01/01/19

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Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has debunked the statement on a Kwara radio by the Senate President Bukola Saraki that he donated N10m to victims of Offa robbery.
Mohammed said Saraki did not donate a dime.
Saraki had said in the controversial radio interview that he donated 10 million Naira when he visited Offa to commiserate with the people in the aftermath of the robbery. And he added that the amount that was stolen from the banks’ vaults was 7 million Naira.
Mohammed exposed Saraki’s lie in a statement, warning him for the second time to stop playing politics with the 5 April multiple robbery attacks in Offa.
Said Mohammed:”The claim by Dr. Saraki that he donated 10 million Naira to care for the victims of the Offa robbery is patently false.
“He did not! The 10 million he referred to was donated when the Offa market got burnt, and it was made in Ilorin, not Offa. When Dr Saraki visited Offa to commiserate with the community in the aftermath of the robbery, he did not donate a dime! I challenge him to prove me wrong.”
It was Mohammed’s second statement since Saraki’s radio interview.
This time, Mohammed warned the two-term senator to stop dancing on the graves of the innocent souls who died in the April 5, 2018 armed robbery attack in Offa.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Monday by his media aide, Mr. Segun Adeyemi, the Minister repeated his earlier warning against playing politics with the unfortunate incident.
The Minister said the overly aggressive and crude response by Dr. Saraki to the first warning has shown that he is not ready to heed the admonition, hence the need to re-state it, and to condemn any attempt to denominate human lives in Naira and Kobo.
Alhaji Mohammed said that in the wake of his warning, the apparently embarrassing radio interview was hurriedly edited to remove all references to the Offa robbery and then re-aired across Kwara state.
”Instead of stopping at that, which in itself constitutes an acceptance of wrongdoing, Dr. Saraki went ahead to hurl insults at me, even when I have been largely restrained in issuing my earlier warning. Had I not been restrained, I would have gone ahead to divulge what actually transpired.
”But with politics in the air, the truth becomes the first casualty. Realising that he goofed, Dr. Bukola apparently caused the radio interview in question to be edited to remove the donation reference, and then re-aired. Is it not an irony that the people who engaged in this egregious act of dishonesty are the same ones calling others names?” the Minister queried.
He said he will continue to steer the debate on the political developments in Kwara State to issues rather than exchange of personal insults, which he has always been averse to.
”The people of Kwara, who are bone-tired of the long years of ‘bolekaja’ governance in the state, are all saying in one voice, ‘O to ge’ (enough is enough), and will soon have the opportunity to express their frustration with their votes,” the Minister said.
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Latest Reality Blog is a legal blog where you are updated on online latest news, gist, entertainment, events, motivational text, and genue articles.

New York’s Times Square erupted with fireworks and cheers at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday as thousands of hardy merrymakers braved pouring rain and watched the glowing New Year’s Eve ball complete its midnight descent to mark the start of 2019.
For the multitudes who gathered in the famed midtown Manhattan crossroads, the thrilling moment was reward for enduring hours of standing in a steady downpour during the waning hours of 2018.
Helping to keep spirits high was a slate of performers including Christina Aguilera, New Kids on the Block and Sting who entertained the resilient crowd. Many donned plastic rain ponchos and sported colourful, oversized top hats handed out by organisers.
“It was a bucket-list thing,” said Daniela Ramous, a 34-year-old sales manager from McAllen, Texas. “You grow up watching it on TV, you see all the excitement. There’s something magical about New York during this time of year.”
(Watch a part of the action at Times Square via Xinhua video:
Injecting a somber note into the festivities, the Times Square Alliance, the business association that organises the event, paid a special tribute to freedom of the press, after a year in which journalists came under attack around the world, including in the United States.
A minute before midnight, an invited group of journalists from ABC News, NBC News, the Washington Post, Reuters and other outlets joined Mayor Bill de Blasio in pushing the button that initiates the glittering ball’s drop.
Visitors had begun gathering inside penned-off enclosures in the morning, starting an hours-long marathon of standing in one place, with no access to public restrooms.
Moments before dropping of the ball
Belying the idea that New Yorkers themselves eschew the Times Square festivities, Eskie Garcia, a 59-year-old city worker living in Brooklyn, said she has come every year for about a decade.
“You have to come here in person,” she said before applying lipstick and asking a stranger to take her picture on her cellphone. “Especially when you live by yourself. You come, you meet people.”
Janette Masson, 29, said she preferred this year’s rain to last year’s bone-chilling cold. Masson, who works in retail in Boston, had been in her pen since 9.30 a.m., eating granola bars for lunch and dinner.
“I can deal with it,” said Masson’s 61-year-old mother, Judy Masson, as she stood in the rain with many hours of waiting still to come. “You make the best of a bad thing.”
Umbrellas were banned as part of the tight security plan, reflecting concern over the possibility of random attacks. Plastic ponchos were allowed, with street vendors selling them for $5 on nearby avenues.
The Werline family from San Antonio, Texas, parlayed a connection with a friend who works at the Hard Rock Cafe into a coveted dry spot. Even though they did not have tickets for the private party inside, they had been permitted to stand under the attraction’s deep awning.
“Thank God we know someone,” Tammy Werline, 49, said as rain cascaded off the awning’s edge and people in suits and cocktail dresses buzzed in and out of the restaurant, almost directly below the glowing ball.
The tradition of watching a giant ball drop from a pole on top of the narrow building at the head of Times Square in midtown Manhattan began in 1907.
The ball in current use – a glittering, LED-studded sphere made by Waterford Crystal and Philips Lighting – made its debut in 2008. Weighing 11,875 pounds (5,386 kg) and measuring 12 feet (3.7 meters) in diameter, it sits year-round on the roof of One Times Square, the one-time headquarters of the New York Times.
As in years past, the New York Police Department screened people entering the corrals, deployed sharpshooters on rooftops and used radiation detectors throughout the event.
It also had planned to use an aerial drone for the first time to monitor the crowds, but canceled the effort on Monday evening given the wind and rain.
The organisers chose to honour press freedom and the contribution of journalists partly because of the deadly hostility that some reporters have faced this year.
Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for the Washington Post and U.S. resident, was killed inside a Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey. In June, a gunman shot dead five employees of The Capital, a newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.
This month also marked the first anniversary of the imprisonment in Myanmar of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo for investigating how the country’s security forces killed members of its Muslim Rohingya minority.
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