Over 15 million teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are reported to give birth every year following r*pe and s*xual assault. United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, ‘A Field office’, in a statement yesterday said many of the pregnancies result from non-consensual s*x. According to UNICEF, despite advances in the last 20 years to checkmate such cases, there had been too little progress in preventing adolescent pregnancies, abortions, maternal deaths, sexually-transmitted infections and HIV. “There are significant gaps in availability, quality and access to comprehensive se*uality education and services for young people, especially in low-income countries. “Relatively simple…
Author: Wale Adebayo
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has appealed to Nigerians to unite and fight the insurgents to achieve success. Atiku wrote on his blog: “While I have had and continue to have major policy differences with the government in Abuja and its leadership, as a nation we must remain united. “We have come to a turning point in our war against terrorism in Nigeria. It is a critical moment for us; the war will not be won without us winning this battle. In short, if one is not part of the solution, they become part of the problem. “And at a…
Special Forces of the United States Marines have reportedly sighted the 230 female students abducted by Boko Haram terrorists from the Government Girls’ Secondary School, GGSS, Chibok, Borno State. The girls who were abducted on April 14, were part of the 250 students boarded at the school for the West African School Certificate, WASC/ Senior Secondary School Certificate, SSSC, examinations, triggering world-wide condemnations. Members of the United States Marines who are already in Maiduguri in fulfilment of the promise of President Barack Obama to assist Nigeria’s rescue efforts, were said to have located the girls inside the Sambisa forest, using…
Men of the Bauchi State Police Command have arrested four people in connection with the death of a 23-year-old pregnant lady whose corpse was abandoned in Guru village in the state. According to a press statement signed by the Bauchi state police Command Public Relations Officer, DSP Haruna Mohammed and made available to newsmen yesterday in Bauchi, the police received a report that a female corpse was dumped along Guru village along old Jos road, Bauchi by an unknown person. “The scene was visited by detectives led by Dpo, GRA division. The victim was later identified by her father as…
Five suspected kidnappers were shot dead yesterday by the Police in Edo state during a gun duel with the suspects. This comes as the Edo State Police Commissioner, Mr Funso Adebanjo raised an alarm that armed bandits and kidnappers are succeeding in Nigeria because Nigerians are not giving useful information to the police. Saturday Vanguard learnt that the kidnappers who abducted a female victim and took her to a forest at Oluku along the Benin-Akure road, met their waterloo when detectives stormed the area at the early hours of yesterday. The notorious kidnappers were said to have laid ambush for…
The United Kingdom team has arrived in Abuja to support the government in its response to the abduction of over 200 school girls. According to a press statement by Rob Fitzpatrick, Head of Press and Public Affairs of the British High Commission Abuja, “a team of UK experts who will advise and support the Nigerian authorities in its response to the abduction of over 200 school girls touched down in Abuja this morning”. The statement added that “the team is drawn from across Government, including DfID, FCO and the MoD, and will work with the Nigerian authorities leading on the…
Nigeria’s military had advanced warning of the April 14 attack by Boko Haram that led to the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls but failed to take immediate action, according to human rights watchdog, Amnesty International. “Damning testimonies gathered by Amnesty International reveal that Nigerian security forces failed to act on advance warnings about Boko Haram’s armed raid on the state-run boarding school in Chibok which led to the abduction,” the group said. Amnesty said it had verified the information about the abduction with “credible sources”. “Amnesty International has confirmed … that Nigeria’s military headquarters in Maiduguri was aware of…
Public Relations Officer of Lagos State Police Command, DSP Ngozi Braide has denied rumour about activities of Boko Haram members in some parts of the state. Braide said this while briefing the press on Friday at Premier College Group of Schools, Palm Avenue, Mushin, where the sect members purportedly invaded. “It is not true that there is any act of terrorism anywhere in Lagos State. It is a lie that the terrorists invaded Premier College to abduct students. “Somebody just sat down somewhere and cooked up the lies to cause panic in the state. “Premier College and other schools in…
US experts arriving in Nigeria to help hunt for more than 200 abducted schoolgirls face a “challenging” task and it’s too early to say if they can find them, officials warned Friday. Seven military officials from the US Africa regional command AFRICOM along with a State Department expert arrived Friday, and three FBI personnel and four others from State and the USAID aid agency were due to arrive Saturday. “They’ll be providing technical and investigatory assistance, helping with hostage negotiations, advising on military planning and operations and assisting with intelligence and information,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. Among the…
The Kokomaster — D’banj has totally upped his game and now rolls with the big boys. The singer and now farmer was present at The World Economic Forum that has been holding in Abuja. He’s on the Agric Panel with Nigerian Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina who was named Forbes African of the Year, 2013 for his reforms to Nigeria’s farming sector. See more photos below: –
Toyin Lawani is obviously over the moon with joy after having her cute baby boy. The fashionista who recently shared photos for the first time has shared another cute one See another photo of mum and dad, all loved up under an umbrella below: –
It’s been 3 weeks since the abduction and people have begun to question or rather, doubt the abduction or some parts of it mainly because of conflicting statements after the kidnap Earlier Gov Godswill Akpabio said“I don’t have the details but there are a lot of mysteries surrounding this situation. Two hundred and thirty something girls, for you to take them out of the school, you need a lot of vehicles.What were the security agents in that area doing? What was the reaction of the school principal? And how come the principal’s daughters were not abducted? The female teachers were not…
The Peoples Democratic Party has reiterated its stance that the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, remains the game changer of the party. The ruling party alleged that there were plans to rubbish Mu’azu and destabilise the party ahead of the 2015 general election, but said that such plan would not succeed. In a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Olisa Metuh in Abuja on Friday, PDP alleged that there were people concocting lies against Mu’azu with the aim of causing disaffection in the party. The statement noted that Mu’azu has maintained very…
The former Minister of Sports, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, on Thursday revealed to the students of University of Ilorin that in the early part of his life, he was a bus conductor. Abdullahi made the revelation in Ilorin while delivering a paper at the annual public lecture of the Association of Business and Social Science Students (ABSSS) of the university. He disclosed that he was conversant with poverty but eventually overcame the challenge. He advised the students to design a template for themselves by diversifying into vocational skills. According to him, vocational skills will help address the teething problem of unemployment.…
THE REMODELLED MALAM Kano International AIRPORT, KANO The Ministry of Aviation has not abandoned the airports remodelling project initiated during the reign of Princess Stella Oduah, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) said on Friday. This assurance is contained in a statement issued in Abuja by the Coordinating General Manager, Aviation Parastatals, Mr Yakubu Dati. The statement described the allegation against the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Dr Jamila Shu’ara as not only unfounded and untrue, but also unfortunate. The statement reads: “The allegation against the Permanent Secretary that she refused to release funds to contractors handling the remodelling project was not…
As part of efforts to elevate the standard of education in Jigawa State, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo is expected to lead members of the Obasanjo Foundation to the North-West state next week Monday to formally take over Model Boarding Primary School, Kude in Dutse Local Government Area. The state Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Professor Haruna Wakili, who made this known in an interaction with journalists, said at the end of the Jigawa economic summit last year, the former president, who chaired the occasion, requested that a primary school should be given to him to manage. He added that the Obasanjo…
A 30-year-old man, Ambrose Anthony, on Thursday, appeared before a Jalingo chief magistrate’s court for allegedly killing his wife, Helen after a disagreement over ‘bushmeat’. Anthony, a native of Yorro Area,Taraba State, was charged with culpable homicide contrary to Section 221 of the Penal Code. Prosecutor Mela Joseph said that the incident occurred on April 7, 2014. Joseph told the court that the accused hit his wife’s abdomen with firewood over her alleged failure to account for the ‘bushmeat’ he bought from a village market. He said the injuries sustained by Helen led to her death while she was receiving…
Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has tasked Nigerians on the need to unite in the fight against insurgency in the country. In a statement issued in Abuja by his media office on Friday, Atiku said that all citizens must unite to stamp out the evil that bedevilled the country. “At a moment like this, we can no longer afford anything but a united commitment to stamping out a great evil that threatens the very existence of the only place we call home. “We must make it easy for the world to see Nigeria as a country that cares for all…
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged the National Assembly to urgently initiate a probe into how the budgetary allocations to the military have been spent in recent years, with a view to establishing whether or not the Nigerian military is adequately equipped to effectively tackle the worsening scourge of terrorism in the country. The call was contained in a statement signed by APC interim national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in Lagos, Thursday. According to the opposition party, the National Assembly, in the exercise of its constitutional duties, must invite service chiefs and other relevant government officials to shed…
The Enugu State chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, has berated the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for keeping opposition parties in the dark, ahead of the 2015 general elections. The party’s allegation is against the backdrop of plans by the INEC to begin the distribution of permanent voters’ cards and fresh registration of voters in over 600 polling units in Enugu State. Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting organized by the INEC in Enugu on Thursday, the state APC chairman, Dr. Ben Nwoye, called on the commission to be unbiased in its distribution of permanent voter cards in the state.…