A truck has rammed into a Lagos State BRT bus at Ibafo bus-stop along the Lagos Ibadan Expressway.

It was gathered that the accident occurred around some minutes to 6am on Saturday.

Officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps and Police on response call at the accident scene insisted that only their Public Relations Officers were authorised to speak.

However, unconfirmed reports from onlookers noted that several people on the BRT bus were injured.

Onlookers accounts noted that the BRT was parked loading its passengers at the bus stop before the truck loaded with cows heading to Lagos rammed into it, taking it off the road to destroy shops and kiosks by the roadside.

The cow truck had been towed a little away from the scene so as not to hinder traffic.

The US State Department has issued a worldwide security alert due to the potential for terrorist attacks against LGBTQI+ people and events.

CNN reports that the security alert on Friday comes two weeks before Pride Month begins on June 1.

The department warned US citizens to stay alert in locations that tourists often visit “including Pride celebrations and venues frequented by LGBTQI+ persons.”

“Due to the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution.

”The Department of State is aware of the increased potential for foreign terrorist organization-inspired violence against LGBTQI+ persons and events and advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution,” the alert read.

CNN said the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, earlier this week, issued a warning that foreign terrorist organizations and their supporters may target LGBTQ+ events and venues as Pride Month approaches.

The report also said the police in Austria successfully foiled a plot to attack Vienna’s annual Pride Parade, arresting three suspects linked to Islamic extremism.

Son of Bishop David Oyedepo, founder of Living Faith Church, Isaac, has confessed to struggling with prngraphy at a point in his life.

Isaac disclosed that he got indulged in Prngraphy during a trip to an European country.

Featuring on a podcast “Confession Box,” Isaac said he overcame through the help of God.

According to Isaac: “My confessions are good ones that will help people. I struggled with prngraphy before.

“I remembered how it started, we travelled to one country and I was meant to be in the room alone, I switched on the TV and that’s it.

“But God brought me out of it very quickly. A lot of people still struggle with it and I think of somebody who had struggled with it and had walked up to me and told me how to come out, I would have come out quickly.

“I think people feel there are things we shouldn’t talk about, but today there are some pastors and church members still struggling with it.

“You may be anointed, seeing signs and wonders but it does not mean you are standing right.

“There is this old saying that if it’s working it means you are standing right but I found out that it’s not always the case. There are times I found out I wasn’t right, but grace and mercy found me.

“For the sake of someone who is genuine in the congregation, God can bypass you to meet the person; this is my confession.”

Thunderstorms have killed four people and knocked out power to nearly a million homes and businesses in south-east Texas.

“We have a storm with 100 mph winds, the equivalent of Hurricane Ike, considerable damage downtown,” said the mayor of Houston, John Whitmire.

Two deaths came from fallen trees and one from a crane blown over.

The storm has now moved on to neighbouring Louisiana with flood warnings in place for the Gulf Coast.

In Houston, traffic lights were out, office windows blown through and glass strewn across the city’s streets.

Residents were warned to stay inside by the mayor, speaking on Thursday evening.

“Stay at home tonight. Do not go to work tomorrow, unless you’re an essential worker.

“Stay home, take care of your children. Our first responders will be working around the clock.”

Flash flood and severe thunderstorm warnings were issued for multiple counties heading into the evening, according to Houston’s National Weather Service office.

The city was working through a backlog of emergency calls, most of them about gas leaks and downed wires, the city’s fire chief said.

Nearly one million customers were without power in Texas as of late Thursday night, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.

The vast majority of outages are in Harris County, which contains Houston and is home to more than 4.7 million people.

In Louisiana there are 215,000 households without power.

More than 30 million people are at risk of severe weather on Friday across parts of the Gulf Coast.

Last month, another deadly storm swept through the city when tornado Katy killed one and injured 10.

Indian police have arrested the owner of a huge billboard that collapsed on a petrol station and killed 16 people in the financial capital Mumbai, media reports said.

Another 75 people were rescued from underneath the wreckage of Monday’s accident when the giant hoarding fell during fierce rain and dust storms that buffeted the coastal megacity.

Police opened a culpable homicide case against the billboard’s owner Bhavesh Bhinde who fled Mumbai in the aftermath of the collapse.

He was arrested late Thursday in the tourist city of Udaipur, around 800 kilometres (497 miles) to the north, police joint commissioner Lakhmi Gautam told The Indian Express.

“Bhinde has been nabbed from Udaipur where he was staying in a hotel under the name of his relative,” Gautam told the newspaper.

“Our teams had been trying to track him down and eventually found him on Thursday evening.”

Police could not be reached for comment by AFP on Friday.

The storm that hit Mumbai on Monday uprooted trees, caused brief power outages in various neighbourhoods around the city and disrupted the city’s train network.

Mumbai’s international airport also temporarily grounded flights with at least 15 planes diverted.

Eknath Shinde, the chief minister of Maharashtra state, earlier this week ordered an audit of all billboards in Mumbai to prevent any repeat of the accident elsewhere.

The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has issued a stern warning to Nigerians on the dangers of purchasing pre-registered SIM cards.

The Commission emphasized that this practice was illegal and could lead to severe consequences, including imprisonment.

The NCC highlighted that individuals using such SIM cards might inadvertently become implicated in crimes such as identity theft, financial fraud, kidnapping, and armed robbery.

Moreover, the NCC pointed out that the use of pre-registered SIM cards compromises the accuracy of consumer information and hampers efforts to track criminals effectively.

By using such SIM cards, the reliability of data collected on consumers was undermined, making it challenging for authorities to identify and apprehend the actual perpetrators of crimes.

The NCC’s message aimed to educate the public on the risks associated with pre-registered SIM cards and encourage compliance with legal guidelines to enhance national security.

Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, has confirmed the death of seven persons in a road accident that occurred on Ibadan-Iseyin road on Thursday evening.

The Public Relations Officer, FRSC, Oyo Sector Command, Mr Mayowa Odewo, said the deceased were five male adults, one female adult and one female child.

Odewo said that 15 people also sustained varying degrees of injuries out of the 22 people involved in the crash.

He attributed the accident, involving a Nissan Urvan commercial bus, with registration number: SEY 254 ZY and a Mazda commercial bus, with registration number LGB 343 XA, to speed violations and fatigue.

Odewo stated that the 13 injured victims, including three male adults, nine female adults and one female child, had been taken to a nearby hospital for medical attention.

He said that four of the seven corpses of the victims had been claimed by their families, while the remaining three had been deposited at a morgue.

“The police from Motor Traffic Division, MTD Police Division, Moniya, Ibadan, have taken possession of the two crashed vehicles, including bags and other valuables recovered from the victims,” he said.

He urged motorists to always obey traffic rules and regulations as well as adhere to all traffic cautions on the road to prevent avoidable crashes, NAN reports.

The National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Lagos office unveiled digitalised documentaries of Nigerian heritage sites on Thursday.

NCMM, Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique, and the Centre for Democracy and Development unanimously carried out the project.

Speaking during the unveiling at the National Museum, Onikan, Babrabra Morovich, Director of INFRA-Nigeria, said the digitalised heritage sites encompass monuments and artefacts from Ibadan, Benin, and Ile-Ife.

She said the challenges encountered during the project related to disseminating the research work to all Nigerians, adding that this was the most important aspect of the project.

Ms Morovich said the project’s benefit was directed at the public, who had been provided with a platform for easy understanding of heritage.

Sa’eed Husaini, CDD acting director, said the project’s primary purpose was to preserve potentially endangered materials, disseminate them, and make them accessible. The project had six components, each of which currently had at least one website for the public to access information and archival materials that had been digitised and uploaded.

He said the public could now visit those sites and download their desired materials.

One of those engaged in the project, David Afolayan, CEO of GIS Konsult Ltd., identified emerging problems he encountered while executing the project.

Mr Afolayan said climate change threatened most heritage sites nationwide, citing the town of a thousand gullies in Auchi, Edo, and a series of floods at heritage sites in Ibadan.

He added that the analogue way of record-keeping had become obsolete and inadequate, making him embrace new technologies for the project.

Mr Afolayan said in digitalising the religious architectural heritage of Ibadan and urban archaeology mapping of the pavements of Ile-Ife, he had engaged the Geographic Information System as the best technological platform.

According to him, GIS integrates computer hardware, software, and humanware to collate, process, analyse, and display geographically referenced data to solve complex problems.

He said he had trained no fewer than 100 researchers, students and stakeholders during the project.

Femi Olanrewaju, an Architect, noted that 137 churches, I42 mosques, and 127 shrines had been digitalised, as well as two Egungun festivals, to provide resourceful materials for all. He said this was to encourage the promotion of religious tourism in Nigeria.

Nkechi Adedeji, the curator of the Lagos Museum, harped on the need for heritage conservators to be well-informed in the area of heritage preservation using the GIS. She encouraged them to consistently develop laudable ideas to protect the nation’s heritage resources for future generations.

Adisa Ogunfola of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) advised building a digital interpretation centre for all the urban archaeological heritages of Ile-Ife in partnership with the National Museum, Ile-Ife.

He said the successful medieval Ile-Ife recapturing had ensured future security for all.

A total of 11 worshippers have been confirmed dead in an attack on a local mosque in Kano state by a suspected arsonist identified as Shafiu Abubakar.

Mr Abubakar, 38, had allegedly sprayed the mosque with petrol after he locked the entrance door and set it on fire.

No less than 40 Muslim worshippers were, who were attending morning prayers were trapped in the process, the BBC reported.

A family dispute over the sharing of inheritance at a local settlement in the Gadan village, the outskirts of Gezwa in Kano, allegedly triggered the attack.

The arson occurred in the early hours of Wednesday.

Locals confirmed that flames engulfed the mosque after the attack, with the worshippers wailing as they struggled to open the locked doors.

Some of the locals initially thought it was a bomb, but rescue teams, including bomb experts deployed to the scene, proved otherwise.

The police confirmed the attack on the mosque, saying Mr Abubakar had been arrested while the injured victims are currently at the intensive care unit of the Murtala Muhammad Specialist Hospital.

Umar Mamman Sanda, the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 1 Kano, confirmed the tragic incident during his visit to the hospital.

Mr Sanda, who was joined by a team of security personnel, including the police commissioner in Kano and the director of State Security Services (SSS), described the attack as “very unfortunate.”

“What happened is not associated with any act of terrorism, rather it was a skirmish that arose as a result of inheritance distribution. The suspect is presently with us and is giving out useful information,” he said.

Some students of Obafemi Awolowo University sustained injuries after torrential rainfall accompanied by a whirlwind on Thursday morning ripped off the ceiling of the Oduduwa hall while a lecture was ongoing.

Disclosing this in a statement, the university’s spokesman, Abiodun Olarewaju, said, “The torrential rainfall of early Thursday morning, accompanied with a whirlwind, which started as students of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, were having a lecture, SER to be precise, in the Amphitheatre of the Oduduwa Hall, affected the ceiling of the Amphitheatre as it fell off and injured a few of the students.”

The statement added, “The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adebayo Simeon Bamire, led other principal officers to the medical and health centre of the university, and ensured that the injured students were given adequate medical attention.”

The statement noted that the vice-chancellor followed two other students, whose cases demanded more medical attention to the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC), where the chief medical director, John Okeniyi, “physically supervised the proceedings.”

The vice-chancellor appealed for calm and urged students and staff to continue their academic and administrative activities.

He added that the university management had sealed off the amphitheatre, the venue of the unfortunate incident, until further notice.

Emirates Airlines has announced October 1, as the new date for its resumption of flights to Nigeria.

This was disclosed in a post via the airlines’official X handle, on Thursday.

The post reads, “We’re back, Nigeria! We’ll be resuming services to Lagos from 1 October 2024, and we can’t wait to offer unrivalled connectivity to Dubai and beyond to over 140 cities.”

The airline will be operating a daily service between Lagos State and Dubai and will offer customers more choices and connectivity from Nigeria’s largest city to, and through, Dubai.

This came after the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo visited the UAE Ambassador to Nigeria, Salem Saeed Al-S on Wednesday.

In October 2022, Emirates Airlines halted flight operations to Nigeria due to challenges in repatriating funds trapped in the country.

A Kaduna Chief Magistrates’ Court, on Thursday, ordered one Garba Aliyu to sweep the court premises for three weeks for stealing a woman’s purse.

The Prosecutor, Insp. Chidi Leo told the court that Aliyu criminally trespassed into the shop of one Adanna Ebuka pretending to buy a loaf of bread.

Leo said that the convict went into the complainant’s shop and stole her purse, adding that the purse was recovered during a police investigation.

The 30-year-old suspect was convicted and sentenced after pleading guilty to theft.

The Magistrate, Ibrahim Emmanuel said the convict’s plea had saved the court time, adding that the punishment would have been more severe if he had not pleaded guilty.

Emmanuel said the court took into consideration the fact that Aliyu was a first-time offender.

He advised the convict to desist from such acts in the future, stressing that the court frowned at acts of violence.

Residents of Azugwu, Abakaliki Local government Area of Ebonyi State, have shut down the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC, located at Awolowo Street, over three months of blackout.

The shutdown has led to the interruption of business activities at the EEDC office on Tuesday which lasted till Thursday morning.

It would be recalled that the residents had protested earlier to inform the power company of the lingering blackout, which has caused hardship and economic challenges to business owners in the area.

However, on Tuesday, the residents came out in large numbers both men, women, young and elderly to display their grievances over the lengthy period of blackout that has collapsed business activities in the area and caused hardship to the people.

A resident of the Area who gave his name as Paul Nwafor said “We’ve been passing through difficulties because of EEDC and their activities in Azugwu. In this regard, we wrote a letter to the commissioner of police and the DSS, which we copied to NERC. After meeting with the police authorities, we agreed to embark on this peaceful protest to display our anger over the total blackout for months.

When contacted on the development, EEDC Distribution Manager, Nwankwo Cyprian, stated that the company was aware of the situation, explaining that there have been a series of meetings with the management.

He, however, said he could not give a definite date as to when the light would be restored.

He appealed for calmness and assured them that on or before the end of May 2024, positive news would emerge.

The National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, NAFDAC, on Wednesday in Abuja arrested five persons for selling counterfeit cosmetics.

NAN reports that the arrest was made at the Garki and Wuse axis during an enforcement to curb substandard goods.

Speaking with newsmen after the enforcement, Mr Embugushiki-Musa Godiya, NAFDAC Head of Investigation and Enforcement, Federal Taskforce, said that the arrested persons would be investigated.

Godiya said that NAFDAC would work to ensure that fake cosmetics and other counterfeit products were completely wiped out of the country.

He said that the agency had been investigating some of the counterfeit cosmetics following intelligence reports, adding that some of those products were illegally imported into the country, despite security at the border.

“NAFDAC is present in all the ports of entry of the country, but with the nature of our borders, these smugglers will always find a way to beat the system that the government had put in place.

“That is why if they escape from the port or borders, we go to the market and to all the places, gather intelligence reports, go after them and confiscate these products for possible prosecution,” Godiya said.

He said that the market value of the seized cosmetics was N35 million, adding that NAFDAC would continue investigation into the issue to unravel the level of involvement of the suspects.

Godiya said that after investigation, the management of the agency would take its regulatory action, which probably may be prosecution of those suspects for the crime committed.

The Swedish government has said it will return 39 pieces of Benin artefacts in its museum to Oba of Benin, Ewuare II.

The Swedish Ambassador to Nigeria, Annika Hahn-Englund, conveyed the Swedish government’s decision on Tuesday night when she paid a courtesy visit to the Oba in his palace in Benin, Edo State.

Hahn-Englund also said the trade between Nigeria and Sweden is the second largest market in Sub-Sahara Africa.

She noted that the trade partnerships are in the areas of infrastructure, telecommunication, energy and other businesses that significantly support the economy of both countries.

She said, “I would like to convey the decision of the Swedish government to return 39 artefacts to the Benin kingdom. This is possible because of the cooperation between the two countries in the areas of culture, education and trade.

“So, Your Majesty, I am very honoured to be here tonight.”

Responding, the Oba, on behalf of the Edo people, welcomed the decision and expressed gratitude to the Swedish government.

The Benin monarch recalled how he made a request through the Swedish monarch, His Royal Majesty Carl Gustaf Folke Hubertus, during his courtesy visit to him in 1998 in Sweden as the Nigerian ambassador to Scandinavian countries.

The Oba said that the Federal Government-backed Benin Royal Museum project is still on course, and commended partners for their support and devotion towards the project.

The Oba also commended the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, which is an agency of the Federal Government of Nigeria, responsible for the preservation, promotion, and development of Nigeria’s cultural heritage.

The traditional ruler, who prayed for members of the diplomatic mission, noted that the remarkable reign and enduring affection of the Swedish monarch remained indelible.

The Oba added, “The demand for the return of looted Benin artefacts has been on since the reign of Oba Akenzua II. I am elated to hear that the return of the artefacts has been approved by the Swedish government. This has been my request for a long time. God’s time is always the best.”

Ireland’s cabinet has approved a plan to raise the minimum age for purchasing cigarettes to 21.

The cabinet said in a statement on Tuesday that the plan would make Ireland the first country in the EU to take such a measure.

It said the move came 20 years after Ireland became the first country to ban smoking in workplaces, including pubs and restaurants. Currently, 18 per cent of the population over the age of 15 are smokers.

The new proposal is designed to reduce Ireland’s adult smoking rate to less than five per cent.

Smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke kills an estimated 4,500 people a year in Ireland.

The government said the evidence showed that people were at high risk of becoming smokers between the ages of 18 and 21.

It added that raising the minimum purchasing age would make it harder for young people to access tobacco products through direct and proxy buys, as well as social sources.

Health minister Stephen Donnelly said it was a “tough” measure, adding that “the health impacts of tobacco smoking are immense and require tough responses.”

According to health officials, smoking has caused 13 per cent of all cancers and contributed to many preventable illnesses, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, eye diseases, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.

It is also responsible for five per cent of hospital inpatient admissions, while the financial loss caused by smoking was estimated at €10.6 billion annually.

“Our smoking rates are still unacceptably high, so I am delighted that we are progressing with a strong population protection measure. A measure that will help bring us closer to the goal of a tobacco-free Ireland,’’ chief medical officer Breda Smyth said.

The bill would provide that the prohibition on tobacco product sales will not apply to those who are currently between the ages of 18 and 20. The proposed legislation would not impact the minimum legal age of sale of nicotine-inhaling products or vapes.

Since December, the sale of vapes to fewer than 18s has been banned. There is currently no proposal to extend this ban to 21.

The government said preliminary legal advice suggests Ireland cannot pursue a “smokefree-generation” policy as suggested in other jurisdictions because of the EU’s single market rules and tobacco products directive.