It was earlier reported that there fire incidence at Kcee’s residence in Omole Phase One, Lagos.
The fire reportedly started from the generator house and burnt his Prado SUV.
It was learnt that Kcee wasn’t home, he’s currently on a nationwide tour of his ‘Attention To Detail’ album, Men of the Lagos state fire service have were alerted about the incidence and as at now thw fire has been brought under control.
See videos from the fire incident below…
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At least, 19 people including five children, died in an accident at Ogoneki, off Asaba-Benin Expressway, Edo State on Thursday, the Federal Road Safety Corps has said.
The state Sector Commander, FRSC, Mr. Samuel Odukoya, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Benin City that the accident, which involved a trailer and a passenger bus, occurred at 4.30pm on Thursday.
He said 24 persons were trapped in the accident involving a trailer with registration number: DRZ 374 XA, and a bus with registration number: ABD 206 XA.
Odukoya said 16 people died on Thursday while three other persons died in a hospital on Friday.According to him, five others sustained various degrees of injury.
“The trip was from Benin to Auchi and the cause of the accident was attributed to dangerous overtaking.
“Three adult females, 11 adult males, a female child and four male children were killed in the accident, while five men were injured and were taken to a hospital,” the commander said.
READ: 6 Things You Should Never Do In Your Hotel RoomThe post Tragedy: Accident in Edo State claim 19 lives appeared first on Within Nigeria.
This morning, Dbanj’s recent interview with Spindle magazine went viral where he said he signed Davido with a Rolex wristwatch as a signing-on fee back in 2014.
Many people doubted the story and some industry pundits even threw shades at Dbanj for the bold claim.
Now Davido has responded to the story confirming that Dbanj indeed gave him his first ever Rolex watch but he didn’t sign any deal.
Davido took to twitter to react to Dbanj’s interview where he claimed that he signed Davido back in 2014 with a Rolex as a sign-on fee.
Yea he actually did give me any first Rolex but I never signed anything! He paved the way for me any day! ❤️ https://t.co/nr28RiQBp4
— Davido (@iam_Davido) September 1, 2017
According to Davido, Dbanj gave him his first Rolex and paved the way for him but he didn’t sign any deal with him.
READ: I’m cursed, my butt keeps growing — Woman laments over big buttThe post Davido admit collecting his first Rolex from Dbanj, denies being signed to D’Banj Records appeared first on Within Nigeria.
Etim Mesembe
Etim Mesembe was contesting for the position of a Councillor in Calabar South Local Government Area Ward 8 before his untimely death in a renewed gang war at Eyo Ita Street Calabar, Cross River State.
It was gathered that the deceased was standing on the street when the assailant suspected to be members of by Vikings and Skylow cult groups, whom sources say had mobilised for a hit, spotted him.
“After a shout from one of them that he was the one, he was shot and cut with machetes several times. His death came 24 hours after a fight between the Skylow gang and Scorpion gang on Sunday night had led to the death of a Scorpion member in Ekpo Abasi,” the report said.
“Sources say the Skylow planned a reprisal for the Scorpion gang who had killed about four of their members during the last war. And, on Sunday night, the gang planned to hit Scorpion members around Mayne Avenue, Ekpo Abasi and Anantigha axis where three teams were waiting and ambushed any fleeing Scorpion member.
“The recent war is suspected to be connected to the killing of one Ecomoc in June due to ticketing competition between gang groups after government officials indirectly recruited them through phoney companies serving as revenue collection agencies.”
READ: NYSC member murdered in EdoThe post Councillorship aspirant murdered in renewed cult war in Calabar appeared first on Within Nigeria.
The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, has ordered the complete clearance of Sambisa Forest.
Abubakar noted that the time had come to completely cleanse the forest in order to forestall attempts by the Book Haram insurgent group to further carry out attacks against Nigerians.
Sadique gave the directive while hosting the Air Component members of the Operation Lafiya Dole at its Yola Flight Line to mark this year’s Eid-el Kabir celebrations on Friday.
He said, “Very clearly, Boko Haram has been substantially degraded, they cannot function as an organised fighting force. There’s not a single local government in the North-East that is totally under the control of the insurgents.
“But, the isolated incidents of attacks, kidnappings and suicide bombings by the group are a setback and this is not good for us. Therefore, we must redouble our efforts to make sure that we cleanse the forest before they even come out to do harm.
“I believe that by the time we finish them up in the forest, they would not be engaged in these acts.”
The COAS urged members of the insurgent group to surrender now while they still have the chance as the government was willing to accept them.
Otherwise, he warned that those who refuse to do so faced imminent destruction in their hideout in the forest as he had ordered his men to redouble their efforts to ensure the complete clearance of Sambisa Forest.
READ: Cult attacks LASPOTECH students, injured 4The post COAS orders complete clearance of Sambisa Forest appeared first on Within Nigeria.
Serena Williams gave birth on Friday at the St Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, prompting congratulatory messages to begin circulating on social media.
The news was first broken by a TV news producer Chris Shepherd on Twitter.
“Tennis star Serena Williams gives birth to a baby girl weighing 6 pounds, 13 ounces. Mom and baby doing well,” he wrote.
News of the birth came as her sister Venus prepared to go out on court at the US Open.
“Obviously I’m super-excited,” Venus said. “Words can’t describe it.”
Serena had admitted to be pregnant to the world in April by accident, after mistakenly uploading a photograph on Snapchat.
She had won the Australian Open title this January while newly pregnant, “It’s the most outrageous plan,” she said. “I just want to put that out there. That’s, like, three months after I give birth.”
Williams who has a slew of records to her name, including as the only tennis player to have won 10 Grand Slam singles titles in two separate decades. She is also the only player to have won two of the four Grand Slams – Wimbeldon and the Australian Open – seven times each.
In an earlier Vogue interview, the 35-year-old had revealed that she “definitely” plans to return to the court.
Williams, 35, whose partner is Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, said last month she was planning to return to tennis for the Australian Open in January.
“It’s hard to figure out what the end of your tennis career should look like,” she says. “I used to think I’d want to retire when I have kids, but no. I’m definitely coming back. Walking out there and hearing the crowd, it may seem like nothing. But there’s no better feeling in the world.”
The post Serena Williams Welcomes Baby Girl with partner, Alexis Ohanian appeared first on Within Nigeria.
The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, has extended his 40-day deadline to the Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Major General Ibrahim Attahiru, to capture the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist group, Abubakar Shekau, dead or alive.
The deadline, which was earlier given by Buratai to the commander on July 21, 2017, expired on August 30, 2017.
The Director, Army Public Relations, Brig.-Gen. Sani Usman, said in a statement on Friday that the commander requested for an extension of the order to capture Shekau, which was granted by Buratai.
However, the statement was silent on the duration of the extended deadline.
Usman said the troops eliminated 82 terrorists during the period and came close to achieving the directive issued by the COAS.
He said, “The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. T.Y. Buratai, has commended the Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, his sector commanders and all troops of Operation Lafiya Dole for pursuing the COAS directive of capturing the purported Boko Haram terrorists’ leader, Abubakar Shekau, dead or alive, within 40 days beginning on July 21, 2017, which elapsed on August 30, 2017.
“Although the leader has not been captured, the COAS noted with satisfaction the zeal and determination with which the directive was pursued. He congratulated the commander for eliminating five key leaders of the terrorist group that were the closest associates and right-hand men of the terrorist group leader.
“The Theatre Commander has asked for the extension of the deadline and it has been granted by the COAS.”
Usman said with the killing of the 82 terrorists and the top five Boko Haram commanders, Shekau was no longer of any consequence. He enjoined the people of the area to go about their business and have confidence in the capacity of the troops to protect them.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that the Nigerian Air Force currently has a credit line of up to $200,000 for the supply of spare parts by some foreign companies as part of the Federal Government’s efforts to totally rid the country of insurgency and upgrade the equipment of NAF.
Speaking to journalists on Friday during the Eid-el-Kabir celebration at Oro, Kwara State, the minister noted that there was no resurgence of Boko Haram in the Northeastern part of Nigeria and that Nigerian troops were daily living up to their constitutional responsibility of maintaining the nation’s territorial integrity.
He said even though there were still some bombings and kidnappings, there had been a great improvement in the fight against Boko Haram, especially when compared to the situation when the President assumed office in 2015.
He added, “As we celebrate this festival of sacrifice, we owe the marked improvement in the security situation in our country in general and the North-East, in particular, to the men and women in uniform, who have sacrificed so much to make our country safer than at any other time since the Boko Haram insurgency started in 2009.
“So, as we celebrate today, we should all remember our troops in our prayers and continue to support them, instead of dwelling on the Boko Haram resurgence that never was. The media must deny the insurgents the oxygen they desperately crave to survive, which is publicity.”
READ: I led Chibok schoolgirls kidnap — Boko Haram commander confessedThe post Boko Haram: Army extends 40 days deadline to capture Shekau appeared first on Within Nigeria.
At least N136.5bn has been spent on Hajj in 2017 by state governments and individuals despite the current recession in the country, investigation has revealed.
According to the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, no fewer than 91,000 Nigerians had arrived in Saudi Arabia out of the over 1.7 million foreign pilgrims in the country to perform this year’s Hajj. Meanwhile, the average Hajj fare approved by NAHCON to states for each traveller is N1.5m.
For example, information made available by NAHCON showing the approved 2017 Hajj seats and fares per state disclosed the package for travellers from Nasarawa State as N1,544,659.85; Niger, N1,525,483.30; Ondo, N1,485,096.07; Katsina, N1,498,502.70; Bauchi, N1,523,122.41; Plateau, N1,529,036.80; Sokoto, N1,521,461.65; and Kwara, N1,501,571.27, among others.
Although going on Hajj at least once in a lifetime is one of the five pillars of Islam, the Quran described it as a religious obligation that is meant for the faithful who can afford it. Meanwhile, visiting Jerusalem for pilgrimage is not an obligation for Christians. However, state governments have been sponsoring people to Mecca and Jerusalem for pilgrimage and there is information that Katsina, Bauchi, Plateau and Sokoto states had sponsored people on pilgrimage this year.
For instance, Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State recently disclosed that his administration had been subsidising Hajj exercise for Muslims with N1bn annually.
Masari, while inaugurating an 18-member board for the Katsina State Pilgrims’ Welfare Board, had said no amount spent on religious activities could be considered as too much and described pilgrimage to Mecca as “neither a picnic nor a holiday, but an act of worship, as enshrined in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad.”
Similarly, the Bauchi State Government spent over N262,650,000 as subsidy on the state’s Muslim pilgrims to this year’s Hajj.
Governor Mohammed Abubakar had disclosed this while delivering his farewell address to 3,090 pilgrims, where he boasted that the state could afford the sponsorship despite economic recession.
“Despite the economic hardship situation, this administration has continued to fund the operation of the state Pilgrims Welfare Board, both at home and at the holy land, so as to guarantee your comfort and satisfaction.
“We have also subsidised the cost of your accommodation in Mecca, upon which the government had to pay at least the sum of 850 Saudi Riyals (N85,000) for each of you so that you will be accommodated in a beautiful edifice close to the Haram,” Abubakar had said.
Also this year, the Plateau State Government went back on its 2015 decision to no longer sponsor both Muslims and Christians on pilgrimage due to the dwindling economic fortune of the state.
It was reported that the state government had sponsored 616 Muslims for the 2017 Hajj, with the state governor, Simon Lalong, saying at a farewell ceremony for the pilgrims from the state that the state government was willing to make the “sacrifice as a result of the relevance of holy pilgrimage to the citizens of the state.”
The Sokoto State Government had spent N91m to sponsor 90 Islamic clerics to the lesser Hajj in June.
The state Commissioner for Religious Affairs, Alhaji Mani Katami, had also announced that each of the benefiting clerics was entitled to a Basic Travelling Allowance of N250,000.
State governments’ sponsorship of pilgrimage has been going on for long. Last year, the Executive Secretary, Taraba State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Umar Leme, said the state government had released N288.5m to sponsor about 166 persons on Hajj.
In 2014, the Borno State Government said it had spent about N500m to secure good accommodation and welfare for 2,645 pilgrims to Mecca, and that 300 Saudi Riyals (N30,000) were given to each of them to enable them to slaughter rams during Hajj.
The Niger State Government in 2013 said it had spent about N5.1bn in the previous six years to subsidise Muslim and Christian pilgrimages to Mecca and Jerusalem respectively.
In his defence of the expenditure, the then governor of the state, Babangida Aliyu, had described the sponsorship as the only avenue through which some people would benefit from the government.
“They do not benefit from electricity, housing, roads and other infrastructure; they only benefit directly from the government through subsidy on pilgrimage,’’ he had said.
It was also learnt that even the Federal Government in 2016 subsidised the cost of pilgrimage for 65,167 persons with a concession of N121.9 for a maximum of $1,000 per person. The pilgrims enjoyed a concessionary rate of N197 to a dollar as the official exchange rate was N318.9 to a dollar.
Meanwhile, the Executive Chairman of NAHCON, Alhaji Abdullahi Muhammad, on Friday commended the Saudi Arabian authorities for providing all the necessary logistics support for pilgrims at the Jamarat, the place where pilgrims perform the symbolic stoning of the devil.
He also commended the authorities for placing sprinklers at strategic locations for pilgrims, saying it would go a long way in reducing the effects of the hot weather being experienced in the country.
He, therefore, appealed to Nigerian pilgrims to maintain good behaviour while in the country as they had done so far.
But the sponsorship of pilgrimage is increasingly becoming a subject of controversy with the dwindling economic fortune in the country and the subsequent resolution by some states including Niger, Lagos, Kaduna and Kano to abolish it.
However, not all states that claimed to have stopped the sponsorship of pilgrimage have been able to fully commit to the resolution.
Even though, the Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, said in September 2016 that the state government had abolished sponsorship of Hajj, he added that it had not stopped sponsoring clerics and medical personnel on Hajj and had spent N3bn that year.
“So, the services we are providing and the Pilgrims Welfare Agency officials we are sponsoring, the medical (members of) staff and all the medication, if you add all together, you will see that we spent over N3bn,” he had said.
“So, during our last administration, we cancelled it (sponsorship of pilgrimage). In fact, I was the one who made the announcement and some people thought heavens would fall because we cancelled it. And when I came in, we did not have any problem because people are used to it. So, the only people we can sponsor are stakeholders, medical team, the Ulamas who are preaching here and the civil servants from the Pilgrims Welfare Agency.”
The Kaduna State Government has also cancelled the annual sponsorship of pilgrims to Mecca and Jerusalem and feeding of Muslim faithful during Ramadan, with the state governor, Nasir el-Rufai, saying the government could no longer afford such luxury.
Stressing the financial burden of such sponsorships on the state, el-Rufai had in 2015 said that in the previous year alone, the state government and the state’s 23 local government areas had sponsored over 2,000 pilgrims to Hajj and 800 others to Jerusalem at a cost that was “nearly N1.5bn.”
The Executive Chairman of CACOL, Mr. Debo Adeniran, described the state sponsorship of pilgrimage as a form of corruption, which must be stopped.
He said, “There are so many atrocities various administrations have been committing, including the sponsorship of pilgrimage. Such atrocities start from lowering the exchange rate for pilgrims. There is no government that has the authority to spend public funds on frivolities like religious tourism. Nigeria doesn’t have any religion, so any public fund spent on religious activities, building religious worship places and so on are resources wasted, misspent, misappropriated.
“Every public office holder who has funded any religion has misappropriated resources and they are liable to be charged for misappropriation of funds. So the amount that is being expended on Hajj would have been able to fix some dilapidated roads, educational facilities, and so on. What is the country benefiting from religious pilgrimages and all that?
“We are only improving the economies of countries such as Saudi Arabia and Israel while we are spending our resources unwisely. This is wasteful, unnecessary and reprehensible. Nigeria should stop it once and for all and that should be the focus of the present administration because putting money in things that are not right is misappropriation of funds. It is corruption and should be stopped.”
The President of the Muslim Congress, Nigeria, Dr. Lukman Abdurraheem, also described state sponsorship of the Hajj exercise as fraudulent.
He said it was wrong to use taxpayers’ money to send people on pilgrimage, adding that most states were using the exercise to steal state resources.
He said, “We believe that state sponsorship of Hajj is a fraudulent practice. If you go by what the Holy Quran says, we should only visit Kaaba (a building at the centre of the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia) if we have the means to do so.
“The government doesn’t have to sponsor Muslims on Hajj; its role is to provide good roads, electricity, potable water and other social amenities. States are only using pilgrimage sponsorship to steal money. Any religious person will tell you it’s wrong to use taxpayers’ funds to send people on pilgrimage. That’s why I commend states like Lagos for stopping it.”
Chairman, Osun State Board of Traditional Medicine, Chief Kayode Esuleke, also condemned the situation, saying it shows bias against the traditional religion worshippers.
“We are misappropriating public funds by sponsoring some people on pilgrimage. What the Quran says is that Muslim faithful should visit Mecca once in their lifetime if they can afford it, and not that they should be sponsored with taxpayers’ money.
“Is it right that our collective money should be used to sponsor Muslims and Christians on pilgrimage? It shows bias towards some religions. The money spent by states to sponsor pilgrims will solve some of the problems we have with infrastructure,” Esuleke said.
READ: Boat capsizes in Lagos water, killed 9The post Despite recession, Nigerians spend over N136.5bn on Hajj appeared first on Within Nigeria.
