Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said the over 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok, Borno State may never be found because their whereabout is unknown.

He stated this on Friday, February 5 while fielding questions during the Seventh Roundtable with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a programme organised by Obafemi Awolowo University Staff Club.

“The search for the abducted Chibok girls may not be fruitful. Nobody can bring back the girls because they are nowhere to be found.” he said.

Obasanjo blamed former President Goodluck Jonathan for ignoring the distress call to rescue the girls on the day they were abducted.

“The former president heard about the kidnap 8am in the morning of the abduction but failed to act until 72 hours later and by then it was too late.”

“Anyone saying the Chibok girls will return is telling lies, maybe some of them will return to tell their story.”

According to him, the best efforts to rescue the girls can yield is that few of the girls may be found.

He described the failure of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in the 2015 presidential election as a blessing to Nigeria.

Responding to a question posed to him about the constant fight between him and Prof. Wole Soyinka, Obasanjo described the playwright and Nobel laureate as a hunter rather than a political analyst.

“I will trust Wole Soyinka as an “aporo hunter” than trusting him as a political analyst. I have no ssue with him”

Elder brother to Mr Lowo Oyediran, who was allegedly murdered by his wife in Ibadan, Oyo State, on Tuesday, Mr Adewale Adelani Oyediran, has in new interviews with Nigerian Tribune, revealed what started the crises in the tragic marriage that led to Lowo’s death.

According to him, Lowo and his wife were married for about three years, but Lowo had a girlfriend in France who along the line, she got pregnant for him and bore him a male child about a year ago.

Lowo’s wife stumbled on that information and that was the genesis of the crisis.

What was your relationship with the deceased?

Honestly, I don’t know how to describe myself; I was like a father to him.

How did you feel when you learned of his alleged killing?

I felt devastated, confounded. I could not imagine that Lowo, with whom I spoke five days before that fateful day, could have life snuffed out of him in his prime. Lowo was everything to the family.

He was the bridge between the old and the young. He unified everybody in the family. He was a comforter to everybody. I sponsored his university education. I never knew that I was never going to see Lowo again.

He always said that ‘I know we don’t have money in our family, but daddy, if God spares my life, I would put smile on the face of everybody.’ He was struggling. He attended Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, from where he moved to France to continue his post-graduate programme.

Since 2006, he only came back to Nigeria in 2012. His wedding was on 8 February and 9 February, 2013. We sponsored the ceremonies. If there was a comedian in the family, it was Lowo. He had a high sense of humour. We were jolted when we were informed that Lowo had been stabbed to death by his wife.

When we got to the police station at Akobo, there was pandemonium. There was wailing. All the family members had converged on the police station. From there, we moved to the house with the landlord and policemen.

The landlord did not mince words in his statement that it was Yewande that slaughtered him.

He disclosed that in her first attempt to kill Lowo, she only succeeded in stabbing him in the armpit and on the back. He was rushed to the hospital.

After he was treated, they went back home and the landlord tried to settle their dispute. They did not go to bed until about 3.00 in the morning. The landlord said he even advised Lowo to sleep in his apartment but he said there was no need for that since the quarrel had been settled.

The landlord said some minutes past 6.00 a.m., there was a cry for help from Lowo’s flat and people rushed out only to find that he had been stabbed, again, in the neck by his wife when he was sleeping. Lowo managed to take a few steps afterwards and slumped just as he got outside.

If he was not asleep, it would not have been possible for his wife to overpower him. The wife had previously boasted to the woman that took her husband to the hospital after the first attack that what she did was just a tip of the iceberg.

The woman said she was oblivious of the seriousness of her statement because all she was concerned about at the time was to save Lowo’s life, otherwise she would have recorded her statement.

The police had invited the woman to give her statement concerning the incident. The doctor who treated Lowo had also been invited by the police. This is a clear case of murder. The knife that she used to stab Lowo was found in the pool of his blood. It is in the picture.

The only thing that is giving us concern is that we cannot find his cell phone. The world is a global village and it would be easy to get his last conversation on the phone through the GSM network provider.

His death is a colossal loss to us. We had to take our aged mother to Ife under the pretext that she was going to see her doctor so that she would not know what had happened.

For the fact that Lowo spoke with her about four days earlier, she could not suspect that he had died. Lowo’s death is like a conspiracy, a grand design to just snuff the life out of him.

If you look at the picture of the first and second attempts, you will know what I am talking about. They were married for about three years, but Lowo had a girlfriend in France and along the line, she got pregnant for him and bore him a male child about a year ago. But, Lowo’s wife stumbled on that information and that was the genesis of the crisis.

Since then, there had been angry disputes between them. I was aware that Yewande’s family invited them and settled the matter. Her parents told her to accept what had happened because there was nothing she could do about it. Perhaps she had a plan unknown to Lowo.

I remember that Lowo confided in me that Yewande told him that he should not let our family know about his girlfriend who had had a child for him back in France.

What is the situation now?

We are worried about the desperation of Yewande’s parents. Her father is a retired permanent secretary. Former Governor Rashidi Ladoja was the chairman of Lowo’s wedding ceremony. Besides, Yewande works as a counsel in the Oyo State Ministry of Justice, at the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP).

If an incident of this nature happens, it is her office that treats it and makes recommendations for trial.

Before this incident, was there any time that you settled a quarrel between the couple?

Honestly, there was never a time that we settled a dispute for them. The only thing we noticed was that on their wedding day, she was brought here so that they could pour water on her legs.

They wanted to get water from a bowl but she refused. So, we had to get bottled water and then the wife of the Olufi of Gbongan poured the water on her feet. That was the last time we saw Yewande.

There was not even a phone call from her. Before the wedding, when Lowo complained, I said it was not by force; that we should call off the wedding if necessary. All along, whenever they fought, Lowo would say that her father was a very good man.

With the way they are acting, we hope that the Ministry of Justice where Yewande works will not pervert the course of justice in this matter. We are not ready to tinker with anything but let justice be done.

Do you know how they met?

They met the way every other man and woman would meet. Coincidentally, Yewande’s younger sister is also married to somebody from Gbongan. They are in America. Now, somebody in France did not want to marry a French national.

He preferred a Nigerian who was educated and reliable and within five months, they met. It was my wife who bankrolled the journey of Yewande to Dubai, where they met.

What does the family want now?

We want justice and fairness. We want justice to take its full course so that the matter will not be swept under the carpet. The news is all over the world. Somebody just called me from Canada about it.

Justice must not be subverted. I asked Yewande’s father how he would feel if it was his daughter that was killed. What they would be planning now is how to defend Yewande in court. We cannot find Lowo’s international passports.

They have packed everything, both his Nigerian and French passports. The documents of his company, we could not find them. His business partner in Sweden, whom we called, said all the original documents were with Lowo in Nigeria.

He said that he only had the photocopies. Lowo’s death has created a big vacuum in our family that will be difficult to fill. He was just 38 years old, cut down in his prime. I couldn’t go to their house ‘cos of her —Abisola, Lowo’s niece

How would you describe Lowo’s death?

I would describe it as disaster. It was not expected at all. The morning of the incident, I woke up in tears even without knowing that something terrible had happened. I went into my dad’s room and asked if he slept well. I told my mum about the tears in my eyes and the dream I had.

So, we decided to pray. But my father’s brother called us about five times. My mum asked dad to answer the call, so he picked up the phone and said, ‘Deji, I will call you back. We are praying.’ But Uncle Deji asked my dad not to hang up the phone. He said Uncle Lowo had been killed. After they got married, Yewande chased everybody away. I couldn’t go to their house because of her.

When the incident happened and we got to the police station, Lowo’s corpse was not there and Yewande was not there.

We learnt that she was in the hospital, receiving treatment. Their landlord told us that when she first stabbed him, she threatened that ‘I will kill you today.’ The killing was absurd.

I helped her marry him, now she’s killed him –Bunmi Oyediran, sister-in-law

You facilitated Yewande’s visit to Lowo, how?

I bought the air ticket for Yewande to meet Lowo in Dubai. Now, she has killed him. If you called Lowo and he was with his wife, he would say ‘I will call you back.’ He had so much fear for his wife.

If his wife was not around, he would call and say that we should come and play with him. Since the day of her wedding, Yewande never stepped into this house. Her father even called me one day after the wedding, cursing me that I did not put clothes in her wedding box.

My husband trained Lowo after he left secondary school. Lowo was everything to me. He understood me and knew everything about me. If I was angry, they would call Lowo to talk to me. They have taken him away from me. I cannot see Lowo again! Yewande’s father was begging me yesterday.

For what, after the deed has been done? When I was pregnant with my youngest child, I never knew. Lowo encouraged me to take a medical test, which confirmed the pregnancy. This was because I was already over 40 years when I got pregnant.

Lowo said I should come to France and relax because of my age.

Yesterday was indeed a very busy one especially with the just concluded Lagos City Marathon which had thousands of participants in attendance.

Definitely, such a day cannot go without thrills and memories one will not forget in a long while and one of such memories is the picture of a bride whose wedding was almost hampered due to the Marathon.

The bride-to-be was spotted trekking to her wedding as the Lagos marathon caused major roads to be closed that her car could not move her down to the church.

Sunday Amari, a 25-year old man brutally beaten by several Nigerian Army cadets in Abuja for complimenting a female army cadet, has given a full account of his ordeal.

SaharaReporters first released the video of the gruesome beating of the man, and the video quickly went viral.

In the video, a female cadet from the Nigerian Defense Academy (NDA) in Kaduna is seen slapping, smacking and kicking the victim, with other female and male cadets soon joining her to brutalize Mr. Amari.

In an interview today, Mr. Amari told SaharaReporters that the assault took place on December 31, 2014 at the Jabi Lake Park in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, where he serves as a parks and recreation officer.

His account contradicts a claim by the Nigerian Defense Academy that the attack happened in Lagos. Mr. Amari stated that the cadets attacked and nearly killed him while he was at his duty post.

He disclosed that he was not the original victim of the violent cadets, who included two females and seven males.

According to him, the cadets’ first victim was another man seen at the end of the video.

He revealed that the cadets had brutalized the first victim to the extent that the man may have suffered serious brain or nerve damage.

Mr. Amari, who is fondly called “Sunny,” said the unruly cadets set upon him for fear that he might report their atrocities.

He said he was carrying out his duty of moving around the park to ensure that everything was in order when he saw the nine cadets around 4 p.m. beating up a civilian. He said he walked towards the cadets and their victim out of curiosity.

According to him, the cadets then beckoned on him and asked why he was looking at them. Before he could speak, they descended on him and gave him a brutal beating even as he pleaded with them that he was a recreation officer at the park.

He revealed that at least five of the cadets participated in beating him until he passed out.

He said he was left for dead, adding that a kind stranger took pity on him and conveyed him to the hospital where he spent a week recuperating from his serious injuries.

Mr. Amari, who hails from Opoko local government area of Benue State, said he had reported the assault to the cadets’ director, a retired military officer, who told him nothing could be done since his attackers were military cadets.

The Nigerian Defense Academy (NDA) in Kaduna has issued a series of tweets claiming that the assault happened in Lagos while the cadets were on break, adding that the affected cadets would be punished.

The NDA did not respond to emails from SaharaReporters seeking information on the identities of the cadets who took part in the horrifying beating of Mr. Amari.

Source: SaharaReporters

Honorable Patrick Obahiagbon wrote on his official Facebook page:

The OKIKIOLAKAN’s avuncular gesture of humility devoid of his De Die In Diem obtrusivity and obstreperousness is deservable of both eulogies and panegyrics and I am consensus ad idem with him that the Ooni of Ife is a non pareil epiphanic emblematization of an avatar seised of a sui generis Heirophantic mission….I wish this Ooni well and may the Celestial choir and Cosmic hosts grant him good health, peace profound,intrepidity,mental and spiritual discernment as he holds aloft his incandescent flambeau….God bless the Ooni….

A Kenyan National – Abraham Kiptum has won the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon!

The winning time was 2 hours, 16 minutes, 21 seconds for the marathon which kicked off Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere and ended at Eko Atlantic in Victoria Island.

Hundreds of runners registered for the race which had a $50,000 winner’s prize.

The first Nigerian is Emmanuel Gyang Gwom at the finish line, he finished in 7th place and will receive a N1,000,000 prize.

Checkout more photos below;

What would you do if your husband (or wife) tried to have you killed — but failed?

For Noela Rukundo, the answer was easy: Show up at her own funeral and make a scene.

It all started when she left her home in Australia to return to her native Burundi to attend her stepmother’s funeral.

“I had lost the last person who I call ‘mother’,” she says. “It was very painful. I was so stressed.”

After the funeral, she went back to her hotel room and got a call from her husband, Balenga Kalala. They have three kids together.

“He says he’d been trying to get me for the whole day,” Noela says. “I said I was going to bed. He told me, ‘To bed? Why are you sleeping so early?’

“I say, ‘I’m not feeling happy’. And he asks me, ‘How’s the weather? Is it very, very hot?’ He told me to go outside for fresh air.”

Noela took his advice.

“I didn’t think anything. I just thought that he cared about me, that he was worried about me.”

At that moment, she went outside and was confronted by a man with a gun. He eventually motioned her into a nearby car where she was blindfolded and driven “30 or 40 minutes” away.

They arrived at their destination and Noela was tied to a chair — still blindfolded. The men asked why anyone would place a hit on her to be killed before making a call to the man who hired them.

She heard her husband’s voice on the phone.

“I knew he was a violent man,” Noela admits to BBC. “But I didn’t believe he can kill me.”

What her husband didn’t know was that the hit men had a very strict ‘no women, no kids’ policy. They asked Noela’s husband for more money but he refused and they let her go.

“‘We give you 80 hours to leave this country,’” Noela says the gang told her. “‘Your husband is serious. Maybe we can spare your life, but other people, they’re not going to do the same thing. If God helps you, you’ll get to Australia.’”

Before leaving Noela by the side of a road, the gang handed her the evidence they hoped would incriminate her husband — a memory card containing recorded phone conversations of him discussing the murder and receipts for the Western Union money transfers.

“We just want you to go back, to tell other stupid women like you what happened,” the gang told Noela as they parted. “You must learn something: you people get a chance to go overseas for a better life. But the money you are earning, the money the government gives to you, you use it for killing each other!”

After all that, she made her way back to Australia three days later where she confronted her husband …AT HER OWN FUNERAL!

Her husband had told everyone that his wife had died in a tragic accident.

“It was around 7.30pm,” Noela says. “He was in front of the house. People had been inside mourning with him and he was escorting a group of them into a car.”

After everyone left, she made her move.

“I was stood just looking at him. He was scared, he didn’t believe it. Then he starts walking towards me, slowly, like he was walking on broken glass.

“He kept talking to himself and when he reached me, he touched me on the shoulder. He jumped.

“He did it again. He jumped. Then he said, ‘Noela, is it you?’… Then he start screaming, ‘I’m sorry for everything.’”

Noela called the police and had him arrested. He later admitted his guilt and has been sentenced to nine years in prison.

For more details, check out the full story over at BBC.