Gov Fayose pictured buying soup ingredients in the market

Governor Fayose on his way from Akure had a stop over at Elegberun Market in Ikere Ekiti to have a look at the construction work going on in the market. He then took time to buy some soup ingredients from the market women who were more than delighted to sell to him. More photos after the cut...

Diddy and his 6 children take stunning family photo

Proud dad and Bad Boy records owner, Sean Combs aka Diddy shared this beautiful photo of his children. Cute photo!

Photos: Co-pilot of ill fated helicopter crash, Peter Bello still missing

The 26 year old co-pilot of the ill fated helicopter that crashed into the Lagoon yesterday, Peter Bello, (pictured above) has still not been found. 4 persons were confirmed dead while 6 were rescued alive. However Peter and one other person in the 12- seat helicopter are yet to be accounted for as they have not been found by divers.

Reports say they were coming from the Niger Delta where they had gone for an oil-related inspection and were heading back to Lagos when they suffered the mishap. Friends say Peter, who is also a media photographer, had been planning for his sister's wedding which is to hold soon. Pray they find him alive. Amen.

Nigerian gets 22 years in U.S. prison for helping al Qaeda affiliate

A 35 year old Nigerian man, Lawal Babafemi was sentenced to 22 years in prison by a US court in Brooklyn yesterday August 12th for receiving weapons training from al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate and writing rap lyrics, among other contributions, for the group's English-language media operations.

Lawal ,who was extradited to the US from Nigeria after he was accused of the crime, pleaded guilty to the allegations in April 2014 but was sentenced yesterday

According to prosecutors, Lawal had traveled from Nigeria to Yemen twice between January 2010 and August 2011 to meet with leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP and while in Yemen, Lawal who went by a pseudo name "Ayatollah Mustapha", worked on the terror groups media operations, including its magazine "Inspire,".

He and two others, a Vietnamese man named Minh Quang Pham and US citizen, Samir Khan who served as contributing writers and editors for the terror group magazine, produced the magazine.

Prosecutors say there are pictures of Lawal and his accomplices in the magazine wearing camouflage and holding rifles. It was also stated by the Prosecutors that the group's leadership, including Anwar al-Awlaki, paid Lawal almost $9,000 to recruit English speakers from Nigeria.

US beauty queen arrested, accused of faking Cancer

A former Miss Pennsylvania U.S. International pageant winner is facing felony charges, accused of lying about having cancer. Police arrested 23-year-old Brandi Lee Weaver-Gates on Tuesday August 11th and charged her with theft by deception and receiving stolen property.

Police say she told people she was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Police say fundraisers were held to help her with her medical bills. The most recent fundraiser, a Bingo for Brandi event, was held in April. It raised $14,000.

According to reports, the state police began investigating Weaver-Gates after an anonymous letter said she was “faking” cancer.
Weaver-Gates told the Centre Daily Times in April of 2014 at the Relay for Life at Penn State, that she became cancer-free in October of 2013, but later in the year she got news that 5% of the cancer cells were back.

State police say there is no evidence that Weaver-Gates ever had treatment for cancer.

As for Weaver-Gates’ beauty queen title, the pageant directors said they are shocked by the allegations and plan on stripping the title from her.

Pageant organizers issued the following statement Wednesday morning:

“We at Butler’s Beauties are saddened to hear of the news of Miss Brandy Weaver-Gates. We were also led to believe that she was dealing with this horrible disease and stood by her as she struggled being a beauty queen and a cancer patient.

Butler’s Beauties believes that with a crown and sash you can accomplish many great things as a role model, spokesmodel and community leader as a beauty pageant queen. When you deceive the public and take people’s money that is under the pretense of fraud, we will not tolerate those actions. Our hearts go out to those affected by cancer and to those who were taken advantage of by Miss Weaver-Gates.

Effectively immediately, Ms. Weaver-Gates is no longer a representative of the Miss Pennsylvania U.S. International organization and will be required to return her crown and sash upon her release from being detained.”

Source: Centre Daily Times

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

Helicopter crash: Comapny releases statement, pledges support and assistance to all victims

The management of Bristow helicopters limited, owners of the helicopter that crashed into the Lagos lagoon yesterday August 12th have released a statement regarding the mishap. The statement signed by the company's Regional Director for Africa Duncan Moore below

“Our thoughts are with those affected by the unfortunate accident. We regret the loss of lives in the air crash and we are ready to assist them with our full resources. Our highest priority is to take care of our crew and clients and their family members and provide them with any assistance needed. Our personnel are currently working to confirm the number of people on board, their identities and the extent of any injury.
The company is fully cooperating with Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) and the Nigeria Police. Preliminary information indicates that the aircraft carried 10 passengers and a crew of two, subject to confirmation. The company is in the process of collecting pertinent information and we will release more details as soon as it is available. At this time, the full resources of Bristow Helicopter’s incident response team are being mobilised"the statement read

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.

Photo: 3-year-old child found alive in car with murdered parents...

The young couple was found dead in a car in the early hours of Thursday August 6th at the 3700 Block near Sharon Drive in Powder Springs, Georgia by police officers. The car was found in a ditch with its headlight still on. The couple's 3-year-old child is however unharmed.

24-year-old Anthony Joseph Costner died from multiple gunshot wounds, while hiss wife, Catherine Amanda Costner, 22, had at least one gunshot wound.

 According to Catherine's mother, Cynthia Quinn, her daughter was called by someone she knew in the middle of the night needing help.

"When they went to help these people, for whatever reason, a gun was pulled and my son-in-law and my daughter are now dead. Her husband was shot in the face, the head and the hand. She was shot in the stomach, all in front of my granddaughter.”

COBB COUNTY, Ga. Police are investigating the deaths as homicides.

Lil Kim happily responds to her baby-daddy's apology...

Lil Kim has responded to her baby-daddy and fellow rapper, Mr Papers apology which he shared on instagram yesterday. (Relationships playing out on social media these days) What Kim wrote below;

"Look at God ! .... As mad as I am and was .. How can I be mad at this smh .. This is very sweet @mr_papers .... We all make mistakes none of us are perfect , but it's when we can acknowledge our mistakes is when we begin to grow into the beautiful men and women God intended for us to be I love @mr_papers and always have. we have been thru hell and heaven 2gether and have made a beautiful baby girl , we were on our way to being a very happy family but the devil has tried to intervene many of times even to the point of bringing us into court to a nasty custody battle but what the devil meant for bad God turned into good

The things that he's done have been a hard pill to swallow and I kno it is for a lot of Kim supporters ......I still want to put some of royal 's dirty poop diapers in his suit case without him knowing But this ��mr papers is some beautiful grown man shit. this is the side I always wanted ppl to see At the end of the day it's all about Princess Royal Reign And now we can move forward to being a happy healthy family and my daughter will have her Mommy and Daddy in her life God gets the victory!!! Thank you #teamkim and the #killerbeehive for always being there through good and rough times. After weeks of going to court...Now it's back to the money!!! On my way to the studio team kim.'

For those who missed it, Mr Paper's apology yesterday..

Materials used by Boko Haram are sold in shops owned by by Nigerians - Ex Chief of Naval Staff says

Immediate past Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin says that some of the materials used by Boko Haram members to make the devices they use in their various attacks are sold by Nigerians and in Nigerian shops.

According to The Nation, he said this while speaking to reporters after his pulling out ceremony at the Naval Base, Apapa in Lagos yesterday August 12th.

“Terrorists are among us; they are very difficult for security agencies to identify without intelligence. Since they are among us, the source of materials used for their devices are sold by Nigerians and some from shops belonging to Nigerians. To that end, one expects that owners of stolen equipment or those who suspicious equipment are bought from should report to the security agencies, their confidentiality is guaranteed because no one will disclose the source of the information. I am appealing to Nigerians to support President Buhari and the security agencies so that they can do their jobs well. Believing in the effectiveness of intelligence gathering, Nigerians must provide the intelligence for security forces to be able to identify would-be bombers and suicide bombers; as well as monitoring to the extent that security forces can unravel where terrorists make their IEDs.”he said

Nicki Minaj's ex Safaree's new girlfriend caught creeping with her ex

This is what happens when you start dating someone famous, or in this case, dating someone who used to date someone famous. People start to put your business on social media.

An account called Miami_Whoreszz popped up on Instagram two days ago, revealing text messages and pictures between Safaree's new girlfriend Zashia and her ex-boyfriend Mohawk. The ex-lovers are still in touch and Zashia was sending her naked pics to Mohawk despite dating Safaree. See what was published online after the cut

Zashia claimed the messages were old but the Internet determined that was lie.