JTF sets ablaze Illicit Drugs in Damaturu

The Joint Task Force in Yobe state on Thursday  destroyed illicit drugs recovered in course of various raids and search operations and encounters with suspected terrorists few months ago.

The destruction was carried out in the presence of journalists, officers and men of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agencies (NDLEA), and other security agents.

Briefing journalists while setting the Illicit drugs ablaze, the spokesman of the JTF in Yobe state Lieutenant Eli Lazarus said the public destruction was made to discourage youths from indulging in the act.

He revealed that in the various operations carried out, it was discovered that most youths into terrorism and other criminal act do so under the influence of drugs.

Some of the drugs destroyed include Cannabis Sativa popularly known as Indian hemp, codeine, tramol, tutolin among others.

Lazarus appealed to parents and guardians to ensure that they monitor the activities of the children and wards and should endeavor to know their associates as a measure to prune their friends list.

Meanwhile the Task Force has embarked on a sensitization campaign to create public awareness on security issues and the need for members of the public to contribute towards eradicating crime and terrorism in the state and the country as a whole.

In the pamphlet distributed to motorists and Damaturu residents, JTF calls for cooperation with security agents in the search for lasting peace in the state.

The pamphlet made available GSM numbers that the JTF can be promptly contacted in the fight against crime and terrorists activities at any point in time.

The numbers include; 08065320525, 08183601361, 08185079293, 08039271822 and calls for general collaboration in the fight against the menace of crime in the society.

Let SMS be free, Telecom subscribers tell operators

Mobile telephone subscribers on Thursday in Abuja called for a uniform tariff for Short Message Service (SMS) from all telecom operators in the country.

The subscribers made the call in separate interviews. Mr David Amachree, who sells cosmetics, said that it was unfair for the operators to be charging differently for SMS from one network to another.

Amachree urged the telecom operators to slash the rate of SMS to other networks. “The SMS that we send cost N5 for same network and N15 for other networks. It should go down. It should be uniform for all networks.

“They should cut it down to a maximum of N3 or N5 per SMS, it should go down. The population of this country is so large that every one Naira cumulatively turn into millions.

“So they are cheating us honestly; the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC ) should sit up and be up to the task in their responsibility,’’ Amachree urged.

Mrs Victoria Onyebuchi, a primary school teacher, said that SMS should be free to subscribers to serve as value added services for being on a particular network.

Onyebuchi also urged NCC to compel the telecom operators to reduce and charge uniform tariffs for all networks in the country. “Why is it that whatever come to Nigeria is always different; they can’t do this in other developed countries.

Our leaders are not helping us they should try and do something to compel these telecom operators to come down. “Let free SMS be a kind of incentive for subscribers whom the operators make fortunes out of,’ ’ Onyebuchi said.

Miss Halima Yakubu, a student at the University of Abuja, said that the present charge on SMS was hindering text communication betwen students using different networks.

“For instance, a student in an emergency situation having just N5 credit in his or her phone cannot send an SMS to a friend using a different network; this is just unfair.
-NAN

 Suleja Bomb trial: SSS tenders more evidence

A Federal High Court, Abuja on Wednesday admitted in evidence the Honda Civic used by the six  suspected  Boko Haram members accused of bombings and killings in parts of Abuja and Suleja, Niger State.

Before admitting the car, Justice Bilkisu Aliyu, accompanied by the clerk of the court and counsel for the parties, inspected it.

In the five counts it brought against the six suspected Boko Haram members – Shuaibu Abubakar, Salisu Ahmed, Umar Babagana-Umar, Mohammed Ali, Musa Adam and Umar Ibrahim – the State Security Service maintained that its investigations revealed that the accused persons participated in various terror attacks between March and July, 2011.

Mr. Olaoye Kehinde, an SSS exhibit keeper, tendered the car with number plate AG94MNG Borno.

The vehicle was admitted as evidence after the defence counsel, Mr. Nureni Sulyman, and the accused persons, raised no objections.

The Honda Civic was the vehicle in which some of the suspects were travelling in when they were arrested at an army roadblock near  Gummel Junction in Kachia Kaduna on July 27, 2011.

Another prosecution witness, who testified earlier in the trial, had informed the court that the suspects were carrying explosives, and other materials used in manufacturing improvised explosive devices, including cortex wires and industrial powder.

After Kehinde stepped down, prosecution counsel, Mr. Thompson Olatigbe, announced that the prosecution had closed its case and would not be calling any other witness.

Sulyman thereafter informed the court that the defence would file an application “for no case submission”.

“We have an application before the court, we are applying for no case submission,” Sulyman said.

Bilikisu, who ordered that the application must be in writing, gave the defence two weeks to file and serve the prosecution with the no case submission.

She also gave the prosecution two weeks, from the date of service, to reply to the application.

Bilikisu adjourned the matter till February 6 and 7, 2013, to hear the application for no case submission.

The suspects were thereafter returned to the Kuje Prisons.

Britney Spears quits X-Factor just before she was fired

Britney Spears has left The X Factor USA after just one season, as it has been claimed show boss Simon Cowell was about to fire her for being ‘boring’.

The 31-year-old singer jumped before she was pushed as Cowell, 53, made plans to terminate her $15million contract after her judging style on the show had been heavily criticised, sources close to the show confirmed to MailOnline.
'Disconnected': Insiders complained Britney would barely look at her contestants on stage during the live round of the show.

A source close to production explained: ‘Britney and her team knew it was unlikely she’d be asked back as a judge.

‘The producers have already been making other plans for next season over the holidays.

‘The reality is that toward the end of last season the main players knew they wanted to replace both Britney and LA Reid. LA Reid wasn’t at the top of his game in second season and he knew that.’

Britney’s judging was heavily criticised throughout the last season, with critics dubbing her ‘boring’.
His golden girl: Simon Cowell poses with Britney Spears at an X Factor event; she has quit as a judge on the show after learning her contract would not be renewed

And show insiders complained that she insisted on having breaks every few contestants during auditions and was often unengaged in the whole process.

It was felt Britney didn’t connect with her contestants, despite being employed to mentor them. Insiders complained that she would barely look at them on stage during the live round of the show.

‘Most people didn’t expect Britney to make it through the season as its a demanding role but she did her best,’ said a source.

Although the mother-of-two only lasted on the judges panel for one season it was an incredibly lucrative one.

A previous report in Us Weekly pointed out that her $15milllion contract had a lot to do with Cowell’s decision, with one insider telling the publication: ‘They paid all that for her to say ‘amazing’ and offer half-claps.’

At one time Cowell had  intimated to E! that he’d have Britney back despite telling them he’s ‘pro change,’ he told them: ‘I don’t know yet, to be honest with you. I haven’t had the conversation with her whether she’d want to, what other commitments she’s got.’


Midas-alike Cowell has struggled to repeat the success of the smash hit British show since it debuted across the Atlantic in the autumn of 2011.

After the initial disappointing season, Cowell fired judges Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger and host Steve Jones in January.


He then went all out to get a big name signing; and nobody could argue with Britney’s pedigree when she signed on the dotted line for the svengali.

Not only is she one of the biggest pop stars in the world; but her soap opera past lends the blonde an inherent fascination lacking in other stars.

But sadly that never translated into her on-screen presence, and Cowell’s coup became a damp squib.

The blonde flubbed lines and often seemed disconnected from the the show’s narrative.

The December 20 second season finale was watched by 9.6 million viewers, down 18 percent from the first season finale.
Showing them up: Even her group of teens will have been envious of the singer's fabulous physique

                                                
Despite the setbacks, Cowell himself is unlikely to be looking for another job anytime soon.

Artists discovered by the X Factor have sold more than 100 million records worldwide, including 110 No. 1’s, 270 Top 10, and 501 Top 50 releases – and the show has been commissioned in 41 territories.

Cowell – who according to Forbes made $90 million last year alone – also saw his  TV production business, Simco, boosted by 138 per cent last year, mainly due to the launch of the Fox TV talent show.

Cowell’s company also reported that total turnover almost doubled to £54.6m ($87.89m) in the year to 31 March 2012.
Good old days: Even Britney's snake could not take its eyes off her marvellous midriff back in 2001Pop pedigree: Britney is still one of the most talked about stars in the world, but her pedigree never translated to good television

 3 killed, 5 injured in Ore accident - FRSC

At least three people died and five others seriously injured in a car crash along Lagos-Ore Expressway on Thursday, the Federal Road Safety Corps, has said.

The dead include two male adults and one female child.

The crash, which happened 3km from Ore, occurred when an “Acura MDX with Registration number LSR548AW lost control and somersaulted at about 11:30 hrs on the Ore –Lagos Road,” according to the FRSC

The Corps said victims of the crash have been taken to General Hospital and Opeyemi Hospital, Ore.

Ramsey Nouah makes a come back into Nollywood

The Nollywood actor, Ramsey Nouah might be making a move to come back into the movie world after several months off the scene.

The 39 year old actor was spotted on set alongside Ali Nuhu and O.C Ukeje in an upcoming movie titled "Confusion Na Wa".The movie, directed by Kenneth Gyang, is a social comedy that spans a period of 24-hours. Set in a tense community, the movie tells four individual, yet connected stories, which expose the level of injustice and unfairness in the society.

We gathered that the movie is being produced by Tom Rowlands and funded by the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) in Netherlands and the Durban FilmMart in South Africa.

The film has been submitted for the 2013 African Movie Academy Awards, and is expected to be released in Nigeria in 2013.

                                  Nigeria partially bans drug used on Cynthia Osokogu by alleged killers

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, on Tuesday announced a partial ban of Flunitrazepam, a prescription sleep therapy that shot to national notoriety after it was used in the rape and murder of late Cynthia Osokogu.

The tablet, known by common brand name as Rohypnol or Reflon, will now be restricted to only “determined” outlets in the country, lining Nigeria among countries with strict restriction of the drug.

The agency said the status of the drug as Prescription Only Medicine, POM, is to be forcefully enforced while quarterly reports on its distribution and use are to be submitted by Marketing Authorization Holders, MAH, to NAFDAC.

“Until the recent incident which claimed the life of Miss Osokogu, there had not been any report in the national database” about the drug, Director General of NAFDAC, Paul Orhii, said at a media conference Tuesday.

Miss Osokogu, who kicked up an ambitious business effort after her National Youth Service programme, was drugged last July by a gang she met on Facebook and through Blackberry chat, repeatedly raped and viciously beaten, before she was strangled and abandoned in a Lagos hotel room.

The last child of a retired Army general, she had travelled to meet the men in Lagos, who offered her discount sales for her start-up clothing business in Keffi, Nassarawa state.

The offer turned out a fatal lure after her attackers further enticed her with a pickup from the airport, hotel accommodation to prelude “business talks.”

The brutal killing sparked a national outrage with concerns over how the prescription medicine, identified as Reflon, was purchased over the counter without the authorization of the physician.

Amongst those arrested and charged by the police, were two pharmacists who operated the store where the drugs were purchased. The pharmacists were later released in a controversial circumstance.

It has taken the federal anti-counterfeiting body, NAFDAC, more than seven months to arrive at the decision for a partial ban of the drug.

Mr. Orhii said the agency needed time to make consultations with the National Drug Safety Advisory Committee, made up of professors of medicine, and other health experts on the best response.

A total ban was avoided since the drug remains useful in the treatment of sleep disorder.

Flunitrazepam is registered in Nigeria by Roche Nigeria Limited as a one milligram tablet with the brand name, Rohypnol, while the other brand registered in Nigeria is Swinol by Swiss Pharma Limited.

The drug is freely registered and used in several countries including Austria, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Italy and Greece, while it is totally banned in countries like the United Kingdom, Denmark, Zimbabwe, Russia, Netherlands and Vietnam.