Blog

The N40 billion Delta State Resort Leisure Park under construction at Oleri in Udu Local Government Area of the state will not be abandoned by the state government, according to Emmanuel Uduaghan, governor of Delta State yesterday.

Speaking at the project site during a visit to ascertain the level of work, Mr Uduaghan advised the host community to create the enabling environment for the contractors so that it could be completed in time.

He said he undertook the inspection of the project as a result of complaints from the contractors and implored the people of the community to allow the project sail through for the benefit of all.

"I am sure that anybody that was here that day, coming here today now, would have noticed that we are serious. I am sure people thought that day that we were just joking, that it was politics. Now Deltans should know that we are serious. I want to assure all of you that the project kicked off about three months ago and you can see the amount of work already done and that is to tell you how serious we are with this project," he said. "Our first responsibility is to ensure the lives of all people that are working here, expatriates and Nigerians, that there are no threats. I am here today to allay the fears of other expatriates who are yet to come down here."

Provide security

He said the project is a partnership between the state government and a foreign firm. He said the firm is responsible for the funding of the project. "They are the ones bringing the N40 billion," Mr Uduaghan said. "It is not from the state government. What the state government is contributing is the road and the bridge, which is about N1.8 billion.

The road is not just to the site, but also to the communities around. So, it is also a way of opening up the communities. That is our contribution, apart from the land that we are also offering. Then, of course,

we are supposed to provide security." He concluded. Chairman of Udu Council, Henry Sakpra and President of Oleri Community, Patrick Okoro assured Mr Uduaghan that the community will provide a conducive atmosphere for the contractors handling the project.

A member of a notorious robbery syndicate terrorising the people of Oyo town and its neighbourhood in Oyo State, has paid the supreme price with his life in an encounter with the men of the Special Anti Robbery Squad, Oyo Zone.

The cars with stolen goats

CRIME DIGEST learnt that the gang, which specialised in stealing goats, ran into trouble in the ancient town in the wee hours of February 1, 2011.

According to the police, the gang had a network of members within Oyo town and outside. The officer-in-charge of the Oyo SARS, Mr. Olusola Aremu, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, explained that the suspects moved from house to house to lure local goats with corn and beans that had been soaked in salt and water solution.

The corn with salt solution, CRIME DIGEST was told, weaken the goats and prevent them from bleating while they were being taken away.

But things turned awry for the gang when they ran into a police patrol team in Oyo town around 2 am.

Aremu said, "The police saw three men in the vehicle all appearing very rough. The police followed their vehicle to track them down. At first, when the police waved them down, the robbers did not obey but tried to escape by increasing their speed. They were, however, given a chase.

"They bumped into a deep pothole and lost one of their tyres. But before the police got to the vehicle, the syndicate abandoned their vehicle and fled into a nearby bush."

CRIME DIGEST gathered that some goats were recovered from the grey Nissan Primera marked BG 372 RSH. The patrol team was said to have taken the vehicle to the station, while some of the detectives laid in an ambush...

"The patrol team came back to the scene in an unmarked vehicle. Shortly after they returned, they noticed another Nissan Primera saloon car (blue colour) with three occupants also looking very rough in it. Immediately the suspects noticed that the police were approaching, they sped off. The police gave them a chase up to Sasa area of Ibadan, Oyo State capital. Unfortunately, the robbers also bumped into a ditch and lost one of their tyres," a police source said.

In the encounter, they reportedly opened fire on the police patrol team. In the shoot-out between the suspects and the police, one of the robbers fell to police bullets, while the other gang members fled before the police got to the vehicle.

Aremu said items recovered from the vehicle included 40 goats (all of them were she-goats) with six of them dead, while 34 goats were still alive.

He added that the goats, most of which were pregnant, had their mouths tied with masking tape.

Also recovered from the vehicle, with registration number Lagos DL 135 GGE, were a locally-made pistol, live cartridges and some Indian hemp.

The police said they noticed that the bandits on board the vehicle were strangers because it appeared that they were not conversant with the terrain.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Oyo State Commend, Mr. Olatunji Ajimuda, who confirmed the incident, said some of the owners of the goats had started coming forward with evidence to claim them.

Five months ago, a friend of mine, who edits a national daily, sent me a text message agreeing substantially with my column, ‘The Punch and the rest of us’, except the generalised conclusion that “all (journalists) have sinned and fallen short of the glory of the profession”. There are still some journalists, he submits, who toe the narrow path of integrity. Of course I knew where he was coming from, but I also knew the context in which I had made that statement.

I revisit that statement in light of the stories spewing out of the political beat, specifically on the race for the 2011 presidential elections and how it affects the integrity of news.

As part of the effort to sell his candidature for the presidency, former military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) invited as many as 40 journalists to his Minna home on August 14 for an interview. I have heard questions asked about why he should invite journalists to his home instead of a public place if he didn’t have an ulterior motive, and why he should offer monetary gifts to the journalists in the name of paying for their transportation.

One news medium, which has championed this opposition in the open, is the online agency, Sahara Reporters. According to SR each of the journalists received N10 million for heeding Babangida’s call on his presidential ambition. That is N400 million just for one night’s interview from an aspirant yet to win his party’s nomination if it were true. But it was not. When some of the journalists complained about the fictional sum, SR changed the story on August 19, saying it was just “a paltry N250, 000 each”. Rather than admit its initial error SR simply said, “our accountants have told us that going by the number of 40 journalists in attendance, we are still around the same ballpark of N10 million”. So much for credible reporting!

Three days later, SR followed up with ‘IBB and his Rogue Journalists’, accusing the journalists of roguery and professional misconduct; roguery, because they collected money from two sources—their employers who presumably authorised and funded the trip and their news source, IBB; misconduct because it is unethical for them to demand/receive gratification from news sources for their services.

And on August 23 in ‘IBB Nocturnal Press Parley: Punch fires Editorial board Chairman’, SR stayed on top of the story by reporting that Adebolu Arowolo, editorial board chairman of the Punch, had lost his job for going on that trip without his management’s approval..

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, are separating after 40 years of marriage that included a White House run when their sunny relationship offered a counterpoint to President Bill Clinton's philandering.

According to an e-mail circulated among the couple's associates on Tuesday, the Gores said it was "a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together following a process of long and careful consideration."

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider confirmed the statement came from the Gores, but declined to comment further.

The Gores were telling friends they "grew apart" after 40 years of marriage and there was no affair involved, according to two longtime close associates and family friends, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The associates said the Gores, over time, had carved out separate lives, with the former vice president on the road frequently. One of the associates said: "Their lives had gotten more and more separated."

Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush. He has since campaigned worldwide to draw attention to climate change, which in 2007 led to a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."..

The Gores, who were married on May 19, 1970, at the National Cathedral in Washington, crafted an image as a happily married couple during his eight-year stint as vice president in the 1990s and a presidential candidate in 2000. The couple famously exchanged a long kiss during the 2000 Democratic presidential convention.

The image of their warm relationship stood in sharp contrast to the Clinton marriage rocked by Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, a scandal that hung over Gore's own presidential campaign.

Al Gore at the time said his wife was "someone I've loved with my whole heart since the night of my high school senior prom."

On Halloween, Al and Tipper Gore would dress up in costume and greet trick-or-treaters who made their way to the vice president's mansion. One year, she was dressed as a puppy and he was dressed as Underdog.

Tipper Gore was a co-founder in 1985 of the Parents Music Resource Center, which pushed for parental warning labels on music with violent or sexually explicit lyrics. The group drew the ire of musicians ranging from Dee Snider of Twisted Sister to Frank Zappa, who said warning labels were unnecessary and a danger to freedom.

Tipper Gore later became friends with the late Zappa's wife, Gail, and played drums and sang backup on daughter Diva Zappa's album in 1999.

The Gores have four adult children, Karenna, Kristin, Sarah and Albert III.

In a letter written to then-girlfriend Tipper as a 17-year-old college freshman, Al Gore wrote: "Mother's having a fit about me riding the motorcycle back to Harvard. Dad's mad at my long hair."

Gore later held his father's former seats in the U.S. House and Senate for 16 years. He first ran for president in 1988 at age 39, but drew little support outside the South.

A subsequent bid in 1992 was derailed after the Gores' 6-year-old son almost died after being hit by a car in 1989.

"It was a very spiritual time for both of us," Tipper Gore later wrote. "In Al's case, he decided to write a book and not to run for president in 1992."

The book was "Earth in the Balance," and Al Gore ended up in the thick of the 1992 campaign anyway — as Bill Clinton's running mate.

Tipper Gore, who has acknowledged treatment for depression after Albert III's accident, is a vocal advocate on mental health issues.