4 confirmed dead in Lagos Helicopter crash

4 people have been confirmed dead from the Bristow helicopter that crashed into the Lagos Lagoon around the Oworonshoki end of the 3rd mainland bridge in Lagos today. 6 people were rescued while the search for two more persons is currently ongoing. The bodies of the dead passengers have been deposited at the Mainland hospital.

EFCC arrests suspected $4m fraudster, Idowu Olanrewaju, shares photos of hotel, cars he bought with the stolen money

 The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC have arrested a suspected fraudster, Idowu Olarenwaju, alias Capt Anthony Abel Saramoh for defrauding an American Citizen of the sum of $4million through his company, Total Intership Nigeria Limited.

According to a statement by EFCC, Olanrewaju tricked his victim into paying the said amount into his company's account with the promise of supplying him with crude oil from Nigeria.

Luck however ran out on him after the victim petitioned the EFCC when he did not hear a word from Olanrewaju again after the money he requested for was transferred. Investigations by EFCC led to the arrest of one Joe Onwudimowei on June 18th. Joe was discovered to be of an accomplice of Olanrewaju who operates the account of Total Intership Nigeria Limited with Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) where the money was deposited.

Upon interrogation, he confessed to be working for Olanrewaju and one Otunba Yemi Osho and that he had handed both men the money from the said transaction. Olanrewaju who does not have any reasonable source of income was discovered to have several properties in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and a 44 rooms hotel in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State.

Also recovered from him were a number of exotic cars including, a 2014 Range Rover, 2013 Honda Crosstour, 2013 Range Evogue and Honda CRV. He is expected to appear in court soon.

Beautiful story! Student & teacher reunite decades after meeting in Nigeria (photos)

African American Rosalia Durante, 98, (left) served in Lagos, Nigeria in the 1960s and was the sixth grade teacher of Dr. Yele Aluko (right), in 1963. Decades later, back in Charlotte, USA, she recognized his name in the newspaper and brought him mementos of her time in Nigeria. Amazing story. Read after the cut...


From The Charlotte Observer

Because of his name and accent, it’s not unusual for Dr. Yele Aluko’s patients to ask where he’s from. But in the early 1990s, when he got the question from this new patient – a retired Charlotte principal and Johnson C. Smith University professor – Aluko asked one of his own: Where do you think?

Spencer Durante guessed correctly that his new heart specialist was from Nigeria, in west Africa. This rarely happened. In fact, when Aluko first came to Charlotte in 1989, one area hospital administrator suggested he change his name from Yele – pronounced yeh-lay – to Yale, so it would be easier to say.

As Aluko chatted with Durante and his wife, Rosalia, he learned they had lived in Nigeria from 1962 to 1966, when Spencer Durante was working on a U.S. project to build a college that would train Nigerians to be secondary school teachers.

Rosalia Durante said she had taught primary school in Nigeria. And she remembered having a student named Yele. Really? Aluko thought. And he asked the name of the school. When she said Corona International School in Lagos, his jaw dropped.

Aluko, who was born in Lagos in 1954, had gone to that school in the mid-1960s. What a coincidence.

The Durantes had seen Aluko’s name in The Charlotte Observer and made an appointment, both to confirm he was the boy at the Corona School and because Spencer Durante needed a heart specialist. They continued seeing Aluko for more than a decade, but the conversations focused on medical issues.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/health-family/article30416385.html#storylink=cpy

Class Picture
Spencer Durante died in 2003, at 86. Rosalia Durante remained one of Aluko’s patients, coming to his office once a year for an evaluation. At one of her visits, she brought Aluko a surprise. She had been digging through papers after her husband’s death.

She’d found an 8-by-10 copy of a black-and-white picture of her first class at Corona, for the school year 1963-64. That’s her, at 47, standing in the middle of 23 children – girls and boys, black and white, Nigerian, Asian and British, mostly dressed in white.

She asked Aluko if he saw anyone familiar.

Indeed, Aluko saw his sixth-grade self, legs crossed, sitting on the grass in the front row. He’s smiling at the camera, resting his elbow on his knee and his cheek on his fist.

“Oh my God, that is me,” Aluko thought. “How could this be?”

By what twist of fate did this Nigerian boy in Mrs. Durante’s class end up, half a world away and more than three decades later, becoming the heart specialist who cares for his former teacher and her husband in Charlotte, North Carolina?

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/health-family/article30416385.html#storylink=cpy

Settling in Charlotte

The picture had been taken outside Corona, a private British-owned school that attracted children who could qualify academically and afford the tuition. Some were children of foreign diplomats. Aluko’s father was a civil engineer; his mother had been an English teacher.

Aluko remembered having American, Nigerian and British teachers at Corona. He got a good education, good enough to get him into Kings College boarding school and then medical school at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He came to the United States for medical residency at Columbia University in New York, where he met his future wife, Shirley Houston, also a doctor.

In 1989, they chose to settle in Charlotte. Aluko said he started a solo cardiology practice after he couldn’t find an existing group that would hire someone with his foreign education. His practice grew into the city’s second-largest group of heart specialists, Mid Carolina Cardiology, now Novant Health Heart and Vascular Institute. He often was quoted in the Observer, about new heart procedures, efforts to reduce health disparities or the community of Nigerian doctors in the Charlotte area.
As she got to know Aluko, Rosalia Durante continued searching through her scrapbooks. They bulged with keepsakes from Africa – maps of Nigeria, newspaper and magazine articles, pictures of her students and copies of their handwritten notes.

“I keep stuff,” said Durante, whose home is decorated with African art, including a carved ivory elephant tusk and a painting by a Nigerian artist.

She remembers her first day at Corona School: “When I first saw all the boys in that class, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m gonna have a terrible time.’” She had three “rambunctious” sons of her own. But these boys, from several countries, sat at attention at their desks, called her “Madame,” and raised their hands and stood before speaking.

“They didn’t have many books, but their books were well-used,” Rosalia Durante recalled. “…I enjoyed hearing how the languages criss-crossed. … And they had to listen to a Southern dialect from North Carolina.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/health-family/article30416385.html#storylink=cpy

My name is Yele’

Nigerian names were distinctive and stuck in her mind, Rosalia Durante said. It helped that she had asked her students to print their names in large letters on construction paper. For the first week, they held up their posters and announced themselves so she could learn to spell and pronounce their names correctly.
“My name is Yele Aluko,” she recalled him saying. He had bright, eager eyes and a “zest for knowledge. … He was inquisitive. You didn’t have to pull things out of him,” she said.
In 2011, Rosalia Durante read in the newspaper that Aluko was getting a lifetime achievement award from the Charlotte Post Foundation. She mentioned it to her granddaughter, who arranged for them to attend. During the ceremony, Aluko was surprised when organizers announced that his primary school teacher was in the audience.
By then in her 90s, Rosalia Durante stood at her table and waved. Aluko walked over and gave her a hug. She couldn’t hear well, but she had a keen memory of that year when he was beginning to find his path in the world. He vowed they would become more than just doctor and patient. They would be friends. 

‘With all my love’

He called her occasionally, and this year, he arranged a visit to her home off Beatties Ford Road. Aluko arrived with a bouquet of flowers. Rosalia Durante pulled a note on white paper from her scrapbook.
It read: “To the teacher I will not forget. And to the teacher who has helped me with my lessons.”
Aluko recognized the tiny but clear and legible script – and thought how much better it was than his handwriting today.
He did not remember writing this note at the end of sixth grade to thank his American teacher. But she had saved it all these years. It had meant that much to her.
It was signed: “With all my love. From Yele.”

Source: The Charlotte Observer

Davido shares photo he took with Wande Coal and D'Prince when he was 14

That's life for you!

Bonang dragged on Twitter over D'banj's sweet birthday message to Adama

Yesterday evening, D'banj publicly acknowledged and declared his love for billionaire daughter, Adama Indimi (see here), just a few weeks after he was spotted kissing South African media/TV personality Bonang Matheba at the MAMAs. D'banj and Adama have been dating on/off for years and yesterday, he let everyone know who has his heart. People are now making fun of Bonang on social media. *sigh*. See what they wrote after the cut...

Tonto Dikeh's Father-in-Law is Ex-President Obasanjo

Ladies, being coded sometimes help. When you make too much noise and want to show off too much it could be you are insecure and want everyone, like your former boyfriend, to know you now have a man. Lol!

Actress Tonto Dikeh realised this and acted wisely. The guy she got engaged to is Oladunni Churchill who is one of the sons of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. She is so happy. See more photo...

Tonto is already pregnant for Obasanjo's son and the guy has official obtained family's consent. Congrats!

Buhari is serious: Reveals damning fraud to Abdulsalam, Others

Former military head of state General Abdulsalam Abubakar and members of the National Peace Committee for the 2015 elections were rattled by the stubborn posture and utterance of President Muhammadu Buhari during a meeting with him inside Aso Rock.

Abdulsalam had led members of the Peace Committee in another mission to plead with Buhari not to probe the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

But some of those present at the meeting told SR that the President remained obstinate and made no secret of his determination to proceed with the probe of all those who have stole our money...

According to Sahara Reporters, today’s meeting was a stepped up version of previous failed attempts to sway Buhari from his determination to probe acts of corruption by officials of Jonathan’s administration.

During Buhari’s US visit, American officials handed him dossiers that detailed stealing perpetrated by key officials of the Jonathan administration. Members of Buhari’s delegation during his US trip said that the extent of the looting left President Buhari angry, and strengthened his determination to unearth the widespread embezzlement of Nigeria’s funds.

After Buhari’s return from the US, President Jonathan stepped up maneuvers to talk him into discontinuing the probe of his administration. But it appears that is not working as Buhari remains resolute.

“We are also looking at properties purchased in Ghana, Dubai, UK and US by various officials of the immediate past administration,” a top source in the presidency revealed.

Photos: Davido meets VP Osinbajo

He shared the photo of his meeting and wrote "with the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria discussing Youth Initiatives. He said he can't wait for the album any longer. #Baddest. #September". More photos after the cut..

 

Remarkable recovery of 4 year old 'Mowgli' girl, who survived 12 nights in the Siberian wilderness

A now 5-year-old 'Mowgli girl' who survived 12 nights in the bear-infested Siberian wilderness with only her pet dog for protection has made a remarkable recovery, her mother revealed.

Last August, she was found hungry, exhausted and covered in mosquito bites lying in a bed of grass almost two weeks after wandering off from her remote village home.

Her survival story made headlines around the world.
Now 5, she is unfazed by her experience despite a real threat from bears and wolves, said her mother Talina, 22.

She was saved by her dog Naida, which had followed her into the Siberian taiga and kept her warm at night. She ate berries and drank water from rivers to survive.

 The girl's mother said Tuesday:

'She has an incredibly strong character. Even when she was found, she didn't have much fear in her eyes. Now she is just like she was before, runs around with other kids, speaks a lot and doesn't give away that she ever went through such a stressful experience. But she demands not to ask her about those days and gets nervous if people insist.'

This was when she was found

The 4 year old village girl became lost with her pet after following her father on a trip into the wild, but he didn't know that she had followed him. Her grandmother who was caring for her thought he had taken her on his trip.

She had mosquito bites all over

Naida, the dog followed the girl and loyally stayed with her, returning home after nine days to summon help, but the pet was unable to show rescuers where she was.

Three days after the dog returned, rescuers found her footprint next to a paw print close to a river, where they had drunk water. So the emergency workers knew they were in the right area of the Sakha Republic, Russia's largest region and only slightly smaller than India. She was eventually found  hungry, exhausted and covered in mosquito bites lying in a grassy hole.

'Why did you leave me?' Karina chided the dog when they were eventually reunited after returned home after a lengthy period in hospital. Yet the dog's return inspired emergency teams to redouble their efforts to seek out Karina. 

Talina said this week, interviewed by YSIA.RU: 'She was helped by our dog Naida, who slept by her side and helped her not to freeze to death.'

There are many threats in the forests around Olom, the village where Karina lived with her mother, notably bears and wolves. 

'Karina spent summers in Olom since she was seven months old, perhaps this helped as well. She grew up there, she knew the place really well,' she said.

Big relief when she was found alive

The mother hit back at criticism of her on social media not realising her daughter was lost. 'I don't pay attention to it, I don't have time to follow social networks,' she said. 

'Karina has also taken such an amount of attention with difficulty, she ran away from the cameras at first. At least now she can pose, but she still refuses to speak about that time in taiga.' Talina insisted: 'I always believed that she will be found. Many stopped believing that she was alive, but as a mother I felt that she soon will be found.'

Emotional rescue worker

 One year after her daughter went missing, she said: I'd like to say my deepest and most sincere thank you to all who took part in the search for Karina, and who supported the team, and paid attention to this case. A special thank you to Artyom Borisov, he was the first to spot Karina. To search for a tiny girl in the area overgrown with impassable bushes, high grass and tussocks was literally like looking for a needle in a haystack.'

'The forest around Olom is full of bears,' said rescuer Albert Semyonov, who revealed his men needed armed guards in looking for Karina. 'Close to the gunners we felt somehow calmer. However, the thought of bears immediately switched to another concern: somewhere in the forest was this helpless child.'

Karina now says: 'I don't want to be photographed, I don't like it. Why does everybody ask me what I've been doing in the taiga on those days?'  

I am glad she was found alive and she's doing very well.




Siberia Times

Buhari appoints 4 new Group Executive Directors for NNPC

President Buhari has sacked the heads of NNPC subsidiaries and appointed new heads for the different oil corporation's subsidiaries. Those newly appointed are Dr. Maikanti Baru, Group Executive Director, Exploration & Production; Mr. Isiaka Abdulrazaq, Group Executive Director, Finance & Services; Engr. Dennis Nnamdi Ajulu, Group Executive Director, Refining & Technology; and Dr. Babatunde Victor Adeniran, Group Executive Director, Commercial & Investment.

The new appointments were made known by the Group Managing Director of NNPC Kachiukwu today August 11th. Other appointments announced includes Chidi Momah, Group General Manager, Company Secratarty & Legal Adviser; Mrs. Esther Nnamdi Ogbue, Managing Director, Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC); Engr. Chinedu Ezeribe, Managing Director, Warri Refinning & Petrochemicals Company (WRPC); Mr. Babatunde Bakare, Managing Director, Nigerian Gas Company (NGC); Mr. Inuwa Ibrahim Waya, Managing Director, Hyson; Mr. Abubakar Mai-Bornu, Managing Director, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC); and Mr. Ladipo Fagbola, Managing Director, NNPC Retail. Others are: Mr. Rowland Ewubare, Managing Director, Integrated Data Services Ltd (IDSL); Mr. Modupe Bammeke, Managing Director, NNPC Prpoerties; Mr. Abdulkadir Saidu, Managing Director, Duke Oil; and Mr. Dafe Sejebor, Group General Manager, Nigerian Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS).