Pregnant woman dies, several injured as fans celebrate Chelsea’s victory in Lagos

At least one person was reportedly killed while several others sustained serious injuries during Chelsea victory celebration on Saturday.
The deceased, who was identified as a  pregnant lady, was killed in the Ikotun area of the state by gunmen who took advantage of the jubilation to rob innocent residents.
According to residents  “The entire area was rowdy after the match and some gunmen, who stormed the area, went into the shop of one pregnant lady and robbed her. They shot her before fleeing. She was rushed to a nearby hospital but died soon afterwards.”
In Somolu area, a man was reportedly stabbed in the eye after being unable to pay up his bet.
An eyewitness, Mr. Adewunmi Brown,  “Before the match began, I already knew there would be trouble because the last time Chelsea won, there was pandemonium. So, on Saturday, I was at a pub on Kadupe Street. After Chelsea won, two guys began arguing about money and before we knew it, one stabbed the other in the eye. I quickly ran away into my compound and locked the gate but the entire area was filled with jubilation. Some of the fans, who were obviously drunk, took off their clothes and were roaming the streets naked.”
According to Punch newspaper, another man, Obi, was also stabbed in the eye for mocking football fans in Orile area of the state. A resident, Matthew Ajie, said after Chelsea had won the match, Obi was insulting the fans, calling them hooligans for the manner in which they were celebrating.
In Ojota area, some jubilant fans were said to have blocked a part of the Ikorodu Expressway to extort money from motorists.
Meanwhile, the Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Jaiyeoba, said he was not aware of any death or pandemonium associated with the match, saying that the police had put in place measures to forestall the breakdown of law and order.

Man caught with grenades at ministerial briefing in Abuja

A man has just been arrested with three hand grenades and some rounds of ammunition, at the Radio House, venue of the Ministerial  briefing by the Ministry of Sports on their performance in the last one year.
The man, identified as, John Akpabu, was arrested with 37 rounds of live ammunition and three hand grenades and other explosives at the national press centre, of the Radio house in Abuja at about 12:30 midday on Monday.
Confirming the arrest, Akindele James, the security officer in charge of the Radio House building stated that “we arrested him with black bags containing three hand grenades and 37 live munitions. We snatched the bag from him at the gate as he was entering the compound at the gate” he said.

The grenades found in the man's bag

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, and Minister of Youth Development and Sports, Bolaji Abdullahi are the ministers listed  to present their scorecards at the radio house.
The annual briefing which involves a daily briefing by all the federal ministries on their performance, commenced a fortnight ago.
It is coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Information, as part of the preparations for Democracy Day.

The bag conveying the explosives

A STATEMENT ON THE FINES IMPOSED ON AIRTEL, ETISALAT, GLOBACOM AND MTN BY THE NIGERIAN COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION RELATING TO THE NETWORK QUALITY

Airtel, Etisalat, Globacom and MTN would like to jointly issue a statement concerning the decision by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to sanction all four operators for failure to meet Quality of Service standards.

We would like to assure customers of all four networks that we are committed to providing high quality of service to our customers. Over the last ten years more than N 1 trillion has been invested in building and enhancing the four mobile networks. In 2012 alone, the four operators will be spending over N 400 billion of further investments in their networks. All four operators are actively competing with each other on quality of service to win the loyalty of existing customers and attract new customers.

We are all equally frustrated and concerned about the failures to meet customer expectations and needs with respect to the quality of service. Nigeria deserves and needs first class telecommunications networks. We thus apologise unreservedly to you, our customers, for those occasions when you have been disappointed or inconvenienced by a lapse or failure to deliver the requisite level of quality of service. We however believe that it is necessary to explain the major challenges we face as operators and ask for your understanding and support.

The main factor affecting quality of service is the absence of a reliable source of power. Every single site is powered 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by two diesel Generators and requires regular supply of diesel as well as 24hours security protection. We need to recognise that benchmarking quality of service against countries which are not operating in such an environment is unrealistic.

The second major factor affecting network quality are frequent cuts of fibre networks which link the cell sites. These are frequently malicious in nature. Recently, operators have asked that Telecommunications Infrastructure be declared “Critical National Infrastructure” which would result in enhanced protection for these assets and criminalize the wilful damage of the same.

Another equally worrying development is the recent trend towards indiscriminate closure of sites by Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal, State and Local Governments in pursuit of multiple taxation of telecommunications infrastructure.

Finally, the issue of security is a prevalent threat from our operating environment. We have had particularly unfortunate instances where our employees have been physically assaulted and in some instances killed during site maintenance visit, all in a quest to sustain service quality.

We wish to use this medium to call on the NCC, the National Environment Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, the Minister of Communication Technology, the National Assembly and the Office of the National Security Adviser to work in harmony to put in place an environment in which we can continue our substantial investments in pursuit of delivering world class telecommunications networks.

While we continue to make these investments which will also improve service quality, it needs to be pointed out that in the telecommunications industry, such investments do not yield the requisite improvement in service quality until well after 12 months. We are therefore concerned that fines will not bring about the desired service quality improvements or offer a lasting solution but will merely deplete essential resources that would otherwise be deployed for network roll out.

Also, due to capital-intensive nature of our operators, we are concerned that a regime of sanctions will inevitably erode the confidence of financial institutions and critical partners in the industry. We are also concerned that it could create an atmosphere of anxiety and regulatory uncertainty which is unattractive to investment. We are therefore actively engaging with our Regulator to resolve this issue.

Solutions being explored include ensuring a forward-looking quality of service framework, taking into account pertinent environmental factors affecting service delivery and preserving the capacity of the industry to attract the requisite levels of investment in infrastructure to meet stakeholder expectations.
Nigeria deserves and needs world class telecommunications networks. No sector in Nigeria has seen more progress than the telecommunications sector. We ask for the understanding of all stakeholders as we continue to invest and build the networks to the benefit of all Nigerians.

Signed,

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Kidnapped Pastor Found Dead In Imo After ₦500K Ransom Payment

The lifeless body of Pastor Anslem Iwuala has been picked up by members of his immediate family, seven days after he was kidnapped and a N500,000 paid to the hoodlums to secure his freedom. Late Iwuala, who was on his way to his country home, Egberede Nguru, Aboh Mbaise local council area of Imo State, was abducted by gunmen along the ever busy Okpala-Mbaise road. Narrating the family’s ordeal to newsmen, the deceased’s cousin, Mr. Odinakachi Iwuala, confirmed that his uncle was kidnapped by the hoodlums while returning from Aba. Odinakachi disclosed that the family made frantic efforts to reach their bread winner, adding that his abductors finally got in contact with the family at about midnight of the ill-fated day and demanded N100 million. Continuing, Odinakachi revealed that the hoodlums said they were sent to kill the pastor/businessman, promising that they would spare his life if they paid the ransom. “The family, however, paid the sum of N500,000 to the kidnappers. We all thought that our prayers had been answered until we received a telephone call from his abductors to rush down to Okpala but what we saw was his corpse,” Odinakachukwu lamented. Although no police officer at Uvuru Mbaise was ready to speak on the issue, Vanguard, however, gathered that the police was making frantic efforts to apprehend the perpetrators of the sordid crime.