones when PREMIUM TIMES sought to get their comments for this story.

Mr. Obasanjo could also not be reached.

Reports of the president’s comment and behaviour at the closed-door meeting came shortly before a pro-Jonathan group, Media Network for Transformation, circulated a statement in Abuja accusing Mr. Obasanjo of destabilizing the PDP and asking him to call his associates to other.

“Apart from being their sponsor, the rebel governors draw their inspiration from him,” Goodluck Ebelo, Coordinator of the group, said in the statement. “Apart from numerous clandestine meetings, President Obasanjo started his public romance with the rebel flank when he became unavoidably absent at this year’s Democracy Day celebration in Abuja, but vigorously participated in the day’s activities in Dutse, Jigawa State.

That was followed by the rebel governors’ visit to his Abeokuta home.”

Mr. Ebelo was not done. He continued, “Then came last Saturday, and Chief Obasanjo’s mischief literarily flew over the Eagle Square venue of the Special Convention. Unavoidably absent, again, he was to turn up the next day in Church, at the Presidential Villa. Made a few platitudinous remarks on the need for a peaceful resolution of the crisis and thereafter called a meeting. His meeting failed and will continue to fail.

“Chief Obasanjo cannot continue to be hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob at the same time. No arbiter, who is the guiding light of the rebels, can make peace. Peace, in this matter, will continue to elude President Obasanjo because his activities are the very antithesis of the conditions precedent to peace.

“Unfortunately, his eight years in office provides no road map to resolving a political dispute. All that can be gleaned from the debris of his time in power are abuse of institutions of State in shutting down dissent, hounding political opponents into prison and forcing a party chairman to resign at gun point. Little wonder that such baleful legacy dogs his attempt at making peace.

“President Obasanjo has to come out publicly to renounce his ties with seven governors who are trying to impose their will on the remaining twenty nine states and the Federal Capital Territory or acknowledge them and be treated like them. The governors are welcome to contest the PDP primaries, individually or present a candidate. That’s democracy. But for persons, who themselves, stood for elections for their second terms to demand that Mr. President cannot avail himself such amenity is not only rude but feudal.”

Our sources said before the president’s brief walkout at the peace meeting, the aggrieved governors had accused Mr. Jonathan of using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to hound governors and other party chiefs considered opposed to him.

Specifically, the governors, according to our sources, accused the president of having masterminded the recent investigation of Senator Bukola Saraki and conviction of a son of Governor Sule Lamido for under declaring the amount of foreign exchange he was taking abroad.

The governors also reportedly asked the president to keep his promise to run for only one term and jettison his 2015 presidential ambition.

In response, Mr. Jonathan reportedly denied being behind the investigation of anyone by the EFCC, saying most of the investigations commenced long before he came to power.

On the request that he shuts down his presidential ambition, Mr. Jonathan was quoted as saying he would not surrender his right to vote and be voted for.