It was a colourful ceremony as Mr Fabian Ime Idio on Saturday walked down the aisle with his heart rob, former miss Monica Adams Okora now Mrs Monica Fabian Idio.
ABN TV reports that the wedding took place at Saint Bernard Catholic Church, Marian hill Calabar, Cross River State.
In the homily, the officiating priest Rev. Fr. Bob Etta adviced the couple using a reading from the of Ephesians 5:2,21-33 urge the couple to love themselves as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.
Our correspondent gathered that the couple who had their engagement on the 19th of January 2020 were scheduled to be married on the 18th of April.
The outbreak of COVID-19 however necessitated a change on the wedding date.
All NCDC and WHO guidelines were observed during the reception.
The Chief Whip of Senate, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu has expressed gratitude to God for bringing to an end his protracted legal battle with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Kalu, who is also the senator representing Abia North thanked the people of the state and all who stood by him during his trials.
This is contained in a release signed and made available to ABN TV by Barrister Emeka Nwala, the Special Assistant/Head of Administration, Office of the Senate Chief Whip.
“The office of Senator Dr Orji Uzor Kalu, Chief Whip of the Senate, Federal Republic of Nigeria is delighted to convey our most sincere gratitude to the Almighty God for bringing to an end this protracted legal battle that has culminated in the eventual release of our principal. This followed the Federal High Court ruling to effect the judgement of Supreme Court of May 8, 2020 which had quashed the judgement of the same Federal High Court that had convicted him in error.
“We therefore use this medium to handsomely appreciate all persons who through prayers, goodwill and legal services contributed to today’s victory.
“Our special thanks go to the President of the Senate, His Excellency, Dr Ahmed Lawan, Deputy Senate President and all Distinguished Senators as well as the Speaker, House of Representatives, His Excellency, RT Hon Femi Gbajabiamila and all Honourable Members for standing by one of their own during the trying times.
“We also convey our deepest appreciation to the Executive and hierarchy of the All Progressives Congress, APC, at the national and state levels as well as all Party faithfuls who believed in the rule of law and hope that God would answer our prayers at His own time” the release said.
Kalu a former governor of Abia state also expressed gratitude to his legal team for their diligence.
As part of measures to re-shape the attitude of the people of Abia state, the state governor has assented to the Bill that gives it a legal framework.
Known as Abia State Orientation Agency Bill, the sponsor of the Bill, Hon. Solomon Akpunonu who is also the House Leader had decried to poor attitude of people of the state.
The Bill in February passed second reading.
Governor Okezie Ikpeazu in giving his assent to the Law formally establishing the Abia State Orientation Agency according to a release signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Onyebuchi Ememanka made available to ABN TV has exercised the powers conferred on him by Section 100 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended.
The Abia State House of Assembly passed the Abia State Orientation Agency Bill and transmitted same to the Governor for his assent.
The Law shall be known as and called the Abia State Orientation Law No. 2 of 2020.
One of the officers had been on the job for four days. One was on his third shift ever. And Derek Chauvin, who pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, was the field training officer for one of them.
Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao were responding to a call about a $20 counterfeit bill on May 25 when they detained Floyd, who died while in custody.
The four officers were fired and are now facing charges in Floyd’s death.
Here’s what we know about their role in Floyd’s arrest as well as their lives before and while they were on the force, based on their personnel files.
Derek Chauvin
Derek Chauvin
What he did: Derek Chauvin, 44, pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck while Floyd was lying on the street.
The charges: Chauvin was charged on Wednesday with a new, more serious count of second-degree murder. He had previously been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
The second-degree murder charge says he killed Floyd “without intent” in the course of committing assault in the third degree, according to an amended complaint.
Chauvin was arrested last week and is being held at a Minnesota Department of Corrections facility in Oak Park. His bail was increased to $1 million Wednesday, court documents show.
Background: Chauvin was a police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department for nearly 19 years.
He was the subject of at least 18 prior complaints and only two were “closed with discipline,” according to a department internal affairs public summary.
The heavily redacted personnel files released by police only detail a 2007 complaint from a woman alleging that Chauvin had pulled her from her car, searched her, and placed her in the back of a squad car for going 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.
An investigator found that Chauvin “did not have to remove complainant from the car” and that he could have interviewed her outside the vehicle. The report noted that there was no audio of the incident and the dash came in Chauvin’s car was turned off.
Chauvin admitted that he did not check to see if the dashcam in his cruiser at the start of his shift and left a microphone in the squad car during the traffic stop, the report says. He received a letter of reprimand and a notice of suspension for the incident, the documents show.
His files also include recommendations that he be given the department’s medal of valor for his actions in two incidents. One involved shooting a man who pointed a shotgun at officers and another involved shooting a man suspected of a violent domestic assault, according to the personnel file.
When Chauvin applied for a job with the police department, he said he served in the US Army as a member of the military police and had worked as a custom protection officer for a security services company. The files note Chauvin worked for McDonald’s and another restaurant in the mid-1990s.
Chauvin was initially hired as a community service officer in January 2001 and served for about eight months before he was promoted to police officer, the personnel files show.
The charges: Kueng was charged Wednesday with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
He was arrested Wednesday and is being held on $1 million bail, county jail records show.
His background:
Kueng was hired as a police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department in December. He joined the department as a cadet in February 2019.
He had no prior complaints. When Floyd’s death took place, it was Kueng’s third shift as a police officer, said Thomas Plunkett, his attorney. Chauvin was Kueng’s training officer, according to Plunkett.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Minnesota, his personnel file says.
In his job application, Kueng said he worked as an asset protection detective for Macy’s from 2014 to 2017 and in a temporary job with Target. He listed that he can speak, read, and write Russian.
Thomas Lane
Thomas Lane
What he did: Thomas Lane, 37, helped restrain George Floyd, along with Derek Chauvin and J. Alexander Kueng.
The charges: Lane was charged Wednesday with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
Lane was arrested Wednesday and is being held on $1 million bail, county jail records show.
His background:
He joined the police department as a cadet in February 2019. He didn’t have a history of complaints. Lane had been on the police force for four days when Floyd died, according to his attorney Earl Gray. Lane was “doing everything he thought he was supposed to do as a four-day police officer,” Gray said.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in criminology from the University of Minnesota in 2016, Lane worked as a juvenile corrections officer for Hennepin County and as an assistant probation officer.
He previously worked as a server and bartender at different restaurants and was a sales associate at Home Depot, according to his police job application. Under volunteer experience, Lane listed that he helps Somali youth in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood with their homework and tutors them in science and math activities.
Tou Thao
Tou Thao
What he did: Tou Thao, 34, stood near the other officers as they restrained George Floyd.
The charges: Thao was charged Wednesday with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter.
Thao, along with Kueng and Lane, was taken into custody Wednesday and is being held on $1 million bail, county jail records show.
His background: Thao had been a police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department since 2012.
He had six complaints filed with internal affairs, one of which was still open, according to a Minneapolis Police Department internal affairs public summary. The other five were closed without discipline.
Before becoming a police officer, Thao worked as a security guard, a stocker at a grocery store and a trainer at McDonalds. He attended the North Hennepin Community College and was pursuing an associate degree in law enforcement but didn’t graduate, his personnel file shows.
Bassey Ekanem, 73-year-old retired army captain has raped his 4-year-old niece in Calabar, the Cross River state capital.
The incident occurred at 12 Edim Ibangaha Street, Big Qua Town, Calabar.
We also learned that the suspect claimed he was under the influence of alcohol and couldn’t understand why he committed the act.
Findings showed that the victim (names withheld) was violated by the Uncle whom she referred to as grandpa.
A source who pleaded anonymity said that the retired army Cpt has been in the north for years before he came to Calabar after retiring from the army.
“He( suspect) had sent the lady living with him to make soup, while she went to buy fish at Marian market, Bassey lured the little girl into his apartment and started fingering her and broke her hymen in the process.
“It was the victim’s younger brother who is about 2 years who told their mother that grandpa put her hand inside her sister’s “bum bum” before their mother raised alarm and the matter was reported to Akim police station.
When contacted, the Principal Counsel, Basic Right Council Initiative, James Ibor Esq, said the case was one amongst many adding that rape incidents were becoming increasingly alarming.
“I am heartbroken and appalled by the increasing number of rape every day in Calabar and beyond, the Child Rights Act really needs to be implemented to the latter because the girl child is going through a lot.
General John Kelly could be the next retired general to rebuke Donald Trump for calling in active duty military in the midst of George Floyd protests as the former chief of staff called the president ‘nasty’ for his comments about General Jim Mattis, ABN TV reports.
Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, defended Trump’s former defense secretary on Thursday after Mattis publicly criticized the president’s handling of the nationwide protests.
He also shot down Trump’s claim that he fired Mattis in 2018.
‘The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation,’ Kelly asserted in a Washington Post interview Thursday afternoon. ‘The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused.
‘The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then he got nasty. Jim Mattis is an honorable man,’ Kelly said.
The interview was ahead of Kelly appearing Friday with Anthony Scaramucci – ‘the Mooch’ – whose 10-day tour as White House director of communications ended in his firing and who has now become a resolute Republican critic of the president.
Mattis submitted his resignation in late December 2018, and stayed on until after the New Year, amid reports of rising tensions between the Defense secretary and president.
Although Mattis had remained largely silent about his former boss, on Wednesday he released a statement criticizing Trump’s handling of protests that have erupted across the country following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.
Mattis accused Trump of deliberately trying to divide Americans and likened his actions to the rhetoric of Nazis to ‘divide and conquer.’
The Court of Appeal Abuja division on Friday affirmed the judgment of Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, finding the Kaduna state government guilty of abducting the CEO Chocolate City, Audu Maikori, a music promoter from Lagos to Kaduna.
Audu Maikori is a lawyer and entrepreneur from Southern Kaduna was said to have been abducted from Lagos on the instruction of Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufa’i over social media posts.
The music promoter incurred the anger of the state government when he raised alarms over the Killings in Southern Kaduna, where he hails from.
The Government of Kaduna State claimed that Audu Maikori’s publications were inaccurate.
In a judgment delivered on Friday in Abuja, the three-person panel of the Court of Appeal unanimously upheld the findings of fact and conclusions of law of the Federal High Court, holding that the actions of the Kaduna State Government were both unlawful and unconstitutional.
The Court, however, reduced the damages awarded from N40 million to N10.5 million Naira.
Responding to the judgment, his lead counsel, Gloria Mabeiam Ballason, said: “This decision by the Court of Appeal is important for the protection of all persons in Nigeria.
“By today’s judgment, the Court of Appeal reaffirms the sanctity of the rights of citizens against abuse by the designs of temporal power and makes clear that politicians in government using security agencies at their disposal cannot pick and choose what parts of the constitution to obey or observe.”.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday observed Jumat prayers at the mosque in the presidential villa on Friday.
This is the first prayer at the mosque since the suspension of religious gatherings over coronavirus.
on Thursday, the federal capital territory released guidelines for the reopening of worship centres in the nation’s capital.
Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity; Abubakar Malami, minister of justice and Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of EFCC, were among those who joined the president.
Kanye West has made a $2 million donation to support the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, a representative for Kanye West told CNN.
The $2 Million donation includes funding for legal fees for Arbery and Taylor’s families, along with black-owned businesses in crisis in his native Chicago and other cities.
Kanye West representative said he established a 529 education plan to fully cover college tuition for Gianna Floyd, the 6-year-old daughter of George Floyd.
Kanye West donation comes in the wake of mass protests across the country following the deaths. Many voices in entertainment are calling for an end to systematic racism, police brutality and action from political leadership.
Three of the Minneapolis Police officers arrested in Floyd’s death make their first court appearance Thursday afternoon, as the Floyd family holds the first of several planned memorial services.
Derek Chauvin, the officer who pinned Floyd to the ground by his neck for nearly 9 minutes, was arrested last week and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. On Wednesday, prosecutors charged him with a more serious count of second-degree murder.
Arbery, a black man, was fatally shot while jogging just outside Brunswick, GA, on February 23. Three white men have been arrested in his death.
Taylor was an EMT who was shot at least eight times in March when three officers entered her Kentucky apartment by force. The FBI has opened an investigation into her death.
Abians residing in Oyo State, have expressed deep appreciation to the Governor of Abia State, Alex Chioma Otti, for approving free transportation that enabled...
