15 feared dead at Jonathan’s rally

 The South-South presidential campaign of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ended on a tragic note yesterday, as no fewer than 15 persons were feared dead in a stampede at the Liberation Stadium, venue of the rally in Port Harcourt.

Among the dead were women who had attended the rally, which attracted party faithful from the six South-South states and beyond. Scores of persons also sustained injuries in the incident.

It all started about 2.55 p.m. shortly after President Goodluck Jonathan handed over the party’s flags to the governors of the five PDP-controlled states in the zone. As most of the overflowing crowd of party members made for the main gate, there were some others who were trying to enter the stadium, and in the ensuing stampede, so many persons, especially women, fell down. Those who were too weak to stand up were trampled to death.

The situation worsened when law enforcement agents shot into the air in their bid to contain the surging crowd. Worse still, policemen closed the main gate, apparently to ensure that the President concluded his address at the rally. The police in a statement issued by its spokesperson, Dr. Rita Inoma-Abbey (SP), however, said they merely “mounted troop proof and other security agents to contain the push by closing the gate to rescue the victims.”
Dr. Inoma-Abbey explained that the stampede occurred when “those coming in were pushing their way out” just as part of the crowd inside tried to go out.

The police public relations officer said, “preliminary inquiry is ongoing” on the incident. Before the rally, a Prado Jeep in the President’s convoy had rammed into a stationary truck and two persons were feared dead in the accident. Addressing the crowd at the rally, President Jonathan assured that the nation would witness a harvest of development in his second coming.

He said the Federal Government was concluding talks for heavy investment in the nation’s petroleum industry.
Source:sun


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Obi Asika's 72year old mother survives ghastly motor accident.

Obi Asika's mum
On Sunday Jan 31, the 72 year old mum of CEO of Storm 360 Ltd, Obi Asika, was involved in a ghastly car accident. Mrs Asika had travelled to the AU Summit in Addis Ababa and was less than 5mins from her home when the vehicle she was in was blindsided by a Honda Accord which crossed from the service lane on the other side, traversed three lanes, the culvert in the middle and smashed into the vehicle she was traveling in. This accident happened near Wuye, Abuja.

These pics are of the car that hit the vehicle which she was in
Her vechicle was thrown sky-high and then proceeded to somersault severally, she was thrown out of the vehicle in her seat and landed in the concrete culvert in the middle. A good samaritan couple that witnessed the accident moved her and her two colleagues, the driver and two senior Govt officials to the hospital. The other parties were discharged that day and thankfully had relatively minor injuries.

Mrs Asika has since been discharged from hospital and doing very well at home.
Seeing the damage to this vehicle, it's a miracle all of those involved in the accident survived. God be praised.
Source:Delight Read more...

The story of Acid Victim, Comfort Sunday.

Sorry about the graphic nature of the pic...but that's a human being...a victim of a superstitious belief. Please don't ask me to take the pics down. Incidents like this need to be brought to the fore front so people are aware that crazy things like this are happening in our society.


For those who don't know her, Comfort Sunday is the 14-year-old girl whose father poured acid on her after a pastor convinced her family that she was a witch and the source of all her family's problems. The father took her to an uncompleted building, where he poured a tin-full of corrosive acid on her.

Comfort was until the incident a JSS II student of Government Secondary School, Akwanga, and was living with her father, Sunday James, 61, and her stepmother, Justina Abimiku, 52. She lost her mom at a tender age and had been severally maltreated by her step mum.



According to a 2010 Daily Trust Report...

After taking her to the uncompleted building, the father blackmailed her into swallowing the corrosive substance, saying if she does that without throwing it out, she is not the devil being thought of. But if she does throw it out, then she was confirming the fears that she is a witch which has been smothering family members, including her late mother. So, she tried drinking it, to prove her innocence. It hurt, biting her tongue. She threw it out immediately. She was guilty of the deaths in the family, including of her very mother as her father declared. So her father overpowered her and ran the acid on her face, then he left.

 James was acting the script of a pastor whose name Weekly Trust could not obtain because he and the entire family is concealing his identity. The priest pointed at Comfort and accused her of the deaths in the family, alleging how she is in a cult which demands blood from her all times and called her a witch. He did not allow her to deny, as he took his fee and left without casting out the demon.

Comfort was first accused in 2008 by her stepmother of being a witch. She accused her of being responsible for the ill-health of family members. Headache, stomachache, fevers; everything was blamed on her. Her father, a security guard at the Catholic Church in Alushi area of Akwanga, believed his wife’s story of how Comfort is the virus causing all illness around the family. The stepmom had this to say: “I have eight children with one of them dead. One day, about three years ago, after my husband brought Comfort to stay with us from the South-West and all my children and myself fell inexplicably sick.”

 Matters got worse for Comfort, as after being pushed her next door to her grandparents, her grandfather, Auta Anaku fell ill at this time and he passed on. Confession upon confession sprang up about how Comfort had told family members she is a witch. So, when James’ younger sister, Barmami fell ill in 2008, and was rushed to Abuja, she decided to explore other means to cure her illness. She ran to the pastor who followed her down to Akwanga to make the accusations. What followed was the acid bath.

 Better Leven, an NGO based in Akwanga, is trying to rehabilitate Comfort who had been in its custody since then. Timothy Tashi, programme officer of the NGO said on several occasions he contacted James and brought up the condition of Comfort, but that the father has always refused show any remorse even as the girl’s condition is not improving. Also, the NGO is having problems attracting government’s attention to her, just as the police have continued to look the other way. James is walking the streets scot-free after he made statements to the police.

Meanwhile, a doctor, who chose to remain anonymous, stressed the urgent need for surgery to be done on Comfort’s face, as her condition may worsen, making correction difficult or even impossible.

Victor Labesa, Nasarawa State coordinator of the Legal Aid Council, described the deed of James as barbaric and callous. He said with the Child’s Right Act domesticated in the state since 2005, James committed a crime against humanity and must be brought to book. But the police cannot act, as Comfort remains in pain, victim to the superstitious beliefs of those supposed to love and care for her.

***

A January 2011 Daily Trust update on the issue...

Stepbrother allegedly attempts to poison ‘Acid Bath Girl’

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police in Nasarawa State is investigating one Alexander Sunday, half-brother of Comfort Sunday, whose face and respiratory system have been disfigured after her father emptied a can of acid on her face in 2008 on the suspicion that she was a witch. Alexander, 22, is currently in detention after he was arrested by the police in Akwanga last Sunday, (January 2011) for allegedly poisoning the food of his half-sister the previous day at the family’s residence along Mai-Doki Street in Akwanga.

Their father, Sunday James, has been in detention and will be arraigned in court on February 3, for allegedly bathing his daughter with acid in 2008. James walked freely initially, but pressures from the Tashi A. Tashi-led NGO currently giving care to the teenage girl, as well as the Legal Aid Council, have compelled the police to re-arrest him for prosecution, while he awaits arraignment in court.

Comfort lost her mother while she was still young and had grown up under tough conditions because of maltreatment from her father and stepmother as well as her half-brother and sister, all of whom have raised emotions against her, alleging she is responsible for deaths in the family.

Alexander was caught with a pot of food his half sister kept in her room, by other occupants of the house who insisted on knowing what his motives were. On opening the pot, they discovered the food in it was foaming with a black substance suspected to be poison.

Comfort’s statement to the police indicates that she had long suspected her half-brother’s malice. She said Alexander had threatened to send her out of the house because she is responsible for the detention of their father.

State police spokesman, ASP Richard Akoji, confirmed the incident and the arrest, saying the police are investigating Alexander for the alleged poison.

Source: Deligth

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Two policemen feared dead at checkpoint

There was panic in Agbowa area of Lagos State on Sunday after suspected robbers rained bullets on policemen at a checkpoint near Agbowa Market.

The robbers, who were coming from Ikorodu Road and heading towards Ogun State around 12 noon, stopped on sighting the policemen and fired several shots at them. Two of the policemen were feared dead after the attack.

Eyewitnesses told PUNCH METRO that the policemen numbering about five from Imota Police Division were just mounting their roadblock when the robbers attacked them.

“There is a Sunday market here in Agbowa, which attracts many people. Policemen from Agbowa usually come every Sunday and mount roadblock. They were just doing that when the robbers attacked and killed two of them,” an eyewitness said.

It was gathered that the suspects, who were in a Jeep, were about four in numbers and two of them opened fire on the policemen.

The sound of gunshot and attendant stampede by eyewitnesses, who were close to the scene of crime, threw the neighbourhood into confusion as some churches in the area ended their services abruptly.

A member of one of the churches, who pleaded that her name should not be mentioned in prints, said that most members of the church’s congregation that went to the scene did not return to continue with the service.

It was learnt that the suspects also escaped with three rifles belonging to the policemen, while policemen from Agbowa division later came to take away corpses of the policemen.

But the spokesman of the state police command, Mr. Frank Mba, said only one policeman was wounded in what he described as an “unprovoked attack.”

He added that the policemen arrested two members of the gang.

Mba said, “A team of policemen in Itoikin, Ikorodu, while on routine anti-crime patrol came under an unprovoked attack from a gang of armed men operating in an unmarked jeep. One of the policemen was seriously injured during the encounter and he is in a critical condition in one of the government‘s hospitals.

“Reinforcement from two others RRS patrol vehicles within the neighbourhood later chased the hoodlums to the verge of the border with Ogun State before engaging them in a shoot-out. Two members of the gang were seriously injured before being arrested.

“The case has since been transferred to SARS, Ikeja, while a serious manhunt for other fleeing members of the gang has also begun.”
Source:http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201012202421510 Read more...

Husband, pregnant wife, eight others burnt in another Lagos accident

  Top: Sympathisers looking at the car where a couple and their daughter were trapped. (bottom).m
Less than 24 hours after eight people were burnt to death in a Lagos road accident, another 10 died on Thursday when a tanker carrying Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol, and seven other vehicles caught fire at the Alakija, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area, end of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway. The tanker had run into a ditch at Alakija bus stop before it caught fire.

In Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, a tanker discharging petrol at a filling station near Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library caught fire on Thursday.

However, the fire did not affect the library and a nearby Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation mega filling station.

In Lagos, it was gathered that the tanker, with registration number XZ 777 JJJ, was transporting petrol to a filling station in Badagry, when it ran into a ditch near the bus stop.

PUNCH METRO gathered that the tanker lost its balance and spilled its content onto the road and went up in flames around 5.45am. The tanker and the seven vehicles that were driving behind it and in front of it were burnt beyond repair.

Eyewitnesses told our correspondents that no fewer than 10 people in the affected vehicles died, while those who were badly burnt were taken to different hospitals.

Among those who died in the inferno were a man, his pregnant wife and their baby. They were trapped in their Peugeot 505.

An eyewitness, Mr. Peter Okere, said, “It happened about 6am. A fuel tanker was coming from the Mile 2 side. Suddenly, it fell into a pothole and the fuel in the tanker started to spill. The driver quickly jumped out of the vehicle. Other vehicles that were coming on top speed collided with the stationary tanker and they caught fire and that was how other vehicles were involved.

“About 10 people died. Some ran into a swamp. Even a vehicle carrying rams to Seme was completely burnt and all the rams were killed in the inferno. Also, a family comprising the husband, his pregnant wife and their kid-daughter were roasted.”

An official of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, who craved anonymity, told one of our correspondents that some people jumped into a nearby swamp to avoid being burnt.

“We were able to retrieve three pair of shoes from the canal; but as for those who owned the shoes, we are yet to locate them. We will keep looking for them,” he said.

Spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Frank Mba, said policemen and firefighters, who brought three firefighting trucks assisted in putting out the fire

He said, “Policemen from Festac and Satellite divisions, led by their respective DPOs were on the ground to provide security, clear obstruction and render other humanitarian services

“Seven vehicles were burnt; five people also died, they were burnt beyond recognition; eight people suffered burns of various degrees and were taken to different hospitals. Investigation into the incident has since commenced.

“Once again, road users are advised to exercise restraint and obey all traffic rules and regulations while on the highway.”

But the General Manager of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, Dr. Femi Oke-Osayintolu, said over 10 people died in the inferno.

Also, the state Director of Fire and Safety Service, Mr. Aderemi Ajose, said the unit got an emergency call around 6.13am informing them of the incident, adding that firefighters got to scene around 6.24am and were able to put it out.

Osayintolu said over 10 people were confirmed dead, while five vehicles were completely burnt.

He said most of the victims, who scampered for safety sustained severe injuries and had been treated by the officials of the state emergency agency and Red Cross.

He also added that other victims were rushed to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, and the state General Hospital in Alimosho Local Government.

The Sector Commander, Federal Road Safety Commission, Lagos, Mr. Jonas Agwu, said three buses, two cars and a tanker were burnt into ashes in the inferno.

He added, “Five people were confirmed dead and taken to General Hospital, Isolo. Nineteen others, who were injured were taken to General Hospital at Badagry Expressway by a combined team of FRSC, LASTMA and other people. The cause of the accident was that the head of a tanker suddenly pulled off and went into flames and burnt other vehicles.”

The News Agency of Nigeria reported that the Abeokuta incident, which occurred on Thursday, involved Fatgbems Petrol Station on M.K.O. Abiola Way, Abeokuta.

A Stock Officer with the filling station, Mr. Nurudeen Bello, told NAN that the fire started around 6.40am, when an Opel car that had just refilled its tank caught fire as the driver wanted to start the engine.

Bello said a 30,000-litre tanker with registration number LAGOS: XT 528 SMK, was discharging its content when the fire started.

“Before we knew what was happening, the tanker, marked ‘Fatgbems Petroleum’, had caught fire,’’ he said, adding that a motor boy, Rasheed Babatunde, quickly ran into the tanker and moved it out of the station, which is directly opposite the NNPC mega station.

Another Opel car with registration number Lagos: EP 619 APP parked close to the station was, however, razed.

Also, a dispensing pump at Fatgbems filling station and the signboard of the NNPC mega station were burnt.

Meanwhile, family members and friends of people suspected to be victims of Wednesday’s Lagos road accident, in which eight people died, besieged the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, on Thursday to verify whether their loved ones were among the victims.

The accident occurred around 5pm on Wednesday at MKO Garden end of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway when an 18-seater passengers’ Mazda bus with registration number XW 812 APP developed a mechanical fault, while in motion, somersaulted and burst into flames.

The vehicle was said to be heading for Ijebu Ode in Ogun State from Mile 2, Lagos, when the accident occurred.

When PUNCH METRO visited LASUTH on Thursday, people were seen at the Surgical Unit of the hospital.

Many of them declined to speak to our correspondents, claiming that they were overwhelmed with anxiety and grief.

However, one of them, Mr. Balogun Alabi, said he came to the hospital around 9am to know whether his brother, who left for Ijebu-Ode, from Mile 2 on Wednesday, was among the survivors. He said it was difficult to enter where the survivors were being treated.

Another visitor, Alhaja Sikirat Adeola, said she became apprehensive when she could not find her son among the survivors after she was allowed to enter the Surgical Unit.

An official of the hospital, who pleaded not to be named because he was not authorised to talk to journalists, said they were very careful in allowing visitors to see the patients for security reasons and to reduce distraction to the health workers and inconvenience to the patients.

When our correspondents sought the view of the hospital’s Chief Medical Director, Dr. Femi Olugbile, he refused to grant them audience. Also, the hospital’s Public Relations Officer, declined comment on the state of the survivors.

However, our correspondents, who later saw some of the survivors at the Surgical Emergency Unit, reported that there were six of them at the unit.

Agwu, said 14 people died, while only four were rescued in the accident that occurred on Wednesday.

He added that the occupants of the vehicles could not escape because of the iron bars on its windows.

Agwu said, “Because of that, we are going to have a joint enforcement that will have leadership of National Union of Road Transport Workers working with us. Now that we are in December it has become more needful for us to clamp down on such vehicles before they start their multiple trips so as to reduce casualties. The enforcement starts on Wednesday.”
Source:punchng.com
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A man escaped death in a collapsed building

 The incident occured in Kadaraopapo area in Agbowo, U.I,Ibadan at exact 6:45am on 22nd of November,2010 when a storey building, built behind a canal collapsed that belongs to Alhaji Suara aka Baba Eleran. The victim happen to be one of the Landlord's son named Mr. Muka Suara,it was gathered that  after he returned from Mosque around 6:20am and setted to get his bath in a bathroom located on first floor of the building, the part of the building collapsed while the son was bating and the building fell on him beside the canal, the rescue  team which include the fire fighters, the Nigeria Police and the entire community came at his aid (Mr. Muka Suara), he was rushed down to the hospital at exactly 8:40am.
Source:http://kennywater.blogspot.com/ Read more...