A child bride forced into marriage in Nigeria killed a groom and three of his friends with a poisoned meal, police said Thursday.
Fourteen-year-old Wasila Umaru was married last week to 35-year-old Umaru Sani, according to assistant superintendent Musa Magaji Majia.
Over the weekend, the groom invited a dozen friends to celebrate at his Ungwar Yansoro village, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the northern city of Kano.
The teenager told police she bought rat poison at a village market and used it to prepare a dish of rice.
"The suspect confessed to committing the crime and said she did it because she was forced to marry a man she did not love," Majia told The Associated Press.
The groom and a friend died the same day, and two other victims died later in the hospital.
Umaru is cooperating with police and likely will be charged with culpable homicide, according to Majia.
Child marriage is common in Nigeria and especially in the mainly Muslim and impoverished north, where the numbers increase in times of drought because a bride price is paid and it means one less mouth to feed. Fifty percent of Nigerian girls living in rural areas are married before they turn 18, according to the U.N. children's agency. That's a lot of child brides in a country of some 170 million people of whom half are under 18.
Child brides often suffer difficult pregnancies — the leading cause of death worldwide for girls aged 15 to 19 — and are much more likely to contract AIDS and be subjected to domestic violence, according to the International Center for Research on Women.
Early and forced marriage is classified as modern-day slavery by the U.N. labor organization, and Nigeria's Child Rights Act prohibits marriage before 18. But that federal law competes with Islamic Shariah law that holds in most northern states.
No one in Nigeria has been prosecuted for marrying a child, including Sen. Sani Ahmed Yerima, infamous for divorcing a 17-year-old that he married when she was 15 so he could marry a 14-year-old Egyptian girl in 2010, when he was 49. He had to divorce one of his child brides because Islamic law allows a maximum of four wives at a time.
Many child brides are divorced, for that reason and because of incontinence and other medical problems caused by difficult pregnancies, according to local child rights advocates who say such girls are put out on the street.
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KANO, Nigeria April 10, 2014 (AP)
Faul contributed to this story from Lagos, Nigeria.
Culled Abc News
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expressed readiness to offer free technical assistance to the All Progressive Congress (APC) on how to organise itself in a democratic setting.
This is contained in a statement issued by Mr Olisa Metuh, the party`s National Publicity Secretary on Monday in Abuja.
He said that such assistance would include the conduct of transparent and credible congress following APC`s last weekend postponed ward congress.
“We know the history of this party and the pedigree of its leaders will hardly yield to democracy, but we are confident that our assistance is handy here”, he said.
Metuh recalled that the PDP had held successful congresses and national conventions where party members were allowed level play ground to pursue their ambitions irrespective of sectional, religious and ethnic affiliations.
He described as a huge embarrassment to democracy, APC ward congress at the weekend.
It added that “it is an irony that a party that daily claims it is on a mission to rescue Nigeria could not conduct its own congress.
“The APC chairmen in Rivers, Plateau, Bauchi and the FCT announced the postponement of the exercise in their states.’’ the statement said.
According to him, the situation is so bad that the congress was cancelled in Adamawa and Katsina while in Kano and Sokoto, there was no voting.
Metuh said it was so because both states chose their ward officials via a “strange consensus’’ option.
Metuh said it was unfortunate that APC that asked for the resignation of INEC board, over the conduct of Anambra governorship elections due to slight hitches experienced in the exercise, could not organise its congress.
He said that the APC had no business in a democracy adding that it should be honourable enough to commence the process of its own disbandment, having experienced massive hitches in its congress (NAN)
Governors of the South East geo-political zone yesterday met in Enugu behind closed doors apparently to put finishing touches to arrangements for the proposed visit of President Goodluck Jonathan to the zone on Friday, April 11, 2014.
Anambra State governor Willy Obiano, Enugu State governor Sullivan Chime, Ebonyi State governor Martin Elechi and governor of the South East Governors’ Forum and Abia State governor Theodor Orji attended the meeting which took place at Enugu Government House Lodge.
Although the governors refused to disclose their resolutions to journalists, a competent source told LEADERSHIP that they discussed how they would give President Jonathan a befitting welcome.
LEADERSHIP gathered that president, who is expected to be in Enugu on Friday this week for the South East Zonal Rally of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)Rally, might use the opportunity to talk with some aggrieved members of the party in the South East that have defected to opposition parties.
Meanwhile, ahead of the 2015 general elections, All Progressives Congress (APC) has set a target to take over Enugu State Government House, popularly known as Lion Building.
Speaking with journalists in Enugu yesterday, chairman of the Congress Committee in Enugu, Hon. Uche Onyeagocha, insisted that APC was not only prepared to make an impact in Enugu State in 2015, but had set a target to take over the Lion Building from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He stated that it was wrong for anybody to assume that APC had no ground in Enugu State, adding that the party had seasoned politicians who had contested elections at the national, state and local government level, but lost because security agencies aided PDP to rig the elections.
“We have people like Okechukwu Ideke. We have people like General J.O.J Okoloagu. We have people like Osita Okechukwu. These are people who have contested several elections but only lost because they were rigged out and we have many more who are still coming in, who have obtained membership cards.
Culled Leadership
ABUJA — FORMER Senate President, Nnamani Ken, has disclosed that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, will fill a candidate for governorship of Enugu State in the 2015 general election from the northern part of the state.
Nnamani said all stakeholders in the party from the state had already reached a consensus that Governor Sullivan Chime’s successor should emerge from Enugu North senatorial zone.
The former Senate President, who is a delegate at the ongoing National Conference, told newsmen, yesterday, that settling for someone from that part of the state was aimed at ending the controversy surrounding the 2015 governorship election in Enugu State.
He said the development was the outcome of a reconciliatory meeting among PDP stakeholders in the state.
He said: “Enugu State does not seem to have any succession problem because we have a conventional understanding that when Enugu East completed its eight years, it went to Enugu West and after Enugu West, it is only proper that governorship power should go to Enugu North. It is not written anywhere, but it is conventional.
Culled: The VANGUARD
Dora Akunyili’s Husband Says Wife Risked Everything To Be At National Conference. Dr Chike Akunyili At National Conference
Dr Chike Akunyili, husband to Professor Dora Akunyili, has been very supportive to her wife since the news of her strange ailment broke out last year.
The Doctor took to his facebook page a while ago to thank fans for their support for his fast recuperating wife.
“May the good LORD bless all of you that have prayed and still pray for my unique and lovely wife, DORA. She is a noted personality and risked everything for the love of our dear country, NIGERIA. I thank God that I was present when she made that very singular speech. It resonated in the corners of the Confab and instantly touched many hearts. The illness has not blunted her childlike frankness in our blessed 36 years of marriage. Thanks a lot”
Last Tuesday, the former Minister of Information, Prof. Dora Akunyili, appeared at the ongoing National Conference, with a declaration that the confab was President Goodluck Jonathan’s most courageous act.
In her contribution during the discussion on the inaugural speech of the President, the frayed looking Professor said the conference was Jonathan’s gift to the country.
Daily Post.
My name is Chioma Odilinye. I was married to Mr. Onyebuchi Odilinye. The marriage is blessed with a son. My husband fell sick sometime last year and it demanded that he would be flown to Indian for an operation. He left to India in company of his immediate elder brother, Mr. Hyacinth Odilinye. I spoke with my husband in India and he told me the operation was successful, that they will be back in few days. I called again but nobody was picking my calls and after other trials, I discovered d number has been unavailable.
I was forced to try my husband's Nigeria number which went through and I spoke with his elder brother, Hyacinth who told me that they are back from India and are now in a referal hospital in Abuja. I asked to speak to my husband but he wouldn't allow me on d reason dat he was so weak to talk. I demanded d address of d hospital in Abuja, but he wouldn't give me. This went on for weeks.
# During this period, my husband's younger brothers(Emenike and Chukwujekwu) sent an urgent message that all our seven haulage trucks have been grounded by police and the only condition to release them was to provide the original documents of the trucks. I obliged them with d documents. Little did I know that my husband had died and they were using that as a ploy to collect all our properties. Even our Highland SUV that was used to conveyed my husband to d airport has not been returned.
# After the burial and funeral of my husband, Mr. Hyacinth Odilinye with sisters in the village at Ogidi in Anambra State, locked me, my mum and my son up in a room that the only condition to our release was upon handing over of the documents of the house I and my late husband suffered to build in Lagos. It took d intervention of some villagers for them to release us, but their sister Ebere followed us back to Lagos to collect d document. We got to Lagos and I made it clear to Ebere that the house belongs to I and husband and I can't give her d documents. This irked her and she threatened me that they will ensure that I suffer with my son. Few hours later, the elder brother Hyacinth called and also threatened to kill me if I don't provide the documents. On several occaissions lately, two people on a motor cycle would come at my gate, release one or two gun shots and speed off.
# I implore you to use ur good office to recover my properties and also save my life which is in danger.
Culled Ikem Okuhu's Timeline
There is this truth which none can deny in Nigeria. That truth is that the woman from the Eastern part of Nigeria has never been lacking when it comes to standing up to be counted in public affairs, especially when it has to do with salvaging the society from a knotty scourge. Since those days in 1929 when hundreds of Aba women rose in unanimity under the direction of three women to dethrone warrant chiefs, who as agents of the colonial masters, were taxing women, the Igbo woman of the modern era has never shied away from confronting knotty challenges. That attribute has been borne out by the activities of the Igbo women who have been invited into the administration of President Jonathan and of Olusegun Obasanjo before that, to contribute their quota in governance.
The first coming of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as the finance minister under Olusegun Obasanjo, when out of patriotism, she left her comfort zone at the World Bank to return to Nigeria to transform the economy that had been laid prostrate after years of military rule, does not deserve much expatiation. It goes without saying that without her influence and the respectability which she enjoys in the international financial circles, Nigeria’s economy and business would not have not have emerged from her pariah status, not to talk of emerging from the doldrums, even maybe till now. It was remarkable that in spite of her giant roles in redeeming Nigeria’s image, as well as that of President Obasanjo himself, she was treated shabbily by the government of the day, the fact that made her to resign her job and head back to the World Bank where her services would always better appreciated.
The role and impact of other Igbo women in that administration also stood out prominently. I refer to Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili who became the utility minister and problem solver of the Obasanjo administration and Professor Dora Akunyili who as the director general of NAFDAC dwarfed everybody else that had occupied that position before her and through her vicious battles and conquests of fake drugs, she proved that even in spite of the obstacles and frustrations of the public sector, it was still possible for a tree to make a forest. In retrospect, it would be safe to say that Obasanjo’s administration would not have amounted to much without the roles of certain Igbo women who acted in that government. When that list is expanded, one would also include the role of the likes of Professor Chinwe Obaji who, as the minister of education, brought about many innovative factors in the system, which space would not let me elaborate.
Since independence, but particularly since the Fourth Republic, the roles of Igbo women in governance have been phenomenal but have unfortunately not been adequately recognized and rewarded by a largely ungrateful population. In every sector of the system, she looms large and works her knuckles off while trying to make things better for all sundry. Her plight has however become that of being abandoned and scorned once she has come along and solved most of the problems. It is then that naysayers which Nigeria has in grand abundance start looming large to rubbish all that the Igbo woman has achieved or pretending that those achievements had never happened.
In the current administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, the Igbo women who have been helping things to work for Nigerians have not being having things easy, in the hands of the public, which, egged on by a largely confused and unprincipled opposition, has found the Igbo woman an easy target through whom to vent their frustration. Aware of the capacity of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to make the difference, her help was again sought and in spite of the raw deal she had got from the ungrateful Obasanjo, she still came out of patriotic zeal do for her own country what she has done for others. She has since succeeded in making savings for the economy apart from stabilizing the riotous financial system in spite of the incurable indiscipline of most of the operators of the system. Her position as the Coordinating minister for the Economy has given her a greater leeway to have a more holistic view of the economy and to apply remedial measures across the board.
It is in that capacity that she has made the task of sourcing for opportunities to provide jobs for the teeming population of the nation’s jobless a priority, such that in spite of the lack of power which has become the largest obstacle to industrialization, things are looking up in the direction of employment in the country. The economic growth of Nigeria has also become a reality in spite of hiccup in some sectors, evidenced by the fact western institutions are predicting that in another year or two, Nigeria would be the biggest economy in Africa, ahead of South Africa and Egypt.
In spite of these glaring landmarks, what Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is getting is knocks from those who accuse her of all manners of things, including a failure to manufacture jobs that would wipe out unemployment overnight. After the national tragedy that was recorded during the botched recruitment exercise by the Nigeria Immigration Service that claimed some 20 lives, it was Okonjo-Iweala’s name that was on most lips, even when the Opposition could not establish a linkage between her and the tragedy. The illogic was that if she had single handedly provided jobs for every Nigerian in these three years there would have been nobody to have gone to the NIS recruitment arenas to be trampled to death. Again, if those people had been men enough, they should have just come out and declared that Okonjo-Ikeja has been placed on the slaughter slab because she is an Igbo woman, and that would have elicited no further discussion.
One is not trying to justify or rationalize any infractions, if any that is committed by an Igbo person at his or her place of work, but it is obvious that for most Igbo women in public positions of trust, it has been a verdict of guilty before they are even able to defend themselves. Ms. Stella Oduah, the former Aviation minister who completely changed the face of the industry in a short span of three years has suddenly become a national villain over some yet to be substantiated allegations of involvement in car purchase scam. Overnight, all the pride that she has brought to Nigerians through her redeeming touch at all the nation’s airports, had stopped to count. She has become the most condemned person in Nigeria simply because she is being accused of having purchased cars for her official use – allegations that her traducers believe can be conclusively proved through loud and disjointed shouts and sponsored media attacks. Again, would it not have been easier to own up that her predicament is largely owed to the sound of her name.
Ms. Aruma Oteh, the competent and confident boss of the Securities and Exchange Commission also came atop the slaughter slab because she was doing her job with the type of confidence, courage and verve that she had inherited from her roots. Even though she had proved conclusively that she was a victim of her own competence and principles who would not allow unprincipled hands of corruption and graft by some looters masquerading as over-sighters to sour the place for her and Nigerians, nobody seems to be giving her a hearing. Even though the Nigerian capital market has experienced a large scale sanity and respectability since her coming, Aruma Oteh stays on the firing line of those whose words are law, to the extent that for a whole year she was denied the wherewithal to run her very important institution.
This account will be incomplete without referring to the current plight of Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke who suffers a double jeopardy in the hands of an unprincipled opposition for being a close confidante of the president and having an Igbo surname. A woman of great knowledge and experience, especially in the petroleum industry which she currently runs, she has been pursued from pillar to post by enemies without a cause, inventing one wild allegation after another. If she is not being accused of having stolen an amount of money which Nigeria is incapable of earning in a year – an allegation that was started by a demented public official who has turned out to be a national disgrace – she is being accused of blinding everybody in the NNPC and running their business on a day to day basis for them.
Even though it would have been obvious that the so-called whistle blowing by the sinking Mallam Sanusi Lamido was an insane act, given that a Central Bank boss who juggles figures like a drunken magician without being sure of where he started, would not have been treated with any iota of seriousness, yet it is such drunken claims that seem to be forming the basis of the ongoing harassment to which the Petroleum Minster is being subjected. It hardly matters that the Finance Ministry has largely given a lie to Sanusi’s wild allegations, while explaining that if there was any semblance of losses, it would be because adequate reconciliation in the nation’s accounting system had not been fully effected, there are those who hang to the claim that Mrs. Alison-Madueke had stolen $60 billon or 20billion – amounts that are incapable of being hidden in today’s transparent banking system. This dirty and unjust war has been waged against a hard working woman through a section of the media that is being suborned by this unpatriotic opposition which would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.
As if the problems being given Mrs. Alison-Madueke through the so-called lost funds and issues surrounding subsidy payments which could easily be verified through her ministry and the NNPC without necessarily dragging her physically into it, they have started a new one with the re-opening of the issue of the use of chartered aircraft which they claim the minister had done for her personal use. So vile have been her traducers that they now even include the pictures of her family members to show that the jets were for her private use. It is like claiming that because an officer’s children were found inside an official car of the officer, then it means that he is not using the car for his official businesses.
The weightier issue is that those who are accusing and probing the minister for having used chartered aircraft for her official duties have not stopped to do an unbiased cost-benefit analysis of such an option which the NNPC has amply explained. Neither has anybody tried to counter-balance her use of the chartered jet against what obtained during the even less busy eras of say, ministers like Rilwanu Lukman. No, such precedents have not quite mattered to Allison-Madueke’s attackers…after all, she belongs to the group that is always a fair game for shooting down.
This onslaught has become so pervasive as it is shameless. It has refused to recognize boundaries of decency nor accepted that there are hallowed grounds. Last week, Dora Akunyili now joined her sisters at the butt of the attack of other Nigerians. Her offence was that she answered the national call by accepting to serve at the national confab. It is not that she is not amply qualified to participate but rather why should she do so, when, according to them, she looks emaciated from the illness which she has emerged and just waiting to put her weight back on. Her explanations that she is equal to the task, intellectually, psychologically and physically have failed to assuage her attackers, not even after making a stout and characteristically-pointed submission which attracted wild applause, would they let her be. Neither has the explanation of her prominent doctor-husband assuaged the blood-thirsty shacks.
It is important to serve notice to other Nigerians, especially those who have made it a habit to attack and humiliate Igbo women in public ofices, that it is only those who do not understand the make-up of the Igbo personality and psychology that would believe that anything would deter the Igbo woman from being the Amazon that she was made by nature and nurture to be. Their men who see them as the mascot of their race will continue to see them as the mirror of the pride of the Igbo man, for whom they can go to war, if it becomes necessary. And for those cowards who snipe at Igbo women, an invitation has been extended to them to take on their male counterparts instead, or forever live and die as cowards.
CULLED: THE SUN
Penultimate week, Nsukka was awash with the news of the death of an eight-year-old girl, Chiemerie Asadu who allegedly committed suicide in Ofulonu, Nsukka, Enugu State.
According to sources, the girl’s dangling body was discovered at about 2. 30pm that Monday while her guardian, Mr. Dominic Ajibo said she was hale and hearty when he left the house in the morning. He wondered what would make a small girl of eight commit suicide.
Though the police spokesman in Enugu State, Ebere Amarizu confirmed the incident and said that the command had commenced investigation, what baffled many is the frequency of suicide cases in the Nsukka axis in recent months.
Investigations by Sunday Sun revealed that in the last one year, there have been at least 10 reported cases of suicides in the area six of which occurred in the last seven months.
Before the recent case, residents of Uwani Obigbo , Orba Nsukka had woken up a week earlier to discover the body of a 25-year-old fashion designer, Obiora Ugwunweze dangling from the ceiling inside his shop.
Obiora, an NCE holder from Federal College of Education, Eha – Amufu reportedly hanged himself dressed like a young man about to receive his heartthrob in immaculate clothes with shoes to match.
Obiora’s body was discovered by one Chikwado Attama who shared the same shop with him and had gone out to collect broom to sweep the shop when she saw his dangling body and raised the alarm. She had almost fainted before people could rush to the scene.
Sunday Sun gathered that Chikwado had earlier traveled to Onitsha but returned a day before the calamity. She had arrived the shop at about 10 am and reportedly met the door locked but for the fact that she had the key to the entrance door, she opened and went in to see the bizarre picture of the man she knew was hale and hearty the previous day.
Though Obiora’s remains have been buried, no one could say exactly the actual reason why he opted to take his own life because he left no suicide note.
On June 10, 2013, two suicide cases were reported at the university town of Nsukka, a development which left residents worrying over the spate suicides in the community.
The lifeless body of Toochukwu Obodo was discovered in a lonely corner at Ikenga junction, Nsukka. Toochukwu who hailed from Ovoko in Igbo Eze South Local Government but resided in Nsukka was a carpenter. Toochukwu’s lifeless body was discovered by his younger brother, Chinago very early on June 11 when he was going to the toilet. The deceased was seen dangling on a mango tree. He was reported to have left their room at about 11pm the previous night.
On the same day, while people were still mourning Toochukwu’s tragic death, another dangling corpse was discovered at Umuizere, Umuihe Umabor Ehalumona where a father of five, Joe Eke also committed suicide. Sources said the late Joe had taken his children to school that morning before he hanged himself just behind his house.
Joe reportedly committed the act that afternoon when his wife was still in the market while the children were still in school.
The unfortunate trend continued unabated with the discovery of lifeless bodies of a native doctor and a commercial motorcyclist. The native doctor simply identified as Thankgod Ugwu reportedly hanged himself with a rope at No. 61 Mbuke Street, Ihunowerre, Nsukka. Investigation by Sunday Sun revealed that the family had been engaged in a land tussle, which one of the warring parties was said to have invoked a dreaded deity called Adoro on the deceased. Not a few are of the view that the suicide may be connected with dreaded deity.
A commercial motorcyclist, identified as Ebuka Omeje also decided to end it all on a tree beside an uncompleted building in Ede-Oballa Nsukka. According to sources, the cyclist who lived alone was believed by co-tenants to have gone to work when they woke up in the morning. It was the next day when a fellow tenant noticed that his motorcycle was still in the usual position with the door left open. His corpse was later discovered by the owner of the uncompleted building who conveyed building materials to the site.
Another celebrated suicide case in Nsukka was the death of a 300-level student of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
The deceased, Okonkwo Onyebuchi popularly known as Buchi was found hanging at the new hockey pitch close to the male hostel section commonly referred to as “Franco Republic.” Close sources said the deceased left a suicide note on which in which he reportedly wrote “the controversy has ended,” leaving many to guess which controversy he referred to.
While the university community was smarting from the unfortunate death of Buchi, another suicide case was averted when a student of the institution (name withheld) attempted to put an end to his life too.
The student who was a class representative in one of the classes in the Department of English and Literary Studies allegedly sent text messages to some of his lecturers informing them of his intention to commit suicide. According to sources, the student cited the death of three of his family members in a road mishap recently and three Fs in his result as reasons for his decision to take his own life.
Lecturers in the department were said to have reportedly swung into action after receiving the text by raising alarm, interrupting classes and sending students in search of the young man.
He was eventually apprehended by other students on his way to the university cricket pitch and subsequently handed over to the authorities for counseling and rehabilitation.
At about the same period, news filtered through about the case of one Chika Ugwuanyi who also committed suicide using a pesticide. The young man allegedly drank pesticide and was said to have started foaming before neighbours saw and rushed him to Mercy Hospital, Nsukka where the medical director confirmed him dead few minutes later. The reason for his action could not be ascertained.
Though the World Health Organization (WHO) described suicide as third leading cause of death among the youths aged 15 – 44, there is a growing concern on the rise of suicide worldwide and the frequent cases reported in Nsukka in recent times. A cleric, Rev. Chuks Ogbonna in a chat with Sunday Sun said the trend was worrisome and needed urgent spiritual and physical solution before it got out of control.
Rev. Ogbonna noted that all religions forbade suicide just as he described those who committed suicide as express candidates of hell fire. He expressed concern on the need for the people, the church and the government to reinforce the campaign against suicide.
“Looking at the scenario, it is baffling that here in Nsukka, there have been many cases of suicides. I know suicide is not peculiar to any area and the fact is that many are not reported but I think we should be worried and concerned. The causes are spiritual and physical and I think we can only find solution to that when we tackle it holistically. Our parents should have a value reorientation and also inculcate the needed values on their children. The government should realize that they need to create an enabling environment for happiness and the well being of the people to thrive. There are so many things frustrating us in Nigeria and the devil can use such opportunity to sell suicide as an easy route out to some people.
“Those of us on the pulpit need to intensify efforts in soul winning because any soul sold out to God can never contemplate suicide because suicide is from the devil. Remember what happened to Judas Iscariot after he betrayed Christ? Judas betrayed Christ while Peter also denied Christ but while Peter became penitent and asked for forgiveness, Judas felt that he has gone beyond redemption and instead opted for suicide which eventually became his doom,” the cleric said.
A Consultant Psychologist and Counselor, Bertrand Okechukwu told Sunday Sun in Onitsha that suicide cases first stem from suicidal feelings which if nurtured now leads to the actual act. He listed emotions that can trigger suicide feelings to include emotions of hopelessness, helplessness, fear, bullying, loss of inspiration, feeling unloved and unlovable as well as depression.
He noted that all negative emotions also have positive sides which can be used to neutralize the negative aspect and trudge on in life.
Quoting an online blog on suicide feelings, he said “life is what we make of it. Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them. The original divine plan is that we are supposed to be living Heaven on earth. This planet and our lives are a garden but gardens need constant tending, look for things that will make us happy, that will make us smile, that will make us sing, look for people who we admire and try to incorporate something into ourselves that we respect in them. Read biographies on people who have accomplished their dreams among other things,” he said.
CULLED THE SUN
Worshippers at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Umushene, Umuida, Enugu Ezike in Enugu State, are still searching their lexicon for words that will describe their experience last weekend when some female teenagers filed out before their priest to give chilling accounts of how they have used their spiritual powers to destroy the lives of men through sex.
Besides, another young boy who also sought forgiveness from God told how he killed his own mother along with eight others, turned his brother to a dwarf and prevented his elder sister from getting a man to marry her through the power of witchcraft.
These were part of the raw confessions that held worshippers glued to their feet at a vigil organised by the Okunerere Catholic Adoration Ministries (OCAM) between Friday and last Saturday.
Signs of what happened began to show early in the service when the clerical train made its way through the middle of the arena in thunderous applause. Several priests in white cassock led the way while the altar knights, also known as mass servers held the thurible, crucifix and holy water.
In the middle was the spiritual director of the ministry, identified as Rev. Fr. Paul Martin Obayi. He carried high the monstrance containing the blessed sacrament to the heavy drumming, clapping and adoration of the congregation. Some among the crowd shouted Onye Eze (the king), others addressed the blessed sacrament as Dike na agha (the warrior, the mighty in battle) and other words of exhortation while some spread their wrappers on the ground for the priest to march on.
After going round different sections of the large compound to enable the worshippers to catch a glimpse of the blessed sacrament, the priests receded to the stage where the sacrament was placed on the table. Minutes past 11pm, Fr. Obayi made some prophetic declarations in his sermon, stressing that the night would be one of liberation from the strangleholds of the powers of darkness.
The spiritual warfare songs and prayers that followed charged the atmosphere as people began to fall and others started acting funny even as the prayer warriors and the stewards on duty had a hectic time controlling the situation. The interlude that followed was full of chilling revelations.
Teenage girls own up
She walked up to the stage accompanied by her mother. Her name is Nwafor Linda Ogochukwu from Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State. Clad in a sleeveless gown, she looked every inch pretty. With the microphone in her hands, she confessed that she was a member of the Oceaner occultic group, a dreaded Ogbanje (mermaid) cult. She claimed members of the group meet once every six months in Nsukka for strategizing and review of operations. She said she has used the power given her in the occult world to destroy many young men, adding that any man that kisses her or had a sexual affair with her either dies afterwards or loses his manhood. The 15-year-old girl added that she had killed seven men so far.
“I am the princess of the kingdom who gives orders that must be obeyed. We live in the water and anyone that disobeys us must be punished with the same water we live in but this time the water will be turned to hot ashes which we pour on the offender. Water is our happiness and our doom also. We command our members to go and cause accident, destroy unborn children and destinies.
“I was earlier born to Imo State parents but I died after six years and later came back to the world to another family in Nsukka. We are five in number existing in planet earth and have wreaked untold havoc. I was supposed to have died again in May 2013 but I kept postponing my death at a great risk because of the love I have for mummy and my boyfriend,” she confessed.
Another teenager, Chizoba Ossai from Umuopu community, Enugu Ezike, also stepped forward to recount how he has been having sex with fellow men through evil powers and collected their manhood in the process.
Chizoba, who had bruises all over his face, injuries inflicted on him by angry mob that caught him recently in his unholy act, confessed that he uses evil powers to hypnotize his victims after preaching the word of God to them.
“Our cult family operates from Nkisi River in Onitsha and I got initiated through swimming. If the spirit enters me, I will lose control of myself and will walk straight to any man around me, preach to him the word of God and the man will lose his senses, thereby allowing me to have my way. I will use him and collect his manhood in the process and has so far collected from eight men.
The confession of a small boy, aged about six, shocked the gathering. According to the boy identified as Kingsley who hails from Imilike Ani in Enugu State and a pupil at Imilike Ani Primary School, he had killed nine persons, including his mother, and also made his father perpetually poor.
“We are about 22 but our leader is dead. We have killed nine, including my mother, whom I was directed to bring. I killed her when I gave her the biscuit given to us by our leader”, he added.
When Fr. Obayi asked him how he made his step mother’s six children not to marry, the little boy brought out six pieces of stick which he tied together with a rope and told the shocked worshippers that after tying them together, he took it to their leader and they performed rituals on it and since then, nobody has ever come forward to seek the girls’ hands in marriage.
He equally admitted making his own brother a dwarf, adding: “I brought out a lizard and placed a block on it which means that the boy cannot grow up.”
His step mother in tears narrated to the bewildered audience how nothing moves in their home since the boy came to live with them following his mother’s death.
Fr. Obayi later prayed for all of them and warned them of the consequences of returning to their old wicked ways.
Efforts to speak with Fr Obayi after the service and days later failed until one of his personal assistants, Macson Justice Nwasike was contacted to help. When he eventually granted Saturday Sun audience, the cleric was confronted with the issue of proliferation of miracle centres and staged-managed deliverance in some churches. He simply dismissed such people and declared: “By their fruits, we shall know them”.
“Anything that is not real cannot last and will be exposed in the future. Something that is real will always be real for ever. I have heard cases like that but I know that where there is real, there is also fake but I urge people never to forge or stage-manage miracles because it doesn’t give God glory. Man does not compel God to do miracles and He is angry about those who use His name to manipulate things”, he added.
In a brief remark, Macson Justice advised Christians to pray for ministers of God engaged in deliverance activities because they are often the targets of the devil. He noted that God has used Fr. Obayi to liberate strongholds in the area but it has not been easy. He gave an instance on how four deadly snakes suddenly invaded the adoration ground on a Tuesday afternoon during consultation.
Culled: THE SUN
A former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Assisi Asobie has described President Goodluck Jonathan as the “new Nero” of the 21st Century because of the president’s alleged lackadaisical attitude in addressing the nation’s multifarious crises.
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, who ruled Roman Empire from 58 – 64 BC, is renowned for the catch phrase “the Emperor who fiddled while Rome burned.”
Mr Asobie, who was the Chairman of the Board of the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, NEITI, and a professor of Political Science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, faulted Mr Jonathan’s stance on the ravaging Boko Haram insurgency in the northern part of Nigeria and the increasing kidnapping in the South East and other parts of the country.
“We are witnessing a Nero in our country,” Mr Assobie thundered on Friday in Lagos at the inaugural Tunji Braithwaite Birthday Symposium in commemoration of the legal luminary’s 80th birthday.
Mr Asobie, who was the guest lecturer at the event, warned that “Nigeria is already on the track of another civil because the Boko Haram insurgency is a fight against the Nigerian state. “Yet the President has continuously denied this………claiming that nothing is happening and we are winning in his statements yet increasing number of lives are lost daily.
“What the President is only concerned about is hosting dinners after dinner.” Last Sunday, Mr Jonathan hosted a PDP dinner after the controversial national convention of the party, a midterm dinner in June to celebrate the second year of being elected and another one to revel the female members of his cabinet, amongst many others.
Despite the use of equal force (state of emergency) to fight the Boko Haram insurgency, Mr Asobie blamed the failure of the Nigerian state to address the insurgency on the greed of “leaders who do not want to lose power and are ignorant” even as he hinted at the president’s desire to contest the 2015 presidential election.
Quoting series of statements by the President on the robust state of Nigeria’s democracy and stability of its economy, the guest lecturer noted that such statements were not backed with data such as the Global Instability Index which ranked Nigeria as in ‘high-risk category’ of failed states.
Jonathanian Solution Further decrying Mr Jonathan’s polices, the academic condemned the setting up of multiple committees to address disturbing national issues without achieving any result. This, he described as ‘Jonathanian Solution’.
Mr Asobie recalled the president’s claim in a speech in 2011 after the post-election violence that a number of lives had been lost and that he was going to set up a committee, whose modalities would include the setting up of an Electoral Violence Tribunal to try anyone found guilty of electoral violence. “Two years after, we have not heard anything about the tribunal which is supposed to serve as a deterrent to offenders in future elections” he lamented.
The political scientist urged Nigerians to unite and fight the ‘class war’ which according to him, “is being fought by politicians”, admitting that the nation’s economy is growing amidst massive income inequality. Workers Sovereign National Conference Mr Asobie called for the formation of a new liberation movement by Nigerians ahead of the next general elections in 2015, just as he enjoined Nigerians to get involved in the selection of political parties candidates.
He also called for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), which according to him “must be workers driven rather than ethnicity.” He, however, warned on the modality of the conference, saying “if the SNC is ethnic-based, we might lose our country.”
Source: Premium Times
