Is It The Apocalypse Already?

The wave of deaths and catastrophic events that has swept through the world in the past couple of weeks is really starting to look worrisome. Within three weeks, more than 500 people have lost their lives in fire accidents, collapsed buildings, terror attacks, e.t.c. It started with the Boston marathon bombing in the US which claimed about three lives. A few days after, a fertilizer plant in Texas got fiery and by the time the hullabaloo died down, fifteen people had been killed. Hours later, news media reported that a MIT policeman had been shot dead by the suspected bombers and by the time the angel of death left Uncle Sam, twenty people, including one of the suspected bombers were dead. As if that wasn't enough, the wave of terror swept over the Atlantic to west Africa, Nigeria, where government army forces went to war with extremists in the village of Baga in northern Nigeria. A hundred and eighty-five people went down as collateral damage by the time the last bullet was fired. Next in line was Bangladesh. This time, the messenger of death struck through a collapsed building. An eight-story building housing numerous factory workers crashed and with it two hundred and seventy five lives. While the carnage continued in Syria, another tragedy struck in Russia when a mental institution went Texas on its inmates by going up in flames. It took with it thirty-eight lives. Not done yet, some loon in northern Germany went berserk and shot to death a county mayor before taking his own life. Another thirty people bade the world adios when the bus they were traveling in collided with an oil tanker in Afghanistan. Just today, another building collapsed in India, killing fifteen souls.

Needless to say, the world is on a gradual grind to insanity. Our world is becoming topsy-turvy more than it was thirty years ago. With so much avoidable deaths happening within the space of just three weeks, it can be said emphatically that these are indeed trying times. People get their lives snuffed out of them like chickens, human and man-made catastrophes of unimaginable magnitude continue to occur and man's inhumanity to man has risen to frightening levels. Are we finally nearing the apocalypse? As we offer our condolences to the bereaved worldwide and continue to sympathize with the distressed, the question of who will save the savior remains pertinent as we advance rapidly down the self-destruct slope.

P Square - Alingo

Nigeria’s finest duo P-Square drops one of the biggest musical events of the year. It is the much anticipated video for their certified club banger – Alingo.

10 Nigerian multi-millionaires you have never heard of

In the month of November, FORBES will publish its annual official ranking of the 40 richest people in Africa. A lot of research has gone into the making of this list and this year, we’ve uncovered several hidden holders of wealth across the continent.

Many of them are names you’ve probably never heard. In the coming days, this author will list at random, ten relatively unknown high net-worth individuals from various African countries, pulled from our extensive wealth database.

For all you Art lovers; behold the world's largest painting (by numbers)

This is the largest painting (by numbers) in the world, according to the Guinness World Records and it was painted by Nigerians.






















The painting measured 63.5 m (208 ft 3.99 in) x 49.3 m (161 ft 8.94 in) and was created by 350 volunteers and represents the map of Nigeria, the logo of 350.org in the middle of the map, the flag of Nigeria (green, white, green) which was painted around the map.

The painting was unveiled by the Ecole de Dessin in partnership with Lagos State Government, Nigeria, on 17 November 2010 in celebration of Guinness World Records Day 2010 and also as a means to draw awareness to the issue of climate change in Nigeria.

The painting is up for exhibition at the Methodist Boys High School Victoria Island Lagos from the 1st of October to the 12th of October 2012.

Wishing our Nigerian friends a Happy Independence Day!

Wishing our Nigerian friends a Happy Independence Day! We dedicate this song to you!

The curious case of rich Africans

 Reports reveal that (poor) Nigerians live on less than $2 per day, however, London evening standard, a popular UK tabloid recently revealed that wealthy Nigerians spend over £5000 (N1.3M) on sweets, chocolates, shoes, bag and other stupid irrelevant luxury items on each visit to London. It doesn't end there, some of these addicted, dump, stupid and greedy shoppers like the lady that was interview, Simi Osomo visit the UK more than 6 times in a year to blow over N15M on shopping, making visitors from Nigeria are the UK’s fourth biggest foreign spenders and four times what UK shoppers typically spend.

Every year, Simi Osomo makes six trips to London from Nigeria. The 25-year-old spends about two weeks here and every day she goes shopping. Today she’s at the boutique shop Matches Townhouse in Marylebone with a personal shopper. “When it comes to shopping and Nigerians, I can tell you it’s just what we have to do,” she tells me while admiring the patterned dresses.

For Nigerians, London is a shopping mecca. Visitors from the West African country are the UK’s fourth biggest foreign spenders, parting with an average of £500 in each luxury shop they visit — four times what UK shoppers typically spend. When I ask Osomo how much a two-week shopping trip in London costs she makes a bashful face. “Ooh, should I really be saying this? It depends, but most times about £5,000.”

Osomo is wearing a green top from Zara that’s “the colour of the Nigerian flag”, blue skinny jeans and new Christian Louboutin shoes. Later today she’s going to buy an iPhone 5 for her sister.

“You can get lots of things in Lagos but they are cheaper here and you get to take a holiday and relax a bit. It’s only six hours away.” The number of Nigerian visitors to the UK increased by more than 50 per cent to 142,000 a year between 1991 and 2011, according to the Office for National Statistics. Nigeria is projected to become Africa’s biggest economy by next year and the world’s fifth most populous country by 2050, and London is cashing in.

Debenhams’ Oxford Street branch has put up signs in Hausa, one of the official Nigerian languages, and said customers from this part of West Africa are its biggest overseas spenders. Yet Osomo says it’s not just rich Nigerians who come over. “Middle-class people can afford to come and spend £600 on shopping in a week here. What I like about the UK is that it doesn’t discriminate. As long as you’re able to prove you have an income, accommodation in London and a return ticket, the authorities are more than willing to give you a visa. It’s closer than America and the customer service here is phenomenal.”

Back home in Lagos, the technology market has been flooded with fake products from China, which means more people are coming to London for electronic goods and are even taking items back to sell. “No one wants to spend more than 100,000 naira (£390) and find out it is fake, so they prefer to come over for a holiday and buy something they know is real and has a guarantee in case something goes wrong.”

Marks & Spencer is one of Osomo’s favourite shops. “I love their fajitas. You can’t get them in Nigeria. I also buy soy sauce and Thai green curry paste, which is good because it lasts for a long time. Oh, and Crunchy Nut cereal, Skittles, Maltesers and tea. There’s nothing like a British cuppa. I get Lipton, PG and green tea.” She likes the variety of London. “I love Zara, H&M, Topshop. But if I want something more high end, there’s Sloane Street.”

More than £3 billion a year is spent on high-end goods in London, according to the London Luxury Quarter Report, and it predicts this will rise to £4.5 billion by 2020, with new shops including Burberry’s flagship fuelling the trend. Luxury concierge services are also popular. Osomo is a client of Quintessentially, which organises shopping trips and parties for her and has an office in Lagos.

Although summer is the height of the shopping season, Osomo likes to come back for the January sales too. Her mother, a lawyer, and father, a businessman, often join her. She has just finished a law degree and is about to start a job in fashion journalism, which she hopes will give her enough holidays for trips to London. But flights can get booked up quickly.

“You don’t want to get the Lagos to London flight in July. It’s packed with parents and their kids making noise.” Return flights at high season start at about £369.

But what about getting her haul of shopping back from London to Lagos? That, says Osomo, is costly. “All I pack when I come over is one pair of jeans and three tops. I bring two big suitcases but I always have to get another one and pay for excess baggage. I never learn.” British Airways has increased its excess baggage charge on flights from London to Lagos from £40 to £97 per suitcase in the past year. “They must have realised we always put an extra bag in and thought they’d try to make money out of it,” says Osomo.

Fashion-wise, she still picks up the odd item in Nigeria. Six months ago Zara opened an outlet store in Lagos, and Mango has been there for about a year. “Zara is affordable because it’s an outlet but what I find is that things are a bit last season. Nigeria’s hot all the time so there are always maxi dresses and swimwear but the colours are boring and we lack variety. Customer service is not great and some shops can get really crowded, which is challenging.” There is a burgeoning online shopping industry in Nigeria too. Currently, ASOS is the only shop that ships to Lagos free of charge and everyone Osomo’s age uses it.

“Nigeria is a fun place, I’d encourage people to go. Shopping is evolving. In five years I think a lot of stores will come to Nigeria because there is a gap in the market. Ten years ago I never thought Zara would come to Nigeria. I believe in the next five years we will catch up. But I still love London and won’t stop coming here.

Me thinks instead of spending all that money on ephemeral things abroad, why not open industries/factories to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youths in the country. That makes it a win-win situation and everybody is happy. What's wrong with people??

Nigerian Minister spends $10,000 on hotel rooms in 2 days

Investigations by SaharaReporters revealed that Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, booked and paid for two rooms in two separate high-cost hotels during the four nights she spent in New York City during the just concluded United Nations General Assembly. Impeccable sources within the Presidency and the delegation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) disclosed that the minister’s two rooms were booked under a pseudonym. Saharareporters discovered that Joe Mordi, one of the minister’s closest aides who works at the NNPC office in London, booked her into a one-bedroom suite at Four Seasons Hotel located at 57 East 57th Street, New York. When SaharaReporters inquired at the hotel, a staff said that the suite cost $5,000 per night. Ms. Alison-Madueke, who is known around Presidency circles as “Prime Minister,” was also booked into another room at the Pierre Hotel on 2 East 61st Street in New York where President Goodluck Jonathan lodged during his stay in New York. SaharaReporters found out that her room on the 28th floor of the Pierre Hotel cost Nigerian tax payers $3,000 per night. There were also additional charges in taxes and service fees. Ms. Alison-Madueke arrived in New York in style on a private jet on Monday from London where she had made a brief stop to continue treatment for an undisclosed ailment. She is billed to return to London today. President Jonathan left New York last night around 6:00 p.m. and has arrived in Nigeria very early today. SaharaReporters also learnt that, apart from the lavish double accommodation enjoyed by the Petroleum minister in two of New York City’s most expensive hotels, her delegation of seven NNPC officials also engaged in other acts of reckless spending. “The NNPC hired ten limousines to ferry its 7 officials, including the General Managing Director,” said our source. Five of the limousines, rented for$1,800 each per day, were stationed permanently in front of the Pierre Hotel while another five were put to the service of the NNPC officials at the Four Seasons. For the records, about 2million people are currently displaced and homeless due to floods in this African country. Are you still wondering why Africa is what it is?

Tough luck for honest taxi driver

A sum of 10 UAE dirhams (less than $3) was the reward received by an honest taxi driver, who returned a sum of 36,000 ($10,000) left behind by a passenger in the cab, a UAE daily reported.

“I have to admit I felt a little bad because I spent a lot of time trying to track the passenger down and even spent more than an hour waiting at our office for him to come and collect the money. But I would have returned the money with or without the reward, so it doesn’t matter,” UAE’s the Gulf News quoted the Pakistani driver, Shaaban Ali, as saying on Wednesday.

Ali discovered that the passenger, a Saudi, has left his bag behind, so he had to go in a few rounds looking for him, but he failed to find him, so he took the bag back to the office.

“The bag contained Dh36,000, the man’s passport and some other documents,” Ali said.

In an hour, the passenger was contacted and he came to the office to collect his belongings. “He told me thank you and handed me AED10,” Ali told the Gulf News.

According to the newspaper report Ali’s family — wife and parents — live back home in the Pakistani town of Kohat.

It was not the first incident to have taken place with drivers of the taxi company. Another Pakistani driver, Sajjad Arif, has recently returned valuable belongings to a Nigerian businessman.

“A laptop bag with 106,500 Nigerian Naira (AED 2,480), passport, laptop, blackberry, cheque books and watch was left behind in my cab,” Arif, who hails from Sialkot in Punjab, Pakistan, was quoted as saying.

“We are here to earn our money by working, and not to make easy money. No matter what I would not even consider for a second about holding on to someone else’s belongings,” he said.

Arif said that the next day the passenger collected his belongings and thanked him cordially. He added that he had returned back mobile phones and other belongings to passengers several times before.

That must be one sad sad cab driver. Tough luck!

Cancer; Nigerian Prof discovers new treatment methods

The President of the African University of Science and Technology (AUST ), Abuja, Professor Wole Soboyejo, has disclosed that research in new methods for the treatment of cancer has reached an advanced stage, compared to the treatment of the disease through chemotherapy.



Soboyejo unveiled this yesterday at the opening ceremony of a five-day workshop on Nanomedicine and Bio-Micro-Electrical Systems (BIOMEMS) organised by the Federal University of Technology, Minna in collaboration with AUST.

The new method of treatment would give room for early detection.

According to him, the new method of treatment will have little or no side effect on the patients, adding that unlike chemotherapy, the medicine is selective, saying when administered, it goes direct to the region of the disease unlike the present form of treatment which must go through all the blood vessels before attacking the area of the disease.

He added that the new method is cost effective as patients need not take large number of dosages of the medicine before it could go round the body to have impact on the affected part.

According to him, research for the new treatment had started eight years ago and had proven to be effective after testing it on animals adding that it would soon be tested on human beings.

He however said administering the new treatment has to be through injection.

He added that the workshop was conducted with the aim of bringing the young scholars and scientists on board for their contribution for research work on BIOMEMS.

New Video from Rick Ross - Hold Me Back (Nigeria)

Rozzay shows the depth of poverty and Lagos slums in this video. While many Nigerians have condemned this video as sending a wrong signal to the world like hitherto giving meaning to the already long known stereotype of Africa being just a land mass of poverty and slums, they  fail to realize it's a wake-up call on the government to make the wealth of the country go all around the populace so that the common man would benefit from it. True there are slums and ghettos everywhere in world.

P.S. This video was shot in a ghetto in Lagos, Nigeria. It doesn't depict what the whole city is though. Lagos is pretty in whatever sense you can think of.

Latest Twist On The Death Of Wunmi Adebayo!

This Update on the murder of Wunmi Adebayo, a Tai Solarin student will shock you, and it should serve as a lesson to ladies who run after big boys without knowing the source of their income.

Peradventure you haven’t heard about the death of  Wunmi  Adebayo.

It was reported that Wunmi was killed few days ago by armed robbers at her boyfriend’s apartment in Ijebu Ode. Well, there is a new development in the story now, as her boyfriend has confessed to the Police that he killed Wunmi.

Top 10 myths about Africa

There are several myths and misconceptions about the continent of Africa especially in the Western world. Most of these originate from the media where several people look up to for information. I have compiled below some of these myths. Now you'll know how wrong you've been about the ''dark continent''.


1. Africa is a country: Heck no it isn't. Recently Sarah Palin of the U.S.A. made this terrible goof when talking about Africa and this just shows how ignorant most people are when it comes to Africa. It is a continent home to 54 independent, unparalleled countries. South Sudan joined the fray in July 2011.

Obama Declares Nigeria As World's Next Major Economic Giant

The President of the United States of America, Senator Barrack Obama has declared Nigeria as the world's next economic success story, stressing that the discovery was one of the major reasons why his government is committed to helping the country build strong democratic institutions and as well remove constraints to trade and investment through the African Growth and Opportunity.

Making this declaration at the ongoing US-Nigeria Trade and Investment Forum, an event organised by the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDOA) in Washington DC, yesterday, President Obama who was represented by Ambassador Eunice Reddick, a top official of the US Department, said that his country expanded opportunities for Nigeria to effectively access its neighbor's market, and diversify its economy beyond a narrow reliance on natural resources as a result of the discovery that the West African nation will emerge as the world' next economic giant.

"As we support these efforts, the Diaspora can play an important role in contributing to a strong, vibrant, and economically prosperous Nigeria" he noted.

President Obama pressed further that his country invests in Nigeria's success because it recognizes Nigeria-s as a strategic center of gravity, stressing that the country's success will as well be Africa's success if the US can help Nigeria chart a secured, prosperous, and democratic course.

The US leader also make it known that his government will encourage Nigeria in the area of private investment in the power sector as well as other sectors to help seal the promise of growth and opportunity for all Nigerians.

He continued that the US government will also work to strengthen Nigeria's agricultural sector, which employs nearly 70 percent of the country's population, by encouraging improvements to infrastructure that would facilitate agricultural growth.

He also said that his government will help Nigeria to iberalize trade policies to foster regional trade, reform the customs system to bring it in line with global best practices, and as well encourage policy reforms to enable private investment in agriculture.

Speaking on the US-Nigeria Bi-National agreement, Obama said that the joint Commission has grown into a forum for frank, high-level concersations, in which both nations have seen substantial reforms and mutually reinforcing initiatives implemented in Nigeria.

His words: "Some key outcomes of the Binational Commission so far have been successful integration of civil society into the electoral process prior to the 2011 elections, sustained and elevated dialogue with energy sector officials on energy policy, reforms to increase investment, and agreement to support the development of a civil affairs training center in the coming year"

"Energy and Investment, the subject of one of the four working groups of the Binational Commission, is critical to Nigeria-s present and future"

Nigerian Facebook serial killers

The Lagos Command of the Nigerian Police Force on Wednesday paraded two suspects in the murder of Cynthia Akuzogwu Udoka, daughter of a retired General, who they met on Facebook and persuaded her to come to Lagos, from Jos, the Plateau state capital.
One of the suspects, Ezekiel Nnechuwu Olisa Eloka, 23, told the police that they killed Cynthia because they believed she had a lot of money. But after taking her life, they did not find any significant amount of cash. Both Eloka and Echezona Nwabufor, confirmed that they met the victim on Facebook and invited her to come to Lagos to buy goods at cheap prices. Cynthia, they claim was their sixth victim.