A nursing mother and 154 out of 230 Nigerian football fans stranded in Russia after the 2018 FIFA World Cup arrived the country on Friday night.

The stranded football fans including a nursing mother in her mid thirties came through Ethiopian Airline flight number ET-ALP that arrived Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport Abuja at about 9.12 p.m on July 20.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, who was at the airport to monitor their arrival, lauded President Muhammadu Buhari’s effort to ensure their safe return.

He said that that the President directed that Nigerians, who were stranded in Russia after the 2018 World Cup tournament, should be evacuated immediately.

According to him, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been monitoring the process of the evacuation, which is under the coordination of the Mission of Nigeria in Moscow.

He said that 155 stranded Nigerians were cleared to board an Ethiopian Airline flight to Abuja.

”The aircraft departed Domodedovo Airport in Moscow with the stranded Nigerians in the afternoon and arrived in Abuja this evening.

Onyeama said he had been working very closely with the Minister of State for Aviation following President Buhari’s directive on the exercise.

Some Nigerian football fans who were stranded had besieged the Embassy of Nigeria in Moscow on July 12.

”They were among the fans who travelled to the Russian Federation for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Tournament and were stranded after the events due to lack of funds for their upkeep.”

The minister explained that there was also an allegation that some airline travel agents cancelled return tickets of their customers without informing them.

He said President Buhari, however, gave the directive that they should be evacuated with immediate effect at the expense of the government.
Onyeama commended President Buhari for the good gesture, saying those stranded were never part of government delegates to Russia.

According to him, the Nigerian Mission had been supportive by making arrangements for the feeding and accommodation of the stranded Nigerians in hostels around Moscow.

One of the returnees, Bamidele Fatai praised President Buhari for making their journey possible.

He also thanked the Nigerian Mission in Moscow for giving them necessary support.

Another returnee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was swindled by an agent who cancelled his return ticket.

He said he was in Moscow to support the Nigerian Football Team and to catch fun only to discover that his ticket had been cancelled when he was ready to return home.

Government to initiate probe

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama says the Federal Government has resolved to investigate suspected human trafficking in the case of the 155 Nigerian football fans who got stranded in Russia after the World Cup tournament.

He revealed the plan to probe the incident at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja where he received the returnees.

The stranded Nigerians, who besieged the nation’s embassy in Moscow on July 12, were safely returned to the country following a directive by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Onyeama said after a discussion with the Director General of National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Ms Julie Okah–Donli, it was clear that there were possible cases of human trafficking among the returnees.

“I have spoken to the DG of NAPTIP and she had also indicated that they had sounded the alarm bells for these young children not to leave the country, that it had all the hallmarks of trafficking and irregular migration,” he said.

The minister insisted that some of them, among whom was a nursing mother, were quite too young to have travelled to Russia by themselves solely for the purpose of the World Cup tournament.

He added that an investigation would also be launched into an allegation that some travel agents cancelled the return tickets of the football fans without informing them, leaving them stranded in the European country.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu, had revealed the Presidential directive in a statement, following the activities of the travel agents who reportedly cancelled the return tickets of their clients and abandoned them to their fate.

President Buhari had ordered Onyeama and the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, to commence the process of repatriating the stranded Nigerians.

Shehu said the Presidential directive was in line with the policy of the Federal Government to ensure the welfare of all Nigerians in every part of the world.

(NAN)

Multiple reports claimed that President Donald Trump was secretly taped two months before the 2016 election discussing a hush money payment over an alleged affair with a Playboy model and the FBI has the recording.

The tape was reportedly made by his former longtime lawyer Michael Cohen, who is under federal investigation in New York for his business dealings. Investigators are probing whether the hush payments violated campaign finance laws.

The Republican commander-in-chief on Friday did not answer questions shouted out by reporters about the Cohen tape as he prepared to fly out of the White House en route to his New Jersey golf club.

The New York Times broke the story, saying the FBI seized the recording during a raid on Cohens office earlier this year, quoting lawyers and others familiar with the recording. Cohen has not yet been arrested or charged.

Former Playboy model Karen McDougal claims she had a months-long affair with Trump after they met in 2006, shortly after Trumps wife Melania gave birth to their son Barron. She told CNN previously that he tried to pay her for sex.

The Wall Street Journal said the September 2016 conversation between Trump and Cohen was about buying the rights to McDougals story, which she sold a month earlier to The National Enquirer for $150,000.

The tabloid ultimately sat on it, preventing it from becoming public. The chairman of its parent company, American Media, is a Trump friend.

Fridays reports raise questions about why Trumps campaign denied knowledge of the deal between McDougal and American Media when it became public, as well as fan speculation about how much damage Cohen can inflict on the president.

Trumps current personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, confirmed to the Times that the Cohen tape existed, but claimed the president had done nothing wrong.

The recording was less than two minutes and gave no indication that Trump had prior knowledge about the media payment to McDougal, Giuliani told the Times.

It helps us, rather than hurts us, he was quoted as saying by the Journal.

Cohens lawyer, Lanny Davis, declined to comment Friday.

The FBI raided Cohens home and office in April on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.

Michael Cohen, Donald Trumps former personal lawyer, secretly taped the president talking about a payment to a former Playboy model who says she had an affair with the real estate mogul-turned US leader

The Justice Department says Cohen has been under investigation for months for criminal conduct largely centred on his personal business dealings.

Prosecutors are apparently interested in payments he made on Trumps behalf to porn actress Stormy Daniels, and other business dealings related to Trump

Source: NAN

Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, the winner of the Osun All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primary said that he has accepted to be partys flag bearer for Sept. 22 election.

Oyetola, while reading his acceptance to newsmen at about 11:30 pm , shortly after he was declared winner of the primary on Friday, said that he was humbled by the victory.

With deep humility and a sense of duty I accept your verdict that I should carry forward the torch of our party in the next elections.

I assure you that your choice will not be wasted.

You have settled for a man steady in his ways, firm in his convictions about the purpose of government, which is to promote the welfare of the people, protect their rights and provide good governance.

Oyetola, who is Gov. Aregbesolas chief of Staff, called on his co-contestants to join him in the task of winning the governorship election.

We have only won the battle. The war lies ahead of us. Our opponents from other parties increase their arsenal to fight with us.

But we are ready. We are tested. Like the broom sweeping away the rot, we are set and ready.

The 60 days plus ahead will not be easy but I am confident in our ability to protect what we have, he said.

Oyetola thanked all the partys member for ensuring his victory, adding that his emergence as the partys flag bearer was made possible by them.

He also thanked Gov. Aregbesola , saying he would work assiduously to ensure continuity and consolidation of his efforts.

Oyetola, added that the success of the direct primaries in Osun had placed the party on a path of democratic rejuvenation and a rebirth of membership faith in the party.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Oyetola scored 127,017 votes during the governorship primary to defeat 17 other contestants.

Mr Lasun Yussuff, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives came second with 21, 975 votes. Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Najeem Salaam got 17, 958 votes.

Sen. Movie Omo-Agege , who represented. Gov. Gov. Abdulazi Yari of Zamfara who is the Chairman of election panel announced the results at the partys secretariat.

Source: NAN

The police have confirmed the arrest of 117 persons suspected to be connected with the recent killings in parts of Zamfara state.

The Zamfara State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr, Mohammed Shehu, said in a statement that the killings are in Gusau, Shinkafi Local Government Areas and other parts of the state.

According to him, the suspects were arrested during a raid carried out by the Special Tactical Squad of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) in conjunction with the Command Tactical team on Thursday, which lasted for several hours.

He also noted that the Command Tactical team arrested 72 suspected bandits who specialize in using unregistered motorcycles to ferry kidnapped victims to their hideouts, while 73 unregistered motorcycles were recovered from them.

The command, therefore, warned all criminals at large to repent and surrender their arms to the Police or face dire consequences when they are caught.

It also enjoined members of the public to sustain their cooperation by providing timely/useful information to the police on criminal activities.

This comes days after bandits stormed the villages on motorbikes, shooting sporadically at residents and carting away their livestock.

One of the villagers said 30 people were killed across the villages during the attacks, although the police authorities insisted that only three people died.

However, the repeated attacks on communities have left residents in perpetual fear and anxiety.

They have, therefore, called on the Federal Government to be more proactive in securing their lives and property, and also stop the repeated killings stemming from herdsmen-farmers clashes.

Source:

Source: NAN

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong revealed in a Facebook post that SingHealth, the city-states largest group of healthcare institutions, had experienced a major cyber-attack, in which 1.5 million patients had their personal particulars stolen.

He said 160,000 of the 1.5 million patients also had their outpatient medication data compromised. I am personally affected, and not just incidentally. The attackers targeted my own medication data, specifically and repeatedly, he added.

Lee said the hackers would have been disappointed if they hoped to find some dark state secret or something to embarrass him, because his medication data was not something he would ordinarily tell people about, but there is nothing alarming in it.

The prime minister said the security and confidentiality of patient information was a top priority, and he had ordered the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group to work together with the Ministry of Health, to tighten up their defenses and processes across the board.

We are convening a Committee of Inquiry to look thoroughly into this incident, he said. It will doubtless have valuable conclusions and recommendations, which will help us do better.

Earlier on Friday, the Ministry of Health announced that about 1.5 million patients who visited SingHealths specialist outpatient clinics and polyclinics from May 1, 2015 to July 4, 2018 had their non-medical personal particulars illegally accessed and copied. The data taken include name, NRIC number, address, gender, race and date of birth.

The ministry said it had directed the Integrated Health Information System to conduct a thorough review of public healthcare system, with support from third-party experts, to improve cyber threat prevention, detection and response.

*Xinhua

Source: NAN

A major new study has confirmed the link between diabetes and cancer. The new research also warns that the risk of cancer is sex-specific in people with diabetes.

The study suggests that a diagnosis of diabetes places a person at an increased risk of various types of cancer.

Now, a review analyzing the data collected by 47 studies from across the globe including the United States, United Kingdom, China, Australia, and Japan, to name but a few confirms, beyond doubt, that diabetes heightens the risk for cancer.

The study authors note that women with diabetes are especially affected. They appear to be more exposed than men to the development of malign tumors.

The findings of this global review which assessed the health-related data of almost 20 million people are discussed in a paper now published in the journal Diabetologia.

The review was conducted by researchers led by Dr. Toshiaki Ohkuma, from the George Institute for Global Health at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

His colleagues hailed from the University of Oxford in the U.K., and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.

Dr. Ohkuma and his colleagues discovered not only that diabetes both type 1 and type 2 put people at risk of developing specific types of cancer, but also that this risk is much higher for women than it is for men.

Women with diabetes are 27 percent likelier to develop cancer, compared with healthy women. By contrast, men with diabetes are 19 percent more likely to develop cancer than healthy men.

And, women with diabetes are 6 percent likelier than men with the same diagnosis to develop a type of cancer.

Specifically, in contrast to men with a diagnosis of diabetes, women with this condition have an 11 percent higher risk of developing kidney cancer, a 13 percent higher risk for oral cancer, and a 14 percent higher chance of developing stomach cancer, as well as a 15 percent higher chance of being diagnosed with leukemia.

One exception was liver cancer, for which men with diabetes have a 12 percent higher risk than women with the same metabolic condition.

We have also demonstrated for the first time, he adds, that women with diabetes are more likely to develop any form of cancer, and have a significantly higher chance of developing kidney, oral, and stomach cancers and leukemia.

*First Published by Medical News Today

Source: NAN

Nine members of one family were among 17 people killed when an amphibious US tourist boat capsized during a sudden storm on a Missouri lake, a tragedy which raised renewed questions on Saturday about the safety of the craft known as duck boats.

The hybrid vessels, with wheels allowing them to drive on city roads but which can also travel on water, are popular with tourists in many cities.

The accident occurred Thursday night in full view of witnesses, at least one of whom captured video of the vessel bobbing in rough waters on Table Rock Lake near the city of Branson, a vacation destination popular for its theaters and country music.

My heart is very heavy. Out of 11 of us theres only two thats surviving, thats me and my nephew Tia Coleman, her voice breaking, told Fox59 from her hospital bed.

I lost all of my children. I lost my husband. I lost my mother-in-law and my father-in-law, along with other relatives, she told the Indianapolis TV station.

Coleman said the boats captain had told passengers earlier in their trip that they wont need life jackets.

He said it when we were in the water, she told Fox59. When it was time to grab them, it was too late and I believe that a lot of people could have been spared.

She added that the water didnt look ominous at the very first.

Coleman told CNN affiliate KOLR of her own near-death by drowning: I was yelling, I was screaming, and finally I said, Lord, just let me die, let me die. She eventually floated to the surface.

Early Saturday, the Stone County Sheriffs Office confirmed to AFP the identity of the 17 victims nine of whom had the name Coleman.

They ranged in age from one-year-old Arya Coleman to the oldest victim Ervin Coleman, 76.

Five of the dead were aged 15 or younger.

Police said 31 people were aboard the vessel, which was covered by a canopy and was seen struggling to reach shore against strong winds before it succumbed to the waves and began to sink.

The dead included the boats driver, according to the sheriffs office. The other crew member, who survived, was in charge when the craft took to the water, US media reported.

Several people were injured.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has taken over the investigation, which follows previous fatal accidents involving duck boats.

In 2002 the agency recommended that amphibious vehicles provide reserve buoyancy such as through watertight compartmentalization, to keep them afloat in the event of flooding.

The advisory followed the 1999 sinking of the Miss Majestic, a former US Army landing vehicle, with the loss of 13 lives in Hot Springs, Arkansas, because of inadequate maintenance.

Until reserve buoyancy retrofits were completed, the NTSB urged other safety measures including the removal of canopies, or installation of canopies that would not restrict passenger escape.

It also found that, at that time, the US Coast Guard lacked uniform, nationwide inspection policies for duck boats.

Source: NAN

The Cross River State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) on Friday said that over 34,000 Cameroonians, were currently taking refuge in six local government areas of the state.

Mr John Inaku, the Director General of SEMA in the state, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar.

Inaku said that the inflow was as the result of the crisis in Cameroon over the demand for Ambazonia Republic by the Southern Cameroonians.

Inaku told NAN that the asylum seekers were currently taking refuge in Obudu, Boki, Ikom, Etung, Akamkpa and Obanliku Local Government Areas of the state.

So far, we have 34,000 Cameroonian asylum seekers spread across six local government areas in Cross River.

About 21,000 of them have been documented by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees and the National Commission for Refugees.

As an agency, we go into the interior areas that have not been accessed by these organisations and holistically, we have 34,000 of them already on ground, he said.

The director general told NAN that the state government was doing its best in providing succour to the refugees, adding that the increasing number was too heavy for the state government alone to handle.

He however, appealed to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), corporate organisations and other humanitarian agencies to offer their support to the refugees.

Source: NAN

A member of House of Representatives, Mr Kwewum Shawulu (PDP-Taraba), has suggested the unbundling of Nigeria Police Force into independent special units for better handling of security in the country.

He told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that dismantling the Force was necessary as its current structure was too big to be managed by one person.

Shawulu, who is the Chairman, House Committee on Army, said that the office of Inspector-General of Police (IGP) was overwhelmed and could not answer all the calls coming from across the country.

According to him, if we have a system where we have police for traffic, terrorism, financial crimes, election matters, and are all independent, you will not have an overwhelmed IGP.

Shawulu explained that the heads of the special units will be more focus and proactive in doing their jobs without waiting for orders from above.

He said that Britain, which established the nations police in line with its system, no longer had IG office that supervised and gave direct command to all the police in the United Kingdom.

The lawmakers explained that Britain had constabularies like in the London Metropolitan Police, the Chief Constable reports directly to the Minister, who is a parliamentarian.

He said that same applied in Luton and Birmingham and that there was no office similar to that of the IGP, commanding everywhere.

He explained that every section operated independently but were answerable to the government, the parliament and the public.

Shawulu said that in Germany, there is the Federal Police, Regional Police, the Parliamentary Police that took care of issues of parliament and immigration police, all doing different things independently.

Anything can happen under such system; I am not saying we should not have IG but the people we copied this system from have moved on and changed their systems to reflect the changing times.

Why do we want to remain stuck to laws created by colonial authorities? Why can we not reform our laws and system to reflect the realities we have in the country today? he said.

Shawulu said that the 2016 Security and Policing Global Index showed that Nigeria police, in terms of processes, was the last in the world.

The legislator also said that in terms of public perception, legitimacy and credibility, Nigeria police was fourth to the last out of about 180 countries surveyed.

He explained that the factors considered for the ranking included effectiveness of the police, the processes and public perception of the police.

In other climes, when you report a case to the police, there is a process; you will know the steps to be taken and when to get feedback till you get the solution.

In the Nigerias system, you are not sure of anything at all; for instance, the Public Order Act says that the state governor issues permit for public rallies.

But police in Ekiti said the governor did not get permit from them; it is not the duty of the police, that is an abuse of process which makes the credibility of our police very low, he said.

According to the lawmaker, all over the country, nobody says anything good about the police to the extent that if there is a problem in parts of the country, people resort to calling the army for intervention.

He said that the first point of call for people in distress ought to be the police, but regretted that people did not have confidence in the police.

On the call for State Police, Shawulu said that a problem could not be solved by creating another one.

He said state police as being canvassed would be a product of the states Houses of Assembly and would be funded by the state, adding that some state governments could not pay salaries.

According to him, not properly funding trained armed men to do their job could make them veritable tools to increase insecurity in the country.

What I think is that we should put all the options on the table and do what we should do unbundle the police force, it is too big, it is not achieving what it needs to achieve.

We have 350,000 policemen on our records, but the streets do not have policemen; when there is a distress call, we do not have policemen there.

Why is it so? It is because the police among other reasons are commanded by one person who tells them where to go.

Where he tells them to go may not reflect the problem on ground. For instance, the Governor of Sokoto state gave notice of imminent attacks, instead, 30,000 policemen were deployed to Ekiti.

If we have a police for electoral matters and the police for terrorism or violent crimes, they would not have been bothered by the election and would have been deployed to Sokoto, Taraba or Zamfara.

Having such a big force in our political sphere creates corruption that portends danger to our political system and so the police need to be unbundled, Shawulu stated.

Source: NAN

Authorities would soon arraign South African police officers for alleged killing a 25-year-old Nigerian, Mr. Ibrahim Olalekan-Badmus, in 2017.

The Nigerian Mission in South Africa said on Friday in an interview that the officers were implicated in the killing.

The Nigerias Consul General in South Africa, Mr. Godwin Adama, said through a telephone from Johannesburg that the South African authority had confirmed that investigation into the murder case was almost concluded.

Badmus, a native of Lagos was brutally murdered by the South African Police on Oct. 10, 2017 at vanderbidjk park, South Africa.

Police officers implicated in the murder will be charged to the High court any moment from now, he said.

Police officers were alleged to have stormed the home of Badmus, an undergraduate at Vaal University of Technology in Vanderbijlpark in South Africa, with claims that he was trafficking drugs.

However, when the police searched his home, they could not find any drug in it.

They allegedly asked the deceased for money and when he could not give them money, they handcuffed him and used excessive pepper spray on him.

He passed out and died due to suffocation

Adama said that the case was classified as high profile because of the tension generated by the development as some Nigerians who had confrontation with the police almost took laws into their hands.

The Consul General said that on hearing of the development immediately rushed to the scene where he interfaced with the aggrieved Nigerians and the police to calm frayed nerves.

I led a delegation from the mission to visit the scene on receipt of the information. When we arrived at the scene, the place was tensed up because Nigerians there were not happy.

We immediately met with the Station Commander in the area with some selected Nigerians.

The police assured that a thorough investigation would be carried out and that the culprit would be brought to book, he said.

He said that the authority arrested the police officers that perpetrated the crime and commenced investigation.

Adama said that the mission had followed up the case and it was clear that investigating authorities had done a very thorough job as promised.

He stressed that the authorities had said that the suspects would be charged to court any moment from now.

The President of Nigerian Union in South Africa, Mr Adetola Olubajo, had blamed the incessant killings of Nigerians in South Africa on lack of prosecution of offenders by the authorities.

Olubajo said that the inability of the government to bring to book those perpetrating the heinous crimes against Nigerians has given the criminals free hands.

Lack of prosecution of these criminal activities has actually emboldened a lot of people to feel that they can kill Nigerians without any consequence, he said.

South Africas President Cyril Ramaphosa had, during his visit on July 11, said that the killing any national in the country was an act of criminality and not specifically targeted at Nigerians.

The killing of Nigerians in South Africa had been on the increase in recent times.

The latest was the assassination of Mr Martin Ebuzoeme by unknown assailant in Yeoville, Johannesburg on July 12 .

Before then, was also the killing of Mr Ozumba Tochukwu-Lawrence, by an unknown gunman at 10 Koppe, Middleburg, Mpumalanga on July 6.

Another Nigerian, ThankGod Okoro, was also reportedly shot dead in Hamburg, Florida West Rand, Johannesburg, on April 9 by the South African Police Flying Squad.

There was also the killing of Mr Clement Nwaogu a father of two, who was burnt to death by his assailants in April.

The wanton killings of Nigerians in South Africa had sparked a number of protests there.

At least 14 of the protesters were taken into custody and allegedly branded drug peddlers.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, had expressed worry over the killings of Nigerians in South Africa.

Dabiri-Erewa stated that no fewer than 117 Nigerians were extra-judicially killed in South Africa between 2013 and 2018 for one flimsy reason or the other.

Source: NAN