Former Niger Delta minister, 2 accountants questioned over missing N1.5bn cash

A total of N1.5 billion has been withdrawn from the account of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, but the withdrawal hasn't been accounted for.
Hence the office of the Head of Service of the Federation and security agencies are currently trying to find where the funds were have been kept, retrieve them and bring justice to the culprits behind the missing money.
2 senior accountants in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs have already been queried and suspended from office pending the conclusion of investigation into their roles in the alleged theft of the funds.

They had argued that they withdrew the money on the instruction of superior authorities and that as civil servants they could not disobey their ‘superiors’ who asked them to make the said amount available for official use.

The amount in question was reportedly taken in two withdrawals on the instructions of senior political aide, claiming to be working on the directives of a top presidency top shot.

The first sum of N605 million withdrawn by a minister from the account of the ministry went missing after being withdrawn from the CBN and is the subject of investigation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, while another withdrawal of over N800 million attracted the attention of the HoS which queried the two accountants and finally suspended them.

There were indications that the suspended accountants had named those who were behind the cash withdrawals and had tried to exonerate themselves from the deal.

It was learned that the Federal Government is bent on inviting a former minister in the ministery to appear before its anti-corruption bodies to explain his role in the missing cash. Already, one of the former ministers and close confidant of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Elder Godsday Orubebe, has been questioned by the ICPC and freed by the commission.

The former minister claimed that he had already resigned before the cash went missing and that he never asked anyone to withdraw such amount for him, knowing that it was against service regulations. Already, the Presidency has been given a brief on the finances of the ministry and the roles played by some senior political actors in the dying days of the last administration.

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Leopard that injured five Indian villagers beaten to death and burnt (Graphic content)

A leopard that injured five villagers in a savage attack in India has been beaten to death with sticks and burned.
 
Forest authorities said that the shocking incident took place in the Kalgaon area, in the Sivasagar district of the northeastern Assam state, as the villagers were collecting firewood.
 
The 7-year-old, fully-grown leopard is reported to have suddenly charged the group in a desperate attack.
The villagers said that to ‘save their lives’, they attacked the savage big cat with sticks and beat it to death.

5 of the group were injured in the attack. 
 

Indian leopards are under threat of extinction due to poaching for their skin. Villagers also regularly kill the cats when they stray near settlements.

A female leopard was beaten to death just weeks ago in a village in West Bengal’s Purulia district.
Villagers were reported to have spotted the animal near the village and attempted to chase it.
But in its fear, the animal ran into the village instead of away from it, and entered a cowshed.

It was quickly cornered by hundreds of villagers and attacked with sticks and axes, and killed.
The leopard’s tail was severed during the attack, and its paws chopped off, after which its body was suspended from a tree.

Leopard populations are often found quite close to settlements and even in semi-developed areas in India as their forest habitat disappears.
 
Under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act (IWPA), hunting or attacking a leopard is illegal as it is an endangered species. The offence carries a sentence of up to three years of imprisonment or a fine of 10,000 rupees (£106).
 
The forest department has also been trying to set up traps so the leopards can be stopped from entering human settlements. 

Adams Oshiomhole & wife visit Prof Wole Soyinka & wife (photos)

Edo state governor Adams Oshiomhole and his lovely new wife Iara visited Prof. Wole Soyinka and his wife, Folake, at their home in Abeokuta yesterday Sunday August 2nd.

Adaeze Yobo shares some fun family photos

Check out Genevieve Nnaji's look to 'Dry' movie premiere last night

The actress looked lovely in that outfit to Stephanie Linus' movie premiere last night. She's pictured right with actress Shola Shobowale..

US flies military planes to Kenya ahead of Obama's visit (photos)

Ahead of President Barack Obama's official visit to Kenya next week, military planes have been flown in. The Boeing V-22 Osprey aircraft (which can fly at a maximum speed of 500km or 78 percent faster than the average large helicopter and is used to transport the SEAL Teams) will be on standby to protect the President and his family in case of an emergency during his visit. Here's one of the military plane at the Jomo Kentatta International airport

WHY I SING MORE LOVE SONGS

Halle Emordu is a singer, dancer and performer. In this interview, the Edo State born talented artiste talks about her life and  journey into music.
How long have you been doing music?
I would say that I started doing music professionally in 2007 not as a singer, but as a dancer. I went for a dancing competition where I represented Nigeria in South Africa in 2007. I also contested in Dance Hip Hop International competition in 2008 and I won to represent Nigeria in Las Vegas. When I came back, I partook in the first edition of Maltina Dance hall. After that, I decided to do music to match my dancing career. Before then, I was singing in church but I didn’t really take it serious, because  my sisters were doing that. When I came back from those competitions, I decided to combine my dancing skills with singing because I didn’t see any female artiste doing it. So I officially started singing in 2009. I had the first video called Hallelicious. Then my other single was Dirty shower.
I have a video for Dirtycious which went viral and people started saying that the video is controversial. After that, I went into events. I did Calabar carnival like three to four times and I started doing other shows. In 2013, I dropped my other video Pricky Loving and Nanana. I have not done anything after that. I have been working undercover, watching the industry. I have done stuffs with other artistes but not as a video vixen. I’ve been working till tragedy struck and we lost our boss in the record label. He wasn’t really the owner of the label, the label is like a group of people coming together to form a record label, but he was the face of the label. So, when he passed away last year, we had a lot of challenges. Everyone was traumatised because it was unexpected.
Why did you say Dirty Shower, was a controversial video?
It wasn’t but people said it was because they saw a girl in the shower. I was the person in the shower and it was directed by Seasan. There were many brains behind that video and we sat down and thought about it. It was just like a Caribbean video and that was what we wanted it to look like. The song itself, Dirty shower, means many things. When I say I’m too dirty I need someone to wash me up, it means I am hungry, come and take me out.
You said you started with dancing and now music, have you given up on dancing?

Halle Emordu
No, I do both – it is a 50-50 thing. I still teach dance, I have private classes where I do that and it does not clash with my music time. I have time for my studio and I also have time for dance. I still dance, it is just that I don’t push dancing out to let people know that I am a dancer. People who know what I do, still call me when they need my services. They still ask me to choreograph in their videos. I do not dance in the videos, I teach dancers what to do in the videos and they do it.
Tell us about your song with Patoranking?
Yes, I did a song with Patoranking, titled, Another Day, and it has been released. It is a love song between a guy and a girl. When we were in the studio working on the song, many things came to our minds. We asked ourselves, what are we going to talk about? Do we talk about club or the normal boy/girl thing? Patoranking said we should just do anything we feel like doing. He was just looking at me and was making fun of me. Everything about that song happened that night, we started recording that song around 1 a.m. and we finished around 3 a.m. After that we listened to the song and liked it and that was it.
Did you have working with Patoranking in mind before that time?
Yes, I did, but we didn’t have any music in mind. We just came together that day and worked on that song. We were like eight people in the studio, we started with free-styling and then we did the song. I never had any music in mind when we entered the studio.
What inspires your kind of music?
Everything around me – my environment, my friends and neighbours. Sometimes, ideas come to my mind too. Like in my single