JUST as many were ruing the unfortunate event of last Monday when ex-militants in their hundreds barricaded the Mbiama bridge end of the East-West road in Rivers State, a border area between Bayelsa and Rivers some yet to be identified gunmen in the wee hours of Friday yet again violated the peace of the riverine settlement of Opokuma in the Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, leaving in their trail death and destruction of properties.

Emotions ran high yesterday at the Lagos State Police Public Relations Office, Ikeja, after a 14-year-old girl told a crowd how she was impregnated by her 50-year-old father, resulting in her delivering a baby.

Lagos, the industrial, commercial and economic capital of Nigeria has a complex, often bizaare networks of roads, mostly characterised by deep pot holes, ditches and mini-gulleys that are death traps of road users across the sprawling metropolis.

With this year’s Lagos International Trade Fair presently in full swing, residents along the Badagry expressway and its environ are once again lamenting the heavy traffic jam usually associated the period.

Residents of Makurdi are now living in fear following reports of uncommon happenings at the mountainous Mkomon community in Kwande Local Government Area of Benue State where a volcanic eruption claimed two lives while property worth millions of Naira have also been destroyed.

The absence of the politicians is attributable to the struggle for governorship which has divided the entire Yewa into two camps.

HIS real name is Obioma Nwankwo, alias Osisikankwu, a former hunter and ex-fighter of the Icelander Confraternity, founded by ex-militant leader and Rivers State warlord, Ateke Tom. Between him and 10 other kidnap kingpins, notably, Mopol -a dismissed policeman, Stone, Tallest, 10-10, IK in Ukwa West local government area; Onyeme – a dismissed soldier and King Solomon in Abala; Dan Fryo and Susu in Umuezi axis, Abia State was held captive in the past two years until their handgrip went beyond the elbow region, in the last two to three months.

The origin of this piece will certainly read like a fairy tale. A young man walked into the Vanguard Office, Owerri, to discuss placement of 15 full pages of colour advertisement. After discussing with our Correspondent, Chidi Nkwopara, the potential client left but promised that he would call to confirm the next line of action.
About four days after the visit, a call came through an MTN number. The message was simple: “We have accepted to place the advert in Vanguard. You have to come to Aba and pick the money”.
For the reporter, Aba was a no-go area and the caller was told so. A deal was struck that the reporter should come to a place close to Osisioma. He thereafter left Owerri for the designated place on the appointed day.

The environment at the Olomi area secretariat of the Oyo State purportedly proscribed National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, can be likened to a war situation. Stern-looking union members were scattered around the area in groups and it was easy to see and smell hidden weapons all over the place.

SIGNS that the late rainy season is eventually coming to an end, appears to have raised hope that the flood ravaging some communities abutting the Ogun River will soon subside. While the Lagos State government has offered a temporary relocation at Agbowa, an outskirt of Ikorodu, some residents of Isheri community in Ogun State still battle with the flood even as many of them claim they were duly warned about the situation by the state government.