Photos by Ajuwon Tosin........

The Bus Driver Who Was Shot And Killed.

Gun Shot Victim.

Fatal gunshot wound of the bus driver.

Onlookers after the robbery.

Three people died instantly, and thirteen others sustained injuries from a road crash that took place at Car Wash, Oworosoki Expressway exit of the Third Mainland Bridge on Tuesday morning.

The accident involved a truck belonging to the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and two commercial vehicles popularly known as ‘Danfo' and ‘Molue.' According to eyewitnesses, the Molue (a fabricated 44-seater bus) lost control and ran into a moving Danfo bus. The Danfo Bus (15 seater bus) subsequently swerved into the LAWMA truck which was about to exit the express way.

"A LAWMA truck wanted to make a U-turn to collect dustbin under the bridge. He did not check his mirror well and as it was making the U-turn, a Molue bus don hit a bus wey dey come. That is how the bus run into the truck," said Tunde Ibrahim, a recharge card seller who witnessed the incident while coming to work at 9am yesterday.

The result of the collusion completely wrecked the Danfo bus and resulted in the instantaneous death of two passengers, while a LAWMA staff died while receiving first aid treatment. Most of the injured, who were coming from Lagos Island where they went to buy goods, were evacuated to St Daniel's Hospital, located about 100m away from the scene of the accident. A few were taken to Gbagada General Hospital. Adewale Ogunkoya, the Administrator of St Daniel's, confirmed that thirteen injured persons were brought into the hospital..

The state of the injured

"Yes we had them brought in about two and half hours ago," he said. "We were able to admit 8 out of the 13 but the remaining 5 were in very critical condition. They had fractures, some were bleeding from the nose and mouth, while others could not regain consciousness. We had to just administer first-aid to and transfer them to the Gbagada General Hospital with the help of the Lagos State Ambulance Service (LASAMBUS). All 8 have been stabilized. They are presently coming out of shock and most of them are now conscious."

"The victims sustained fractures on the leg and lacerations on the body and the head, but the hospital was able to stabilize the four men and women, supply them with drip and stitch the areas where they were badly cut. We felt bad, the moment we heard about it, and we alerted the whole hospital staff to get ready for the emergency because the patients may be brought because it happened very close to us, so we were ready. Some could not talk because they were in a state of shock He added the patients where attended to immediately without billing," he added.

A mother of one of the victims, Iyabo Animashaun, expressed gratitude to God for sparing the life of her daughter. "I just want to thank God that she did not have more than a gash on her head," she said. "It may look nasty but at least she is alive. The doctors just want her here for some time to make sure everything is okay before she is discharged."

At the Gbagada General Hospital, the situation of the victims who were referred there could not be ascertained as the hospital's administrative officers refused to left NEXT see some of the injured passengers. One of the administrative officers, who requested anonymity, confirmed that some accident victims were brought in but could not comment on their condition as he was not involved in their treatment. "Even if they are here, how do you expect us to know how they are doing? Are we their doctors?"

Happily injured

Florence Shotola, a 48-year-old trader who was in the Danfo bus, said she was coming from Adeniyi Adele in Lagos Island, and was on her way to Mile 12. "I have four children, I am very happy I did not die. I am better now thank God for the doctor," she said. Also one of the youngest victims in the hospital, 18-year-old Shifaru Abduasalam, who had bruises on her left eye and her left hand. The young mother, who is also a trader, told NEXT that she is very happy the accident did not cause the death of her child.

The identity of the three persons who died in the accident could not be determined as at press time. The wrecked vehicles resulted in several hours of traffic congestion along the mainland section of the Third Mainland Bridge before officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority arrived to clear the vehicles.

The Senate has approved a supplementary budget of N87.7 billion for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Lawmakers said this will aid the commission in organising a credible election in 2011.

The budget approved for the commission is however N2 billion less than what it requested.

The leadership of the commission had asked for N89.59 billion for the conduct of the election which is five months away. However, following a meeting with the commission's team and the House of Representatives and Senate, the parties agreed to cut down the request.

Ayogu Eze, the Senate spokesman, said, "At the end of our meetings, we looked at the budget thoroughly and saw that there were areas in which we needed to give attention like transportation and logistics. We moved money around and put money in crucial areas and made a saving of N2 billion," he said.

Mr Jega had explained that among other things that were previously left out, the commission needed a van for each of the 120, 000 registration points across the nation.

In his submission to the National Assembly, President Goodluck Jonathan had noted that, "the additional funds is to cover the cost of procuring electronic equipment and other ancillary expenses related to ... a fresh voter registration exercise as well as the procurement of additional ballot boxes." He added that, "we propose to fund this request by raising federal government bonds."

Reservations

The approval did not come without misgivings however as senators questioned the credibility of some allocations proposed in the budget. The budget has an allocation of N54.9 billion for ICT-voter registration system and solution, N4 billion for vehicles, and a separate N5.4 billion for the review of the voter register.

There is also an allocation of N10.8 billion for operations - personnel cost requirements and cost for registration of voters nationwide, and N222 million for hotel accommodation for political appointees which are believed to be the state INEC commissioners.

"We have expressed our reservations. In spite of the reservations, we don't want to give INEC or anybody an excuse for not conducting a credible election next year," the Senate President, David Mark said. "We have gone the extra mile to do this so that INEC can deliver credible election in 2011 that will meet international standards."

The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, in his remarks, advised that the commission apply the funds in a way that will benefit the Nigerian economy and generate employment, saying they should consider patronising indigenous companies for some of the material they might need for the elections.

The approved budget has been harmonised by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, which is expected to reconvene today and pass the budget too. After both arms of the National Assembly have passed the budget, it will be handed over to the president to sign into law. The electoral commission, which has now become an independent institution, can then draw the funds directly from the federation account.

Mr Ekweremadu's appeal to the commission to patronize indigenous companies may not be feasible, as Mr Jega had, at a briefing with senior journalists, ruled out this option, saying based on the shortness of time between the registration of voters and the actual elections in January, the commission cannot afford any delay or disappointment. He said his predecessor, Maurice Iwu, was disappointed at the last minute by local contractors and that the commission had lost a lot of time and could not afford such now..

A trader, Ifeanyi Chukwuka, 29, has been charged with rape at the Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court, Lagos, Nigeria.

He was alleged to have taken a six-year old girl into his apartment at 21, Alfa Egan Street, off Isuti Road, Egan, a suburb of Lagos and had carnal knowledge of her.

He was unlucky as the mother of the victim saw her little girl going into his house and crying when she came out.

A close observation of the girl by the mother revealed that some fluid suspected to be sperm was coming out of her private part. She confronted the accused with her findings and reported the incident to policemen at the Igando police station.

The accused was arrested and charged before the Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court with rape. An offence punishable under Section 218 of the Criminal Code, Cap. 17, Vol.2, Laws of Lagos State of Nigeria, 2003.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge but the prosecutor told the court that the complainant, the mother of the victim, was no longer interested in the matter and had tendered a letter to withdraw the matter from court.

The magistrate, Mrs. M.B. Folami, struck out the case citing the withdrawal letter by the complainant.

—Cyriacus izuekwe

A signal that the 2011 general elections could be deadly emerged last weekend, as a House of Representatives aspirant on the platform of the Action Congress (AC) was killed by yet-to-be-identified gunmen.

Oghogho Omoregbe, who wanted to contest the Oriomhwon/Uhunwonde Federal Constituency in Edo State, was killed shortly after he declared his intention to contest in next year's general elections.

The 36 year old civil engineer and farmer was allegedly trailed to his rented apartment at Aitoe Idubor Avenue, off 2nd Ugbor Road, in Benin, at about 10pm. He was pursued to the back of the house where he was shot in the presence of his mother-in-law, by the gunmen who were said to have fled the place immediately.

Recounting her ordeal to journalists at the late Mr Omoregbe's wife's family house, at No 60, Awo Street, Stella Amadasun, the mother-in-law, said the late Oghogho, who just married his wife, Osato, last November, was still alive until they got to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, where he was rushed to after they could not receive medical attention at the Central Hospital owing to the one-month-old strike of health workers in the state.

"He just came back from the campaign on Saturday; he came home for the first time and then left again, instructing his wife to prepare food for him," said Mrs Amadasun..

"He came with a boy and then they prayed together before he left again and told his wife that he would be back. This was around 9pm. Later that night, we heard the sound of a car and my daughter told me that it was her husband.

"Shortly after he opened the gate and was going back into his car to drive inside the compound, we heard him shout, Jesus, thief, then he ran into the other corner of the compound but he fell down when there was no escape route, then I ran to them and was begging that they should spare him, at least because of their one-month-old first child. Then I heard gunshots and they ran through the other side.

"I quickly ran to him and started shouting for help. He called for his parents before he passed out, then police was called. They were about five of them but we did not see their faces because it was dark."

Peter Ogboi, the state police spokesperson, said the state commissioner of police, Kachi Udeoji, has ordered that the homicide section of the police take over the case from Ugbor Police Station where the case was reported.

"As I talk to you, the commissioner of police has already directed that the case be taken over by the headquarters and the homicide department is already working and very soon, we will unravel the culprits. What we have done so far is to confirm the death."

On whether the killing was politically motivated, Ogboi said, "We cannot say that yet until the special session by the commissioner gives its report."

The late Oghogho Omorogbe, in a chat with journalists last Wednesday where he declared his intention to contest, attributed the rising rate of crime, including armed robbery and kidnapping, to the inability of elected political office holders to give right leadership to the people, accusing them of living in affluence amidst poverty.

THE NATION:

Lucky he did not nail his Mother-Inlaw someone would have raised

eyebrows !

Three family members at a wedding in Turkey have been accidentally shot dead by the groom firing an AK-47 rifle in celebration.

The groom, Tevfik Altin, lost control of his rifle, spraying the guestswith bullets and killing his father and two aunts and injuring sixothers, according to CNN Turk.

It reported that Altin had been arrested after the incident in the villageof Akcagoze in southeastern Turkey. Guns are often fired into the airin celebration in some parts of Turkey.

One family member, who did not give his name, told CNN: "It happened very quickly. We all triedto take cover and there was blood all over. We are all very sad rightnow."

The injured guests included three children aged 10, 12 and 16, according to CNN Turk.

The Sehitkamil State hospital where some of the injured were brought confirmed it has one patient still in the hospital.

Kaduna and Lagos — Former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, has called on former military Heads of State, General Muhammadu Buhari and General Ibrahim Babangida, and a former Vice-President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who are currently eyeing the nation's presidency next year to quit the stage for the younger generation.

Ribadu also asked the Nigerian youth to ask young Nigerians to wrest political power from them and charged them never again to allow corrupt leaders at the helm of affairs in the land.

He asked young Nigerians to rise against corrupt leaders currently in the corridors of power, just as he challenged them to take their destiny in their hands by ensuring that they elect leaders that are not corrupt in the forthcoming elections.

Ribadu, in a paper entitled, "Faith, Political Engagement And The

Nigerian Youth," at the Kaduna community town hall meeting with Nigerian youths, organized by Christian Awareness Initiative of Nigeria (CHAIN), added that the older generations led Nigeria at a very young age and wondered why they want to prevent the younger generation from taking their turn.

He said instead of the old horse that had dominated the nation's political turf to attempt to remain there, the time for young Nigerians to take their rightful place in the leadership of the country had come...

He urged the youths to register when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) commences the registration of voters for the 2011 elections.

"Let us register to vote en mass, let us vote en mass and let us defend our votes by all means. We must demand for competent people and not corrupt people for good governance," he advised.

"Dear compatriots, as I said at the 76th birthday anniversary of Professor Wole Soyinka recently in Lagos, 50 years of our federalism and less of our democracy pose the challenge of what can be an endless rite of passage, if a new vision is not allowed to take over our political space.

"From industry, through civil society, to the world of research and development, towards the important crucible of leadership, politics and management of development, I call on fellow young Nigerians today to bury the preoccupation with anger, cynicism and inertia and move in the direction of taking control of the destiny of our nation."

Nigeria:

Kunle Akogun

10 August 2010

Abuja — The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may at its meeting today stick to the late Umaru Musa Yar'Adua/Goodluck Jonathan ticket till 2015.

The meeting is one of the crunch parleys fixed for this week by the PDP leadership. The National Caucus meeting holds tomorrow.

THISDAY learnt that the PDP leadership may have finally resolved to review its controversial zoning formula in such a way that would favour the South-south geo-political zone where President Goodluck Jonathan comes from.

Checks by the newspaper yesterday revealed that the party leadership has seen the need to reinforce the zoning arrangement in clearer terms and re-formalise the power rotation policy.

The Presidency last night, however, distanced itself from a purported plot by some pro-zoning canvassers to pressurize President Goodluck Jonathan to rig the 2011 election.

A newspaper had quoted the publicity secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) as alleging that the president is "under pressure to give assurance to those canvassing zoning that he must rig the elections in favour of the PDP so as to protect the interest of the clique and ensure that (General Muhammadu) Buhari does not win the presidential vote"..

On the PDP crunch meetings, a source close to the BoT of the party said the party leaders are canvassing a review of the zoning formula so that the incumbent from the South-south could take the slot and govern the country between 2011 and 2015.

The source said with Jonathan as the incumbent president, the position of the party's constitution and established convention in PDP allow him to take another shot at the office if he has not exhausted the two terms allowable under the country's constitution.

According to the source, the argument is also that President Jonathan is best suited to resolve the North/South dichotomy question as he can only contest for the presidency for one more term.

The source said: "The Constitution allows a person to be sworn in twice into executive positions, either as president or governor and since Jonathan was sworn-in first on May 6, 2010, that would count as his first term. He can only be sworn into office only one more time and he would have completed his constitutionally allowed two terms of office. That should then ensure that power reverts to the North in 2015."

This position, the source said, is "informed by constitutional order, which prescribes that the Vice- President would take over when the President dies in office".

It was gathered that leaders of the party have agreed in separate discussions on the need to marry the constitutional reality with the positions of the party and the current Nigerian reality.

"The reality on ground is that the PDP can best win the presidency in 2011 by presenting the incumbent, who has something to show the people in terms of commitment to national growth and resolving the power problem", the source said, adding: "Since the zoning arrangement was altered by divine intervention, we have to abide by that and review the formula in favour of the South-south. It then means that the South-south would retain the slot till 2015, when it (power) would revert to the North".

Another member of the party's inner caucus insisted that the PDP has to now reinforce the zoning formula to take care of eventualities such that occurred when President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua died in office.

"What we need to do now is to clearly state the succession order in the PDP constitution and that when an incumbent dies, the zoning arrangement would be reversed in favour of the Vice President or deputy governor as the case may be," the source said.

It was gathered that the view had become widespread within the party's top hierarchy by the weekend.

A source said that President Jonathan is best suited to resolve the North/South dichotomy question as he can only contest for the presidency for one more term.

He also said that the need to ensure that the people of Niger Delta where Jonathan comes from have a sense of belonging in the governance of Nigeria so as to maintain the stability of the country is also one of the other factors working in Jonathan's favour.

Meanwhile, in a press statement last night, Presidential Spokesman Ima Niboro said the claim that the President was planning to rig the 2011 poll is "outrightly false and even illogical", describing it as "an attempt to pre-judge the forthcoming elections before the fact and we would have ignored it but for the high premium the President places on conducting free, fair and credible elections in 2011".

He explained that the President is under no pressure whatsoever over the 2011 election", adding that he has made it clear that there will be credible elections next year, and has so far taken decisive steps to actualise this vision.

Niboro's statement read in part: "The President has appointed a leadership for the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which has been hailed locally and internationally. He has given unequivocal support to the agency in its search for the most viable strategy to achieve excellent delivery of the next elections, and has told INEC leadership publicly that no one has "tied their hands", and therefore "there is no excuse for failure.

"We find it strange for anyone to be talking about rigging at this time of our political evolution, for those days are gone... they are dead and buried! The President urges all Nigerians to join hands with INEC to ensure that in the next elections, our votes count. Nigerians must speak with one voice and defend their votes.

"It is a new day. Let us forge ahead with new hope, a new vision and a new way of doing things".

Seven-year-old Jessica Gaude differs greatly from her pals. With 222 kilograms, she is the fattest child in the world.

She eats 10,000 calories each day in Coca-Colas, 15 hamburgers with fries and several kilograms of chocolate. What she eats in one day some children eat in half a year. Her breakfast consists of white bread, potato chips and two litres of coke. And she wants more.

When she last visited the doctor four years ago she had 110 kilograms. Unfortunately, she can no longer run and instead of walking she drags herself on the floor. Under such bodily weight her bones have already become distorted.

Mother Carolyn gives her daughter whatever the child wants. In the first week after she was born, when the baby cried because of stomach pains, the mother calmed her by feeding her with a bottle because she thought the child was hungry. “I gave her the bottle and she wanted more and more. It was not enough for her and she was constantly hungry”, Jessica’s mother says.....

Sebastian Kpalap

The Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) is seriously worried about the safety of its officials given their continued brutalization which is fast assuming a pattern.

The recent torture of Mr. Sebastian Kpalap, a Special Project Officer of the Centre has heightened this fear. On Sunday, August 1, about 10:00am, Kpalap who just lost his father and was preparing to receive a contingent of his colleagues from CEHRD had hired a motor bike (not a commercial one) with registration number RV 4896 Za, and was driven by its owner, Mr. Joseph Sunday Pilla, a father of 3, in his early 40s and a bricklayer. They went to the neighbouring Gokana village to buy fresh palm wine when they met their misfortune.

A bunch of policemen wielding AK47 and well-sharpened sticks had raised an instant check point in front of the Divisional police headquarters at Kpor to extort bribe from unsuspecting poor commercial motorcyclists (popularly called Okada in Nigeria) and motorists. They intercepted Pilla and his co-traveler, Kpalap and demanded for a paltry N50 (not up to a half dollar) and the Okada river had not finished explaining when Corporal Rufus in plain cloth hit his head with a sharp stick in his hands and he slumped. A frightened Sebastian Kpalap had demanded to know what happened. For daring to ask question, the same Rufus from the notorious Kpor Police station, used same sharp stick to tear open Sebastian head, as blood oozed out he fainted and became unconscious for some hours. Corporal Barile Emmanuel also joined in the beating spree of the two innocent men.

When Sebastian became conscious the first person he called in his weak voice was Patrick Naagbanton, the coordinator of CEHRD that he was dying. Naagbanton spoke to him, and later a Police officer at the station who refused to give his name, but lied that Kpalap and Pilla (the latest victims of the lawlessness) came with guns and attempted to disarm his men.

Naagbanton led other CEHRD officials to the Kpor Police station at exactly 3:30pm, both victims were lying down under a mango tree there. They spoke to us and none of the Police around was ready to comment on it, though they looked very sober but the bribe-seeking, violent Police officers were not there. The CEHRD team took the victims to the poorly equipped and dilapidated General Hospital at Terabon in the Gokana Area with a medical form the police had signed authorizing their treatment. After paying the necessary fees and buying synergies and medicines their broken heads were stitched, and the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Mr. Ibezim, arrived at the casualty department of the hospital where they were attended to.

After that exercise, the DPO called the CEHRD team and ordered for the release of the motorbike to Pilla and apologized to the team not to “sensationalize” the incident. The duo is still undergoing intensive medical treatment there.

A similar attack took place, on Friday, June 8, 2010, when Mr. Alexander Wikina, the Transport Officer of CEHRD was arrested by a team of heavily armed five policemen in plain cloth travelling in a white hilux car who stormed the Chief Major G.E. Odum Compound (No. 28 Ogbunabali Road) in Port Harcourt where he is staying and arrested him. This incident took place about 3:15am. He was taken to the old G.R.A Police station in same Port Harcourt, tortured, and detained in their cell on allegation of being a criminal. When Patrick Naagbanton contacted the Police and reported the case to Abba Suileman, the Rivers State Commissioner of police, they denied that they tagged him a criminal. He was released.

In the evening of Friday, March 26, 2010, Mr. Nenibarini Zabbey, the Head of the Conservation and Environment Programe of CEHRD, with whom were Dr. (Mrs.) Vincent and same Alexander Wikina, driving the CEHRD’s official van was returning from an Environmental Impact Assessment Training (EIA) held at Bodo community. A Police checkpoint near Kpor had stopped the vehicle and searched it and asked it to go, when a 2-star Police officer in the police team, Mr. Umoke singled out Zabbey and pounced on him, and tore his shirt into pieces. When other Police officers there condemned his action, he offered Zabbey N6, 000 (about $50) not to tell anybody what happened.

CEHRD is also worried about increasing Police lawlessness against other colleagues from other fraternal organizations.

On Friday April 5, 2010 at about 9:00pm, a team of Police men from Olu-Obasanjo Police station beat up Isaac Asume Osuoka, Celestine Akpobari and Ken Henshaw, three activists from Social Action (AS), a Port Harcourt-based non-governmental organization. They were attacked at Garrison junction, Port Harcourt. The heavily armed police officers travelling in a white Hilux jeep trailed them from their Oromineke layout office in the D/Line area of the metropolis. While on Friday, April 23, 2010, at about 4:45pm, a team of 5 police operating in a white Hilux jeep with registration number – NPF 9400B led by Shuibu in plain clothes violently blocked their vehicle and ordered Rev. Humprey Nsirim, Pastor Chinedu Samuel, Uche Imoh and Justine Ijeomah all civil rights activists, and threatened to shoot them. When Ijeomah, the Rivers State secretary of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) demanded to know their crime, Shaibu and his men placing him at gunpoint slapped him severally. They were not told their crime.

CEHRD had initially ignored all these as part mistakes on the past of the police officials. But, the violations are becoming over whelming. If it is happening to CEHRD officials and others and we are challenging it, what about millions of poor helpless citizens who don’t have the means to speak up or expose these odds? CEHRD is worried and restate its resolve to redouble its efforts to challenge these violent and lawless acts by the Nigerian police officials.

The struggle certainly continues

Patrick Naagbanton

Coordinator

Mr. Chamberlain Amadi,

A high Profile Abuja "Prostitute"

Prostitution in Abuja goes high-level as sex-peddlers, devising ways ranging from the sly to the fetish, warm the beds of top politicians and senior civil servants. Many of the girls have comfortable wealth to flaunt as returns.

In the circles of two former students of a university in south-western Nigeria, the story is still being relished. A former Minister of Works had invited the two girls to his hotel room at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, for a sex two-some a few years ago. (‘Two-some’ in sex parlance, is when a man takes on two girls at a go for a sex bout. ‘Three-some’ involves three girls, and so on.) As one of the girls herself, a tall, dark and sultry kitten nicknamed Ebony, told this magazine, the link-up with the minister had come from a pimp famous on the university campus for his connections with National Assembly members and other top public officials in Abuja.

What still amuses the narrator is what she called the man’s “stupid inaction” despite paying a high price. The minister could not just get it up. Ebony spoke of how she and her partner worked on the minister’s organ for over two hours. She said that apart from fondling it, they took turns giving him a blow-job, BJ. A girl gives a man a BJ when she licks and sucks his organ. Despite all these, the minister could not be aroused to perform actual sexual activity. He didn’t complain, though, and even seemed satisfied. The minister gave Ebony and her partner N200,000 each for a job adjudged well done.

Ebony didn’t think of this experience, that is, the invitation to Abuja, as anything extraordinary. With her as an undergraduate, it was a norm. She confided she was involved in, at least, 10 high-level sex romps in the federal capital when she was a student. She particularly recalled trips, in company of fellow money-seeking, fun-loving friends to the palatial edifice, in Abuja, of a former governor from the South South. The ex-governor, considered to be the worst leader his state was unfortunate to have ever had, was notorious for his love for pretty teenage girls or those in their early 20s. Ebony said the least number of girls the former governor ever had in his sex romps, in which she was also a particpant, was three. “He was a pervert,” she said, adding: “He didn’t quite have the stamina for real sex, but he would order the girls to, for hours, do unprintable things with him.” On any of the occasions, the least-paid undergraduate prostitute earned N100,000.

Since Abuja earned fame as the “happening” place where milk and honey, in form of local and foreign currencies, flow ceaselessly from the wallets of federal legislators, ministers, special aides, highly placed civil servants and their wealthy private sector cronies, prostitutes of all hues have made the territory a haven to prise some fortune off what they consider the national cake. “Of all hues,” because, as a senator disclosed, besides the professional, dyed-in-the-wool harlots, plutomaniac ladies from other areas of life, ranging from housewives, contractors and career women to even stars in the entertainment industry, also frequent Abuja for lucrative rolls in the hay.

Prostitution in the city has metamorphosed from the conventional sedentary practice in local brothels and notable red light districts into a sophisticated network of ‘runs’, to use one of the many coinages applied in the trade. Today’s prostitution in Abuja wears many faces. Although the old method where patrons walk in and savour, paying a pittance, for just a few minutes of sex still exists in the suburbs and satellite towns like Kuje, Lugbe, Dutse, Karmo, Karu, Mararaba, Nyanya and Kubwa, the new trend of expensive sex holds in the many luxury hotels in the Abuja metropolis and the exquisite homes of the super rich.

The methods the high class prostitutes employ to curry patronage vary. Like Ebony, some of them are students, or pretenders as students, who come highly recommended to patrons by pimps who arrange the meetings. The pimp either receives his pay-off directly from the patron and leaves the girls to collect their wages from their patron before or after the sex act, or he packages his consultancy wholesale, whereby he collects the girls’ wages from the patron and is the one to pay them off. Girls resent this latter pay mode, though, as Olaide, a Higher National Diploma student of a polytechnic in north-central Nigeria, told TheNEWS. More often than not, the pimps grossly shortchange the girls on the handout from the patrons. Olaide related an occasion a pimp organised a “runs” for her and a friend with a House of Representatives member. The “slaughter slab”, as venue of a sex act is sometimes called in the business, was the Sheraton Hotel, Abuja where the legislator had booked a double suite. The poly undergraduate described the politician as an insatiable stud throughout the night but who was highly impressed by the girls’ compromising co-operation, despite it all. Desirous of an encore, he exchanged telephone numbers with Olaide, but not before assuring her and her friend a handsome remuneration, through his pimp contact, in appreciation of the marathon, energy-sapping sex act just concluded. “We were surprised when, the next day, our contact pal offered us each an envelope containing N50,000. Immediately, something told me he was gypping us because our customer sounded convincingly sincere about rewarding us handsomely.” Olaide called the politician, raised the question and was exasperated to learn he actually gave the pimp N250,000 for the two girls.

Many high-class prostitutes don’t wait to be invited. They (most of them are undergraduates from across the country) periodically check into major hotels in Abuja where about three or four may contribute money to take a room. They could keep the room for days or weeks. It is from this operational base that they subtly solicit for clients. It is not uncommon to see young girls sitting at the bars and poolside of big hotels in the city cooly nursing glasses of drinks or loitering in the lobby, watching out for preys.

Their numbers especially swell whenever a big event, especially an event involving the political class, is holding in the FCT. The category involved in this “runs” encompasses ladies across the board – students, contractors, professional harlots, etc. During the day, they mingle with the crowd to see what networking they can successfully achieve to ease the end of nailing down a ‘customer’. Many of the doxies, quite sassy and chic, seize every available opportunity to chat up potentially high-paying bedmates. They are usually allowed free roam by the hotel security hands, bartenders, receptionists and even front desk managers whom they tip agreeably. These conspirators not only allow them free access, they also feed them with valuable information on who is around, is generous with cash, is a cassanova and is likely to succumb to their coquettish advances. Late evening, floozies unfortunate not to have been hooked can be seen at the night clubs of the major hotels or lined up on the access roads game-hunting. Beyond cash rewards, this category of prosties, largely, are prayerful of nailing down significant ‘customers’ like suitably positioned top politicians and public officers who can award or influence the award of contracts in their favour. Whereas most of the student whores who invade Abuja are in the business principally to seek for money to pay their fees through school and take care of personal needs like feeding, clothings and toiletries, their other professional, usually older rivals are in the city willing to sell their bodies not merely to desire immediate cash, but to exploit medium to long-term business opportunities.

And how desperate they can be. A serving senator from the South-South regaled this publication of his experience with a lady he initially believed was a genuine trader. The lawmaker was on Friday 28 September 2007 in Attah village, Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State, at the burial ceremony of the late former Senate president, Evan Enwenrem, when the lady appeared quite unexpectedly. He had met her only once before the shock meeting at where he was lodged for the burial function. He recalled receiving the lady, shortly before the trip to Imo, in his office in the National Assembly complex in Abuja. The beautiful, well-built and endowed lady was not indecently dressed and had stated her primary mission to the office of the senator as marketing genuine men’s clothings and perfumes. But as their discussion progressed, the lawmaker observed that the lady was lavishly pouring out unmerited compliments on him. “I tried to imagine and even queried if really I was qualified for some of those encomiums,” he quipped. As she gaily talked, she was exhibiting all the come-on-and-get-me-I-am-available mannerisms of a hooker. Her message was clear.

As the senator said, he managed to break loose from the conversation when he got a call from a colleague who wanted to be kept abreast about preparations for the funeral of their departed colleague. But if the senator thought this digression and lengthy discussion with his colleague would inflict boredom on her and consequently force her to leave, he was mistaken. Indeed, the telephone discussion offered her vital information on how she could possibly track the lawmaker down, away from the office in an informal environment. With the details of the trip at her disposal, it was easy for her to catch up with the lawmaker. There, she fully unleashed her antics. The senator admitted that the very sexy and revealing cleavage of the lady was tempting, and he had to will all the discipline in him to ease her out. The senator maintained that what still amazes him is that at the first sight of the lady, nothing gave her away as a possible merchant of commercial sex business. “She was well-dressed, very beautiful, innocent-looking and simplicity personified, an admirable personality you would want to chat with with no untoward act intended, if you are the disciplined type. I was surprised when she came out oozing sex,” he remarked.

The senator was lucky to have escaped from the claws of the itinerant hooker. Danladi Ali (not his real names), a director in charge of contracts in a juicy federal ministry in Abuja was not. One bright summer morning two years ago, in July, Ali’s aide ushered a visitor into his office. The visitor was one Gladys, who introduced herself as a contractor from, and indigene of Cross River State. Gladys, the director’s aide narrated to TheNEWS, was a ravishing beauty. Tall, large-eyed, busty and flawlessly sculptured, Gladys immediately struck a chord with Ali. The visitor discussed the issue of contracts with the top ministry official, who, apparently carried away by her beauty, began promising her the world.

And he didn’t disappoint. Soon, Gladys was benefiting from an avalanche of contracts, not only from Ali’s ministry, but also from beyond as the director pulled strings to favour her considerably. Of course, all these were not obtained ex gratia. “Everybody knew my oga was sleeping with her. It was like oga himself was proud to be showing her off as his mistress,” the aide said. Gladys gained extensively from her association with Ali. She bought the 2009 Mercedes Benz 500 jeep, the 2009 Toyota Avalon saloon and a BMW sports car. She also, as asserted by the aide, owned a property in metropolitan Abuja.

Many tramps like Gladys are doing well for themselves in Abuja, always decked in expensive trendy dresses and cruising about in glittering multi-million naira rides. It is like sex is the most lucrative business in the Federal Capital Territory. And why not? A few weeks ago, this magazine reported the crazy earnings federal legislators take home every quarter, in the midst of widespread poverty in the land. And in public service generally, at the top level, corruption has assumed a grotesque dimension. At both the National Assembly and top echelon of civil service, there is so much rip-off of public funds to waste. Women who can muster the will to shun fidelity and debase their womanhood share the belief that if there is anywhere in the country where they can acquire their own wealth, it is Abuja – from the beds of federal legislators and senior civil servants.

The sex that the lady the senator said he shunned in Imo oozes is archetypal of what Abuja itself oozes. The Federal Capital does ooze sex, utilised in wads of naira notes, dollars and pound sterling. Investigations by this magazine revealed that whenever there are high profile functions in the city by politicians and captains of industry, there are always special orders for the services of girls of easy virtue. Abuja’s rich and powerful even import prostitutes from overseas. These women are typically made available to other high-powered male guests in a fashion similar to the serving of buffet at a high society event. So common is the practice that at least one former military dictator is rumoured to have died in the arms of an imported Indian prostitute.

A story is also being told derisively in Abuja about how a former president of Nigeria appointed a “pimp” as his Senior Special Assistant. As this magazine gathered, at the inception of the former president’s administration, the favoured aide was resident outside of Nigeria. Though the said ‘pimp’ was not officially an aide to the then president, he, however, had free access to the former president as his services, not formally defined anywhere, were tagged very essential. In no time, he relocated to Nigeria in a bid to make the services more regular to his boss and he became a common face in the Aso Rock Villa.

On one of such occasions, a very curious vice-president asked his boss if the “pimp” was one of the aides as his face was becoming very regular around the president’s house. The former president, reputed for his vulgar humour, was said to have answered: “Em, em, yes. He’s PA Toto.” The bewildered deputy replied: “You mean, PA Domestic Affairs?” The ex-president answered: “Yes. That is a better name for it.” It was after that encounter that the appointment of the aide was formalised. And while the administration lasted, it remained so. The aide remained one of the closest to the then president and was indeed, highly favoured by the government.

Investigations also confirmed that top politicians and public office holders are the biggest spenders on corporate prostitutes in Abuja. Away from their homes, the men usually let go of their guard to savour the adventurous world of these hookers. And to make the act clean and tidy, most of the top personalities maintain more than one room in whatever hotel they decide to lodge. This conveniently helps them beat whatever prying eyes when the girls are brought in and smuggled out.

Considering the reckless manner that the public officers lavish money on prostitutes, not a few people believe that the desperate female plutomaniacs resort to fetish means to achieve their wealth-acquisition objectives. Olaide confessed it is true. “Many of the girls and women who target top politicians in Abuja apply juju to trap their victims. It is more than ordinary, it is occultic in most cases when you see a politician or civil servant purchase a brand new expensive car or build an eye-popping property for a hustler. This is something he finds difficult to do for his wife at home. The belief among the prostituting lot is that these people have money, plenty of it, but are still stingy with it. They will rather want to go to bed with you and give you peanuts. To be able to obtain something that will ultimately free you from poverty for life from them, you need to go the extra mile,” she explained frankly. Does she specifically do it, she was asked. “I am thinking seriously about it,” she retorted.

At a night club in Abuja, according to a soft sell tabloid, a University of Abuja lady died, after sniffing cocaine. It was one of the mind bending substances that enabled her to satisfy her highly heeled customers.

Also another medium reported how a South-South senator’s wife developed brain problem after she came to Abuja to save him from the grip of his mistress. After spending two nights at the Apo quarters of the senator, he did not show up. The wife had to call her husband’s line which was picked up by the mistress. This development led to the senator’s wife’s mental complication.

However, when some of the ladies face danger, they know when to beat a retreat. That was the case with a Fulani babe who hooked an oil magnate in the city. When the businessman’s wife, who unfortunately did not have any child for the husband (though she had two in her previous marriage) got wind of this, she was angry. She started sending threats via text messages to the Fulani lady. Consequently, to prove that she was not interested in snatching the man, she returned her brand new N3.6million Honda Civic car to the man who bought it for her originally.

The daughter of a Senator was among 35 ladies who were arrested in June in Abuja. That was when men of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board and the FCT Social Development Secretariat raided Lagos Street, Garki II, Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse, Port Harcourt Crescent Area II, zone 4 and Rita Lori Hotel off Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti way. However, when the Senator protested, the FCT later ‘found out’ that it was a case of mistaken identity as the lady just happened to be at the scene of the raid.

The sex Abuja oozes is not restricted to the high and mighty alone. Until recently when the incumbent Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, decided to clamp down on prostitution in the city, the trade was for this corner, e dey there, for that corner, e dey there, as one advertisement line of the moribund African Continental Bank harped many years ago. Worried by the sharp increase in the activities of sex workers in the territory, the minister, on 12 June gave the prostitutes a 48-hour ultimatum to leave the nation’s capital or face the wrath of the law. The minister noted that the ever-increasing number of prostitutes in the city constitutes a nuisance as their services add no value to its beauty. He gave them a stern warning to heed the ultimatum, noting that the FCT Special Task Force would immediately be out to arrest them. The ultimatum was issued through the FCT Secretary for Social Development, Mrs. Blessing Onuh. The minister followed up the ban with a plea to the different religious organisations, calling on churches, mosques and other public-spirited groups and individuals to assist in rehabilitating thousands of commercial sex workers whom the ban would dislodge from Abuja streets.

A patron of the call girls at Empress Hotel in Wuse hinted on why he hardly can do without their services, saying that the current cold weather makes it difficult for him to spend the night alone. “As you can see, it is rainy season now, it is not good for a man to just go home and sleep alone,” he said. “Even though their activities are immoral, they still provide services that are much needed. Government is just trying to exhibit a holier-than-thou attitude as many top government officials patronise them regularly,” another patron said.

The Minister’s threat and enforcement would not force a total adherence from the call girls. In fact, the pronouncement has been greeted by more resistance than acquiescence. Whenever enforcement rages, the prostitutes momentarily recoil into hiding, only to resurface when it abates. “The ultimatum given to the girls has only led to an increase in their charges. Normally, they charged between N5,000 and N10,000 for us to take them home. But now, we are forced to cough out up to N12,000 or more for a clean, beautiful babe,” a patron offered.

In a protest letter signed by Mr Emmanuel Onwubiko, National Coordinator of Abuja-based Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, and addressed to the Minister, the group challenged the action on the grounds that it was a breach on the principle of fundamental human rights of the commercial sex workers and especially on innocent ladies that are being subjected to the same treatment as prostitutes on the suspicion that they are also hookers. “We have been duly informed by some innocent victims of the various harassment by police operatives who said they are acting on your instruction to arrest any prostitute seen on the road,” the letter read. It urged the FCT minister to re-direct or instruct that the police operatives desist from “this constant evening harassment of female citizens in the city since they could not differentiate a prostitute from a decent female citizen”. It also suggested that the administration deploy a “better, humane and rights-friendly approach to wipe out the menace of prostitution”.

But the Minister and his team are unrelenting. In backing its pronouncement with action, a combined team of men of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, AEPB, and staff of the FCT Social Development Secretariat arrested about 35 commercial sex workers and two of their customers at various spots in the city two days after the expiration of the warning. Areas raided included Lagos Street, Garki 2, Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent Wuse 11, Port Harcourt Crescent Area 11, Zone 4 and Rita Lori Hotel, off Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti Way. It was gathered that among the arrested suspects were daughters of serving senators and members of state houses of assembly. One of the men caught allegedly patronising the call girls claimed to be the driver of a general in the Nigerian Army. The suspects were taken to the Wuse Police Station in Zone 3 where they were handed over to the police for prosecution before the intervention of some powerful forces from government saw their swift release from police detention.

The suspected prostitutes and their patrons however denied their involvement in the immoral trade, claiming that they only went out for shopping. They insisted that their arrests was infringements of their fundamental human rights.

A task force, consisting of AEPD officials and the Development Control of the Federal Capital City, pulled down Bar and Casino in Efab Estate on Sunday 27 June. Bar and Casino was alleged to harbour prostitutes and engage in the sale of drugs in the estate. The Director of AEPB, Dr Abubakar S.Yabo, as well as Director, Development Control, (TPL) of the FCT, Yahaya Yusuf described the Bar and Casino as a hideout for prostitutes that have been evacuated from the FCT, and lamented that apart from allegedly dealing in drugs, it also constituted a nuisance to residents in the estate.

But the owner of the Bar and Casino, Ogbano Chima Oduko denied the allegations. He told Leadership newspaper that his business was not in any way disturbing the residents. He blamed the Landlord and Tenants Association of the estate for his woes, while accusing them of extorting money from people who operated businesses in the place. “If you do not dance to their tune, they harass you,” he alleged.

One of the arrested prostitutes owned up to her trade and declared there was nothing wrong in what she was doing as it was nobody’s business what she did with her body. She maintained that rather than trying to frustrate them out of the business, government should register them and give them identity cards and tax numbers like their counterparts in other parts of the world, so that they could become a source of revenue generation for the government. She maintained that the government had no moral right to drive them off the streets as they had high ranking public officers in the public and private sector among their clientele.

Perhaps so. According to Felix Abraham Obi, a physiotherapist and writer based in Abuja, in his recount of his date with a prostitute, the streets of Abuja still looked innocent and oblivious of the paradox that the city personified. Indeed, the grandiose streets and well-trimmed neighbourhoods, Abuja is actually replete with seemingly innocent streets that house prostitutes of different hues and shapes at night. Obi believes that the men are as guilty as the female who are branded prostitutes as “supply will always continue for as long as demand exists.”

And as one of the suspects puts it, “the government is disturbing us because we do ours in the open. What about other ladies who claim to be workers in Abuja? They also do it for money. They sleep with men both in their houses and hotels or the men’s places, as well.” Club and street prostitutes argue that while their action arose from the prevailing poverty in the country, the activities of corporate prostitutes are profoundly rooted in greed given vent by inordinate business quests.Abuja parades quite an array of red light spots. These include the sprawling night clubs scattered all over the city, eateries, lounges and gardens. Some of these busy arena include the Dome Niteclub, Club Excellensio, Safari Nite Club in Transcorp Hilton, Grand Mirage Night Club, Rita Lori Night Club and the Silverbird Galleria. At any of these joints, ladies in various shapes and sizes attired in the most provocative dresses are seen soliciting for men.

But as government continues to make efforts to rid the streets of Abuja of the menace, many believe that the battle may end up as an exercise in futility unless the core problem of poverty is squarely addressed. Shehu Sani, a civil rights activist declared: “The Nigerian elite or political class are cruel and deceptive in their approach to national issues and are ridiculously hypocritical. They want to make Abuja a paradise where there are no vices, no crimes and where the streets are made of gold, where there will be 24 hours electricity to enable them enjoy their privileges, but the fact remains that you can’t make other places hell and enjoy paradise in Abuja. The 36 states of the country are impoverished by local government chairmen, state governors, ministers and National Assembly members who live in Abuja. Therefore, prostitutes cannot vacate Abuja because they are by-products of a collapsed system, they are products of a collapsed economy, and they are functions of a failed State and failed leadership that have come to live with us.

The problem of Abuja is not prostitution, but about treasury looters, about plunderers, about irresponsible public office holders who have milked the country dry, have created an atmosphere of fear and have made life unbearable for the citizens. As a human rights activist, I believe that these prostitutes are products of a morally degenerated society which we can still check by doing the right thing because some of the prostitutes are university students who cannot afford to pay their school fees.”

—Desmond Utomwen & Femi Ipaye

Starcomms Plc has become the first Code Division Multiple Access operator in the world to provide its customers the opportunity of enjoying international roaming.

This, according to the telecoms company on Friday, became possible as a result of the agreement signed with two roaming service providers, Mach and Accuris networks in March, 2010.

With the agreement, pre-paid inter-standard roaming calls can be made to a GSM network by Starcomms CDMA customer.

According to the Chief Executive Officer, Starcomms, Mr. Maher Qubain, the over 3.2 million customers of the company now have the rare opportunity of a seamless access to international mobile roaming on all wireless technology networks.

He said this would greatly expand Starcomms network coverage outside Nigeria and simplify the roaming experience of such customers, who might have reasons to travel outside the country.

He said, ”The commitment of Starcomms to providing innovative products and services that simplify lives and enhance living for our customers is a tradition we hold dear. We know that many customers yearn for the high quality services of Starcomms everywhere they go. So, the pioneering step of adding inter-standard roaming capabilities to our portfolio as a CDMA network in this country is just an added evidence of our practice of always being the first to give customers the best.”

The solution, which can be implemented by using existing connections, offers end-users all of the services that are available on their home network, even when they are travelling. With end-to-end one-number interoperability, operators can provide complete voice and messaging services easily. .

”The seamless interoperability roaming access that MACH provides for over 600 networks all over the world is in line with the high quality services that Starcomms has been providing its customers in Nigeria,” Qubain said

The killing of a chartered accountant with Intercontinental Finance, a subsidiary of Intercontinental Bank Plc, Alhaji Ademola Adeagbo, on Friday evening by some unidentified gunmen, is being trailed by conflicting accounts.

A younger brother of the deceased, Mr. Adeniyi Adeagbo, told our correspondent on Sunday that his brother was brutally murdered by people suspected to be hired assassins at Orimerunmu in Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State.

But the police in Ogun State, who said that the deceased’s metallic grey Toyota Corolla metallic grey car had been recovered in addition to N94,000, a laptop, briefcase, four packet shirts and one wristwatch in his car, stated that it was not likely to be a case of assassination because he did not die immediately..

Adeniyi told PUNCH METRO that on the fateful day, the gunmen had first driven to the residence of the slain banker in a private vehicle but did not find him there.

He said they subsequently launched a manhunt for him until they met him on the road, discussing with one of his neighbours who was said to be recuperating from her illness.

He said, “When my brother returned from work, he went to his wife’s shop to look for her. When he got to the shop, his wife was not there but met his children and two of his friend’s children in the shop. His children decided to go with him in his car.

“As they were going towards home, he met his wife. His wife told him that there was a neighbour of theirs who had been ill for some time and that he should go and greet her. As he was going to the neighbour’s house, he met her on the way. He stopped, came out of the car and exchanged pleasantries with her. As he was talking with the woman, some men drove near them and stopped. They came out from their car and told him they were policemen and that he was under arrest.

“My brother told them he had no problem with the police and that if they were actually policemen, they should identify themselves. After saying that, the men put hands in their pouch as if they wanted to bring out their identification cards only for them to bring guns out and started dragging him to enter into their car in the full glare of his three children and the neighbour he was greeting. As he refused to follow them, they pulled the trigger and shot him dead. As the neighbour and the children ran away shouting, ‘Won ti pa Alhaji, (they have killed Alhaji), the gunmen zoomed off with my brother’s official car and their own.”

Adeniyi said that when the news filtered in that 45-year-old Adeagbo had been killed, the youths in the area allegedly chased the gunmen and they abandoned his brother’s official car at the end of Orimerunmu Road.

Curiously, his assailants did not ask him for money or anything, but were said to have told him before they shot him that they did not want anything from him but his life.

Speaking amid tears, Adeniyi told our correspondent that his brother’s death dealt a devastating blow to him in particular and the family in general.

He said his brother was a fine gentleman who was kind to a fault, wondering why good people should be killed with such cruelty.

“My brother did not do any business with anybody. I do not know why they chose to kill him. They have caused problem for us. He was the light of our family. I do not know how to pick the pieces of my life that his death has caused me. He was one brother that understood the plight of his people,” the anguished brother said.

However, the Ogun State Police Command spokesman, Mr. Ademuyiwa Adejobi, said, “It is not likely to be a case of assassination because he did not die immediately. He was alive when the vehicle was being taken away. He struggled with the bandits when he was shot.

“The command wishes to appeal to members of the public that when such things happen, they should not struggle with the bandits. The command is investigating a case of armed robbery and not assassination.”

Our correspondent, who visited the residence of the Adeagbos, saw a motley crowd coming to commiserate with the family.

The deceased’s wife was inconsolable. Many sympathisers thronged the residence to pay their last respects.

It was gathered that Adeagbo would be buried on Sunday.