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Tenant Sets Flat On Fire, Vows To Bring Down  Entire Building With Acid, Slashes landlady’s Eye… By Our Reporter

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In what have been described as bizarre incidents, an alleged weird and recalcitrant tenant and wife, who hitherto were residing at 78, Amudalatu street, Agodo-Egbe, Ikotun, Lagos State, Mr. Raycherry  Onyia and Mrs.Oyiza Peter, have been accused of deliberately setting his rented apartment on fire after unsuccessfully and unlawfully contesting the control of the building, which they have been occupying as first tenants since 2012, shortly after the property was completed by their landlord, Mr. Samson Ubasinachi Ekweozor, who is based outside the country. 
The embattled landlord in an interview with our Correspondent, bemoaned his predicament in the hands of his over bearing and dictatorial tenant since September 2013, that he first returned to Nigeria.
Police Source also confirmed that  following protracted clashes between the landlady, Mrs. Anulika Ubasinachi Ekweozor and the tenants wife Mrs Oyiza Peter, the tenant and wife are presently facing four criminal charges bordering on arson, conduct, false information to police and assault occasioning harm, after four different police divisions, DPOs and commands found them liable.
According to the aggrieved landlord, instead of his tenant to clear his cases with the police, he has resorted to defamation and assassinating his character by taken his defense to the social media with fabricated and disjointed information laced with tissues of lies, shortly after two Divisional police Officers and Area command found them wanting and liable.
Trouble was said to have started when Raycherry Onyia, being the first tenant out of the three tenants that the landlords Inlaw rented the flats out to, while the landlord was still residing outside the country, bluntly refused to participate in the agree periodic environmental sanitation in the compound, also refusing to pay his house rent, Electricity, water, refuse disposal bills and other utility bills.
ACTION BY THE  LANDLORD: Unable to continue harboring the alleged troublesome tenant, the landlord from his base abroad said he directed his lawyer to issue him with quit notice , which his tenant did not comply with.  threatening to use his own lawyer to employ delay tactics in frustrating the  decision to quit him, while at the same time elongating his stay in the flat until he completes his own building project.
Reacting,on his second arrival into the country on December 27th, 2016, the landlord said that he found out that the same tenant continued his nuisance disposition despite earlier undertaking to be of good behaviour, having begged and appealed to be allowed to continue to stay in the flat.
On April 28, 2018, the landlord said that he traveled back abroad, only to be informed in March, 2019, that the tenants wife attacked his wife with weapons over unpaid Electricity bills, slashed her eyes with a venomous bite and she was rushed to hospital.
The injury inflicted on his wife propelled the landlord to fly back to Nigeria in November 2019, and before his return, he decided to quit all the tenants in April 2019 through his lawyer.
The landlord said that he further directed the Electricity supplier (NEPA/PHCN ) to disconnect Raycherry Onyia, until he pays the backlog of his bills. He also cut off his water supply pipes and redirected the pumping Machine serving the entire compound, which was earlier wrongly connected to Raycherry’s meter line, to his own meter.
This action by the landlord was said to have inflamed Raycherry Onyia, who reacted by threatening to beat up his landlord, who he addresses as ‘small boy’, threatened to bring down the entire building with Acid and destroy the entire pipes in the compound.
Immediately after NEPA disconnected Raycherry Onyia, he was said to have illegally reconnected back his light and when the landlady went to confront him, Raycherry wife pounced on her and grievously wounded her eyes and disfigured the landlady’s face.
The landlord then reported the unprovoked attack and assault at ikotun police Division, under the watch of CSP Emmanuel Onah, who detained the Enugu State born Tenant/wife, directing  them to take up the treatment bills from the injury they inflicted on the landlady while suing for peace.”But they refused to pay for the hospital bills”, Ekweozor lamented.
However, during the periodic sanitation of the compound,Tenant Raycherry Onyia and wife did not participate and when the landlady inquired from her why she did not clean her agreed and assigned area, she allegedly started making fool of her, reminding her of her injuries and permanent scars she gave her earlier and another fight ensued.
In the course of the fight, the tenant’s wife allegedly used a razor blade to cut the landlady, who was said to have overpowered her and wounded her more with the same razor.
Raycherry Onyia, having notice that his wife sustained severe injuries, was said to have reported the case at the same ikotun police division as attempted murder case under a new DPO, CSP Johnson Adagba, who after considering the facts presented and level of injuries sustained by both parties, partly treated the matter as a case of two fighting, but however detained the landlords wife for three days and at the end of investigation, landlady was asked to pay the hospital treatment bills of tenants wife.
Not satisfied with the police decision,  Raycherry Onyia, allegedly rejected the N300,000 offered by the landlord for his wife’s treatment but greedly demanded for N31 million as treatment cost to enable him fly his wife abroad for plastic surgery.
Raycherry Onyia is said to be battling to extricate himself from the accusation of arson, after he allegedly set the flat he had occupied for Eight years as a tenant on fire.
“Due to anger over fresh notices to quit that served him shortly after the last fighting incident, my tenant secretly moved his car and valuables to a location at okota area of Lagos before setting his flat ablaze”, Ekweozor said.
  FALSE INFORMATION OF BOMBING TO THE POLICE
While the flat went up in flames and neighbours and volunteers battled to put off the fire, Raycherry Onyia, the Landlord said, dashed down to Ikotun Police Division and falsely reported that his landlord bombed his apartment.
However police investigators led by the DPO, CSP Johnson Adagba, that responded to the false bomb alert, were said to have dismissed the claim, stating that the fire was ignited by Electrical power surge.
Despite having reported the case to Comrade Onojah E. KenPeaceMaker Human Right Group, who incidental is his wife’s brother from kogi state, who also sued for peace, Raycherry Peter,  who was identified as An importer and Exporter of goods from Singapore, took to social media, allegedly misinforming the public and deliberately destroying his former landlords integrity,  uploading Ekweozors’ family photographs on the internet.
However while narrating his own side of the story, Raycherry Onyia, allegedly reported that the landlord and  wife physically assaulted his wife for his refusal to quit their apartment after the expiration of a quit notice.
He told our correspondent and other newsonline that he was asked to vacate his apartment barely one month after packing into the flat without any plan to refund money paid for the rent.
He accused the landlord of inflicting permanent scars on his wife’s face over anger emanating from his refusal to quit his apartment.
“We don’t know the reason we were asked to move out, the whole drama started during the COVID-19 ESCALATION lockdown and we had nowhere else to go. I was out of work at that time and we were battling to feed and survive during that period, when they asked us to vacate the apartment which we had just rented and moved in.
Determined to make us leave the apartment, he disconnected our power supply, plunging our apartment into permanent darkness and we resorted to using a generator.
As if disconnecting our power supply was not enough,he disconnected the water supply to our apartment. It was at that point that my husband asked him to refund part of our rent if he truly wanted us to leave. one day I went to take water from our bowl close to the window to prepare food for our children and as I was returning to our apartment, our landlord suddenly appeared and held me from behind and his wife used a sharp object to attack me and slashed at my face, neck and other parts of my body and before I knew what was happening, I was covered in blood. It was my screams of  pain that caused my husband who was inside our apartment to run out and took me to the Police Station and we were giving a letter and  referred to the hospital for treatment.
 I spent two weeks in the hospital,it was God that saved my life because there was so much blood everywhere, ”  Oyiza Peter stated.

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ZENITH BANK REWARDS HACKATHON WINNERS WITH N77.5M CASH PRIZE AT ZENITH TECH FAIR 4.0

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ZENITH BANK REWARDS HACKATHON WINNERS WITH N77.5M CASH PRIZE AT ZENITH TECH FAIR 4.0

 

A total sum of N77.5 million in prize money was won at the end of a keenly contested hackathon session at the Fourth Edition of the Zenith Tech Fair, themed “Future Forward 4.0: Embedded Finance, Cybersecurity & Growth Imperatives – The Impact of AI “, which held on Thursday, November 21, 2024, at the Eko Convention Centre, Eko Hotels & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The prize money was shared among ten finalists who emerged from the over 1,700 contestants that took part in the hackathon, with JumpnPass, a self-checkout technology solution reshaping the retail landscape in Africa emerging as the overall winner and taking home the grand prize of N25 million. This is in addition to a six-week mentorship and incubation program designed to help them grow and scale effectively, which will run from December 2024 to February 2025.

The first runner-up, CreditChek, a credit and verification service provider which leverages AI and open banking to streamline income and credit history verification for financial institutions, won N20 million and a mentorship programme, while the second runner-up, Salad Africa, a start-up which offers seamless integration of credit products for digital platforms and software companies won N15 million as well as a mentorship programme. Other finalists who took home N2.5million each include Regxta, CashAfrica, Middleman, Messenger, Pocketfood, Famasi Africa, Kitovu.

Earlier during the programme, the Group Managing Director/CEO of Zenith Bank Plc, Dame (Dr.) Adaora Umeoji, OON, in her welcome address expressed her appreciation to the Founder & Chairman, Dr Jim Ovia, CFR, for birthing the idea that led to the establishment of the Tech Fair initiative 5 years ago, she thanked him for his vision and foresight in utilizing technology to revolutionize the world of business and banking.

Commenting on the Hackathon, she said, “This prestigious annual event was created to empower and nurture young fertile minds. We hope to produce the likes of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk from the Zenith Bank Hackathons in the nearest future. According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, 70% of Nigeria’s population are youths which is an economic asset when properly harnessed. This is part of the reason why Zenith Bank is hosting this event to support the development of technology startups. Their success not only fosters innovation and growth in Nigeria, but it also plays a vital role in creating employment opportunities for our youth.” She also stressed on the importance of innovation and embedded finance in ensuring strong and enduring institutions. According to her, “it is paramount that we adapt and adopt technology to stay ahead of the curve. We have seen various cases of companies that failed because of their lack of innovation. It is quite obvious that when companies fail to innovate; they can easily be displaced, so this is not the time to be orthodox, innovation should be a top priority for us.”

In his goodwill message, The Governor of Lagos State, His Excellency, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu called for a global approach to doing business in the country. According to him, “What we need to do is to be able to enhance our product and services in order to compete in the world. We can’t continue to act local, we need to think global. Anything that we’re doing now, we need to be able to know that we are not just serving a local market, we actually want to serve the global market, and that’s why I’m glad that consistently, for the past four years, I have kept up with the Zenith Tech Fair. I am sure 5.0 should be bigger and better than what we have today, but for us as a government, what we need to do is to continue to use platforms like this to reassure you of our readiness to provide an enabling environment for your ideas and innovative solutions.”

Described as a huge success by participants, the Fair featured the launch of the bank’s digital wallet, EazyByZenith, which will help to support the bank’s retail and financial inclusion strategy. The fair also included presentations on the leading technological innovations that cut across different aspects of life, such as Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Compliance, Financial Intelligence, Cloud Computing and Communication Technologies, with the keynote address, “Banking Transformation in a Digital World”, delivered by Robin Speculand, a renowned Strategy & Digital Implementation Specialist.

The event also featured goodwill messages by Jim Ovia, CFR, Founder and Chairman of Zenith Bank; His Excellency, Hon. Kashim Shettima, GCON, Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (represented by Dr. Tope Fasua, Special Adviser to the Presidency on Economic Matters). Other eminent IT practitioners from top global brands who also made presentations include; Robin Speculand, renowned Strategy & Digital Implementation Specialist; Danilo McGarry, Global Expert on Digital Transformation and AI; Jania Okwechime, Partner, Africa, AI & Data Leader, Deloitte; Rupert Nicolay, Director, Microsoft Worldwide Financial Services.

The panel session had Wole Odeyele, Client Technology Lead for Microsoft Inc. as its host, and featured six discussants including Ada Jabaru, Founder & Director, Nistad Limited; Funke Opeke, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, MainOne; Guy Futi, Chief Executive Officer, Orda; Dr Auwal Adam Sa’ad, Founder, ZamzamPay; Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and Engr. Bisoye Coker-Odusote, Director General/Chief Executive Officer, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

The Zenith Bank startup pitch competition and incubation program seeks to identify and fast-track the growth of high-potential Nigerian startups innovating in key sectors, including Embedded Finance, Cybersecurity, Fintech, HealthTech, Agritech, E-commerce, and more. The program provides an ideal platform for startups to showcase their groundbreaking ideas and gain access to invaluable resources to scale their businesses.

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NEW BPP DG COMMITS TO EFFICIENCY AND STAFF WELFARE FOR IMPACTFUL SERVICE DELIVERY

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NEW BPP DG COMMITS TO EFFICIENCY AND STAFF WELFARE FOR IMPACTFUL SERVICE DELIVERY*

*_…begins review of bureau processes to enhance government procurement systems_*

The Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Dr Adebowale Adedokun, has outlined his vision to drive efficiency, enhance staff welfare, and reinforce the Bureau’s regulatory mandate in alignment with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s renewed hope mandate and his commitment to improving Nigeria’s economy. This was made known during an interactive session with staff of the Bureau at the State House Banquet Hall on November 20, 2024. Dr Adedokun emphasised the urgency of delivering results as well as improving trust in the government procurement system to support President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, declaring, “Let us work together to get value for money for Nigeria’s developmental processes and achieve President Tinubu’s mandate of making Nigeria’s economy better.”

Furthermore, in a bid to strengthen operational efficiency, the DG also announced key reforms, including introducing Service Level Agreements for the bureau’s processes ensuring that letters are treated within 3 (three) days, and ensuring reports are completed within 14 (fourteen) days. He also highlighted plans to secure a sustainable budget that would improve the working environment and provide better welfare for staff.

Dr Adedokun firmly stated the Bureau’s resolve to uphold its regulatory integrity under his watch. He warned that officers are prohibited from visiting Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) unless on official assignments stressing the need for officers of the Bureau to stay above board. He further declared that contractors are no longer allowed within the Bureau’s premises to ensure that officers can perform their duties without undue interference and influence.

Calling for a collaborative approach, the DG urged staff to embody the Bureau’s regulatory values by adhering to procurement guidelines, avoiding delays, and striving for excellence. “As a regulator, you must be seen to be guided by the procurement process,” he stated. He assured the team of an open-door policy, encouraging innovative ideas that could propel the Bureau to greater heights.

The session also featured a visit from former DG, Engr. Emeka Ezeh, OFR, FNSE, who led the Bureau from 2009 to 2016. Engr. Ezeh commended President Tinubu for appointing Dr Adedokun and urged staff to provide their full support to the new leadership. He encouraged staff to focus on leaving a legacy of excellence, saying, “Work in a way that you will be celebrated wherever you go in life.”

Senior Directors, including Engr. Nasir Bello and Engr. Isaiah Yesufu reiterated the importance of supporting the DG’s vision while emphasizing adherence to the Bureau’s operational guidelines. Staff also welcomed the session, sharing their perspectives on improving the Bureau’s operations and pledging their support for the new leadership.

In a related development, Dr Adedokun sought collaboration with the Presidential Office of Digital Engagement and Strategy (PODES) led by its Head, Mr O’tega Ogra, who is also the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital/New Media, during a courtesy visit to his office on November 21, 2024. The DG emphasized the need to enhance the Bureau’s public engagement and visibility in line with the all-of-government communications approach being espoused by the PODES.

Mr Ogra congratulated Dr Adedokun on his appointment and highlighted the key role BPP plays in advancing Nigeria’s development agenda. O’tega further expressed his commitment to collaborating with the Bureau in amplifying its communication efforts and ensuring Nigerians understand and appreciate its critical role in national governance.

Dr Adedokun’s leadership marks a new chapter for the Bureau of Public Procurement, focused on accountability, efficiency, and impactful service delivery. His vision aligns seamlessly with the Federal Government’s goals of economic transformation and sustainable development as well as President Bola Tinubu’s renewed hope agenda.

Janet McDickson
Director, Information & Public Relations/Head, Media-BPP

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Woman nabbed for stealing infant during christening

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Woman nabbed for stealing infant during christening

Woman nabbed for stealing infant during christening

 

The Nasarawa State Police Command says it has arrested one Khadija Aliyu for allegedly stealing a seven-day-old baby girl during a naming ceremony in the Keffi area of the state.

This is just as the command also arrested an ex-convict, Hussaini Mohammed, for allegedly stealing motorcycles in the same area.

it was reported that  in a statement by the command’s Public Relations Officer, Rahman Nansel, on Sunday, that the suspect was arrested at about 6:30 pm on Saturday.

Nansel said the suspect had pretended to be pregnant and, while the christening was ongoing, she sneaked into the house and stole the baby who had been laid to sleep

 

She was said to have carried the baby on her back, covered her with a veil, and escaped before being tracked down by police operatives.

He said, “At about 6:30 hrs, police operatives attached to the Keffi Division arrested one Khadija Aliyu for stealing a seven-day-old baby girl during a naming ceremony in Keffi.

“The suspect, who had been claiming to be pregnant, attended a naming ceremony at Behind INEC office, Keffi.

 

“While the event was ongoing, she sneaked into the house, stole the baby that was laid to sleep, carried the child on her back, covered her with a veil, and escaped before she was later arrested.”

 

In another incident, Rahman disclosed that Mohammed was apprehended for allegedly stealing motorcycles in the same area.

According to the PPRO, Hussaini, who was recently discharged from a correctional facility, was apprehended during the investigation into a case of stolen motorcycles.

Nansel said, “During the investigation, three motorcycles suspected to be stolen items were recovered from the suspect as exhibits.”

He added that the Commissioner of Police, Umar Shehu Nadada, called on members of the public with cases of stolen motorcycles to visit the Angwan Lambu Division in Keffi with proofs of ownership and lay claims to the items.

PUNCH Metro reported in July 2023 that a 19-year-old woman from Ishehi Hamlet in Misau Local Government Area of Bauchi State was arrested by the police for allegedly stealing a newborn baby.

The suspect, Hajara Usman, had allegedly stolen the infant after conspiring with an 18-year-old man, Ibrahim Usman, of Dugurgama Hamlet.

 

The Bauchi State Police Command’s Public Relations Officer, Ahmed Wakil, said the suspect was arrested after a resident of the Galawa Area of Akuyam District in Misau LGA reported the incident at the Akuyam Police Outstation that his daughter’s newborn baby was stolen at about 4:30 am.

 

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