The Niger State Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service said on
Wednesday that 53 illegal immigrants have been repatriated to Niger
Republic. Mrs Tamuno Oyedeji, Comptroller of Immigration Service in the
state disclosed this in an interview in Minna.
Adededji said the state government provided vehicles for the
transportation of the illegal immigrants to the border post at Jibia in
Katsina state. “We successfully handed them over to the Niger Republic
Immigration officers at the border post,’’ she said. Adedeji said that
the immigrants were repatriated because their presents constitute
security threats in the state.
She said that most of the illegal immigrants possess expired
documents, while others have no legal documents to back their legitimate
stay in the country. The comptroller said that the command has taken
proactive security measures to ensure only immigrants with proper
documents are allowed into the country through Babana border with Benin
Republic.
The chefs who cook for the world’s leaders usually keep a low
profile, leaving the limelight to their bosses. But once a year, it is
their turn to be wined and dined and treated as honoured guests in a
foreign country.
Billed as the world’s most exclusive gastronomic society, the Club des
Chefs des Chefs brings together the men and women who cook for heads of
state to exchange ideas and — presumably — insider information on their
bosses’ tastes.
They have met annually since the club was first established in Paris in
1977 and this year for the first time they are doing so in India, hosted
by the president’s personal chef, Montu Saini.
“The presidents all met each other. I thought it was a good idea to make
a sort of G20 of the chefs,” the club’s founder Gilles Bragard told
journalists in Delhi.
“If politics divides men, a good table will unite them.”
Naturally, the tradition involves trying out local delicacies. But Saini
has left little to chance when it comes to the Indian capital’s most
notorious complaint.
Rather than subjecting the chefs to Delhi street food, he has had the
kitchen of their five-star hotel recreate golgappas and aloo tikkis —
popular fried snacks made of wheat flour and potato and served with
sweet and spicy chutneys.
“I can’t take them to the street because they are foreigners. Their tummies are too sensitive,” said Saini.
“So I am creating a replica in the hotels.”
India excels in the extravagant welcome, and the visiting chefs are treated like the royalty many of them work for.
Arriving in their immaculate chef’s whites at Old Delhi’s chaotic spice
market, even more crowded than usual ahead of the Diwali festival, they
were showered with pink rose petals and garlanded with jasmine.
“This is fantastic,” said Bernard Vaussion, who cooked for six French
presidents before he retired, as he pushed his way through the market’s
packed alleyways.
“I mean it’s dirty and noisy, but who cares. It’s such an experience.”
India takes its toll though. By day three, one of the visiting chefs has
fallen ill, while another is feeling the effects of Indian cuisine.
“After four days of eating spicy (food), you feel it,” said Fabrizio
Boca, chef to the Italian president. “I think it’s only because you have
to get used to it.”
Like most of the visiting chefs — 16 men and one woman, America’s
Cristeta Comerford — Boca is eager to learn more about India’s vast
range of spices.
Comerford, a Filipino-American, said she saw parallels with the cuisine of the Philippines.
“It’s not a recipe driven food, it’s more of a philosophy,” she told AFP.
“I would use the analogy of the Philippines, because each household has their own way of doing a certain dish.”
For the chefs, the annual gatherings are a chance to exchange ideas and get to know each other.
They also have a hotline known as the “blue telephone” that allows them
to consult each other on their bosses’ preferences before a state visit.
None of the chefs gave away much about their bosses’ tastes, although
all agreed on the growing importance of seasonality in food, and of
making state dinners a lighter, healthier affair.
“Looking for more sustainable more local produce has become more
prominent,” said Mark Flanagan, chef to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.
Given the move towards lighter dishes, it was perhaps doubtful whether
the first recipe they tried on arriving in Delhi — the heart-stoppingly
calorific Indian sweets known as jalebis, made of deep-fried batter
soaked in syrup — would be recreated at home.
But Christian Garcia, the club’s current president and personal chef to
Prince Albert of Monaco, said he might be tempted to ask for the recipe.
Princess Charlene, he said, was a big fan of Indian cuisine.
“I thought I knew how to cook Indian food a bit, but now I realise I was completely wrong,” he said.
“Apart from curry and a few spices, I didn’t know how to cook any of the
dishes that I’ve been able to discover during our stay.”
A Nigerian lady , Victoria, who was told she was going to Italy to
study and work afterwards tells her story of how was forced into
prostitution and how she sufferered in the hands of her traffickers
”They promised me an education. They promised me if I came with them I
could go to school and get a good job” 18-year-old Victoria tells ITV
her story from a small cafe house in Turin, a shelter for rescued
Nigerian prostitutes.
The promise was the slick patter of a modern slave master, who saw
Victoria in her native Lagos back in Nigeria, and realised she was rich
pickings. Her trafficker, whom she trusted, said he could get her to
Italy.
With little to live for in Nigeria, Victoria found the money to pay and
with her head full of teenage dreams of a better life, she went for it.
She is one of thousands of Nigerian women who take the gamble every year
– the numbers have shot up in the past two years as the traffickers
hide their victims in the endless flow of migrants heading to Europe.
Victoria’s 2,500 mile journey became an epic of exploitation and
abuse. By the time they’d got her to Libya, Victoria had been beaten and
forced into prostitution: making money for her trafficker to pay off
her now endless debt to him. Her eyes widen as she tells ITV presenter
she had no choice. Her dismay is heartbreaking.
“I had no choice, I had no choice! I had to pay him… I was like a prisoner”, she said.
But thankfully the shelter we’re chatting in is a place of safety.
Just a few weeks ago she arrived in Italy by boat via the now well worn
route of thousands of Nigerian women. Before the traffickers awaiting
her in Italy could pluck her from the crowd, she was spotted by a
charity run by Princess Inyang Okokon, who was herself trafficked from
Italy to Nigeria, via London, nearly 20 years ago.
Her husband Alberto is happy to admit he was once one of her paying clients.
But when he met Princess, his eyes were opened to the phenomenon of
modern slavery: she was trapped in a life of prostitution in Italy, her
documents kept by her female trafficker – and with massive debts to pay.
He helped her get out. For Princess, Victoria’s story is her story.
She and Alberto now run shelters for women just like her, but are
feeling overwhelmed by the sheer numbers they are dealing with. The
couple took the reporters onto the streets of Turin late at night: in
one suburb there is a sex worker on almost every corner – nearly all of
them we are told, will have been trafficked from Nigeria.
Wearing barely any clothes, they stoke fires they’ve made in small
oil drums to keep warm whilst they wait for the next car to pull up (see
video in the link) Rescuing them is dangerous work: the traffickers
watch their every move.
ITV spoke to many of the women Princess and Alberto care for. All of
them had tales of rape, beatings, enforced servitude. Two of them had
babies with them – thrown onto the boats from Libya to Italy because
their trade value went down when they got pregnant in Libya. Every
single one of them had been bought, sold, used, and resold. They were
treated as goods in transit.
The world’s most famous sportsman Cristiano Ronaldo, set tongues
wagging when he uploaded a photo of him wearing facial mask during a spa
session last week. Now a popular Portuguese gossip magazine have
reported that the footballer allegedly spends thousands of Euros on
cosmetic therapy and botox procedures and prefers spending time on his
looks than his football.
The magazine who used C.Ronaldo on their front page alleged that the
footballer is addicted to botox, but interestingly, used an old photo of
Cristiano Ronaldo to buttress their claims.
An unidentified woman has filed in a lawsuit accusing late pop king
Micheal Jackson for sexually assaulting her when she was just 12.
According to the TMZ report, the woman who filed in the lawsuit as a
‘Jane Doe’ said the singer started abusing her in 1986 when she and her
mother had stopped by his Hayvenhurst home as sightseers. She says
Michael invited them into the house to see his candy area. She claims
Michael fondled her genitals and gave her movie kisses tongue kissing
her mouth and body. She also alleges there was vaginal penetration.
In the document provided which includes copies of cheques and love
letters, the woman claimed that she received more than $900,000 in three
years to stay mute, with the first payment of $2,500, followed by a
bumper pay of $600k in 1993.
Meanwhile, a statement from Micheal Jackson’s attorneys has debunked the accusation, saying:
‘This is yet another attempt to hit the lottery by suing the Estate of
Michael Jackson more than seven years after Michael’s death and close to
30 years after these incidents supposedly occurred. We believe this
claim was created from whole cloth and is without any merit. It’s also
no coincidence that this woman is represented by the same attorneys
involved in two other frivolous claims against the Estate.’
See copies of the alleged ‘Cheques and love letters’ below…
Super Eagles defender and FK Haugesund captain William Troost-Ekong
has been nominated for the 2016 Defender of the Year award in the
Norwegian Tippeliga league.
His club FK Haugesund’s confirmed his nomination on their official website on Wednesday.
“FK Haugesund William Troost-Ekong is nominated for the ‘Year
defender’,” . The series is nearing its end and the Norwegian Football
Association (NFF), Norwegian Toppfotball (NTF) and Adult Women (SKF)
invite people to vote on which players, coaches and referees who have
been the best in their field this year;” the club announced
Congrats to him!
Eleven persons, including Nigerians were involved in one of the
biggest sham marriage to be uncovered in West Midlands, UK. They were on
October 21, 2016, jailed for a total of 52 and a half years.
A Nigerian pastor and two other men are regarded as the driving
forces behind the racket that involved at least 45 fake relationships
received the longest sentences. 41-year-old Donald Nwachuckwu, senior
pastor at the Kingdom of Godfire Church in Bilston, was jailed for eight
years .
He used his position to identify West Africans in the country
illegally who were prepared pay up to £6,500 for permission to stay on
the bogus grounds of being married to, or in a long term relationship
with, a person from the European Union living and working in this
country.
An
astonishing £153,000 worth of credits passed through bank accounts run
by the pastor under a false name before he was arrested at his home in
Titford Road, Oldbury.
Nwachukwu and others had joined forces with a Nigerian law student to
cash in a valuable asset -a person’s right to stay in the UK and claim
benefits. The sham marriage gang was busted in 2013, following a tip of
about a dodgy wedding between a 26-year-old Nigerian Edward James and
Czech Julie Ondova, 20, who already had a boyfriend and two children but
had accepted £800 to play the role of bride at Stoke Register Office
with a further £1,000 due on completion of the nuptials. The both
pleaded guilty at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court to facilitating a breach of
immigration law. He was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment and
deported on July 29, 2014. She was jailed for 16 months and kicked out
of the country on completion of her sentence.
Clemence Marijeni, aged 43, from Weston Road, Bilston was the master
forger who created the fake documents to support the spurious
applications for European Economic Area (EEA) resident’s cards that
allowed the holder to stay in the UK and claim benefits. He was jailed
for ten years. The graphics expert created fake histories for the West
African and person supposed to be their long term lover – mainly Czech
or Slovakian and promised up to £1,800 each to take part in the plot
which ran from January 2012 to March last year.
False utility bills, rent books, pay slips and employment records
backed the bogus claim of a legitimate marriage or lasting relationship.
Some included pictures of the pair – who were strangers – side by side
in bed, fully clothed or shopping together
Olatunji George, 44, a law student who had completed a module on
immigration law administered the operation. He also got 10 years behind
bars. He claimed to be paid up to £1,000-a-time to prepare packages of
the correct documents and fill in the necessary paperwork for the bogus
resident’s card applications.
His home in Taylor Way, Tividale held an ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ of
information when raided by Immigration Enforcement investigators who,
after a tip off, halted the marriage of a 26-year-old Nigerian and a
Czech woman, who both lived in Wolverhampton. She revealed that
Nwachuckwu had been involved in organising the bogus wedding. Checks on
the pastor revealed phone calls between him, George and Marijeni.
Jozef Puzo, aged 28, St Pauls Road, Smethwick, was jailed for five
years. He provided the final piece of the jigsaw by earning up to
£750-a-time finding women and men from the zech and Slovakian
communities prepared to take part in the scam. Both he and George are
now on the run after fleeing during their trial but were convicted and
sentenced in their absence.
Also convicted of conspiracy to facilitate a breach of immigration
law were: Victor Ibeh, 32, Cherene Cotterill,27, and pavel Farbar, 30:
Lenka Jocova, 38, Peter Fredrick, 27, Idris Agia, 31 and Aishatu
Ibrahim, 25.
However, Aishatu Ibrahi has also gone missing but was given three and
a half years while Agia was arrested moments before flying out of the
country to Nigeria just days ago. He was jailed for three and a half
years. The other five defendants were each jailed for between two and
three and a half years. All defendants were found guilty of immigration
offences. Jailing them at Worverhampton Crown Court yesterday, Judge
Amjad Nwas said:
“These were all willing participants in a well organised system operated for profit”
Photos of other convicts below …
Rap mogul and Roc Nation CEO, Jay Z has reportedly bid $40M to
acquire the right to buy the unreleased music of late rock icon Prince.
According to TMZ report, Jayz flew Prince’s sister Tyka and her
husband, Maurice Phillips to NYC to meet with him for further discussion
on the $40M deal. However, it is also believed that Tyka who shares
same parent with the late singer that died in April 2016 will have to
get sign-off from all her half siblings before Jay Z can have full right
to the deal.
John Mikel Obi, Chelsea’s longest serving player after captain John
Terry has admitted that he will respect the decision of the club and
it’s manager Antonio Conte if they decide to not bring him back to the
Chelsea first team and offload him in the winter or summer transfer
window.
Mikel, who has won virtually every title at club level, has not
featured for Chelsea this season. He hopes to play in Wednesday’s
English League cup clash against West Ham as the arrival of Frenchman
N’Golo Kante further pushed him down the pecking order below Nemanja
Matic, Cesc Fabregas, Nathaniel Chalobah and Reuben Loftus-Cheek.
“I hope I will get some playing time against West Ham [in the EFL
Cup], but it is down to the manager,” said Mikel to journalists.
He has been open and honest with me. I respect him for that. He has
explained the situation and I totally understand. When you have been at a
club for a long time, these things happen where a club wants to move
forward.
“I just have to be professional, work as hard as I can to try and get
into the team. I work twice as hard every day and it’s because I
appreciate this club. I have been here a long time, have a lot of
trophies and memories that will never go away. If I don’t get back in
the side, I will respect it. I always respect the football club’s
decision. The club is more important than me.”
Mikel, who
joined Chelsea in 2006, did not start this campaign with the Blues as he
was away on international duty with Nigeria at the Olympic Games in
Brazil.
So this side by side photo of the first lady wearing a cape that
costs a slapping N1.2million has been shared by an online media
platform.
According to the platform, the first lady’s outfit is a Salvatore
Ferragamo Cape Dress which costs $2,600 (1.2 million) when converted.
The first lady stepped out today for the first time, following her
controversial BBC interview – She currently is in Brussels, Belgium for a
forum, where she is expected to speak on “Women’s role in global
security“.
There are emerging reports that a remote military camp in the
northeastern region of Nigeria, has been raided by Boko Haram
insurgents.
The insurgents reportedly stormed the camp on Monday, October 17,
wounding 13 soldiers and taking away an unknown number of soldiers.
According to a statement made by the army on
Wednesday, October 19, an operation to get back the missing soldiers is
still ongoing as the army has gone after Islamic extremists that
attacked the camp.
Monday’s
attack comes a week after one faction of Boko Haram released 21 of more
than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped from northeastern Chibok town, and as
Nigeria’s government is negotiating for the release of another 83 of the
girls abducted 2½ years ago.
The attack on Gashigar, on the border with Niger,
is the third reported attack on the military after months of a lull
during which the Islamic extremists hit soft civilian targets.
Army spokesman Col Sani Kukasheka Usman called the
attack a “temporary setback” committed by “remnants of Boko Haram” that
forced the soldiers to retreat. An operation is in progress to find the
missing troopers and “clear the Boko Haram terrorists at the general
area,” his statement said.
It is believed the attack is by a splinter from
Boko Haram that calls itself the West Africa Province of the Islamic
State. The IS named a new caliph of its only franchise in sub-Saharan
Africa in August, provoking a struggle with Boko Haram’s longtime leader
Abubakar Shekau. A battle of words on social media indicated the
dispute is over Shekau’s indiscriminate killing of Muslims.
The group loyal to Shekau negotiated – with the
Swiss government and International Committee of the Red Cross acting as
intermediaries for Nigeria’s government – last Thursday’s release of 21
Chibok girls, the first such negotiated settlement.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who flew to Germany
the day the girls were set free, is scheduled to meet with them and
their families later Wednesday, according to a social media message
posted by the official account of Nigeria’s presidency.
Boko Haram’s 7-year-old Islamic uprising has
killed more than 20,000 people, forced some 2.6 million from their homes
and left tens of thousands facing famine-like conditions, according to
aid agencies and the U.N.