Welcome to Geophilworld's blog: 06/01/15

Monday 1 June 2015

Emmanuel Adebayor's brother hits back in new interview, says he never stole any phone

Remember Rotimi Adebayor, the brother of footballer Emmanuel Adebayor, who was accused in a Facebook post of stealing 21 phones? He narrates his own side of the story in an exclusive interview with Sun News. Excerpts from the interview below...

Now your brother has a problem with you, which you can remember?
Ah! the Facebook rants. Everyone knows what happened because he decided to make a mountain out of a molehill. ‘Oro ase ni gbogbo e’ (They are words spoken out of context)

Are the allegations levelled against you untrue?
I have my own story as well but ‘Omo ti owo e o ti te eeku ida ko gbodo bere iku ti o pa baba re’ (A child who is yet to take control of the sword should not seek reasons for his father’s death)

But you have apologized to him; did he accept your plea?
No response from him yet. I apologised because he is my elder brother and we have resolved so settle issues amicably. My elder sister advised us to bury the hatchet.

You met him at a training pitch yesterday (Thursday, May 21)…
Yes, we met and he said, ‘Omo Iya ba wo ni’ (My brother how are you). However, I didn’t play with them because I wasn’t in the mood.

And you didn’t wait for him after the training.
No, I was there till he left but he didn’t greet me as he drove off.
He is a superstar indeed?
I agree, yes he is

And you annoyed him so much that he made such revelations about you?
Hmh! I can’t explain what happened

But you know what happened to the missing 21 phones including play station games from 27 players?
(Smiles) No, 26 players excluding me. ‘Mi o kin se ole’ (I am not a thief)

Is it because you cannot steal your own phone?
‘Mi o ji mobile phone, Mo ri he ni’ (I didn’t steal any mobile phone. I fortuitously found them and picked)
How did it happen and when?
It was at the FC Metz football Academy in France and I was 14 years old then. My mates were already at the training pitch on that day, so I was running to meet up with them when I found the mobile phone on the aisle within the training complex.

So you picked it and didn’t declare that you found a mobile phone, which belongs to your teammate.
That was the mistake I made anand I regretted it thereafter. Actually I kept it on the table in my room and my roommate wanted to know who owns the phone because he didn’t have any then. I told him how I found it, and then he demanded to make use of it.

What’s his name?
Kelvin. He is an American and the owner of the phone is from Asia but from an ‘Arab country’ The ‘Arab’ boy saw the phone with Kelvin and immediately reported the case to the management of the academy.
They informed my brother about it. He called me to hear my side of the story but I was later informed to pack my things out of the academy.

What about the remaining mobile phones you were accused of stealing at the academy?
‘Mo ni mio ja ole se’ (I didn’t steal). I have just explained what happened.

Your brother has released three posts on Facebook to paint a bad picture of the family?
It’s really disheartening that such a thing is happening to us right now. My wife was mocked at the market after the first post Seyi (Emmanuel Adebayor) published on Facebook. She called me to inform me about what people are saying. Immediately I logged in and read the post. I felt very sad.

What did you do thereafter?
I called him and asked him why he had to do that but he got angry with me. We had a heated argument on phone, which led to unprintable words being used freely. As a matter of fact, we quarrelled over the phone for almost two hours.

You hurled insults on your elder brother who made you and the Adebayor family famous?
Yes I did that because I felt very sad and embarrassed. Then he made a decision to inflict more insinuations against me.

How?
He called my phone before he released the second post on Facebook. He asked me to go and read the second posts, which he wanted to release in 30 minutes.

And…
He did in exactly thirty minutes and before I could log into my F acebook account, my friends called me to quickly go and read the second part of my ‘film’.

What film?
The post he released, the second rant against the family. It’s sad because our mother, who poured her blood on our heads, received the greatest insult of her life. A woman who suffered so that we can live a good life is now receiving such a disgraceful accusation.

You mean the witchcraft allegation?
Yes and all those nonsense things he wrote against me and our elder sister in Ghana. Well, we have decided to leave it all in God’s hand. Our mother is a not a witch neither does she practice witchcraft. How can your mother wish you bad luck? I play football as well and I know that players do suffer loss of form. He shouldn’t put the blame on anyone.

What happened to Seyi’s home in Ghana?
He has over 50 houses in Lome and currently lives in Didjole. He also has some others in Ghana. He has taken custody of everything.

Your mum is back at where she sells polythene bags, padlocks and other things at the border.
It’s really sad to see her return to a business she left a long time ago. No one would be happy to see her mum in this sort of situation. Well, I leave it all in God’s hand. He will judge every situation. ‘Ayanmo ni gbogbo nkan’ (Destiny will always prevail).

Chimamanda writes about her father's kidnapping in the New York Times

Famous writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote on her father's kidnapping "If you don’t give us what we want,you will never see his dead body," on New York Times.

Read below...

My father was kidnapped in Nigeria on a Saturday morning in early May. My brother called to tell me, and suddenly there was not enough breathable air in the world. My father is 83 years old. A small, calm, contented man, with a quietly mischievous humor and a luminous faith in God, his beautiful dark skin unlined, his hair in sparse silvery tufts, his life shaped by that stoic, dignified responsibility of being an Igbo first son.

He got his doctoral degree at Berkeley in the 1960s, on a scholarship from the United States Agency for International Development; became Nigeria’s first professor of statistics; raised six children and many relatives; and taught at the University of Nigeria for 50 years. Now he makes fun of himself, at how slowly he climbs the stairs, how he forgets his cellphone. He talks often of his childhood, endearing and rambling stories, his words tender with wisdom.

Sometimes I record his Igbo proverbs, his turns of phrase. A disciplined diabetic, he takes daily walks and is to be found, after each meal, meticulously recording his carbohydrate grams in a notebook. He spends hours bent over Sudoku. He swallows a handful of pills everyday. His is a generation at dusk.

On the morning he was kidnapped, he had a bag of okpa, apples and bottled water that my mother had packed for him. He was in the back seat of his car, his driver at the wheel, on a lonely stretch between Nsukka, the university town where he lives, and Abba, our ancestral hometown. He was going to attend a traditional meeting of men from his age group.

A two-hour drive. My mother was planning their late lunch upon his return: pounded yam and a fresh soup. They always called each other when either traveled alone. This time, he didn’t call. She called him and his phone was switched off. They never switched off their phones. Hour after hour, she called and it remained off. Later, her phone rang, and although it was my father’s number calling, a stranger said, “We have your husband.”

Kidnappings are not uncommon in southeastern Nigeria and, unlike similar incidents in the Niger Delta, where foreigners are targeted, here it is wealthy or prominent local residents. Still, the number of abductions has declined in the past few years, which perhaps is why my reaction, in the aftermath of my shock, was surprise.

My close-knit family banded together more tightly and held vigil by our phones. The kidnappers said they would call back, but they did not. We waited. The desire to urge time forward numbed and ate my soul. My mother took her phone with her everywhere, and she heard it ringing when it wasn’t. The waiting was unbearable. I imagined my father in a diabetic coma. I imagined his octogenarian heart collapsing.

“How can they do this violence to a man who would not kill an ant?” my mother lamented. My sister said, “Daddy will be fine because he is a righteous man.” Ordinarily, I would never use “righteous” in a non-pejorative way. But something shifted in my perception of language. The veneer of irony fell away. It felt true. Later, I repeated it to myself. My father would be fine because he was a “righteous man.”

I understood then the hush that surrounds kidnappings in Nigeria, why families often said little even after it was over. We felt paranoid. We did not know if going public would jeopardize my father’s life, if the neighbors were complicit, if another member of the family might be kidnapped as well.

“Is my husband alive?” my mother asked, when the kidnappers finally called back, and her voice broke. “Shut up!” the male voice said. My mother called him “my son.” Sometimes, she said “sir.” Anything not to antagonize him while she begged and pleaded, about my father being ill, about the ransom being too high. How do you bargain for the life of your husband? How do you speak of your life partner in the deadened tone of a business transaction?

“If you don’t give us what we want, you will never see his dead body,” the voice said.

My paternal grandfather died in a refugee camp during the Nigeria-Biafra war and his anonymous death, his unknown grave, has haunted my father’s life. Those words — “You will never see his dead body” — shook us all.

Kidnapping’s ugly psychological melodrama works because it trades on the most precious of human emotions: love. They put my father on the phone, and his voice was a low shadow of itself. “Give them what they want,” he said. “I will not survive if I stay here longer.” My stoic father. It had been three days but it felt like weeks.

Friends called to ask for bank-account details so they could donate toward the ransom. It felt surreal. Did it ever feel real to anybody in such a situation, I wondered? The scramble to raise the money in one day. The menacingly heavy bag of cash. My brother dropping it off, through a circuitous route, in a wooded area.

Late that night, my father was taken to a clearing and set free.

While his blood sugar and pressure were checked, my father kept reassuring us that he was fine, thanking us over and over for doing all we could. This is what he knows how to be — the protector, the father — and he slipped into his role almost as a defense. But there were cracks in his spirit. A drag in his gait. A bruise on his back.

“They asked me to climb into the boot of their car,” he said. “I was going to do so, but one of them picked me up and threw me inside. Threw. The boot was full of things and I hit my head on something. They drove fast. The road was very bumpy.”

I imagined this grace-filled man crumpled inside the rear of a rusty car. My rage overwhelmed my relief — that he suffered such an indignity to his body and mind.

And yet he engaged them in conversation. “I tried to reach their human side,” he said. “I told them I was worried about my wife.”

The next day, my parents were on a flight to the United States, away from the tainted blur that Nigeria had become.

With my father’s release, we all cried, as though it was over. But one thing had ended and another begun. I constantly straddled panic; I was sleepless, unfocused, jumpy, fearful that something else had gone wrong. And there was my own sad guilt: He was targeted because of me. “Ask your daughter the writer to bring the money,” the kidnappers told him, because to appear in newspapers in Nigeria, to be known, is to be assumed wealthy. The image of my father shut away in the rough darkness of a car boot haunted me. Who had done this? I needed to know.

But ours was a dance of disappointment with the authorities. We had reported the kidnapping immediately, and the first shock soon followed: State security officials asked us to pay for anti-kidnap tracking equipment, a large amount, enough to rent a two-bedroom flat in Lagos for a year. This, despite my being privileged enough to get personal reassurances from officials at the highest levels.

How, I wondered, did other families in similar situations cope? Federal authorities told us they needed authorization from the capital, Abuja, which was our responsibility to get. We made endless phone calls, helpless and frustrated. It was as though with my father’s ransomed release, the crime itself had disappeared. To encounter that underbelly, to discover the hollowness beneath government proclamations of security, was jarring.

Now my father smiles and jokes, even of the kidnapping. But he jerks awake from his naps at the sound of a blender or a lawn mower, his eyes darting about. He recounts, in the middle of a meal, apropos of nothing, a detail about the mosquito-filled room where he was kept or the rough feel of the blindfold around his eyes. My greatest sadness is that he will never forget.

Meet DJ Jimmy Jatt's beautiful daughter, Oyindamola

Oyindamola is renowned DJ Jimmy Jatt's first child and she's stunning. She's schooling abroad. Never knew he has a big girl like this.

See Photos from Osi Umenyiora and Leila Lopes church wedding

Photos from Osi and Leila's wedding ceremony and Church service with the President of Angola and the first lady, Nigerian ambassador to Angola and other ambassadors, Tola Awosika, NFL player Adewale Ogunleye, the groom's parents and brothers, and many others were there.

Buhari's Inauguration & the restoration of electricity supply: Is this the APC change or civil servants eye-service? - PDP Watchdog

Press statement from PDP Media Watchdog. Read below..

The PDP Media Watchdog queried the events in the last few days prior to the inauguration on Friday May 29th 2015 of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osibanjo. A situation were there was a total power outage and the whole country was shutdown for more than a week and the sudden restoration of electricity supply on the night of Democracy Day during the swearing of the APC's administration.

"Nigerians will recall the total blackout in the country in the last few weeks owing to shortage in power supply as a result of the vandalization of gas pipeline that powers the turbines and the gof major dam facilities in various part of Nigeria. However, after the prolonged wait by our people, suddenly, there was restoration of energy immediately President Buhari was inaugurated. Is this part of the APC's Change? Or an action taken by Civil Servants to impress the new government of APC of their total loyalty?"

The group reminded Nigerians of their earlier warning of the choice of APC to govern the country due to all the false propaganda by the Party before the elections and the die hard attitude of the All Progressive Congress not to see anything good in the administration of the PDP under President Goodluck Jonathan saying, "This same APC and their propaganda abused and condemned the Agricultural Policy of President Jonathan but chooses to make Goodluck's Agric Minister as the President of African Development Bank (ADB). We cannot also forget in a hurry of the noise by the APC and how they mobilized Nigerians against President Goodluck Jonathan on the total removal of fuel subsidy but now turned around 360 degree to campaign for the removal of the subsidy, we hope Nigerians have not entered into what is popularly called in our local parlance 'one chance'" the group said

The statement reads in parts, "While the PDP's administration since 1999 toiled hard to revamped Nigeria's economy and built several infrastructure for the people of this country, the opposition parties that has today metamorphosed into the present All Progressive Congress (APC) have been sabotaging the nation at every level in order to score cheap political capital.

President Muhammadu Buhari and his party the All Progressive Congress, APC have deceived Nigerians to vote for change but instead rides on the back of PDP's policies and programs which remains the only solution to solve Nigeria's challenges.

A party that will decide to sabotage, blackmail, destroy the economy and make her people suffer to score political points should not be encouraged and Nigerians should prepare to challenge the APC on all their promises and programs during the campaigns and no amount of excuse will stop the people from holding them to deliver on these promises"

Tunde Lawal

For: PDP Media Watchdog

Bomb blast in Maiduguri, four confirmed dead

Barely 24 hours after a bomb went off at a mosque killing over 20 people, another bomb has gone off in Borno state. This time it is at Moru-Moru market at Gamboru in Maiduguri Borno state. Four persons have been confirmed dead. These recent bomb attacks came 48 hours after President Buhari said the Command and Control center of the Nigerian Army will be relocated to Maiduguri until Bomb Haram is defeated.

Man narrates how he escaped from suspected ritualists in Lagos

A 38 year old Dennis Joseph narrates how he was divinely saved from suspected ritualists in Lagos recently. Read his story which he shared with National Mirror below ...

"My name is Denis Joseph. I am 38 years old. I am from Imo state, Owerri North Local Government Area. I was born in Port Harcourt. I graduated from Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu. Presently I am into the distribution of Nestle products in Lagos and other states of the Federation.

Recently a customer called me from Ikorodu that he needed some products urgently and that I should come and see him for proper negotiation before the second day. At about 2pm the following day, I boarded a Siena minivan from Ojota .We were about five in the vehicle including the driver of the vehicle I asked them how much was the fares and they told me it was #200.

I said it was okay since the vehicle would be faster, I said no problem. I was in a hurry to catch up with my appointment. As we were going ,my spirit was very cold. I now flashed back to what happened at Ojota, shortly before we took off. I discovered then that some people in an attempt to enter the vehicle held back. they did not enter the car. It was unusual for my spirit to be so cold like that if there was no eventuality or imminent danger.

As we moved further since my spirit was not willing and becoming uncomfortable in the car, I told the driver,’ Oga , please stop me here, I told them felt like continuing with the journey, let me pay you your correct fare. The driver responded that he could not stop at the place they were because it was dangerous since it was an expressway more so because of the law enforcement agents. I said please stop me let me get down here, the journey meant nothing to me again but he refused.

He accelerated the speed. I told him it is not dangerous for him to stop and that I could see vehicles stopping and people moving about freely and that there was no danger in it. Before I knew what was happening, he increased the speed. In the process it became dawned on me that the occupants were not normal people. So I started struggling with them to go out. They started saying their incantation.

Their invocation was so much that I knew it was only God that could save me at that point even though I believed that as a Christian, I would not die in the hands of those people. My escape was not possible because I was sandwiched by two men on my sides, with another at the back. I started shouting in the vehicle; leave me I want to go out. But my shout was inaudible since the windows were closed. Because of the way we sat there was no way I could jump out easily.

Then I hit on the car, I hit on the other side, all my hands got bruises in an attempt to escape danger and death. Blood started coming out of my hands. I found out that they don’t want to stop as I was shouting and screaming. One of them said to me that why are you proving too stubborn, don’t you see other passengers in calm position. I did not even mind him. All these things happened shortly after Owode, Mile 12 area of the state.

As I was doing that, one of them told the driver that we better hurry up o, this guy is proving too stubborn. They said this guy is not the type of person we need o, we better hurry up. It was when they started saying this that I discovered that they were not ordinary people and out to harm me. Fortunately for me and bad for them and through divine intervention and on coming trailer from the other side had blocked the road and the car could not penetrate the small opening. The car could not bypass the big trailer so it had to stop. I continued shouting. That was how they stopped abruptly and I came out of the car.

Then some Policemen and people came round to inquire about what was happening. I narrated everything to them and they arrested the remaining occupants. They started asking them why are you doing this? The Police searched the vehicle and found dangerous weapons, charms, knives and all those fetish things. Me I started thanking God for delivering me and rescuing me from their hands left the place. I did not follow those apprehended to the Police.

For the fact that I came out of the vehicle safely was okay for me. God just saved me miraculously from those people. So I thank Him. Because if not God I don’t know if I could have survived it. Those people are ritualists because they did not even asked me for money. They were only after my life. My advice to people going on a journey is for them to pray before they go out. So as to prevent unexpected mishaps. They also have to be careful and look well before boarding any vehicle.

The Police too need to be in strategic places so that they would know who is who during the day, afternoon and at night. Even when people are shouting or struggling inside the car or bus, they will be able to respond easily and follow up the vehicle. That was what helped me and people started to come round to help me."he said.

Model Liya Kebede and millionaire husband separate

Ethiopian-born super model Liya Kebede, 37, has separated from her husband of 15years, millionaire businessman, Kassy Kebede. According to a Page Six report;

Liya Kebede, who’s having a major moment as the first black model to grace the cover of Paris Vogue in five years, has quietly separated from her hedge-under husband Kassy Kebede. Liya and Kassy wed Kebede in 2000. He runs Panton Capital Group and previously helped create Deutsche Bank’s global-markets division.

The couple has two kids but a source close to the model tells us they’ve been separated “for two years — it’s never been written about.”

Kayode Ogundamisi calls on Buhari & Osinbajo to publicize their asset declaration documents

Two days ago,we all learnt through a statement from the Buhari Media team that President Buhari and VP Osinbajo have declared their assets to the Code of Conduct Bureau as stipulated by the Nigerian constitution.

Political activist, Kayode Ogundamisi who is a staunch supporter of Mr President, has called for their asset declaration documents to be made public. What is your take on this?

Ijaw youth want amnesty programme extended

The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, has expressed mixed feelings and concerns over the inaugural address of President Muhammadu Buhari in relation to the Niger Delta region. According to a statement issued by Eric Omare, the spokesman of IYC, and made available to journalists in Yenagoa on Sunday, there is need to review the terminal date of the Amnesty Programme to accommodate those who are yet to complete the scheme.

"President Muhammadu Buhari in his speech said that the amnesty programme for ex-Niger Delta agitators would end by December 2015. The IYC appreciates the fact that the amnesty programme cannot continue forever and therefore must have a terminal date. However, the questions on the lips of beneficiaries and stakeholders in the Niger Delta region are: what would happen to those that have not been trained at as December 2015. And what about those still undergoing training or have not completed their training?”

Mr. Omare said that the termination of the programme would throw up challenges for beneficiaries of the programme who were still undergoing training and were at different level of training. The IYC spokesman said the group expected the Federal Government to allay fears of beneficiaries who were in different parts of the world and were worried that their trainings might be affected if the programme was terminated in December 2015. He added that the case of substantial number of ex-agitators who had not been trained was even more worrisome.

He, therefore, appealed to the Federal Government to address challenges before the programme was terminated. On streamlining projects and programmes in the Niger Delta region to make them more effective, IYC said it would support any step of the Federal Government to strengthen institutions responsible for the development of the Niger Delta region.

The group applauded the planned streamlining of policies to rapidly develop the region. “We, however, wish to advice that any effort toward restructuring developmental institutions and projects should have the input of the people of the region at the heart of the process. “The people of the Niger Delta must be the ones to decide the shape of developmental institutions in the region.’’

The IYC said it had expected President Buhari to address issues such as cleaning up of the Niger Delta environment, implementation of the UNEP report on Ogoni. He added that also left out of the inaugural address was the menace of oil theft which had greatly contributed to environmental degradation in the Niger Delta region, which Mr. Buhari promised to tackle during the presidential campaigns.

(NAN)

President Buhari rocked his Agbada with socks

Mr President pictured on inauguration day wearing his Agbada with a pair of brown socks. LWKMD!

RCCG Pastor, wife and eight others die in auto crash

A zonal Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Dominic Folorunso Akinseye, his wife, Beatrice and eight others all lost their lives in an auto crash that occurred along the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway while they were heading to their home in Ondo after attending the church's monthly vigil service at the Redemption camp on May 1st.

According to Vanguard, Pastor Akinseye, his wife and one of the victims, Pastor Festus Akinsoyinu Fadakinte, were all staff of the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo.

All victims of the accident were on their way back to Ondo state to attend a wedding when the Toyota bus belonging to the NASU Chapter of the college which they were traveling in rammed into a stationed trailer at Kajola village near Ore, killing all of them on the spot. It took a combined effort of some members of the church who were coming back to Ondo state as well as passersby to remove their mangled bodies from the scene of the incident.

Many believed that poor visibility might have been the cause of the accident. The couple who are both officials of the Non- Academic Staff Union, NASU, of the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo have since been buried. May their souls rest in peace

Boko Haram members destroy government properties in Yobe

Where are we heading for as a nation?

Gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram members yesterday night at about 7pm stormed Ngalda town in Fika Local Government Area of Yobe state destroying all government property in sight. The men who arrived in a convoy of three Hilux buses, did not kill anyone and were chanting Allahu Akbar as they attacked

"Allahu Akbar (God is Great), we are here to destroy all public buildings, houses and shops of those who believes in democracy, we will continue to fight whosoever identified himself/herself with Nigerian Government which we consider as anti-Islam, we will not relent or surrender, until we impose strict Sharia Law for people to adhere to” a source said