INSTAROK

The Akwa Ibom State Governor, Obong Godswill Akpabio, has appointed a replacement for his embattled Secretary to the State Government, Umana Umana. He is Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, who hails from Onna Local Government Area of Eket Senatorial District, Akwa Ibom State.

D’banj, Sound Sultan, Olamide, Obesere, Dr Sid others on Saturday July 28 stormed the quiet town of Abeokuta for the 8th leg of Star Music Trek held at the Abeokuta Sports Complex, Ogun State. more pics....

Jason Njoku, founder and CEO of iROKOtv and his Nollywood actress wife, Mary Remmy-Njoku, today welcome the birth of their first child, Jason Obinna Njoku. The birth took place in London and mother and baby are doing well. Jason Njoku says: "We are so blessed and so happy to welcome our son into the world and Mary and I could not be happier at his safe arrival. We feel we are the luckiest people alive and cannot wait to bring baby Jason home to meet our family and friends" The entire iROKOtv team wishes the new family all the very best - congratulations on the birth of your beautiful son!

There is no doubt that we are in the information age, an age where everything is influenced by the correct use of appropriate information.  It is no surprise that the currency of this age is information. As expected, the individual that has the correct quantity of information at the right time has the potential to increase popularity and create wealth.

ACADEMIC Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has described as speculative reports that the strike embarked upon by the union over the inability of the Federal Government to implement the 2009 agreement it willingly entered into with the union would be called off this Thursday.

After a protracted separation from her ex; Tony Eberiri, Nollywood screen goddess Chika Ike filled a motion at an Abuja high court. On Friday July 26th, she got what she wanted; a divorce! Chika broke the news herself on her facebook wall.

An award-winning Nigerian music director found guilty of fathering children with his daughters will spend the rest of his life in jail.

Pope Francis declared on Monday that it was not his place to judge homosexuals and said they should not be marginalised but condemned the gay lobby as a “serious problem”. The remarks — made to journalists as he flew back to Rome from a trip to Brazil — appeared to be more conciliatory towards homosexuals than his predecessor Benedict XVI. “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?” he said

LAGOS— Emotions ran high, yesterday, at the Lagos State Police Command headquarters, Ikeja, following startling revelations by two university students on how Cynthia Osokogu, the only daughter of a retired General was strangled  inside a hotel in Festac area of the state.

Not many people would have thought a time would come when paedophilia would be celebrated in Nigeria. But that seems to be the case with the Senate’s much-touted bid  to legalize child marriage. Specifically, the Senate voted in support of a resolution to amend the provisions of Section 29 (4b) of the 1999 Constitution. Section 29 (1) states: “Any citizen of Nigeria of full age who wishes to renounce his Nigerian citizenship shall make a declaration in the prescribed manner for the renunciation.”

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka has announced the release of the results of the 2013 Post-Universities Tertiary Matriculation Examination (P-UTME) screening exercise held at the Nsukka Campus of the institution on July 18 and 19 respectively. The Communication Secretary to the Vice-Chancellor, Gabriel Ndu, who disclosed this in a statement, said that the candidates who participated in the screening were drawn from all the faculties of the university.

NO fewer than 70 persons allegedly deported by the Lagos State government were sighted in the commercial city of Onitsha yesterday, some non-Igbo speaking. It was the second time such human cargo was dropped in the town this year.

The video tribute to the late King of pop Michael Jackson in the song “Personally’ by sensational twins PSquare is no doubt a masterpiece and now, it has caught the attention of one of the Jackson brothers; Jermaine Jackson in the US who has announced he wants to meet PSquare.

THE Minister and Deputy Chairman, National Planning Commission, NPC, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, Tuesday, said Nigeria, Mauritania, Cape Verde and Cote d’Ivoire were among  countries in the world facing acute unemployment. Usman stated this at the workshop organised by the World Bank Group on “Learning from the past experience for future opportunities in youth employment in West Africa” in Abuja.

It   was a harvest of deaths from road accidents, yesterday, as a total of 24 people perished in two separate accidents that occurred on the Lagos-Ibadan and Benin-Lagos expressways. In the Ibadan crash, no fewer than six persons lost their lives, while eight others sustained serious injuries. We  gathered that the accident involved a commercial bus with number plate OYO XE 675 LUY and a truck with number plate Lagos XX 455 GGE.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA)  yesterday said it arrested 41 suspected drug traffickers with 253.390kg of narcotics with an estimated street value of  about N2.3 billion at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos, between January and June 2013. Those arrested include 39 males and two females. The command also won 53 cases most of which were charged to court in 2012. NDLEA, in a statement said bulk of the drugs was methamphetamine.

Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Benin zone, weekend, vowed to continue with the ongoing strike action, accusing the Jonathan administration of not learning from the mistakes of previous governments. Meanwhile, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU; Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, and the National Associations of Academic Technologists, NAAT, weekend, threatened to resume their suspended strike today over failure of the Federal Government to honour the 2009 agreement entered into with the unions.

THE Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has said the Federal Government will soon release N10 billion for cassava bread development fund and to further boost the cassava production. Adesina who was represented by the Senior Technical Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Adetunji Oredipe, disclosed this in Kogi State at the Cassava GES Roll Out at Agbadu Staple Crop Processing Zone, SCPZ, in Kabba Bunu Local Government Area of the state.

Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi yesterday said the apex bank would revisit the controversial currency notes redesign to help tackle growing cases of fake currency notes in the country. Sanusi who spoke when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency also ruled out the likelihood of interest rate coming down. Rather than banks reducing interest rates, he said such rates would likely climb higher. Interest rate currently stands at between 17 and 25 percent. He equally revealed that Excess Crude Account went down by $7 billion dollars, stressing that the Federal Government was taking money from the account to balance the 2013 budget. ......... What do you think about this development???......

An early morning inferno, Thursday, razed a warehouse belonging to Coscharis Group located at the Kirikiri Industrial, Mazamaza,  Area of Lagos State, destroying property worth billions of naira. The warehouse was used for storing computer equipment, Abro Petrochemical products, vehicles and inverter batteries, auto spare parts, motorcycles and tires. Eyewitnesses told Vanguard that the fire which started around 4a.m. when electricity supply was restored to the area by the Power Holding Company, PHCN, lasted for hours.

The fracas that erupted  Monday over who controls the Rivers State House of Assembly, yesterday, spilled to the streets, leaving several people injured. At the centre are 27 legislators loyal to Governor Rotimi Amaechi and five others belonging to the opposition. Yesterday’s street fight attracted thugs who descended on pro-Amaechi  supporters, forcing them to retreat into Government House in Port Harcourt. The seat of government in the state did not prove to be a safe haven as policemen in hot pursuit of the pro-Amaechi suppporters shot several canisters of tear gas into the fence of the seat of power, peppering government officials holed inside the complex. The chaos provoked by the mayhem forced banks, the state secretariat and the judiciary to hurriedly close shops

The Bayelsa State Police Command has declared a former militant commander and 17 others wanted in connection with the killing of 11 policemen in April at Azuzuama, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of the state. According to investigations, the special panel set by the police to investigate the incident had indicted some former militants who benefitted from the amnesty programme of the Federal Government.

ABUJA—The Senate and the House of Representatives yesterday took steps to resolve the Rivers State crisis. While the Reps made a resolution to take over legislative affairs of the Rivers State House of Assembly, the Senate tried to resolve the face-off between Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and state Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu. The Senate rebuffed the resolution adopted in the House of Representatives for the immediate removal  Joseph Mbu.

Nigeria has suffered a shortfall of N191billion ($1.23 billion) in the first quarter of 2013, due to drop in crude oil production. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), attributed the drop in production to crude oil theft and the vandalism of major oil pipelines in the oil-rich Niger Delta region. The NNPC explained that daily oil production within the period fluctuated between 2.1 and 2.3 million barrels per day (mbpd), compared with the projected estimate of 2.48 mbpd. According to NNPC’s spokesperson, Ms. Tumini Green, “Expectedly, this fall between actual production and forecast in the first quarter of 2013, has resulted in a drop in crude oil revenue of about $1.23 billion (N191 billion) that should have accrued to the Federation Account.”

Three hundred thousand pupils from across 600 public schools in Lagos, Thursday, made history as they set a new World Record in tooth brushing. The  pupils  set the Guinness World Record by brushing their teeth simultaneously for one minute across 326 locations in the state. Hmmm

          Last week, Ghanaian actress Juliet Ibrahim posted a  message  on her instagram page saying kidney transplant does not cost more than $50k and wondered why people raising funds for OJB were requesting for $100, 000. Well, OJB has responded to that. RESPONSE: The ailing music producer and singer told Encomium mag... "The mistake she's making is that it depends on the hospital you are going to in India. She says she runs a foundation, they might give her a rebate. The procedure itself is $55, 000. When you take out $55, 000, you are left with $45, 000. What about the running cost of the procedure? You don't go to India only to come back and start asking for help again. At least, I need some money to maintain myself for the next one year. So when you factor in all these costs, add air tickets and lodging, you will appreciate what we are talking about.

Two months into a nationwide strike by polytechnic lecturers, Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Monday, began a nationwide strike over alleged Federal Government’s refusal to implement the agreement between it and the union over unpaid entitlements, its National President, Dr. Nasir Fagge, has said. Polytechnics lecturers are also on strike due to alleged non-implementation of agreements and lack of infrastructure in their institutions.

DO have you say! Stealing Kerosene from a tanker after an accident;is it poverty, greed or madness? a tanker conveying kerosene had an accident at Oshodi ,on  the Oshodi-Apapa expressway.  In no time, residents swooped on the tanker scooping it’s content to the dismay of motorists and security agents. Do  have your say Stealing kerosene from a tanker after an accident, is this poverty, greed or madness? After the cut...