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| Toke Makinwa |
Nigerian media personality, Toke Makinwa is no stranger to making headlines. Since her early days in radio back in 2010, Toke has kept Nigerians entertained both on and off the air.
Ahead of the launch of her new show, BBN
S6: The Buzz, where she’ll be talking about all things BBNaija, PREMIUM TIMES
had this interview with her. She speak on her favourite ex-BBNaija housemates,
remaining relevant in the entertainment industry and much more. Excerpts:
PT: What ex-BBNaija housemate did you
connect with the most while they were in the BBNaija house?
Toke: Bisola. Everyone in my household made me fall in love with her; they would use all their money to vote for her. My cook is her biggest fan and when she came out use, they actually met. Bisola was so kind to do that. I loved how real and funny she was; she was the life of the party. So Bisola is one of the ex-has I can’t really get over quickly.
Traffic was brought to a halt in Lopburi, Thailand this week after rival monkey gangs started fighting over food. The monkeys usually rely on tourists for snacks, but covid-19 lockdowns have often left them hungry, Washington post reports.
“With the tourists gone, they’ve been more
aggressive, fighting humans for food to survive,” a local veterinarian said.
“They’re invading buildings and forcing locals to flee their homes.”
According to the report, drivers had to wait in their cars for several minutes as the wild monkeys squabbled in the streets. Onlookers could hear the monkeys squealing until one of the groups was chased away.
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| Mike Bamiloye, Nigerian Film Actor |
From the IG Desk of Evangelist Mike Bamiloye:
THE MAN WHO WAS "WISER" THAN
JESUS
Many years ago, a man of God came
visiting my wife and I in our house. It was a time we were passing through a
serious moment of lack and hunger in our ministry. He came and began to tell us
a lot of his ministerial exploits and miracles the Lord was doing in his
ministry.
Then, he threw down a bombshell. He said, he was now wiser. He said gone were days when people would come to him for prayers to settle their numerous problems, and he would pray for them and they would never come back to appreciate the Prophet of God. He said that has been a moment of lose. He said even Jesus Christ was shocked and disappointed when He healed ten lepers and only one of them came back to give Him appreciation. He said he had learnt his lesson from what happened to Jesus, that whoever wanted to be prayed for must first bring something to the prophet's feet, before he or she could be prayed for. He said he must be paid in advance, before the prophet's prayers.
Capitol Police officer Aquilino Gonell told lawmakers on Tuesday of his ongoing efforts to grapple with the fallout of having come under attack at the hands of rioters loyal to former President Trump as they tried to protect the Capitol on Jan. 6, Washington Post reports.
“That day continues to be a constant trauma for us, literally every day,” Gonell, who was attacked with chemical spray that made his skin burn and needed surgery to repair his injuries, told the committee.
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| File Photo: Bandits and Security Threats {Picture Credit: ndlink.org} |
The man seized by kidnappers after delivering a N30 million ransom for the release of 136 pupils of Salihu Tanko Islamiyya School, Tegina in Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State, has described how the pupils are being kept in “disturbing” conditions, Premium Times reports.
According to the report, the pupils were abducted by the bandits from their school on May 30 and are still being held by the bandits despite a global outrage.
The ransom bearer provided an insight to how they are being held after his own release on Monday.
PREMIUM TIMES reported how Kasimu Barangana was sent along side six others to deliver the ransom but was seized by the bandits over an alleged shortfall of N4.6 million in the N30 million ransom.
Mr Barangana told PREMIUM TIMES after he was released on Monday that the children were being kept in poor conditions in 25 different camps.
“The pupils were separated into 25 groups in the forest, with each group being monitored by different gangs in fear of attacks.
“I was taken round the enclave to see the children and I found their conditions disturbing,” Mr Barangana said.
However, he said the bandits did not maltreat him.
From the IG desk of Uriel Oputa
Pls why do women like other women's
property?? I posted a picture of my Ex who is my good friend. and his DM full
.. even those telling me how much they love me done enter his dM saying don't
show Uriel.. biko ive seen .. I will never post my husband for Instagram biko i
don't have energy for everyday Night vigil
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Rauf Aregbesola, Nigeria's Minister of Interior |
Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola
yesterday requested governors to sign the death warrants of convicts on death
row who have exhausted all avenues of appeal to free up space in the nation’s
correctional facilities, ThisDay reports.
The minister who made the plea while
speaking in Osogbo, Osun state, when inaugurating the newly constructed
headquarters of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS), Daily
Trust reported, said the nation’s correctional facilities are being
stretched by “an overpopulation capacity of 18 percent” — with facilities built
to serve 57,278 inmates currently holding 68,747 inmates, urging that to remedy
the decongestion, convicts on death row who have used up all means of appeal
must be hastened to the gallow.
According to Aregbesola, while the governors could free some condemned convicts on compassionate grounds due to old age or illness other inmates that have demonstrated exceptionally good behaviour could also be released or have their sentences commuted to life or specific terms in jail.
Top grade Nollywood star Clarion Chukwurah in Lagos, Nigeria goes topless on her birthday photo shoot with the screen shot message below on her IG handle:
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Police walk past a roadblock of burning
tires on a street in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, on Thursday, July 22, 2021, the day
before the funeral of the assassinated President Jovenel Moïse. (Federico
Rios/The New York Times) |
By Catherine Porter
CAP-HAÏTIEN, Haiti — The coffin of Haiti’s assassinated president, Jovenel Moïse, was carried by men in military uniform to a central stage and covered with a Haitian flag Friday as onlookers tucked in bouquets of white flowers before a state funeral, a moment that many hoped would help mend a fractured nation.
Just hours earlier, the northern city of Cap-Haïtien — 30 minutes from his family homestead where the ceremony will be held — had burned with anger and frustration, exposing Haiti’s deep divisions and the distrust of the elite in the country’s less developed north.
Two weeks after Moïse was killed in his own bedroom outside the capital, Port-au-Prince, the country is still spinning with unanswered questions and seething with anger. Authorities say he was killed by a group of Colombian mercenaries, and several members of Moïse’s own security detail have been questioned and taken into custody as well.
Checkout the Throwback To Lock Down Series captioned "My Horse Ride", curtsey the Jnr Pope.
Challenged?
Police have arrested a man said to have broken into a horse stable last week and had sex with a horse in an incident that was caught on security camera.
Before now and according to Metro West Daily
News report, Police search for man accused of having sex with a horse in
Norfolk:
‘The
owner of a Miller Street horse center has put out a warning to other horse
farms to be on the lookout for a man who allegedly had sex with a horse at the
facility on Thursday’
The horse was uninjured, Turner Hill Equestrian Stables owner Hillary Swarr said Friday. "This man is a sexual predator," she said.
Horrifying stories have spread of the people in China in floods caused by what authorities say is a once-in-a-millennium event, Guardian reports.
According to the story, Henan province is facing extreme flooding after a year's worth of rain came down in just three days.
Across social media, videos showed hundreds of cars floating down main streets, commuters trapped in metro carriages and crowds of people forming human chains to rescue each other from roads.
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Morayo Afolabi-Brown, TV Show Host
To my fellow plus size sisters who desire to drop a few dress sizes, I'm pleased to inform you that I have completed one full week in the gym. Hope this week would encourage you to start your journey also. Mehn!! didn't think I would make it. I'm told if I complete 2 straight weeks, it becomes a habit. I doubt it but let's see how that goes. For now, my body is sore and I need sleep!
Morayo Afolabi-Brown dropped the message via her IG handle a few days ago. You want to tag along? It's up to you, really.
The police command in Imo has confirmed the death of a pastor in Owerri, Thompson Onyekwuru, while trying to separate a fight between a couple in the state.
The police confirmed the incident in a statement on Monday by the command’s spokesperson, Mike Abattam, Premium Times reports.
According to the report, Mr Abattam said that the incident occurred at Umukoto Nekede in Owerri adding that Mr Onyekwuru was a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in the state.
By REUBEN ABATI
The sociology of death and funerals is an important aspect of the African cosmogony. Parents pray that their children should outlive them in order to give them a befitting burial. They liken this to the same manner when fire dies out in the hearth, it is replaced by ashes, and when a banana tree withers, a sapling sprouts in its place. When Africans die, it is believed that they have merely travelled to another realm, and become ancestors, and hence, a funeral ceremony is a send-forth event. The death of a young person however, is considered a tragedy. This is why such obituaries are prefaced with the solemn declaration that “The wicked have done their worst”, “We love you but the Lord loves you more” or “A Painful Exit.” The tone of the elegy at a funeral is thus a function of the circumstances of the death, or the religious inclination of the family as in “With Total Submission to the Will of God…”, “Inna Lillahi wa inna Ilayhi Raji’un”. Age is indeed a factor. If the dead lived up to an old, ripe age, you are likely to see such announcements as “A Glorious Exit”, “With Gratitude for a Life Well Spent” or “Ä Celebration of Life”.
Among the Yoruba of the South West, the death of an old man or woman is described as “oku eba”, that is – a transition that is worth celebrating, with generous dollops of cassava paste. Other groups in the country also have varying patterns of burying their dead. Among Muslims generally, the burial of the dead is carried out swiftly in line with Islamic injunctions. The simplicity of Muslim burials, the solemnity and dignity of it, is incomparable to anything else I have seen, even if Muslims in the South West of Nigeria, still find an excuse to throw lavish parties that have more to do with the culture of the people, rather than the religion. One dictionary describes the Yoruba as the “fun-loving people of the South West Nigeria.” But in general, the manner of burials, the scope of the rites, the scale and tone, is a reflection of cultural norms and dominant values, at both community and individual levels across Nigeria. What is noteworthy is how the loss of a beloved family member could suddenly end up as a celebration, and the explanation for that is as complicated and diverse as the Nigerian society itself.
In this regard, something happened last week, in Oba, Anambra State, Nigeria: the funeral of the mother of a man popularly known as Obi Cubana, which would seem to be a metaphor for the collapse of values in Nigeria generally, the effect of poverty – spiritual, mental and physical – and how that pushes the people to desperate ends. The burial of Cubana’s mum may be seen as a form of celebration, she died at 75, but it was a lavish send-forth that was terribly obscene. The town of Oba has certainly never witnessed anything like that. Not even in the entire Anambra state has anyone organised anything so loud and extravagant. This was not a celebration of life. It was a celebration of Money. Obi Cubana’s mother died in November 2020. It took him more than seven months to plan the burial and when he decided that it was time for the dead to be sent forth, his obvious intention was to organise the mother of all burials, such that even the living would envy the dead and wish to die. The only problem is that not many Nigerians would rather die knowing that it is not every one that would ever get that kind of burial. Oba is ordinarily a quiet town of nine villages, located between the commercial town of Onitsha and the industrial town of Nnewi. During the civil war, it was the last frontier of the Biafran Army. But that community will now be remembered for a long time, for the burial of the mother of a certain Obi Cubana. The role played by the social media, and by Cubana’s friends is remarkable: how a country lost its moral centre and has produced a generation of new Nigerians who worship money, ego, kudi. The excitement generated among young Nigerians who could not make it to Oba but who followed the event on social media and became excited, is a measure of the extent of the crisis that Nigeria faces.
A special prayer for peace in Nigeria led by Rev. Fr. George Ehusani at the Chapel of Luxterra Leadership Foundation.
Got this from The Wild Capture establishing this brave dog as "The Best Lifesaver". What are your thoughts about this situation?
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| Rt Rev. Biereonwu Livinus Onuagha, Bishop of the Methodist Church, Nigeria, Onitsha Diocese. |
A submission attributed to the Bishop of
the Methodist Church Nigeria, Onitsha Diocese, Rt Rev. Biereonwu Livinus
Onuagha, has it that any Igbo person criticising the leader of the proscribed
Igbo secessionist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu, is
naive and insane as he represents 99.9 percent Igbos.
The cleric who made the statement during a
press conference in Onitsha on Tuesday, added that though Kanu had exhibited
youthful exuberance in his agitation, most Ndigbos identify with his struggles
and quest for an entity called Biafra.
According to the Bishop, Kanu is an asset not only to the Igbos but to entire Southern Nigeria, and the Igbo person that criticizes him now “is a lost soul, a bastard and a naive person”.
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| “I’ve never seen a fire this large in my lifetime,” said Emma-Lei Gerrish, right, whose family raises animals in the hills above Pa’auilo.Credit...Michelle Mishina Kunz for The New York Times |
By Simon Romero
PA’AUILO, Hawaii — The blaze first swept across parched fields of guinea grass. Then the flames got so close to Emma-Lei Gerrish’s house that she feared for her life.
“I was terrified it was going to jump the
gulch,” said Ms. Gerrish, 26, whose Quaker family raises cows and sheep in the
hills above Pa’auilo, a ranching outpost on Hawaii’s Big Island. “I’ve never
seen a fire this large in my lifetime.”
By the time firefighters got the wildfire
under control last month — with a mix of helicopters dropping water while
residents drove bulldozers to create firebreaks — more than 1,400 acres had
been burned, adding to the tens of thousands across the state since 2018.
Hawaii may be graced with tropical forests, making parts of the islands some of the wettest places on the planet, but it is also increasingly vulnerable to wildfires. Heavy rains encourage unfettered growth of invasive species, like guinea grass, and dry, hot summers make them highly flammable.
From the IG Desk of Reno Omokri:
So, what's your take on this?
“What we have delivered, based on the mandate of the Federal Executive Council, is a 1.52 MegaWatts Solar System that will provide uninterrupted power supply to 5 blocks housing the Ministry of Works and Housing and Ministry of Environment and Lands.
“This project employed 382 artisans and 176 skilled workers throughout its duration, in fulfilment of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of creating jobs.
“It would see to the reduction of average diesel consumption from 764,248 litres per annum to 166,825 litres per annum and cost-saving of NGN270,945,000 over 20 years and contribute towards the reduction of government operational expenses and reduction of recurrent expenditure.
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Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Vice
President of Partnerships Dan Rose and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg
walk together at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 12, 2018
in Sun Valley, Idaho. Top tech and media moguls descend on the resort every
year for a week of activities - and deals. Drew Angerer/Getty Images |
This week, at the “Summer Camp For Billionaires’
the top executives at the biggest and most influential companies in tech and
media, including Apple's Tim Cook and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, will get
together at the Sun Valley Resort, a getaway that dates back to 1936, in a tiny
town in the Sawtooth Mountains.
NPR reports that the summer camp was
suspended last year because of the pandemic. But this year, these top moguls
are traveling again to Sun Valley for an annual weeklong gathering organized by
a boutique investment firm called Allen & Company that is known as
intensely private. Run by the same family since it was founded in 1922, Allen
& Co. may be small, but it has developed some deep relationships that have
led to roles in some of the biggest tech and media deals and initial public offerings
in the last half decades, reports NPR.
According to the report, Allen & Co. was an adviser in Comcast's acquisition of Time Warner Cable, a $45 billion deal, and Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp for $19 billion. Allen & Co. was an underwriter on Google's and Facebook's IPOs. For almost 40 years, its annual Sun Valley conference has been central to its mission.
After debates on the topic at the Methodist Conference, the proposals to allow same-sex marriages were passed with 254 votes in favor and 46 against
As such, the Methodist
church has become the largest religious denomination in the UK to allow
same-sex marriages, putting it at odds with the Church of England.
The Church announced on Wednesday that
same-sex couples will be allowed to get married on its premises, although, the freedom of conscience clause will allow
ministers to opt out of conducting such weddings.
According to a report
by the Guardian,
the Rev Sonia Hicks, elected as the Methodists’ first black female president at
the weekend, said it was a “historic day for our church”. She urged people “to
support each other respecting our differences”. Dignity & Worth, a campaign
group in the Methodist Church, said the vote was a “momentous step on the road
to justice and inclusion” after many years of sometimes painful conversations. Rev.
Sam McBratney, who chairs the group, praised the “courageous step” taken by the
church.
The report states that the conference also voted to recognise, accept, and celebrate the love and commitment of unmarried cohabiting couples. Same-sex marriage is forbidden in the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church but permitted by Quakers in Britain, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and United Reformed Church. Jayne Ozanne, a campaigner for LGBT+ equality and a member of the C of E’s ruling body, the General Synod, said the vote reflected “the significant shift that there has been among Christian attitudes in England, and shows how so many people would echo the recent call of Bishop Paul Bayes to allow same-sex marriage in the C of E”.
UK Based Gospel Singer Dwill makes her grand debut entry as a gospel artist with her first official released single titled “Onyeoma” (God is Good), Xclusive Gospel reports.
Coming from a musical childhood and years of singing, ministering and working with musicians and artists, the report submits that Dwill believes this is her set time, “there is time for everything God wants you to do, so here is it. ‘Onyeoma’ (God is Good) is an inspirational song given to Dwill by God to bless humanity. This is a song that welcomes the presence of God in the atmosphere to make any impossible situation possible. Listen and be blessed.
From the IG Desk of Mike Bamiloye:
Wednesday June 30th, 2021, the Psycho-Spiritual Institute of Lux Terra Leadership Foundation in partnership with Nasarawa State University, Keffi, hosted its 2nd Certificate Award Ceremony for 189 successful participants at its "Basic Psycho-Trauma Healing Skills" training programmes, held between 2019 and 2020.
Among dignitaries at the event were Professor Andrew Zamani, former President of the Nigerian Psychological Association and Dr Samuel Alhassan, Head of the Dept of Psychology, Nasarawa State University.
Participants at the training programme were mainly drawn from the states of Northern Nigeria, with a few others from the South. They included Doctors, Clinical Psychologists, Social Workers, University Teachers, functionaries of Emergency Relief Agencies, Christian and Muslim Religious Leaders, and Sundry Volunteers, especially those who assist trauma victims in IDP camps.
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| Paul Enenche, Senior Pastor of the Dunamis International Church |
The Senior Pastor of
the Dunamis International Church, Abuja, Dr Paul Enenche, has narrated that two
kidnappers, who disguised as a bishop from The Gambia and a naval officer
stormed the church’s headquarters, Glory Dome, at the Airport Road Abuja to
defraud him.
According to Sahara
Reporters, Enenche stated this during a sermon last Wednesday that they were,
however, exposed by the Spirit of God. He stated that the suspected criminals
were exposed during a chat with a little girl who they had kidnapped from
Anambra State. He revealed that the assailants were handed over to law
enforcement agents after which they confessed to be criminals.
“On Monday I received
a text message from a bishop who claimed he came from the country of Gambia and
that he wanted to see me because he had an encounter where he was directed to
meet with me so that I can pray and impact him so he can return to Gambia”,
Enenche said. ”He said he got someone’s number who would give him my contact,
so after contacting the person, he (man in Nigeria) urged him to come to him so
they would both meet me.
“The bishop told me
that the man who promised to bring him to me demanded N1 million which
according to him, he gave but said the person was no longer answering his
calls.
“We called our pastor in the local government (area) where the man said he was, and when our pastor met the man, he told us that the story sounded real.
