ONITSHA — When General Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime flagged off a contract for the construction of a gigantic water scheme at Amuro Community in Okigwe Local Government Area of Imo state, at the cost of $36 million US Dollars, under the control of Anambra-Imo River Basin Development Authority, Naze, Owerri, both indigenes and non indigenes of the area shedded tears of joy that they would soon fetch water from the facility at their door steps.

This was the moving and indeed hope-stirring statement of Lawal Bello, 19, a JSS 3 student of Day Secondary School, Gbada, Gidan Mangoro in Minna, Niger State. Bello who is crippled was not born paralysed, but was afflicted with this problem at the age of eight when he fell ill and was rushed to the hospital for medication. Sadly, instead of being healed, he was left with a permanent deformation.

CALABAR—THE Obong of Calabar, Cross River State, Edidem Ekpo Okon Abasi Otu V, has joined the Igbo community in raising the alarm over the wave of kidnapping of Igbo business persons in the state and called on the state government to reinforce security residents in the state.

KALABARI— AS the tussle for who ascends the throne of Amanyanabo of Kalabari Kingdom in Rivers State builds up, a contender to the stool, Chief Mac-Donald Abbi, has called on King Theophilus Princewill to vacate the throne, claiming that the court has removed him.

When the former Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), 78-year-old Professor Albert Ilemobade was declared missing, nobody imagined he was butchered by those of his own house-hold. Nobody imagined his lifeless body would be found decomposing inside the garage of his Ijapo Estate, Akure home. Nobody imagined Prof. Ilemobade was killed by two of his domestic workers, his former driver Olayemi Bamitale and the security guard Daniel Ita. The duo admitted strangling the ex-FUTA VC to death with the aim of stealing his recently purchased Toyota RAV 4 SUV.

No fewer than five adults and four children were yesterday confirmed dead, after a commercial bus and an articulated truck collided in Fadeyi axis of Lagos State. Officials of the Emergency Response Team, ERT disclosed to Vanguard that five adult (4 male and 1 female) and 4 children( 2male, 2 female), died at the spot. Vanguard gathered that the accident which occurred at about 5:45 am, left other 10 passengers with varying degrees of injuries.

Early one morning sometime in 1992, I alighted from the bus at Secretariat bus stop, second gate, at Alausa, Ikeja. I was a reporter for the Vanguard, covering Government House, Alausa at the time. A car, which by the way it appeared, seemed to have stopped abruptly by the road side with all four doors open. Curious, I joined the small crowd gathered on the pavement, right in front of the car park around a middle aged woman. She looked distraught, weeping as she told a heart wrenching story. Initially, I did not see the object of the whole drama, a little lifeless snake, by the roadside.

ABOUT twenty years after the infamous Otokoto saga which claimed several lives and property in Owerri, the Imo State capital in 1996, one of the people that would not forget the ugly incident in a hurry is Bishop N.E. Moses, the General Overseer of Overcomers Church World Outreach, Lagos. The Otokoto uprising was triggered off, following the killing of one master Ikechukwu Okonkwo for rituals.

FOR weeks, members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, looked forward to this year’s celebration of the Biafra Day. Over the years, the ceremony had rotated among the Igbo-speaking states and it was the turn of Anambra State to host the event this year. The organizers had chosen Nkpor, a suburb of the commercial city of Onitsha for the celebration. As it was customary, they usually assemble in a church and keep vigil the night before 30th of May every year and then march through some streets in the host city, after which they would return to their home states.

The kidnappers forced the don, who had some health challenges to march with four other kidnap victims from Eku to Agbarho on foot, along an abandoned Federal Government railway line project to their hideaway located in the heart of Orhokpokpo –Agbarho forest from 10.00p.m. to 5.00a.m. under torture. The fragmentary railway track, which runs from Abraka-Agbarho through Eku, linking Warri to Ajaokuta in Kogi State, according to our findings, had become a safe conduit for kidnappers in the area to transport victims to their hidey-holes.

Heineken premium beer is the great beer brand that has made its way around the world. The Dutch lager was first brewed by the Heineken family in 1864 when Adriaan Heineken convinced his mother that there would be fewer problems with alcoholism in Holland if the Dutch could be induced to drink beer instead of gin.

YENAGOA- FOURTEEN-year-old Miss Ese Oruru, aka “Government Child,” looking wild, March 2, when she returned to Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, from where she was abducted, six months earlier, by Yunusa Dahiri, aka Yellow and taken to Kano and forced into early marriage, has reclaimed her serenity, and is now in the third trimester (40 months)of her pregnancy.

PORT HARCOURT— MORTAL fear has seized the people of Rivers State since last week when armed marauders murdered five police officers, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP Muhammadu Halidu and six civilians at Okobe in Ahoada West Local Government Area.

OLUASIRI- A meeting convened, penultimate Saturday, by the people of Olusari, Nembe Local Government Area, Bayelsa State, to jaw-jaw on the security challenges and other issues besetting the riverine community took another dimension when enraged villagers overthrew their monarch for supposedly ruling them outside their homeland and insensitivity to the predicament.

The Edo state Nigeria born brewing engineer is the Brew Master at Binding, one of Germany’s largest breweries based in Frankfurt where he has worked for many years. In this chat, the President of Edo state Union in state of Hessen, Germany speaks about his odyssey to Europe and his challenges and achievements so far plus his unflinching love for Nigeria