Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) cannot be held responsible for the poor turnout of petitioners in Saturdays verification of signatures for the recall of Senator Dino Melaye, an official has said.

The INEC Federal Commissioner in-charge of Kogi, Kwara and Nasarawa states, Alhaji Mohammed Haruna, made the statement in Lokoja after the end of the exercise.

Haruna said that the main concern of INEC was to ensure transparency in the process, insisting that the organisation was neutral in the bid to recall Melaye from the Senate.

Turnout is not our problem; turnout is the problem of parties concerned, ours is to ensure transparency, Haruna said.

Commenting on insinuations that INEC might tamper with the wish of the people, the commissioner said that nothing like that would happen, stressing that the agency had no interest in who won or lost in the matter.

Nothing untoward will happen, I assure you . Whatever happened at the polling units is what INEC will announce, he stated.

Commenting on the mix up in the list of petitioners, Haruna said that mistakes in such exercise was normal but gave an assurance that the mistakes would be corrected.

He lauded the peaceful conduct of the people before and during the exercise.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that in Koton Karfe and Lokoja, the people conducted themselves well, although the turnout was poor.

At Ukwo polling unit in Koton Karfe, 18 out of 440 petitioners came for the verification, while at Oworo polling unit in Felele area of Lokoja, none of the 815 petitioners showed up.

Also at polling unit 004 of Ward 3 in Lokoja, 32 out of the 1,251 petitioners showed up.

During the exercise, there was no case of malfunctioning of card reader machines while security personnel adequately manned the polling centres.

Melaye, representing Kogi West in the Assembly, has been struggling to retain his seat following a petition by some of his constituents in 2017 that he was not representing them well.

The senators accusers gathered signatures to demand his recall but Melaye, who accused the state Governor, Mr Yahaya Bello, of being the mastermind of the plot, mobilised his supporters to resist the move.

He subsequently approached the court to stop the process but could not get the relief he sought at the Court of Appeal.

Source: NAN

The Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) has announced a five-hour outage in Ikoyi and environs from 10.00am to 3.00pm on Sunday.

Mr Godwin Idemudia, the EKEDC General Manager, Corporate Communications, said in a statement on Saturday that the outage would enable the company to carry out maintenance work.

According to the general manager, the maintenance work will be carried out on the companys 33KVA Bus Section 11 at the Fowler Injection Substation.
We solicit understanding from all our customers who will be affected by the outage, especially for the inconveniences it will cause them even as this information comes to them at a short notice.
Eko Disco promises to keep improving its equipment for better service delivery to electricity users in its network.
We implore our customers to bear with us, he said.

Source: NAN

The President of the Senate Dr Bukola Saraki has led other senators to visit their colleague, Senator Dino Melaye at the National Hospital, Abuja.

Melaye was admitted at the hospital on Tuesday after being arrested by the police and attempted to be taken to Kogi to be paraded in court along with some suspected criminals.

The circumstances surrounding the hospitalisation of the senator are still unclear and some of his colleagues who tried to visit him on Tuesday and early Wednesday reported that the police prevented them from seeing their colleague.

However, the President of the Senate, following a resolution on the floor of the senate, led a powerful delegation to the hospital to see their colleague and ascertain his state of health.

The senate had adjourned plenary on Wednesday following a two prayer over the arrest and humiliation of one of them.

The decision of the Senate followed a motion moved by Senator Sam Anyanwu over the arrest of their colleagues. An yanwu had decried that the police refused he and other colleagues from seeing Melaye at the hospital.

However, the prayer that the senate adjourn was moved by Senator Mao Ohuabunwa who insisted that there was no need for the senate to sit about and debate when the health condition of their colleague was unknown.

He insisted that it was not only when a colleagues dies that the senate should adjourn but that the senate must adjourn over life threatening situations such as this.

The prayer was seconded by Senator Sunny Ugboji and adopted by the senate and the senate thereafter adjourned plenary.

The senate also adopted the motion that the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, briefed the senate in plenary on Thursday.

As at the time of filing this report, the President of the Senate Dr Bukola Saraki as well as his colleagues had departed the National Assembly complex to go and visit their colleague.

Speaking, the President of the Senate said that the Senate leadership was very concerned about the turn of events surrounding the arrest and humiliation of their colleague.

Saraki said that he had already sent the Deputy Leader of the Senate to go and visit Melaye at the National Hospital Abuja.

We as leadership are very concerned, Deputy leader and others have been sent to look for Dino Melaye. But it has gone beyond that and I can appreciate the emotions that have passed.

The IGP should brief us tomorrow.

I want to thank those who contributed. At times like this it is difficult to speak the truth because this is a violation on one, a violation on all of us, a violation on the institution and a violation on democracy.

This action is a threat to the democracy we are all fighting for,

We are about to go into an election period, and if these are the kind of excesses we will see from those responsible to protect us, then it is a cause for concern.

We must all condemn this action, we should not be spending our energy on things like this, he said.

Saraki added that since the incidence, he had been trying to reach the Police IGP to no avail, adding that is smirks of disrespect to him and to the institution of the Senate.

I have not been able to reach the IGP and that is a disrespect, not only to me as an individual but to the institution of the Senate.

This must stop. There are procedures and there are ways.

We will go and ascertain Dinos state of mind and find a solution to this problem, he said.

Speaking earlier, Senator Chukwuka Utazi challenged his colleagues to speak the truth at all times insisting that it doesnt matter if the senator in question was liked by all.

According to him, it could be Dino today and someone else today, adding that the action was an affront on the institution and on democracy.

He charged his colleagues that anyone who refrained from speaking or who supports the actions of the Police was not acting in the interest of Nigeria.

Senator Shehu Sani who gave soul searching sermon called on his colleagues and all arms of government to be mindful of their actions while they are in power as power would not always remain in their hands.

He stressed that the right things must be done by all who are in position of authority so that posterity would judge them faily.

Shortly before the senate adjourned, the delegation that was earlier sent to the National Hospital by Saraki returned to brief the upper legislative chamber.

Deputy Leader of the Senate Bala Ibn NaAllah who led the delegation told the house that they were able to speak with the doctor in charge as well as the medical director of the hospital.

The assurance we have is that they are doing what is possible to stabilize him. Currently he is in the intensive care unit and they are doing all they can to stabilize him.

We tried to see him but the instruction is that only Senator Kaka and Abu Ibrahim have the permission to see him.

There is one issue that is worrisome: his feeding is an issue, the Police is afraid to feed him, the National Hospital also expressed reservation about feeding him, but before we left we had a discussion on how to feed him.

It was agreed that if there is a way they can arrange for food from any source but the source must taste the food first.

There is an insistence to remove him from the National Hospital but the hospital has insisted that the police must sign an undertaken before he can be removed, he said.

Source: NAN

Elated scientists announced Wednesday the completion of a 20-year quest to map the complex enzyme thought to forestall ageing by repairing the tips of chromosomes in plants and animals, including humans.

Decoding the architecture of the enzyme, called telomerase, could lead to drugs that slow or block the ageing process, along with new treatments for cancer, they reported in the journal Nature.

It has been a long time coming, lead investigator Kathleen Collins, a molecular biologist at the University of California in Berkley, said in a statement.

Our findings provide a structural framework for understanding human telomerase disease mutations, and represent an important step towards telomerase-related clinical therapeutics.

Part protein and part RNA genetic material that relays instructions for building proteins telomerase acts on microscopic sheaths, known as telomeres, that cover the tips of the chromosomes found inside all cells.

In humans, each cell contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, including one pair of sex chromosomes the X and Y that differ between males and females.

Australian-American biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering telomeres and their protective function in the 1970s, likened them to the tiny plastic caps that keep shoelaces from fraying.

Eventually, however, shoelace tips and telomeres do break down: every time a cell divides the telomeres get worn a little bit more, until the cell stops dividing and dies. This, biologists agree, is probably central to the natural ageing process.

But there is a twist.

In 1985 Blackburn discovered telomerase, and its remarkable capacity to extend a cells lifespan by essentially rebuilding telomeres with extra bits of DNA, much in the same way that retreading a tyre can make it nearly as good as new.

Telomerase, in other words, was revealed to be a key agent in longevity.

It can also be linked to disease.

Inherited genetic mutations that compromise telomerase function cause disorders, said Michael Stone, a professor at the Centre for Molecular Biology or RNA at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

A deficiency of the enzyme could accelerate cell death. At the other extreme, too much telomerase supports unbridled cell growth in most human cancers, he wrote in a commentary, also in Nature.

But early efforts to develop drugs that could control the enzymes expression essentially switching it on or off were hampered by an incomplete understanding of the structure and organisation of the telomerase complex, Stone added.

A 2010 study showed that ageing could be reversed in mice that were treated with telomerase.And in 2011, scientists found a way to transform age-worn cells from people over 90 into rejuvenated stem cells indistinguishable from those found in embryos. In lab experiments, several critical markers of ageing in cells were reset, including the size of telomeres.

To crack the telomerase code, Collins and her team used a state-of-the-art cryoelectron microscope (Cryo-EM) to see the enzyme in action at unprecedented resolutions of seven or eight angstroms.

An angstrom is one ten-billionth of a metre long.

Cryo-EM can decipher the molecular structures of compounds that cannot be crystalized and imaged with X-rays. Its developers won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

When I got to the point where I could see all the subunits we had 11 proteins in total it was a moment of Wow! Wow! This is how they all fit together, said lead author Thi Hoang Duong Nguyen, a post-doc at UC Berkeleys Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science.

A 2010 study showed that ageing could be reversed in mice that were treated with telomerase.

And in 2011, scientists found a way to transform age-worn cells from people over 90 into rejuvenated stem cells indistinguishable from those found in embryos.

In lab experiments, several critical markers of ageing in cells were reset, including the size of telomeres.

Source: NAN

The Kwara State Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN) says it will commence an indefinite strike on May 2.

A statement issued on Thursday and signed by the state Chairman of MHWUN, Mr Muritala Olayinka, noted that the indefinite strike will commencemidnight of May 2.

He said that the union had earlier given the state government a 19-day ultimatum to meet their demands, which will lapse on May 1, 2018.

Olayinka explained that their demands include: upward review of Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) from 50 per cent to 100 per cent and the promotion of staff without financial backing should be addressed immediately.

He also cited non-payment of outstanding arrears of salaries of the staff of local governments in the state.

He stated that the union would not go back on its decision until the state government does the needful.

I dont think the state government will respond to our demands before that day because we have made series of moves in ensuring government look into our demands but they turned deaf ears.

If they make a move now, it is likely going to be a meeting, but it is until when we seeapproval for our demands before we can make a u-turn on the industrial action, he said.

The chairman noted that the state government had recently claimed that it was gradually getting out of recession and its economy had improved.

Workers are not slaves so we have to make this struggle a totality until government responds to our demands, he said.

Olayinka calls on his colleagues to be law abiding and abide by instructions from the labour leaders.

Responding to the threat of industrial action by MHWUN, the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Ahmed on Media and Communications, Dr Muideen Akorede, said that the state government was looking into the issue.

Source: NAN

There are indications that the 1, 296 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Pompomari camp, Damaturu, may face cholera outbreak and other water-borne diseases due to absence of water and sanitation facilities.

According to the inmates, they get water once a day, while their toilet facilities are not being maintained.

NAN correspondent on a delegation of the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Emergency Working Group, further reports that inmates of the camp said the coming rains would compound the problems as their makeshift homes are in tatters.

One of the displaced persons, Adamu Rabiu, told NAN about the poor hygiene practices in the camp, and said it was a huge problem to the inhabitants.

He alleged that the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), had neglected provision of adequate water for them.

He said that the single solar-powered borehole in the camp, was grossly inadequate for their population of over 1,300.

He expressed concerns over how sanitation officers in charge of maintaining hygiene in their toilets, had failed to apply disinfectants and air fresheners to reduce offensive smell polluting the premises.

Rabiu said that the development could become harmful to the population of the IDPs, and called for immediate deployment of more sanitation workers to help rescue the situation.

As you can see for yourself, the environment is not conducive at all.

We want the authorities in charge to help us maintain this camp by bringing in sanitation workers.

We are aware that the Red Cross helped in cleaning the drains and culverts, but now, SEMA is in charge and they are not doing anything.

We need help in areas of food and water. As you can see that the jerry cans and the people here are waiting for water to come, the solar powered borehole is not adequate.

The tanker brings water once a day; it is not enough for the population here.

Our rooms are torn, the rains are coming soon, we want government to come to our aid to help repair our makeshift houses.

Another IDP, Mohammed Danladi, said that the clinic was lacking relevant drugs, and called for support to equip the clinics with essential drugs.

When contacted, the Director, Search and Rescue, Yobe SEMA, Alhaji Garba Bilal, explained that the camp initially had 4,011 Persons.

He said, but with the reduction of insurgency, a large number of IDPs had returned, leaving 1,296 persons.

Bilal said that the camp was fully funded by the state government in collaboration with donor agencies.

He said that the collaborative efforts covered provision of basic needs and psycho-social support towards overall goal of reintegrating the IDPs into the society.

According to him, there are other six IDP camps in Kukareta, Ngaburawa, Fuguri, Muhammad Gombes Farm, Albari YBC and Kasesa, which has the highest population.

Mr Baba Galadima, Team Leader, WASH in Emergency Working Group, expressed joy that the camps had been decongested.

He commended the state government for timely interventions towards providing livelihood support for the IDPs.

He said that the Federal Government was intervening in providing the group with facilities in parts of the state, to augment the already existing ones.

The group is working to see that humanitarian responses especially in the North East reach their target population.

Source: NAN

But Princes siblings filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Trinity Medical Center in Moline, Illinois, where the singer was treated when his plane made an emergency stop on his way back from a concert in Atlanta days before he died in April 2016.

The family said the hospital should have investigated to see if Prince had taken a counterfeit medicine.

According to Minnesota prosecutors, doctors in Moline administered to Prince two doses of Narcan, which reverses opioid overdose, but did not test the pills in Princes system although the singer was famously insistent on his privacy.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Illinois Friday but revealed later by lawyers, also targeted the pharmacy chain Walgreens for allegedly dispensing medicine without proper checks.

What happened to Prince is happening to families across America, family lawyers George Loucas and John Goetz said in a statement.

The family wishes through its investigation to shed light on this epidemic and how to better the fight to save lives. If Princes death helps save lives, then all was not lost, they said.

Walgreens and the hospital declined comment on the lawsuit, saying they do not comment on ongoing litigation.

Prince is the most visible face of an opioid epidemic that, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, claimed more than 42,000 lives last year in the United States.

Prosecutors said that Prince died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl an ultra-potent drug that is up to 100 times as powerful as heroin in pills marked as the prescription drug Vicodin.

Prince, 57, was outwardly a model of health who fired bandmates over drug use but had been suffering pain after undergoing hip surgery.

Source: NAN

Music star, Oladapo Oyebanji, a.k.a Dbanj, on Wednesday said that a platform for Nigerian talented actors to showcase their scripts for sponsorship would be launched May 1.

He disclosed this during the 2018 Nigerian Entertainment Conference with the theme Understanding Emerging Markets, Trends and Opportunities in Lagos.

Dbanj who established similar platform showcasing talented musicians called Creative, Reality, Entertainment, Arts and Music (CREAM) in 2016, said that the platform would afford actors opportunities to showcase their scripts.

The Koko Master said that random selection would be done monthly and CREAM would be responsible for all the finances to ensure the most interesting ones were selected for production.

He said it would be a platform that provides the up and coming artistes the opportunity to have their songs recorded, movies and videos shoot for the budding artistes.

It would also help secure collaborations with established acts.

The first set of beneficiaries on the platform was Rayce, TK Swag, MKJ, Leke Benson, Legend Courage and recently Real Self.

We have been doing this for the musical industry since 2016, we want to rub off on the potential actors and actresses too because we realise there are talents too in that field who needs assistance.

Every month beginning from May, we will be picking 10 scripts we believe will interest the viewers and they will all be shoot and produced.

We have 3.5million subscribers already on CREAM platform and we expect more talented Nigerians to upload their scripts and music for possible assistance.

Legbegbe which is one of the most played song in clubs, radio stations and parties was a product of CREAM , this was done by Real self, featured Idowest, Obadice and Kelvin Chuks, he said.

Source: NAN

Britains Prince Harry has asked his elder brother Prince William to be his best man at his wedding to U.S. actress Meghan Markle next month, his office said in a statement on Thursday.

Harry was Williams best man at his own glittering wedding to wife Kate Middleton in 2011.

The Duke of Cambridge is honoured to have been asked, and is very much looking forward to supporting his brother at St Georges Chapel, Windsor on May 19th, Kensington Palace said.

Some 600 guests are expected to attend Harry and Markles wedding service and a reception inside Windsor Castle, with hundreds of others, including members of the public, invited to watch the wedding from the castle grounds.

Earlier this week William and Kate, whose official titles are the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, celebrated the arrival of their third child.

Source: NAN

Disgraced television icon Bill Cosby was convicted Thursday of sexual assault by a US jury losing a year-long legal battle that was made tougher at retrial as the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.

The frail 80-year-old Cosby once beloved as Americas Dad could now spend the rest of his life behind bars when he is sentenced for drugging and molesting Andrea Constand at his Philadelphia mansion in January 2004.

His lawyer vowed that the battle is not over as he would appeal.

Im the happiest Ive ever been about any court decision in 42 years, said lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents 33 Cosby accusers.

Constand was in the packed courtroom in Norristown, just outside Philadelphia, as the verdict was read out to stifled sobs in the gallery.

A criminal conviction and possible prison term is a devastating final chapter in the career of the once towering figure in late 20th century American popular culture, the first black actor to grace primetime US television, who hit the big time after growing up as the son of a maid.

The jury, which deliberated for more than 14 hours over two days, found him guilty on all three counts of aggravated indecent assault. Cosbys first trial ended in June last year with a hung jury.

The three counts constituted penetration without Constands consent, which took place both while she was unconscious and after she had been drugged. Each count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.

The pioneering African American actor and entertainer, adored by millions for his seminal role on The Cosby Show, sat in silence as the jury foreperson read out the verdict.

But after the jury was led out, the Emmy winner dogged for years by allegations of similar assaults made by dozens of women erupted in an expletive-laden tirade as prosecutors argued he was a flight risk.

The verdict was a vindication for the prosecution, after Cosbys first trial ended with the sequestered jurors hopelessly deadlocked after 52 hours of deliberations.

It also ended a winning streak for Los Angeles lawyer Tom Mesereau, who leapt to fame for getting Michael Jackson acquitted of child molestation in 2005, but who ultimately failed to deliver for Cosby.

A case with no physical evidence, the trial essentially boiled down to he-said, she-said, hinging on how credible the jury found 45-year-old Constand, a former basketball player turned massage therapist.

The Canadian woman said she went to Cosbys home to discuss her impending resignation as director of operations for womens basketball at Temple University, where he was on the board of trustees.

The actor offered her three blue pills to help take the edge off, which she took believing they were a natural remedy.

I trusted him, Constand said. But within minutes, she developed double vision, started slurring her words and lost consciousness.

When she came to, she said Cosby was penetrating her vagina with his fingers, groping her breasts and making her masturbate him.

I was limp and I could not fight him off, she said.

When Constand first reported the assault, the district attorney at the time initially refused to press charges.

Prosecutors reopened the case in 2015, nearly a decade after she signed a $3.4 million settlement with Cosby in 2006, claiming that new evidence had come to light just as other accusers came forward.

Around 60 women, many of them onetime aspiring actresses and models, came forward publicly to brand him a calculating, serial predator who plied victims with sedatives and alcohol to bed them over four decades.

Crucial to the second trial was Judge Steven ONeills decision to let five other women testify how Cosby had preyed on them in a similar manner, to demonstrate common plan, scheme or design.

Inability to consent

Prosecutors said Cosby used his fame to gain the trust of unsuspecting women, time and time again, and deliberately drugged Constand so that she would be unable to resist his advances.

This case is about trust, betrayal and the inability to consent, Kristen Feden told jurors, tearing into the defenses vicious and filthy character assassination attempts against Cosbys accusers.

She turned on its head the defense claim that Constand was a con artist, who pursued a grieving father mourning his sons murder and old enough to be her grandfather for a big payout.

The perpetrator of that con? shouted Feden in dramatic and emotional closing remarks. That man! she shouted, pointing at Cosby.

Mesereau and former federal prosecutor Kathleen Bliss sought an aggressive defence that portrayed Constand as a money-grabbing opportunist, who lied to extricate herself from financial worries.

Youre dealing with a pathological liar, said Mesereau, branding the 2006 settlement one of the biggest highway robberies of all time.

But ultimately, the panel of five women and seven men were unconvinced.

Hanging over the entire trial was the cultural watershed of the #MeToo movement, which since last October has seen a litany of powerful men from Harvey Weinstein to Kevin Spacey lose their careers.

Experts had suggested that changing attitudes towards sexual assault could make jurors more inclined to believe female victims.

Source: NAN