accident scene in port harcourt

joke of the day

A German asks a Mexican if they have any Jews in Mexico. The Mexican says, “Sí, we have orange jews, apple jews, and grape jews!”

today in history

War of 1812 begins

The day after the Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to declare war against Great Britain, President James Madison signs the declaration into law–and the War of 1812 begins. The American war declaration, opposed by a sizable minority in Congress, had been called in response to the British economic blockade of France, the induction of American seaman into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of hostile Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. A faction of Congress known as the “War Hawks” had been advocating war with Britain for several years and had not hidden their hopes that a U.S. invasion of Canada might result in significant territorial land gains for the United States.

In the months after President Madison proclaimed the state of war to be in effect, American forces launched a three-point invasion of Canada, all of which were decisively unsuccessful. In 1814, with Napoleon Bonaparte’s French Empire collapsing, the British were able to allocate more military resources to the American war, and Washington, D.C., fell to the British in August. In Washington, British troops burned the White House, the Capitol, and other buildings in retaliation for the earlier burning of government buildings in Canada by U.S. soldiers.

In September, the tide of the war turned when Thomas Macdonough’s American naval force won a decisive victory at the Battle of Plattsburg Bay on Lake Champlain. The invading British army was forced to retreat back into Canada. The American victory on Lake Champlain led to the conclusion of U.S.-British peace negotiations in Belgium, and on December 24, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, formally ending the War of 1812. By the terms of the agreement, all conquered territory was to be returned, and a commission would be established to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada.

British forces assailing the Gulf Coast were not informed of the treaty in time, and on January 8, 1815, the U.S. forces under Andrew Jackson achieved the greatest American victory of the war at the Battle of New Orleans. The American public heard of Jackson’s victory and the Treaty of Ghent at approximately the same time, fostering a greater sentiment of self-confidence and shared identity throughout the young republic.

health tip of the day

Cool off without a beer. Don’t eat carbohydrates for at least an hour after exercise. This will force your body to break down body fat, rather than using the food you ingest. Stick to fruit and fluids during that hour, but avoid beer.

habits of unsuccessful people

todsay in history

1885
Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor

On this day in 1885, the dismantled State of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of America, arrives in New York Harbor after being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in 350 individual pieces packed in more than 200 cases. The copper and iron statue, which was reassembled and dedicated the following year in a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Grover Cleveland, became known around the world as an enduring symbol of freedom and democracy.

Intended to commemorate the American Revolution and a century of friendship between the U.S. and France, the statue was designed by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi (who modeled it after his own mother), with assistance from engineer Gustave Eiffel, who later developed the iconic tower in Paris bearing his name. The statue was initially scheduled to be finished by 1876, the 100th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence; however, fundraising efforts, which included auctions, a lottery and boxing matches, took longer than anticipated, both in Europe and the U.S., where the statue’s pedestal was to be financed and constructed. The statue alone cost the French an estimated $250,000 (more than $5.5 million in today’s money).

Finally completed in Paris in the summer of 1884, the statue, a robed female figure with an uplifted arm holding a torch, reached its new home on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor (between New York City and Hudson County, New Jersey) on June 17, 1885. After being reassembled, the 450,000-pound statue was officially dedicated on October 28, 1886, by President Cleveland, who said, “We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected.” Standing more than 305 feet from the foundation of its pedestal to the top of its torch, the statue, dubbed “Liberty Enlightening the World” by Bartholdi, was taller than any structure in New York City at the time. The statue was originally copper-colored, but over the years it underwent a natural color-change process called patination that produced its current greenish-blue hue.

In 1892, Ellis Island, located near Bedloe’s Island (which in 1956 was renamed Liberty Island), opened as America’s chief immigration station, and for the next 62 years Lady Liberty, as the statue is nicknamed, stood watch over the more than 12 million immigrants who sailed into New York Harbor. In 1903, a plaque inscribed with a sonnet titled “The New Colossus” by American poet Emma Lazarus, written 20 years earlier for a pedestal fundraiser, was placed on an interior wall of the pedestal. Lazarus’ now-famous words, which include “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” became symbolic of America’s vision of itself as a land of opportunity for immigrants.

Some 60 years after President Calvin Coolidge designated the statue a national monument in 1924, it underwent a multi-million-dollar restoration (which included a new torch and gold leaf-covered flame) and was rededicated by President Ronald Reagan on July 4, 1986, in a lavish celebration. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the statue was closed; its base, pedestal and observation deck re-opened in 2004, while its crown re-opened to the public on July 4, 2009. (For safety reasons, the torch has been closed to visitors since 1916, after an incident called the Black Tom explosions in which munitions-laden barges and railroad cars on the Jersey City, New Jersey, waterfront were blown up by German agents, causing damage to the nearby statue.)

Today, the Statue of Liberty is one of America’s most famous landmarks. Over the years, it has been the site of political rallies and protests (from suffragettes to anti-war activists), has been featured in numerous movies and countless photographs, and has received millions of visitors from around the globe.

health tip of the day

 Do self-checks. Do regular self-examinations of your breasts. Most partners are more than happy to help, not just because breast cancer is the most common cancer among SA women. The best time to examine your breasts is in the week after your period.

joke of the day

A woman starts dating a doctor. She eventually becomes pregnant and they don't know what to do. About nine months later, just about the time she is going to give birth, a priest goes into the hospital for a prostate gland infection. The doctor says to the woman, "I know what we'll do. After I've operated on the priest, I'll give the baby to him and tell him it was a miracle." "Do you think it will work?" she asks. "It's worth a try," he says. The doctor delivers the baby and then operates on the priest. After the operation, he goes to the priest and says, "Father, you're not going to believe this." "What happened?" asks the priest. "You gave birth to a child!" "But that's impossible!" says the priest. "I just did the operation," insists the doctor. "It's a miracle! Here's your baby." About 15 years go by, and the priest realizes he must tell his son the truth. One day, he sits the boy down and says, "Son, I have something to tell you. I'm not your father." The son says, "What do you mean, you're not my father?" The priest replies, "I am your mother. The archbishop is your father."

joke of the day

A boy is selling fish on a corner. To get his customers' attention, he is yelling, "Dam fish for sale! Get your dam fish here!" A pastor hears this and asks, "Why are you calling them 'dam fish.'" The boy responds, "Because I caught these fish at the local dam." The pastor buys a couple fish, takes them home to his wife, and asks her to cook the dam fish. The wife responds surprised, "I didn't know it was acceptable for a preacher to speak that way." He explains to her why they are dam fish. Later at the dinner table, he asks his son to pass the dam fish. He responds, "That's the spirit, Dad! Now pass the f*cking potatoes!"

today in history

1215
Magna Carta sealed

Following a revolt by the English nobility against his rule, King John puts his royal seal on the Magna Carta, or “Great Charter.” The document, essentially a peace treaty between John and his barons, guaranteed that the king would respect feudal rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation’s laws. Although more a reactionary than a progressive document in its day, the Magna Carta was seen as a cornerstone in the development of democratic England by later generations.

John was enthroned as king of England following the death of his brother, King Richard the Lion-Hearted, in 1199. King John’s reign was characterized by failure. He lost the duchy of Normandy to the French king and taxed the English nobility heavily to pay for his foreign misadventures. He quarreled with Pope Innocent III and sold church offices to build up the depleted royal coffers. Following the defeat of a campaign to regain Normandy in 1214, Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, called on the disgruntled barons to demand a charter of liberties from the king.

In 1215, the barons rose up in rebellion against the king’s abuse of feudal law and custom. John, faced with a superior force, had no choice but to give in to their demands. Earlier kings of England had granted concessions to their feudal barons, but these charters were vaguely worded and issued voluntarily. The document drawn up for John in June 1215, however, forced the king to make specific guarantees of the rights and privileges of his barons and the freedom of the church. On June 15, 1215, John met the barons at Runnymede on the Thames and set his seal to the Articles of the Barons, which after minor revision was formally issued as the Magna Carta.

The charter consisted of a preamble and 63 clauses and dealt mainly with feudal concerns that had little impact outside 13th century England. However, the document was remarkable in that it implied there were laws the king was bound to observe, thus precluding any future claim to absolutism by the English monarch. Of greatest interest to later generations was clause 39, which stated that “no free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised [dispossessed] or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised…except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” This clause has been celebrated as an early guarantee of trial by jury and of habeas corpus and inspired England’s Petition of Right (1628) and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679).

In immediate terms, the Magna Carta was a failure–civil war broke out the same year, and John ignored his obligations under the charter. Upon his death in 1216, however, the Magna Carta was reissued with some changes by his son, King Henry III, and then reissued again in 1217. That year, the rebellious barons were defeated by the king’s forces. In 1225, Henry III voluntarily reissued the Magna Carta a third time, and it formally entered English statute law.

The Magna Carta has been subject to a great deal of historical exaggeration; it did not establish Parliament, as some have claimed, nor more than vaguely allude to the liberal democratic ideals of later centuries. However, as a symbol of the sovereignty of the rule of law, it was of fundamental importance to the constitutional development of England. Four original copies of the Magna Carta of 1215 exist today: one in Lincoln Cathedral, one in Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Museum.

health tip of the day

Burn fat during intervals. To improve your fitness quickly and lose weight, harness the joys of interval training. Set the treadmill or step machine on the interval programme, where your speed and workload varies from minute to minute. Build up gradually, every minute and return to the starting speed. Repeat this routine. Not only will it be less monotonous, but you can train for a shorter time and achieve greater results.

Basketmouth Transformed Into An Old Man and Old Woman (pics)

Popular comedian, Basketmouth took to his Instagram page to show off his old man and old woman look.

He captioned it Basketmouth at 90...

My Mum Cut My Hands After I Ate At A Party: 10-yr-old Boy(PHOTO)

Nine-year-old Abdullahi Taoreed has never known any other mother except Ronke Olayinka. He was just a year old when his biological mother abandoned him and ran away. The woman was said to have bolted after Abdullahi clocked one year and was still crawling when his mates were already walking. Scared out of her wits that she might be saddled with a cripple, the woman took off, leaving the child to her husband.
She would later remarry. Since her exit from Abdullahi’s life, the woman had never once bothered to check on her little son. The boy’s father, unsure of what to do with a crawling child, decided to hand him over to his elder sister, Ronke Olayinka. Abdullahi’s mother and father would later die in different years, places and circumstances, leaving the child an orphan.
Thus Abdullahi grew up to know only Olayinka as his mother and addressed as such. The boy however soon realised something was fundamentally wrong, when Olayinka took to spanking him with wood, while she would use a cane on his other siblings.
He had got used to being pounced on and beaten within an inch of life with sticks and wood by his mother, but on June 7, 2015, Olayinka went too far. On one of such occasions, she got a new blade and used it to slash Abdullahi’s hands. Neighbours later told the police that the boy’s screams of pains almost brought down their building at Pipeline Street in Oke-Odo area of Lagos State, where the incident occurred. Filled with pains and terrified to his bone marrows, as the blade sliced through flesh, Abdullahi had repeatedly tried to snatch his hands away.

But Olayinka held onto the little hands like her life depended on her brutality. Unfazed by the bloodied hands and pains on the boy’s face, Olayinka took pepper and poured into the fresh wounds, eliciting more cries of agony. When Sunday Telegraph asked to speak with the wounded boy, neighbours said he had been rushed to a nearby hospital by policemen from Oke-Odo Police Station.
On Monday, Abdullahi was able to speak with our correspondent. By December this year, Abdullahi will be 10. The boy looked unkempt and had a lot of scars on his body. He also has two fresh wounds on his head. He said the head wounds were inflicted on him by his mother. “My mummy used wood to hit me on the head,” he said, sighing heavily. “I don’t hawk anything, but I do the cooking.”
The primary two pupil continued: “Yes, it was my mummy who inflicted blade cuts on my hands because I went to a party opposite our house to eat. There was no food at home. I was hungry, so I assisted the people holding the party to carry chairs. I knew that if I assisted them, they would give me food. They gave me food. My sister went to report to my mummy. “We went for evening prayer.
After the prayer, my mummy called me and started cutting my hands with a blade. She went out to buy the blade. The cut was deep. She poured pepper into the wounds. She then gave me a hot pot of beans to carry to the kitchen with the bloodied hands. “One of our neighbours, a woman, saw me and took the pot from me. She went and told everyone in the compound. People saw my hands and started crying.”
Some of the neighbours, who said they were tired of Olayinka’s alleged maltreatment of Abdullahi, mobilised and alerted the police. Recalling his life so far with his adopted mother, Abdullahi said: “It’s not every time my mummy gives me food. She uses a piece of wood to beat me, but uses canes on her kids.” Recollecting how he sustained one of the fresh head injuries, he said: “My mummy said I should go and buy kerosene. When I got there, the people said the money was not enough. I went home to tell mummy. She then used a piece of wood to hit me on my head.”

Pastor And Family Poisoned In Abia, Buried Amid Tears (Photo)

What is this world turning into? What could make a man deliberately wipe out an entire family? Why does God allow such wickedness on his people? so many questions running riot on my mind. So hard to type R I P.

Fetish 419 Syndicate In Ibadan Arrested By Police (Photos)

The Oyo State Police Command yesterday paraded a gang of highly fetish 419 syndicate which specialised in defrauding unsuspecting citizens of huge sums of money.

The police said they deceived their victims by claiming to cure their various ailments.

The breakthrough was made by the Command’s anti-Kidnapping Squad who discovered the gang’s shrines at Baale-Ayo, Asejire and Balogun village off Eleyele/Ido road as well as two poultry farms each of which costs 50 million naira while the cummulative value of their illegal services is over 800 million naira.


Oyo State Police Commissioner, Muhammed Katsina parading suspected fraudsters arrested yesterday in Ibadan. On display are their juju costumes which the Police discovered in the building that harbours their shrines.


The suspects include Sherifat Badamosi, a female, 48 years who played the role of the witch, Samsondeen Abiola a male, 42 years, a photographer whose role was to lure rich victims to their trap, Oriyomi Adebayo a male, 41 years, who played the role of a spy, Alhaji Akeem Azeez Olayode, a male, 37 years, leader of the gang and Ayankule Ayanlowo a male, 43 years who played the role of a fake herbalist.





According to Azeez Olayode, who admitted to be a ‘419’ said “I was a Fuji musician and my stage name is Santana, I was duped and those who duped me told me to become a fraudster in a bid to retrieve my money and that was how I started.
I started 6 years ago, I don’t know those people we dupe personally, I am usually linked up when their is any job, they call on me. They call me when they have customers so that we can work together.
I help them in blending leaves for concoction. When someone who has problem comes to the Babalawo for diabetes, stroke or other ailments, the man whom we work together has juju, he will cure the diabetes or any other ailment they bring, when the problem is cured, we ask the person to pay a certain amount.

The Babalawo is not genuine, he is a fake Babalawo. I can say I have duped like 10 people, the first person paid 30 million naira to cure diabetes, he paid in batches like 5,7,8 million. Their was one that had injury in the leg which was not healing up and he paid 15 million naira”.

Another suspect, Ayankunle Ayanlowo, who admitted to be a fake herbalist said, “I know how to make concoction, I get connected through Azeez Olayode to the clients and they pay me 500,000 naira per operation, I don’t have a car but I have a house”.

For the photographer, Mr Samsondeen, ” I met Mr Olayode at Options, a club very close to officers mess, I am a photographer, I take photographs at options and that was how I got his contact. When his child was doing Islamic graduation I did three albums for him so I see him as a customer. When the Police came to my house that night, they asked if I was the photographer they called on phone and I was told to follow them. I move around, I don’t have a shop, I am even supposed to be in Ilorin presently” he said.

Among the items recovered from the syndicate are three assorted cars, a toyota venza saloon car which costs 4.8 million naira, 4matic mercedes benz jeep which costs 6 million naira, honda crosstour saloon car which 3.5 million naira and assorted criminal charms.

According to the Commissioner of Police Mohammad Musa Katsina, “this place is a place where many victims have visited and all of them came here but left this environment in bruises. The gentleman (Azeez Olayode) who spoke with you is the leader of this hypnotising syndicate that whenever you are brought here, they do everything to diminish your sense or any sense in you and as result they subdue you to the point of parting with anything that is valuable. He met an octogenarian who is in Ibadan and dispossessed him of the sum of 30 million naira. Somebody living in the United States of America who came to this place was also unfortunate enough to have fallen into their trap, he did not leave their trap until they defrauded him the sum of 20 million naira, they have duped many people here and today we are here and has I did tell you I have the capacity and well withal to deal with them to chase them wherever they are” he said.
On behalf of the people of Oloya village, the youth leader however expressed his gratitude and appreciated the efforts of the Police to save them from this menace saying all efforts made by them have been abortive”.