Lookman shuns Nigeria

Everton rave of the moment Ademola Lookman says he is happy representing the English national team, in his first interview since his goal scoring debut in Everton’s 4-0 thrashing of Manchester City. According to online reports there has been interest from Nigeria on holding talks with the talented 19 year old, who has represented England at various youth levels to switch to Nigeria at senior level, but it appears those speculations are way off the mark.

Lookman on his part, while speaking on what prepared him for the goal scoring debut he had, pointed out the experience he had with the English youth team as one which prepared him for life in the Premier League. “I have progressed a lot the last few years, I have a very sweet experience at Charlton, learning and working my way up, which I believe is why am at Everton”, Lookman said. “Playing for England U-19s has also helped my career a lot. It got me exposed and there’s a whole joy that comes from playing international football, something I experienced with England”.

Money laundering: How Justice Ngwuta gave me N313m in nine months —Witness

A building contractor, Mr. Linus Nwamba, yesterday, said that Justice Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court,  who is facing money laundering charges, handed him over N313 million within nine months.

Nwamba, who testified before a Federal High Court in Abuja as the first prosecution witness, PW-1, said Justice Ngwuta gave him the money in cash, between January 4 and September 2016. The witness who was led in evidence by government lawyer, Mr. Charles Adeogun-Philips, narrated to the court how the embattled jurist called him barely 24 hours after he was released on administrative bail by the Department of State Service, DSS and directed him to go to his residence in Abakaliki in Ebonyi State and remove N27million he hid in his bathroom. He said Ngwuta who made the call via through unregistered telephone line, equally mandated him to dispose off three exotic cars that were parked at his residence in his home town, as well as a bag containing several documents. Ngwuta is facing a 16-count charge of money laundering, age falsification and alleged illegal possession of multiple international passports. He was docked before the court on November 21, 2016 and subsequently granted bail in the sum of N100 million

In his evidence-in-chief, the PW-1 who is the owner of Base4 Services Limited, told the court that his first encounter with Justice Ngwuta was in 2015. He said: “The defendant in this case is my customer. I was introduced to him by someone who told me that he was in need of a reputable firm or individual to handle certain building and construction work for him. “The person’s name is Mr. Kenneth, a motor mechanic. On December 31, 2015, which was the first day I met the defendant, he showed me an empty plot of land close to his house and told me the structures he would want my company to design and build for him. “I took the brief, assembled my workers and we came up with designs of those buildings he mentioned and built them as well. The structures he asked me to construct were a storey building library block, a four bedroom bungalow with kitchen, all self-contained, to reclaim a plot that was swampy and make it habitable, to also raise two four detached bedroom duplexes and to put a huge fence to contain all the structures and connect it with the existing ones. And to build a car park to house some vehicles. “After I got the instruction, I prepared my drawings and designs and took them to him for approval on January 2, 2016. He was satisfied with our presentations and designs. “I saw the defendant again on January 4. I presented my bill to him through my quotations for payment. The amount I quoted was N148m. “The defendant did not agree to pay the amount. He offered to pay N130m. On that January 4, I was mobilised to commence work for the defendant. He gave me N40m in cash comprising N25m and equivalent of N15m in US dollars.. “There was no formal contractual document between us. There is no record except for acknowledgement in some of my quotation papers and notes the defendant gave to me. Deadline for completion of the project was October 2016, which was 10 months. I achieved the deadline and I was fully paid for the project all in cash both in foreign and local currencies. “I cannot recall how much exactly was given to me in foreign currencies. That was however, not the end of my relationship with the defendant. We had another construction project at Onwe Road in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. “The project involved demolition of a dilapidated  building, sand-filling the area to achieve a reasonable level because it was very down from the road and then the construction of four units of four bedroom duplexes for commercial purposes.” “My quotation for the second project was N165m. The defendant has not paid me all the money. So far I have received a total of N100m. The project is up to 70 percent completion. He gave me the N100m in cash, record of the payment is on my quotation sheet. I got the cash in both foreign and local currencies. There was no specific deadline for the project. “There was also another re-construction project at Amofia Ukagwu, Onicha LGA in Ebonyi. The project involves demolition of a poorly built structure and to erect a duplex with a pent house, a boys quarter, fencing, painting, a gate-house and decoration. “The agreed project cost was N110m. I received N83m out of the amount from the defendant by cash and money transfer through the bank. I got N53m in cash, both in local and foreign currencies. The balance was sent to me through inter-bank transfer from Union Bank to my account in Zenith Bank. “Deadline for completion of the third project was December 2016. We commenced the project in June. The total amount I received for the three projects was N313m from January 4 to September 2016. “Indeed I was deeply concerned and bothered about receiving such huge amounts of cash from the defendant. I was concerned about the safety of the defendant and the huge cash around him. I was not previously accustomed to receiving such huge amounts of cash from my customers. “At one point ,I raised my concern to the defendant. He told me not to bother because those were proceeds from his work and overseas conferences and other assignments he engage people to do for him. “He said that he got his money legitimately and saved it. He said that he attended conferences of Supreme Court Justices and other such conferences where he was paid in hard currencies and that he never went on holidays overseas like other Judges. “I had contact with the defendant on October 9, 2016, shortly after his arrest through a certain un-saved number. He called and told me that I should go to his residential building. That he doesn’t know what was happening at his house in Abuja. That I should enter his bathroom and remove some bags and items there. “That I should move the items out. That he was afraid because his house in Abuja was evaded by security operatives. So I proceeded and did exactly what he told me to do. “I was at Abakaliki doing some of the construction work when the call came in. I believe the defendant was in Abuja when he made the call with a number not familiar to me. The call was in the afternoon.

‘Entertainment is important to Lagos State and we will continue to support it’ – Ambode

Lagos State governor Akinwunmi Ambode has reiterated his administration’s commitment to developing the state’s entertainment and tourism potentials with a view to creating an increase in GDP.

He said this while meeting with artistes who were part of the One Lagos Fiesta that held during the last week of 2016. The retinue of stars included Falz, Tiwa Savage, Patoranking, MI Abaga, Jaywon, Adekunle Gold, Humblesmith, Dammy Krane as well as legendary musicians like Queen Salawa Abeni, Sir Shina Peters and Adewale Ayuba.

According to him, the entertainment industry is poised to increase the economic strength of the state as witnessed during the One Lagos Fiesta

This is an area I love which is underutilized for the societal development of the country. Government is now willing to use your industry to grow its GDP because so far entertainers are working, we would have more visitors coming to Lagos; they will stay in our hotels; they will buy clothes; they will go out in the night and buy our drinks and the ultimate thing is that more taxes come in for the state,’ he said.

However, he maintains that entertainment practitioners also need to come up with a framework for government to intervene and provide required infrastructure and ecosystem for the industry to thrive. ‘There is a concentric cycle around the energy of entertainers and so what I want is a structured framework. What is it that we should do as government to grow the industry? Why should we go and be doing video shoot in South Africa for instance? I want a win-win partnership not just to use artistes and dump them till another December. I want a year-round partnership that is built around a framework. The challenge for our artistes now is to come up with a framework of how government can intervene. We are willing to support and we are willing to draw up a programme to support you,‘ he concluded.

The One Lagos Fiesta held over the course of eight days from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day and saw millions of Lagosians enjoy the yuletide celebrations from five different locations across the state.

Why Snapchat king Bobrisky is definitely Nigeria’s Kim Kardashian

Two years ago, the mention of the name Bobrisky would have been met with nothing more than a blank stare, as he was still just Idris Okuneye, a regular kid from the block.

Fast forward to 2017 and this 25-year-old University of Lagos graduate that can still barely compose a complete and correct sentence is the king of social media, a status he achieved with almost no help at all.

When he is not twerking on Snapchat, he is marketing his skin-bleaching cream or talking about his faceless ‘bae’.

This young man has managed to garner the anger of thousands of Nigerians who insist he deserves to be arrested following the law that says homosexuals should be locked up for 14 years.

Kim Kardashian, on the other hand, rose to fame with the help of a less-than-captivating sex tape. Since then, she has proceeded to earn millions of dollars and fans by showing us every single part of her perfect body from every angle possible.

She is one of the most talked-about women in the world today, thanks maybe to her beauty and ability to constantly shock. While many love to hate her, she continues to thrive, garnering more wealth for herself, paving the way for her sisters, which has made them some of the world’s wealthiest sisters.

Not a day goes by where Kim is not in the news. Her disappearance from the public eye, which many thought would make her less newsworthy had almost the opposite effect as everybody wanted to know what she was up to while in hiding.

Any observant reader would have noticed the amount of hate comments her stories usually receive. ‘Stop talkiing abut this tramp’ ‘she’s a hoe, she deserves it’ are some of the regular comments one would always expect from any story that has Kim as the lead image.

Despite all of this, she has over 90 million Instagram followers and almost 50 million on twitter, which happens to be one of the major sources of her wealth.

Bobrisky, while still very far from Kim’s celebrity status, has in a short time, become one of the most talked-about characters on social media and everyone just loves to hate him.

Each Snap of his gets thousands of viewers, a feat very few celebrities in the country can boast of, Instagram posts that have anything to do with his name get loads of views and comments, same as Twitter and every other social media platform.

‘He is gay, lock him up’, ‘this dirty bleached idiot’ are some of the regular comments the Snapchat king’s stories receive on a daily.

Despite being an ‘idiot’, the bleaching cream expert is already making money via his social media pages as he recently announced that his Snapchat page was now open for paid adverts, an opportunity any wise marketer would jump on seeing how many views his snaps get.

Whether we like it or not, just like Kim Kardashian, Bobrisky is a name we will be seeing for a very long to come so we might as well get used to it.

‘I got 99 problems and stigma is one’ – Tiwa Savage’s husband Tee Billz hints at being stigmatised

The troubled husband of singer Tiwa Savage, Tee Billz in a post shared on Instagram has spoken about mental health again.

The artiste manager who has been undergoing therapy took to the photo sharing app to talk about stigmatisation of people suffering from mental disorders.

He shared a photo of US rapper Jay Z carrying a placard with the words, ‘I got 99 problems and stigma is 1.’ on Instagram and he captioned it. 

“Mental illness is not a life choice, but ignorance and stigma are…. #MentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #14daysMentalHealthAwareness #14daysMHW #Day9 #SayNO2IgnoranceandStigma.“

The internet can’t stop talking about Kendall Jenner’s leg in this photo

A viral photo which shows Kendall and Kylie Jenner laughing beside their model friend, Hailey Baldwin, at the Golden Globes after party has been driving the internet crazy as they can’t seem to figure out what happened to one of Kendall’s legs.

Do you see it? No one has found it yet.

William Onyeabor, Nigeria’s father of electro-funk dies at 72

Chief William Onyeabor, best known for his timeless record ‘When The Going Is Smooth And Good’, passed away in his Enugu home on January 16th, 2017.

His was one of the most widely known careers of all time, even though the man himself would become reclusive and be unreachable for the 30 years that preceded his death.

Moogmusic.com described him thus: ‘William Onyeabor is shrouded in a fog of rumors and misinformation, making him one of Nigeria’s most fascinating and elusive electro-funk musicians.‘

That wasn’t far from the truth; since becoming ‘born again’ in the mid-’80s, he refused to discuss his music career, choosing to focus on his private life and his thriving flour mill business.

Born in Enugu in 1945, William Onyeabor is said to have studied cinematography in Russia circa the late 60s, returning post civil war to start a film company and later delve into music.

Although his music career took off during the era where Fela’s Afrobeat was the rage, Onyeabor’s peculiar sound stood him apart.

He was ahead of his time in many ways: making use of synthesizers and keyboards- hallmarks of the do-it-yourself mode of making music that would become ubiquitous in the coming decades.

His debut album Crashes In Love was released in 1977 and was followed in each successive year by Atomic Bomb, Crashes In Love (Two), Tomorrow, Body & Soul, Great Lover, Hypertension, Good Name, Anything You Sow.

After the final album in 1985, he became a born again Christian and according to the creed of his new found religion, he ‘forsook all things of the world’.

But the world did not forsake him; several bands in Europe and America held on to his psychedelic sounds and vestiges of the roaring 70s. The most enduring of them is Luaka Bop led by David Byrne. The collective put together a compilation of William Onyeabor’s songs and released ‘Who is William Onyeabor?’ in 2013.

Until his death on Monday, he was a successful businessman whose elusiveness stumped several fans and journalists who have chased him for decades. According to his son Charles, he wasn’t ill; his time simply was up – he went to bed normally and died in his sleep.

For a man whose career was devoid of the pageantry that an icon of his status deserved, perhaps there was no better way for him to go.

Funeral plans would be as announced by the family.

Jammeh Plans Escape Route as Nigeria Warship Gets Closer To Gambia

According to a Gambian journalist and Human Rights activist, President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia has fueled and parked his plane in the middle of the tarmac ready for escape.

The escape comes as a second option should the ECOWAS troops swoop in on him.

According to the reporter, the president's pilot has also been instructed to be on standby amid the political tension in the country.

This just comes after the president declared a state of emergency, just two days before he is supposed to cede power after losing elections last month. In a national TV address, Jammeh said on Tuesday the measure was necessary because of "the unprecedented and extraordinary amount of foreign interference" in a December 1 presidential vote, which he lost to opposition leader Adama Barrow.

Meanwhile,reports have it that Nigeria soldiers will, on Wednesday (today), arrive at a base of the Economic Community of West African States troops in Senegal to ensure that President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia steps down on Thursday, January 19.

Nigerian warship, NNS UNITY, is also heading for the coast of The Gambia to join the operation.

Lagos Gets New Commissioner of Police

Four days after his promotion to the rank of Commissioner of Police (CP), the Officer in Charge of Inspector-General of Police (IGP) monitoring unit, Mr Garuba Umar, has been appointed Lagos State Commissioner of police.

Umar once served as Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in Ikoyi and as Mobile Police Unit 19 Commander, in Port Harcourt, replaces Fatai Owoseni, who has been posted to the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, in Jos.

Former Force headquarters spokesman Don Awunah decorated as Commissioner of police last week has been posted to take charge of Akwa Ibom command

World's oldest zoo gorilla Colo dies after living more than two decades longer than expected

The world's oldest zoo gorilla has died aged 60 - after living more than two decades longer than expected.

Colo, the oldest gorilla ever recorded, passed away in her sleep overnight at Columbus Zoo .

She became the first of her species born at the zoo on December 22, 1956.

Her birth made headlines around the world in an era when little was known about conserving the critically endangered western lowland gorilla

Tom Stalf, the zoo's president, said: “Colo touched the hearts of generations of people who came to see her and those that cared for her over her long lifetime.

"She was an ambassador for gorillas and inspired people to learn more about the critically endangered species and motivated them to protect gorillas in their native habitat.”

Colo’s first keeper, a second-year veterinary student named Warren Thomas, was credited for both Colo’s birth and her survival.

He defied orders from the zoo's then-director Earl Davis to keep Colo’s parents, Baron Macombo and Millie Christina, apart.

Despite concerns from Davis that his prized gorillas would hurt each other if kept together, Thomas allowed them to spend time together - eventually leading to Colo's birth.

Thomas also found Colo, still in her amniotic sac, shortly after birth and provided mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive the lifeless baby.

Her name - short of Columbus Ohio - was the winner of a national 'name the baby gorilla' contest.

Vladimir Putin claims Russian prostitutes are 'best in the world' as he slams 'fake' Trump Watersportsgate dossier

Vladimir Putin claims Russian prostitutes are the "best in the world" as he slammed the Watersportsgate dossier against Donald Trump.

The Russian leader denied his country has any compromising information about the President-elect - and claimed those who compiled it were "worse than prostitutes".

The shocking 37-page document, dumped online last week, claims Trump booked the Presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton in Moscow and hired sex workers to urinate on the bed, where the Obamas had stayed previously.

Trump refuted the claims, branding them "fake news".

Putin suggested the 37-page collection of salacious claims about Trump's business dealings and behaviour in Russia were an attempt to "delegitimise" his election victory

Trump was elected President in November, despite losing the popular vote by 2.8 million votes - more than any other winning candidate in US history.

Putin told Russian state-controlled propaganda outlet Sputnik: “These claims are an obvious fake. Trump, when he came to Moscow a few years ago was not a politician.

“We did not even know about his political ambitions, he was just a businessman, one of the richest men in America. Is someone really thinking that our intelligence agencies are chasing every American billionaire, or what? Of course not! It's just a complete nonsense.”

And he said those who ordered the dossier were “worse than prostitutes”, adding: "This is a mature person who had been organising beauty pageants for many years.

"He got to be around the most gorgeous women in the world. I doubt he would ever rush to a hotel to spend time with the local women of loose morals - although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world.."

Putin denied having any reasons to attack or defend Trump.

He said: “I don't know Mr. Trump, I have never met him, I don't know what he will do in the international arena, so I have no reason either to attack him, criticise him or defend him.”