Man kills 12-year-old girl over N800 debt

A 28-year-old man, who claimed to be a naval rating, Mr. Ikechi Okoro, is now on the run after allegedly killing Chidera Timothy with a bottle over an N800 debt his brother owes the girl’s mother.
Twelve-year-old Chidera was a primary five pupil of the Holy Trinity Anglican Primary School in Calabar, Cross River State.
Ikechi’s younger brother, Friday Okoro, has been arrested by policemen from Atakpa Police Station in Calabar where the matter was reported.
Following the arrest, the members of the Okoro family residing at 34, Wilkie Street, have taken to their heels.
Narrating the incident to PUNCH Metro on Saturday, the girl’s father, Timothy, said Ikechi’s brother, Mr. Orieke Okoro, who repairs tricycle, had refused to pay his wife, Mercy, the sum of N800 that he owed her for several months.
Timothy said Orieke was a regular customer at his wife’s restaurant and beverage shop and at times bought things on credit.
After Orieke’s debt rose to N800, it was learnt that he stopped patronising the restauranteur.
Timothy said, “The debt rose to N800 and has remained so for two months. Whenever my wife asks him about the debt, he would claim he does not have money. When my wife discovered that he no longer patronised her but rather bought things from a nearby shop and still paid cash, she threatened to seize his tools.
“On Monday, December 17, 2012, my wife went to him to collect her money but the boy said he did not have money, my wife then picked his tools and the boy did not react.”
Trouble, however, started, when Ikechi took over the matter when his brother’s customer, who brought his tricycle for repairs, claimed that one of his spare parts was missing.
Timothy explained further, “Ikechi came with the customer to my wife’s shop to look for the spare part in the toolbox, but because my wife didn’t know them, she refused to release the box. She insisted that they ought to have come with Orieke and her N800 before she would release the toolbox.
“Then the fake naval man started insulting my wife and threatened to beat her up if she did not release the toolbox. He said the worst that could happen was for the police to arrest him. As he struggled to enter the shop to collect the toolbox, my wife blocked him and in the process, he slapped her and she held his shirt.
“As the trouble was going on, my son, Chukwuemeka, who had returned from where he went to fetch water tried to ask why the man slapped his mother then Ikechi allegedly ran to their house and collected a machete and returned with his younger brother and the elder sister.
“Three of them beat up my son and my wife. Friday used the machete on my son and gave him a cut on the left hand while the sister hit my wife with a wood she was holding.”
He said that as the trouble was going on, Chidera rushed to call him (Timothy) from where he was working close by.
He added that when he got to his wife’s shop, he saw Ikechi with an empty bottle threatening to kill someone with it.
Timothy said, “As I was trying to find out what happened and to calm him down, he struggled and freed himself from the people holding him and said that he was going to kill somebody. He said as a naval man he could do whatever he wished.
“He threw the bottle at my son but he dodged it. However, the bottle hit my daughter on the head. She fainted immediately. I rushed her to Mambo Clinic which was the nearest clinic for treatment. She was there till December 23 when she died.”
He said although he reported the matter at the police station, no arrest was made until he went back to the police station after his daughter had died.
Friday, who allegedly injured Chukwuemeka with a machete, according to him, was arrested.
Chidera’s corpse, he said, was deposited at a mortuary on Edgerley Street in Calabar South.
When contacted, the state police Public Relations Officer, Mr. John Umoh, confirmed the incident, saying the matter would be properly investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department.
Also, the Information Officer of the Eastern Naval Command, Lt.Commodore Williams Olabisi, said the alleged assailant who claimed to be a naval man might have been an imposter.
“If any of our officials commit offence of that magnitude, there is no way I will not be aware of it,” Olabisi added.
InformationNigeria

Photos: Suntai Spends New Year Eve With Wife, Twins In German Hospital

The wife of Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba state, Hauwa Danbaba Suntai, on 13th December 2012, put to bed twins in Germany, even as she awaits the recovery of her husband who is also hospitalised there after suffering life-threatening injuries from a plane crash.

Controversy followed governor Danbaba Suntai’s treatment abroad as some reports said he is brain damaged and might never be fit to rule the state again but to put paid to the various speculations and rumors surrounding his well-being, his wife and their twins (boy and girl), visited the governor on new year’s eve in hospital.

The pictures from the visit will be good news for indigenes of Taraba state and supporters of the governor who have been yearning to know the current state of their governor.

RECUPERATING GOV. DANBABA SUNTAI (M) OF TARABA, WITH HIS WIFE, HAUWA (L), AND A FAMILY FRIEND, PRINCE TITA NBALAM (R) AND HIS THREE WEEKS OLD TWINS IN A CAFETERIA OF A GERMAN HOSPITAL ON MONDAY

GOVERNOR DANBABA SUNTAI, HIS WIFE & TWIN BABIES IN THE CAFETERIA OF A GERMAN HOSPITAL ON MONDAY

 InformationNigeria

House Passes Senate’s Fiscal Cliff Bill

By Igor Volsky

After threatening to amend the Senate’s fiscal cliff bill to include spending reductions, the House passed the measure Tuesday evening by a vote of 257-167, with 85 Republican votes. 151 Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and 16 Democrats voted against the bill. The “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012” now goes to President Obama for his signature.
During debate, Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) urged Republicans to support the bill, arguing that it “settles the level of revenue Washington should bring in.” The GOP has indicated that it would not support revenue increases in the upcoming battles to raise the debt ceiling, turn off the sequester cuts, and keep the government running through a continuing budget resolution. Instead, conservative lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have said that they will take advantage of these critical debates to extract deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
“I just don’t want the gentleman’s statement that this settles permanently how much revenue will be made available,” Rep. Sandy Levin (D-MI) said in response to Camp. “The President has made clear there has to be a balanced approach and no one should be misled into thinking otherwise. No one.”
As the House began voting on the measure, Grover Norquist gave his blessing, tweeting that since the vote took place in the new year — after the Bush tax cuts have technically expired — “Every R voting for Senate bill is cutting taxes and keeping his/her pledge.”

Update

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) explains why he voted in favor of the bill: “When you like something, you vote for it. …I wasn’t afraid.” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who usually doesn’t vote, also backed the measure.

Update

In a statement from the White House, President Obama praised the bill as “one step in the broader effort to strengthen our economy.” But he admitted that “the deficit is still too high” and called for a balanced approach of raising new revenues by closing tax loopholes and eliminating deductions for rich individuals and corporations and cutting government spending. Obama called Medicare the “biggest contributor to our deficit” and said that Congress must “find a way to reform our program without hurting seniors who count on it to survive.” He also drew an important line in the sand, reiterating that he “will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up, through the laws that they passed.” If Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling, Obama said, “the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic, far worse than the impact of a fiscal cliff.”
TP

“I will buy you a cheap, second-hand phone” – Obasanjo to journalist whose Blackberry was smashed

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo over the weekend caused a mild drama when he sighted PREMIUM TIMES’ correspondent at the Government House in Ogun State.
The reporter tried to take a picture of the former president standing beside former Nigerian leader, Ernest Shonekan, with his camera phone, but got a dramatic response from Mr. Obasanjo.
“You again,” the former president said. “That was how your blackberry phone was smashed.”
One of Mr. Obasanjo’s children, Oba, had smashed the blackberry phone of the PREMIUM TIMES journalist for taking the picture of the fire at the former president’s house last week in Abeokuta, the Ogun State Capital.
Obasanjo to buy second hand phone
The journalist complained to Mr. Obasanjo about the destroyed phone and asked the former president what he intends to do about it.
The former number one citizen again responded in his characteristic dramatic and jocular manner.
“I will buy you another one, but if you don’t mind, it has to be a fairly used and with cheaper price,” Mr. Obasanjo said.
At the end of the day’s programme, our correspondent again approached the former president, requesting to follow him to his house to collect the promised blackberry phone; but Mr. Obasanjo turned it to another round of comedy.
“You this Ijesa man, I suspect you are the one who set my house on fire, and you want to come there again, I will buy your phone for you when I return from abroad.”
After making the statement, the former president entered into his vehicle, smiled and waved to the reporter.
 DailyPost

Varsity Staff Kidnapped In Delta

Denedo, Vanguard gathered was abducted while returning from the New Year service at 1:00am, Tuesday, by eight gunmen who laid siege at the front of his residence.
 According to a family source, the unsuspecting Denedo who drove in his Nissan Pathfinder Jeep with registration number BKW 18 AA, Delta was abducted as he came down to open the gate to drive into his compound in the university community.
 The source, who pleaded anonymity, said Denedo was driven in the Nissan Jeep by the suspected kidnappers to a yet unknown destination shooting sporadically into the air to scare people away from attacking them.
 Speaking further, the source said the kidnappers were yet to establish contact with the lecturer’s family.
Naij

Homeless Heir To $300 Million Huguette Clark Fortune Found Dead

A homeless man who was the long-lost relative of reclusive New York railroad heiress Huguette Clark and a potential heir to her $300 million fortune has been found dead in Wyoming.
Timothy Henry Gray, Clark's 60-year-old half great-nephew, was found dead under a Union Pacific Railroad overpass in Evanston, Wyo., on Thursday, NBC News reports. Children who were sledding nearby found Gray's body.
Temperatures in Evanston, a mining town, had hit a low of 0 in recent days. The coroner said it appears the homeless heir, who could have inherited $19 million of Clark's $300 million fortune, had died of hypothermia, according to NBC. There was no evidence of foul play.
Gray's siblings said their homeless brother disappeared after their mother died in 1990, according to the Associated Press. If Gray did not have a will, his siblings could receive his share in addition to their own, NBC explains.
Gray was the adopted great-grandson of former U.S. Sen. William Andrews Clark, a wealthy copper miner, railroad builder and the founder of Las Vegas. Huguette was the youngest of William's seven children.
Huguette died in May 2011 at 104 years old, after living as a recluse for decades, the New York Times previously reported.
In the 1930s, she removed herself from Manhattan society and lived in solitude for the next quarter-century in her Fifth Avenue apartment surrounded by her dolls. In the 1980s, Huguette checked herself into a New York City hospital. She lived in hospitals around Manhattan until her death.
Huguette's $300 million estate was contested by her extended family and several parties close to her. Two wills signed by the heiress spawned the legal conflict. One stated her fortune would be given to relatives, while the other, signed six weeks after the first, said none of her money would go to family members.
HuffingtonPost

“The violence in Nigeria could be a sign of the end times” – President Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan has questioned whether deadly Islamist attacks on churches in his country and other violence worldwide could be signs of coming “end times”.
Jonathan, speaking after 15 Christians had their throats slit last week in the country’s northeast, also suggested Islamist extremist group Boko Haram aimed to take over the Nigerian capital Abuja, but vowed the group would be defeated.
During comments Sunday in which he mentioned attacks on churches in Nigeria, Syria’s war and the situation in the Central African Republic, where rebels have pushed their way across the impoverished country, Jonathan spoke of the Biblical end times.
“I was just wondering, could this be a clear way of telling us that the end times are so close?” he told the church congregation, according to a recording of his remarks heard by AFP.
Some Christians believe in the idea of chaos in connection with the second coming of Jesus Christ, commonly referred to as the “end times”. Such beliefs are based on passages in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation.
Jonathan was speaking at an evangelical Christian church service in the capital. The church belongs to the EYN denomination, common among Christians in the violence-torn northeast, where Boko Haram is based.
Local media quoted the church pastor as saying 109 EYN members have been killed and 50 branches burnt.
Violence linked to Boko Haram’s insurgency in northern and central Nigeria has left some 3,000 people dead since 2009, including killings by the security forces.
Muslims and symbols of Nigerian authority have often been their targets, but the group has also specifically targeted Christians, including suicide bombings of churches.
This Christmas season has however been notably less bloody than in 2011, when scores were killed in attacks on churches and other locations.
Jonathan has previously accused Boko Haram of seeking to destabilise the government and incite a religious crisis in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.
On Sunday, while speaking of the rebels in the Central African Republic, Jonathan said: “They were quite close to taking over the capital city, just as Boko Haram is taking over Abuja for me and those working in government to run and hide somewhere else.”
He vowed however that Boko Haram would not succeed and that the violence would be brought under control.
“If the idea of Boko Haram is to stop Nigerians from worshipping God, they will not succeed,” he said.
“If the idea of Boko Haram is to stop government from providing the dividends of democracy, they will not succeed…. God willing and with our commitment, the excesses of Boko Haram and other criminal organisations will be brought to a reasonable control.”
Jonathan spokesman Reuben Abati did not respond to a phone call to further explain the president’s comments.
 DailyPost