Sunday 19 May 2013

Welcome to Naija Gist: $1 million in Chopard jewels stolen from Cannes ho...

Welcome to Naija Gist: $1 million in Chopard jewels stolen from Cannes ho...: Thieves steal red-carpet jewels at Cannes Jewels worth more than $1 million were stolen from a hotel in Cannes, France, police...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Plane lands without landing gear at Newark

Welcome to Naija Gist: Plane lands without landing gear at Newark: This image from WABC-TV shows emergency crews hosing down the plane with foam. New York (CNN) -- A US Airways plane touched down ...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Proof of heaven popular, except with the church

Welcome to Naija Gist: Proof of heaven popular, except with the church: They claim that they’ve glimpsed heaven but survivors of near-death experiences face a surprising skeptic: the church. ...

Welcome to Naija Gist: As I Lay Dying's Tim Lambesis charged with seeking...

Welcome to Naija Gist: As I Lay Dying's Tim Lambesis charged with seeking...: As I Lay Dying's Tim Lambesis charged with seeking to have his wife killed Police: Heavy metal star hired hitman The lead si...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Proof of heaven popular, except with the church

Welcome to Naija Gist: Proof of heaven popular, except with the church: Proof of heaven popular, except with the church Eben Alexander shouted and flailed as hospital orderlies tried to hold him in place. ...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Arewa Youths Want Governors Of States Under Emerge...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Arewa Youths Want Governors Of States Under Emerge...: President of AYCF, Mr. Yerima Shettima. The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum has reiterated its support for the state of emergency...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Maiduguri: Army Kills 10 Boko Haram Militia, Captu...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Maiduguri: Army Kills 10 Boko Haram Militia, Captu...: The Nigerian military in Abuja confirms it has killed 10 members Boko Haram sect and captured 65 who sneaked into Maiduguri in Borno St...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Maiduguri: Army Kills 10 Boko Haram Militia, Captu...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Maiduguri: Army Kills 10 Boko Haram Militia, Captu...: The Nigerian military in Abuja confirms it has killed 10 members Boko Haram sect and captured 65 who sneaked into Maiduguri in Borno St...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Nigerian Police Says They Will Not Arrest Asari Do...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Nigerian Police Says They Will Not Arrest Asari Do...: Nigerian police recently said that there is no cause to arrest or issue warning to ex-militant Asari Dokubo. On Friday, Deputy Force P...

Welcome to Naija Gist: How Third Term Agenda Turned Obasanjo Against Me –...

Welcome to Naija Gist: How Third Term Agenda Turned Obasanjo Against Me –...: Former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, has revealed how the third term ambition of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo earned ...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Beckham plays final home match to tears and cheers...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Beckham plays final home match to tears and cheers...: The emotion shows as David Beckham walks off the field during his final professional match. Wi...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Emergency Rule: Boko Haram Militants Flood Gombe, ...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Emergency Rule: Boko Haram Militants Flood Gombe, ...: On Thursday, members of the sect attacked two police stations and four banks in Daura, Katsina State. It was the first time the sect was...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Beckham plays final home match to tears and cheers...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Beckham plays final home match to tears and cheers...: The emotion shows as David Beckham walks off the field during his final professional match. Wi...

Welcome to Naija Gist: I Gave Obasanjo N100m For 1999 Elections –Kalu

Welcome to Naija Gist: I Gave Obasanjo N100m For 1999 Elections –Kalu: Former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, has said he gave ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo N100m to run his campaign in 1999. He s...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Beckham plays final home match to tears and cheers...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Beckham plays final home match to tears and cheers...: The emotion shows as David Beckham walks off the field during his final professional match. Wi...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Revealed: Subsidy Thieves Own Most Private Jets in...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Revealed: Subsidy Thieves Own Most Private Jets in...: Human Rights Lawyer And Senior Advocate of Nigeria member Femi Falana recently reacted to the latest call for the removal of fuel subsi...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Retired School Principal Reveals How He Killed His...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Retired School Principal Reveals How He Killed His...: Dr. Chimezie Osigwe is a 64-year-old retired school principal of Awa Community Secondary School in Oguta, Imo State. He allegedly ...

Welcome to Naija Gist: Report: North Korea launches short-range missiles

Welcome to Naija Gist: Report: North Korea launches short-range missiles: Report: N. Korea launches missiles North Korea launched three short-range guided missiles into the sea off the Korean Penins...

Beckham plays final home match to tears and cheers

The emotion shows as David Beckham walks off the field during his final professional match. The emotion shows as David Beckham walks off the field during his final professional match.
With tears streaming down his face, David Beckham said farewell in his final home game as a professional footballer Saturday.
Made captain for the night by Paris Saint Germain coach Carlo Ancelotti, he played his full part in a 3-1 win for the new French champions over Brest.
But on 82 minutes, with the realization that his glittering 847-game career was winding down, the raw emotion of the moment got the better of the most iconic player of his generation.
Given a standing ovation by the near 45,000 strong capacity crowd in the Parc des Princes, Beckham hugged teammates and opponents before being substituted by Ezequiel Lavezzi.
Family and friends, including his pop star wife Victoria, were in the stands to watch him.
He had even donned a special pair of commemorative boots for the occasion -- bearing the date May 18 and the names of his children, Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and Harper.
Beckham was going out on a high, although PSG have an away match at Lorient to complete a triumphant season.
It was his 10th league championship title -- won with four clubs -- Manchester United, Real Madrid, Los Angeles Galaxy and now PSG, the players lifting the trophy after their final home match.
The former England captain joined them for the run-in to the season and quickly won over the fans as she showed that despite his 38 years he had lost none of his trademark skills.
It was on display again in his farewell appearance, with raking cross-field balls regularly finding the target and he made the assist on PSG's second goal.
PSG made a flying start with star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic putting them ahead in the fifth minute.
Beckham's corner proved the assist for Blaise Matuidi to score the second with Ibrahimovic blasting the third before halftime with a thunderous free kick.
Charlison Benschop pulled a late goal back for already relegated Brest, but it could not spoil the celebrations -- which went on long after the final whistle as the entire PSG squad, Beckham included, were paraded ahead of the trophy celebration.

$1 million in Chopard jewels stolen from Cannes hotel, police say


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Thieves steal red-carpet jewels at Cannes

Jewels worth more than $1 million were stolen from a hotel in Cannes, France, police in the nearby city of Nice said Friday.
The theft of the jewels, from the Swiss firm Chopard, came Thursday night, on the second day of the renowned Cannes Film Festival, which opened Wednesday and runs through May 26.
The annual Cannes festival brings together the rich and famous from around the world for movie screenings and glittering parties.
Commandant Bernard Mascarelli, of the Nice police, said the jewelry was stolen from a safe in the Suite Novotel hotel on Boulevard Carnot in Cannes.
 
Who stole jewels from Cannes?
A Chopard employee was staying in the room but left it to go to dinner from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. local time, he said. She returned to discover the safe containing the jewels was missing.
The whole safe had been unscrewed from the inside of the hotel room and carried out, Mascarelli said.
Police are now scouring security camera footage from the streets around the hotel and citywide for clues, he said.
No detailed description has yet been given of the stolen jewels.
Chopard, which is an official sponsor of the festival, has provided the Palme d'Or trophy awarded to the director of the best feature film for the past 15 years. The trophy features a 24-carat gold palm attached to a piece of cut crystal.
The firm is promoting its Red Carpet Collection 2013 at this year's festival, with a number of actresses sporting its gems.
The collection is "a world of unparalleled glamour and craftsmanship, where originality, creativity, and technical mastery are pushed to their ultimate limits," according to Chopard's Facebook page.
By coincidence, the theft occurred on the same day as the screening in Cannes of Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring," which stars Harry Potter actress Emma Watson as a member of a thieving group of teens who steal from the famous.
The movie isn't in competition but was selected to open the "Un Certain Regard" portion of the film festival.

Report: North Korea launches short-range missiles


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Report: N. Korea launches missiles

North Korea launched three short-range guided missiles into the sea off the Korean Peninsula's east coast Saturday, South Korea's semi-official news agency Yonhap cited the South Korean Defense Ministry as saying.
The ministry said it had detected two launches in the morning, followed by another in the afternoon, Yonhap reported.
The missiles were fired in a northeasterly direction, away from South Korean waters, the ministry said.
South Korea has beefed up monitoring on North Korea and is maintaining a high-level of readiness to deal with any risky developments, the ministry added, according to Yonhap.
According to the Arms Control Association, a U.S.-based organization, short-range guided missiles are generally classified as those traveling less than 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles.)
Tensions in the region have eased in recent days since a fraught period last month that included near daily North Korean threats of war.
U.S. and South Korean officials feared at that time that Kim Jong Un's regime was planning to carry out a test launch of longer-range ballistic missiles, believed to be Musudans. The South Korean government says they have a maximum range of 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles).
Andrew Salmon, a journalist and author based in the South Korean capital, Seoul, said North Korea's reported launch of short-range missiles Saturday should not cause the same degree of concern as the launch of a satellite or medium-range Musudan rocket.
"It's a short-range tactical weapon. If any other country launched this kind of weapon, it's a routine test, nobody would be too worried. It's really simply because it's North Korea doing this that it raises concerns," he said.
The situation is much less tense in the region than it was last month, Salmon said.
"The North Koreans have significantly de-escalated their bellicosity and their rhetoric since the end of April," he said. "The South Korean government, I suspect, will not be strongly condemnatory of this test because right now they are very, very keen to get the North Koreans to the negotiating table."
The recent tensions flared after the North's long-range rocket launch in December and underground nuclear test in February, both of which were widely condemned.
Pyongyang's fiery rhetoric intensified in March as the U.N. Security Council voted to tighten sanctions on the regime following the nuclear test.
Annual U.S.-South Korean military drills in South Korea also fueled the North's anger, especially when the United States carried out displays of strength that included nuclear-capable B2 stealth bombers.
North Korea is demanding recognition as a nuclear power, something the United States refuses to countenance.
Last month's crisis resulted in the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

Winning numbers for largest Powerball jackpot are ...


A retailer holds a Powerball lottery ticket at a store in Decatur, Georgia, on Friday, May 17. The multistate Powerball jackpot was $590.5 million, with a cash value of $376.9 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. A retailer holds a Powerball lottery ticket at a store in Decatur, Georgia, on Friday, May 17. The multistate Powerball jackpot was $590.5 million, with a cash value of $376.9 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association.
The million-dollar questions have been answered. What are the Powerball numbers, and have any winning tickets been sold?
Lottery officials released the winning numbers for the largest multistate Powerball jackpot: 22, 10,13,14, 52 and the Powerball number is 11.
One winning ticket was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, Florida, according to David Bishop, deputy secretary of Florida lottery.
Saturday's jackpot is a record $590.5 million. It marks the largest in Powerball history, surpassing a $587.6 million jackpot split by winners in Arizona and Missouri in November.
The jackpot has a cash value of $376.9 million.
The largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history was $656 million in the Mega Millions game in March 2012. That was split by three tickets sold in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland.
If there had been no winner in Saturday's Powerball, the jackpot would have shot up to $925 million for Wednesday's drawing, according to Kelly Cripe, spokeswoman for the Texas Lottery, which is part of the multistate lotteries.
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The Powerball game is played in 43 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A single ticket costs $2, and the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 175,223,510.
Hate to break it to you, but you stand a better chance of walking onto the golf course and hitting two consecutive holes in one than winning the jackpot.
But that didn't stop hundreds from driving to the Trex Mart in Dearborn, Missouri, store where one of two winning tickets sold in last year's $587 million Powerball drawing.
About 100 people an hour were buying tickets at the store.
At a convenience store in Riverside, Missouri, Jim Mansell said he was only buying one ticket.
"I figure if the good Lord intends you to win, you only need one ticket," he told CNN affiliate KCTV5. "But I don't know if the good Lord believes in gambling or not."
In Florida, winners must claim prizes at a state lottery retailer or lottery district office on or before the 180th day after the drawing. Any Powerball retailer in the state can validate a winning ticket.

Plane lands without landing gear at Newark

This image from WABC-TV shows emergency crews hosing down the plane with foam.
This image from WABC-TV shows emergency crews hosing down the plane with foam.
New York (CNN) -- A US Airways plane touched down without landing gear at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey early Saturday morning.
The plane was carrying 31 passengers and three crew members. U.S. Airways spokesman Davien Anderson told CNN that no injuries were reported.
US Express Flight 4560, operated by Piedmont Airlines, took off from Philadelphia around 11 p.m. Friday night. The plane reported a landing gear issue upon approach to Newark and stuck with a holding pattern before landing on its belly around 1 a.m. Saturday morning, an hour after it was scheduled to arrive. Upon landing, passengers and crew members were evacuated. They were transported to the terminal where they gathered their luggage and departed the airport, Anderson said.
An investigation into the matter is ongoing. US Airways is fully cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board, Anderson said.

Proof of heaven popular, except with the church

Proof of heaven popular, except with the church
They claim that they’ve glimpsed heaven but survivors of near-death experiences face a surprising skeptic: the church.

Proof of heaven popular, except with the church


Eben Alexander shouted and flailed as hospital orderlies tried to hold him in place. But no one could stop his violent seizures, and the 54-year-old neurosurgeon went limp as his horrified wife looked on.
That moment could have been the end. But Alexander says it was just the beginning. He found himself soaring toward a brilliant white light tinged with gold into “the strangest, most beautiful world I’d ever seen.”
Alexander calls that world heaven, and he describes his journey in “Proof of Heaven,” which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for 27 weeks. Alexander says he used to be an indifferent churchgoer who ignored stories about the afterlife. But now he knows there’s truth to those stories, and there’s no reason to fear death.
“Not one bit,” he said. “It’s a transition; it’s not the end of anything. We will be with our loved ones again.”
Heaven used to be a mystery, a place glimpsed only by mystics and prophets. But popular culture is filled with firsthand accounts from all sorts of people who claim that they, too, have proofs of heaven after undergoing near-death experiences.
Yet the popularity of these stories raises another question: Why doesn’t the church talk about heaven anymore?
Preachers used to rhapsodize about celestial streets of gold while congregations sang joyful hymns like “I’ll Fly Away” and “When the Roll is Called up Yonder.” But the most passionate accounts of heaven now come from people outside the church or on its margins.
Most seminaries don’t teach courses on heaven; few big-name pastors devote much energy to preaching or writing about the subject; many ordinary pastors avoid the topic altogether out of embarrassment, indifference or fear, scholars and pastors say.
“People say that the only time they hear about heaven is when they go to a funeral,” said Gary Scott Smith, author of “Heaven in the American Imagination” and a history professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.
Talk of heaven shouldn’t wait, though, because it answers a universal question: what happens when we die, says the Rev. John Price, author of “Revealing Heaven,” which offers a Christian perspective of near-death experiences.
“Ever since people started dying, people have wondered, where did they go? Where are they now? Is this what happens to me?” said Price, a retired pastor and hospital chaplain.
A little girl’s revelation
Price didn’t always think heaven was so important. He scoffed at reports of near-death experiences because he thought they reduced religion to ghost stories. Besides, he was too busy helping grieving families to speculate about the afterlife.
His attitude changed, though, after a young woman visited his Episcopal church one Sunday with her 3-year-old daughter.
Price had last seen the mother three years earlier. She had brought her then-7-week-old daughter to the church for baptism. Price hadn't heard from her since. But when she reappeared, she told Price an amazing story.
She had been feeding her daughter a week after the baptism when milk dribbled out of the infant's mouth and her eyes rolled back into her head. The woman rushed her daughter to the emergency room, where she was resuscitated and treated for a severe upper respiratory infection.
Three years later, the mother was driving past the same hospital with her daughter when the girl said, “Look, Mom, that’s where Jesus brought me back to you.”
“The mother nearly wrecked her car,” Price said. “She never told her baby about God, Jesus, her near-death experience, nothing. All that happened when the girl was 8 weeks old. How could she remember that?”
When Price started hearing similar experiences from other parishioners, he felt like a fraud. He realized that he didn’t believe in heaven, even though it was part of traditional Christian doctrine.
He started sharing near-death stories he heard with grieving families and dejected hospital workers who had lost patients. He told them dying people had glimpsed a wonderful world beyond this life.
The stories helped people, Price said, and those who've had similar experiences of heaven should “shout them from the rooftops.”
“I’ve gone around to many churches to talk about this, and the venue they give me is just stuffed,” he said. “People are really hungry for it.”
Why pastors are afraid of heaven
Many pastors, though, don’t want to touch the subject because it’s too dangerous, says Lisa Miller, author of “Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife.”
Miller cites the experience of Rob Bell, one of the nation’s most popular evangelical pastors.
John Price ignored heaven until he met a woman with an amazing story.
Bell ignited a firestorm two years ago when he challenged the teaching that only Christians go to heaven in “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.”
The book angered many members of Bell’s church as well as many in the evangelical establishment. He subsequently resigned.
“Farewell, Rob Bell,” one prominent evangelical tweeted.
“It’s a tough topic for a pastor,” said Miller, a former religion columnist for the Washington Post. “If you get too literal, you can risk sounding too silly. If you don’t talk about it, you’re evading one of the most important questions about theology and why people come to church.”
If pastors do talk about stories of near-death experiences, they can also be seen as implying that conservative doctrine – only those who confess their faith in Jesus get to heaven, while others suffer eternal damnation – is wrong, scholars and pastors say.
Many of those who share near-death stories aren’t conservative Christians but claim that they, too, have been welcomed by God to heaven.
“Conservative Christians aren’t the only ones going to heaven," said Price, "and that makes them mad."
There was a time, though, when the church talked a lot more about the afterlife.
Puritan pastors in the 17th and 18th centuries often preached about heaven, depicting it as an austere, no fuss-place where people could commune with God.
African-American slaves sang spirituals about heaven like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” They often depicted it as a place of ultimate payback: Slaves would escape their humiliation and, in some cases, rule over their former masters.
America’s fixation with heaven may have peaked around the Civil War. The third most popular book in 18th century America – behind the Bible and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” – was "Gates Ajar," written in the wake of the war, Miller says.
The 1868 novel was “The Da Vinci Code” of its day, Miller says. It revolved around a grieving woman who lost her brother in the Civil War. A sympathetic aunt assures her that her brother is waiting in heaven, a bucolic paradise where people eat sumptuous meals, dogs sun themselves on porches and people laugh with their loved ones.
“This was a vision of heaven that was so appealing to hundreds of thousands of people who had lost people in the Civil War,” Miller said.
Americans needed heaven because life was so hard: People didn’t live long, infant mortality was high, and daily life was filled with hard labor.
“People were having 12 kids, and they would outlive 11 of them,” said Smith, author of "Heaven in the American Imagination." “Death was ever-present.”
The church eventually stopped talking about heaven, though, for a variety of reasons: the rise of science; the emergence of the Social Gospel, a theology that encouraged churches to create heaven on Earth by fighting for social justice; and the growing affluence of Americans. (After all, who needs heaven when you have a flat-screen TV, a smartphone and endless diversions?)
But then a voice outside the church rekindled Americans' interest in the afterlife. A curious 23-year-old medical student would help make heaven cool again.
The father of near-death experiences
Raymond Moody had been interested in the afterlife long before it was fashionable.
He was raised in a small Georgia town during World War II where death always seemed just around the corner. He constantly heard stories about soldiers who never returned from war. His father was a surgeon who told him stories of bringing back patients from the brink of death. In college, he was enthralled when he read one of the oldest accounts of a near-death experience, a soldier’s story told by Socrates in Plato’s “Republic.”
His fascination with the afterlife was sealed one day when he heard a speaker who would change his life.
The speaker was George Ritchie, a psychiatrist. Moody would say later of Ritchie, “He had that look of someone who had just finished a long session of meditation and didn’t have a care in the world.”
Moody sat in the back of a fraternity room as Ritchie told his story.
It was December 1943, and Ritchie was in basic training with the U.S. Army at Camp Barkeley, Texas. He contracted pneumonia and was placed in the hospital infirmary, where his temperature spiked to 107. The medical staff piled blankets on top of Ritchie’s shivering body, but he was eventually pronounced dead.
“I could hear the doctor give the order to prep me for the morgue, which was puzzling, because I had the sensation of still being alive,” Ritchie said.
He even remembers rising from a hospital gurney to talk to the hospital staff. But the doctors and nurses walked right through him when he approached them.
He then saw his lifeless body in a room and began weeping when he realized he was dead. Suddenly, the room brightened “until it seemed as though a million welding torches were going off around me.”
He says he was commanded to stand because he was being ushered into the presence of the Son of God. There, he saw every minute detail of his life flash by, including his C-section birth. He then heard a voice that asked, “What have you done with your life?"
After hearing Ritchie’s story, Moody decided what he was going to do with his life: investigate the afterlife.
Raymond Moody revived interest in heaven by studying near-death experiences.
He started collecting stories of people who had been pronounced clinically dead but were later revived. He noticed that the stories all shared certain details: traveling through a tunnel, greeting family and friends who had died, and meeting a luminous being that gave them a detailed review of their life and asked them whether they had spent their life loving others.
Moody called his stories “near-death experiences,” and in 1977 he published a study of them in a book, “Life after Life.” His book has sold an estimated 13 million copies.
Today, he is a psychiatrist who calls himself “an astronaut of inner space.” He is considered the father of the near-death-experience phenomenon.
He says science, not religion, resurrected the afterlife. Advances in cardiopulmonary resuscitation meant that patients who would have died were revived, and many had stories to share.
“Now that we have these means for snatching people back from the edge, these stories are becoming more amazing,” said Moody, who has written a new book, “Paranormal: My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife.”
“A lot of medical doctors know about this from their patients, but they’re just afraid to talk about it in public.”
Ritchie’s story was told through a Christian perspective. But Moody says stories about heaven transcend religion. He's collected them from Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and atheists.
“A lot of people talk about encountering a being of light,” he said. “Christians call it Christ. Jewish people say it’s an angel. I’ve gone to different continents, and you can hear the same thing in China, India and Japan about meeting a being of complete love and compassion.”
It’s not just what people see in the afterlife that makes these stories so powerful, he says. It’s how they live their lives once they survive a near-death experience.
Many people are never the same, Moody says. They abandon careers that were focused on money or power for more altruistic pursuits.
“Whatever they had been chasing, whether it's power, money or fame, their experience teaches them that what this (life) is all about is teaching us to love,” Moody said.
Under 'the gaze of a God'
Alexander, the author of “Proof of Heaven,” seems to fit Moody's description. He’s a neurosurgeon, but he spends much of time now speaking about his experience instead of practicing medicine.
He'd heard strange stories over the years of revived heart attack patients traveling to wonderful landscapes, talking to dead relatives and even meeting God. But he never believed those stories. He was a man of science, an Episcopalian who attended church only on Easter and Christmas.
That changed one November morning in 2008 when he was awakened in his Lynchburg, Virginia, home by a bolt of pain shooting down his spine. He was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with bacterial meningitis, a disease so rare, he says, it afflicts only one in 10 million adults.
After his violent seizures, he lapsed into a coma — and there was little hope for his survival. But he awakened a week later with restored health and a story to tell.
He says what he experienced was “too beautiful for words.” The heaven he describes is not some disembodied hereafter. It’s a physical place filled with achingly beautiful music, waterfalls, lush fields, laughing children and running dogs.
In his book, he describes encountering a transcendent being he alternately calls “the Creator” or “Om.” He says he never saw the being's face or heard its voice; its thoughts were somehow spoken to him.
“It understood humans, and it possessed the qualities we possess, only in infinitely greater measure. It knew me deeply and overflowed with qualities that all my life I’ve always associated with human beings and human beings alone: warmth, compassion, pathos … even irony and humor.”
Holly Alexander says her husband couldn’t forget the experience.
“He was driven to write 12 hours a day for three years,” she said. “It began as a diary. Then he thought he would write a medical paper; then he realized that medical science could not explain it all.”
“Proof of Heaven” debuted at the top of The New York Times bestseller list and has sold 1.6 million copies, according to its publisher.
Alexander says he didn’t know how to deal with his otherworldly journey at first.
“I was my own worst skeptic,” he said. “I spent an immense amount of time trying to come up with ways my brain might have done this.”
Conventional medical science says consciousness is rooted in the brain, Alexander says. His medical records indicated that his neocortex — the part of the brain that controls thought, emotion and language — had ceased functioning while he was in a coma.
Alexander says his neocortex was “offline” and his brain “wasn’t working at all” during his coma. Yet he says he reasoned, experienced emotions, embarked on a journey — and saw heaven.
“Those implications are tremendous beyond description,” Alexander wrote. “My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness; that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us.”
Skeptics say Alexander’s experience can be explained by science, not the supernatural.
They cite experiments where neurologists in Switzerland induced out-of-body experiences in a woman suffering from epilepsy through electrical stimulation of the right side of her brain.
Michael Shermer, founder and publisher of Skeptic magazine, says the U.S. Navy also conducted studies with pilots that reproduced near-death experiences. Pilots would often black out temporarily when their brains were deprived of oxygen during training, he says.
These pilots didn’t go to heaven, but they often reported seeing a bright light at the end of a tunnel, a floating sensation and euphoria when they returned to consciousness, Shermer says.
“Whatever experiences these people have is actually in their brain. It’s not out there in heaven,” Shermer said.
Some people who claim to see heaven after dying didn’t really die, says Shermer, author of “Why People Believe Weird Things.”
“They’re called near-death experiences for a reason: They’re near death but not dead,” Shermer said. “In that fuzzy state, it’s not dissimilar to being asleep and awakened where people have all sorts of transitory experiences that seem very real.”
The boy who saw Jesus
Skeptics may scoff at a story like Alexander’s, but their popularity has made a believer out of another group: the evangelical publishing industry.
While the church may be reluctant to talk about heaven, publishers have become true believers. The sales figures for books on heaven are divine: Don Piper’s “90 Minutes in Heaven” has sold 5 million copies. And “Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back” is the latest publishing juggernaut.
Colton Burpo says he saw heaven and describes the color of Jesus' eyes.
“Heaven is for Real” has been on The New York Times bestseller list for 126 consecutive weeks and sold 8 million copies, according to its publisher.
The story is told from the perspective of Colton Burpo, who was just 4 when he slipped into unconsciousness while undergoing emergency surgery for a burst appendix.
Colton says he floated above his body during the operation and soared to heaven, where he met Jesus. Todd Burpo, Colton’s father, says he was skeptical about his son’s story until his son described meeting a great-grandfather and a miscarried baby sister — something no one had ever told him about.
Todd Burpo is a pastor, but he says he avoided preaching about heaven because he didn’t know enough about the subject.
“It’s pretty awkward,” he said. “Here I am the pastor, but I’m not the teacher on the subject. My son is teaching me.”
Colton is now 13 and says he still remembers meeting Jesus in heaven.
“He had brown hair, a brown beard to match and a smile brighter than any smile I’ve ever seen,’’ he said. “His eyes were sea-blue, and they were just, wow.”
Colton says he’s surprised by the success of his book, which has been translated into 35 languages. There’s talk of a movie, too.
“It’s totally a God thing,” he said.
Alexander, author of “Proof of Heaven,” seems to have the same attitude: His new life is a gift. He’s already writing another book on his experience.
“Once I realized what my journey was telling me," he said, "I knew I had to tell the story.”
He now attends church but says his faith is not dogmatic.
“I realized very strongly that God loves all of God’s children,” he said. “Any religion that claims to be the true one and the rest of them are wrong is wrong.”
Central to his story is something he says he heard in heaven.
During his journey, he says he was accompanied by an angelic being who gave him a three-part message to share on his return.
When he heard the message, he says it went through him “like a wind” because he instantly knew it was true.
It’s the message he takes today to those who wonder who, or what, they will encounter after death.
The angel told him:
“You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”
“You have nothing to fear.”
“There is nothing you can do wrong."

As I Lay Dying's Tim Lambesis charged with seeking to have his wife killed

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Police: Heavy metal star hired hitman

The lead singer of the metal band As I Lay Dying has been arrested and charged with seeking to have his wife killed, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department said.
Authorities said Tuesday that Tim Lambesis tried to contract an undercover detective posing as a killer for hire to murder his estranged wife, who lives in Encinitas, California.
Arraignment was set for Thursday afternoon at North Division Court in Vista.
The department said it learned on May 2 that Lambesis, 32, had asked someone to carry out the killing and an investigation was initiated.
The investigation culminated Tuesday afternoon, "when Lambesis solicited an undercover detective to kill his wife," it said. He was arrested without incident at a business in Oceanside and taken to the Encinitas Station and booked into the Vista Detention Facility.
Last September, Meggan Lambesis filed with San Diego Superior Court to have the marriage dissolved.
The band issued a statement Wednesday through its record label, Metal Blade, to its fans saying: "As we post this, the legal process is taking it's course and we have no more information than you do. There are many unanswered questions, and the situation will become clearer in the coming days and weeks. We'll keep you informed as best we can.
"Our thoughts right now are with Tim, his family, and with everyone else affected by this terrible situation."
As I Lay Dying was nominated in 2008 for a Grammy Award for best metal performance. During the decade since it was formed, the band has released seven studio albums and a live CD, according to its website.
Asked last year in an interview with HardNoise Online Radio about how his time on the road affected his home life, Lambesis said, "If there was a way to be home but still make a living playing music, I would do that in a heartbeat.
"But the catch is that, as a profession, this is what I'm passionate about. And then my personal life, what I'm passionate about is my loved ones back home. So, you know, those two have a conflict with each other. The only thing I can do is find a balance where, if I am gone a month on tour, then I find a month to be home and just kind of even it out that way."
Asked in January about whether his group was a Christian metal band, he told NoiseCreep that the band had decided not to discuss "the spiritual topic" so that listeners would focus on their music.
"We didn't preach at our shows, our goal has always been to just write the best music we can write," he said. "Of course religion has some influence on the things that we write about just like all of our life experiences do but as a band, we want to be judged on the music rather than what our personal beliefs are."

Proof of heaven popular, except with the church

Proof of heaven popular, except with the church

Proof of heaven popular, except with the church


Eben Alexander shouted and flailed as hospital orderlies tried to hold him in place. But no one could stop his violent seizures, and the 54-year-old neurosurgeon went limp as his horrified wife looked on.
That moment could have been the end. But Alexander says it was just the beginning. He found himself soaring toward a brilliant white light tinged with gold into “the strangest, most beautiful world I’d ever seen.”
Alexander calls that world heaven, and he describes his journey in “Proof of Heaven,” which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for 27 weeks. Alexander says he used to be an indifferent churchgoer who ignored stories about the afterlife. But now he knows there’s truth to those stories, and there’s no reason to fear death.
“Not one bit,” he said. “It’s a transition; it’s not the end of anything. We will be with our loved ones again.”
Heaven used to be a mystery, a place glimpsed only by mystics and prophets. But popular culture is filled with firsthand accounts from all sorts of people who claim that they, too, have proofs of heaven after undergoing near-death experiences.
Yet the popularity of these stories raises another question: Why doesn’t the church talk about heaven anymore?

Arewa Youths Want Governors Of States Under Emergency Rule Removed

The President of AYCF, Mr. Yerima Shettima.
President of AYCF, Mr. Yerima Shettima.
The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum has reiterated its support for the state of emergency move by President Goodluck Jonathan, as the group asked the Federal Government to remove the governors of the three states – Borno, Yobe and Adamawa – where emergency rule was declared last Tuesday.
The group stated that there was need to remove the political structures of the affected states, since the governors, who were supposed to be chief security officers of their states had failed to bring the violence in their states under control, despite the Federal Government’s support.
Northern youths are in support of the emergency rule, but would want the state governors removed to make the emergency rule holistic and effective, according to the President of AYCF, Mr. Yerima Shettima.
“If the Federal Government wants to deal with this issue holistically, we think the state governors and the political structures should be put aside, so that at the end of the day, we will know the people who are the sponsors of violence. To a large extent, the northern state governors are not sincere, especially the governors of those volatile areas.
“The Federal Government should have asked them to step aside since it has become clear that they are not able to secure lives and property in their states, in spite of the several hundred millions of naira they receive as security votes. It shows incompetence on their own part, because the Federal Government had given them all the support they needed and there has been no cooperation coming from their side. They should step aside and administrators should manage the state for six months and let us see the difference. If it fails, that means there is nothing we can do; sovereign national conference would be the only option left.”
Shettima also dismissed the argument that political consideration would have led to the decision to leave the political structures of the states intact, despite the emergency rule.
“This whole issue is beyond politics. Lives are involved here. It does not matter which party is in charge of the states, what matters is that innocent people are dying every day especially in Borno and Yobe states and something must be done to stop this trend.”
The group however asked the Federal Government to warn the army against killing or molesting innocent citizens during the emergency rule.
“We expect that there should be rules of engagement that will ensure that innocent people do not suffer unnecessarily. The soldiers and policemen that are currently in those states should be trained to fish out the perpetrators of the violence. This shouldn’t be an opportunity for miscreants within the Nigerian Armed Forces to victimise people,” he said.

Maiduguri: Army Kills 10 Boko Haram Militia, Captures 65

The Nigerian military in Abuja confirms it has killed 10 members Boko Haram sect and captured 65 who sneaked into Maiduguri in Borno State after fleeing various hot spots on account of military strikes.
The men were killed in Gamboru area during a gun duel with troops implementing the state of emergency.
The army also reported the recovery from the sect of 11 cars, weapons and four tricycles popularly known as Keke NAPEP, and about 24 cell phones.
Also today, the Joint Task Force (JTF) in the state extended the crackdown on Boko Haram by announcing a 24-hour curfew in Maiduguri and some of its environs considered to be strong bases of the sect.
The affected areas, according to JTF spokesman, Lt. Sagir Musa, include Gamboru, Mairi Kuwait, Bakin Kogi, Kasuwan shanu, and the road leading to Baga

Nigerian Police Says They Will Not Arrest Asari Dokubo


Asari Dokubo
Nigerian police recently said that there is no cause to arrest or issue warning to ex-militant Asari Dokubo.
On Friday, Deputy Force Public Relations Officer Frank Mba said that those people who make statements about the 2015 elections could only be arrested once they carried out their threats.
“If we find anybody committing any offence, we will bring the full weight of the law on them. But, we will not go out of our way to get involved in chasing frivolities; we are not politicians, we are a law enforcement agency.
We won’t be dragged into any controversy. If the police or any other security agency deems it relevant and exigent to carry out its function, it will carry it out. The most important thing is that the Nigeria Police Force is a creation of law and guided by law.
We will not be stampeded into controversies or unnecessary political crossfire. We will focus on our job and act when it’s necessary for us,” he stated.

How Third Term Agenda Turned Obasanjo Against Me – Kalu

Kalu-and-Obasanjo-480x300Former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, has revealed how the third term ambition of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo earned him the Ota farmer’s fury just as he said he donated N100m towards his Presidential election in 1999.
He also said he gave another N100m to the Peoples Democratic Party for its registration prior to the 1999 elections.
Kalu said this on Saturday when he featured as ‘Guest of the Week’ on a Kaduna-based Liberty FM radio programme.
He said, “I made millions before joining politics. I was doing business between Maiduguri and the East. I carried fish from Maiduguri to the East and palm oil from the East to Maiduguri. So, I had money and invested so much in the PDP.
“If the party is a company, I would have been a major  shareholder. I and (Saminu) Turaki spent more on the party than any other Nigerian. How much did (President Goodluck) Jonathan have before he became the President? I was the first to give the party N100m to register. I was also the first to give Obasanjo N100m to campaign during the 1999 election.”
On the origin of the frosty relationship between him and Obasanjo, Kalu said:
“I fell apart with Obasanjo on the issue of third term. He wanted to be a life President. Nobody can tell me that Obasanjo was not interested in a third term. Huge money was involved in the project.  Two senators from my state came with the money and I asked them to return it.
“It was the then President of America, George Bush, who genuinely derailed the third term agenda. I told Bush about it and that is why Obasanjo hates me. Bush told him that it was not possible in a constitutional democracy. I try to avoid him (Obasanjo) at public functions.”
On the 2015 election, Kalu said, “People should stop imposing the President on Nigerians. Let the people chose their President.
“Igbo are going to vote for Igbo in 2015. Jonathan has the constitutional right to run but he is not an Igbo man. There are many qualified Igbo men. I am not saying I’m running for President now but there are possibilities that other Igbo men are thinking about that. Northerners should support us for the presidency in 2015 because we supported (Shehu) Shagari. We supported (Umaru) Yar’Adau, (Yakubu) Gowon and Tafawa Balewa,”  Kalu added.
He said his return to PDP was to give the party a second chance and to see if he could make positive changes in the party.
Kalu lampooned the Security Chiefs for ill-advising the President on the declaration of a state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe saying the declaration was nothing but a movement of troops from one place to another, adding that the President should have allowed the amnesty committee to work for at least three months before declaring emergency rule.
In his words, “I am for amnesty. The President should have allowed the amnesty committee at least three months. He shouldn’t have made any announcement. There is nothing like state of emergency but just a movement of troops. Jonathan is not that wicked to be playing politics with human life. Let’s remove politics or 2015 from this thing.”

Emergency Rule: Boko Haram Militants Flood Gombe, Bauchi


On Thursday, members of the sect attacked two police stations and four banks in Daura, Katsina State.
It was the first time the sect was carrying out attacks in Katsina.
President Goodluck Jonathan placed the three states under emergency rule following unabated bloodbath and bomb attacks which have left hundreds of people and security officials dead.
Security sources confided in our correspondents on Friday that following the increased pressure by the military, some of the insurgents have started sneaking out of the states.
A top military official who pleaded anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter said, “All the states are under intense military surveillance and we are ensuring that no one sneaks out but the insurgents have some secret routes which we are going to block. They will use these secret routes to sneak out because of the heat on them. Ordinarily, they will want to protect their wives, children and the weak among them.”
One of the soldiers deployed in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, also told one of our correspondents that some of the insurgents are fleeing the state to neighbouring ones.
The solider who pleaded anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter said, “We have reports that they are running away to neigbouring states and even neighbouring countries. We are doing our best to ensure that all escape routes are blocked.”
According to the soldier, several residents of Gamboru, Ngala, and Marte, where the sect hoisted its flags are fleeing the area because of heavy military operation.
A security expert and former State Security Service director, Mr. Mike Ejiojor, told SUNDAY PUNCH that it was possible that members of the Boko Haram sect would attempt to escape to states near Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
“Preventing them from migrating to neighbouring states is the essence of the state of emergency in the three affected states. We hope that it won’t be easy for them to migrate to other states especially if they have cells there,” he said.
Another security expert, Dr. Ona Ekhomu, told one of our correspondents that there was a possibility that members of the sect that had fled the states, could regroup to launch massive attacks on the states under emergency rule.
Ekhomu, who is the President, Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria, said such a development could lead to having more states on the list of those under emergency rule.
He said, “They will continue to launch attacks, it is not without doubt. Don’t forget that apart from the affected states, other states have some Boko Haram presence, so they may regroup. The military must ensure that they don’t escape from the states.
“The military should use a lot of tactics to freeze the bad guys (Boko Haram). The essence of conducting the military operation in the North-East is to flush out or capture the Boko Haram elements. If they get away, then the purpose of the exercise is defeated.”
He added that members of the sect might wear military uniforms to disguise as they were becoming more adaptive. According to him, it would become difficult to differentiate between a genuine military officer and a Boko Haram member in military uniform.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Immigration Service has deported 31,822 illegal immigrants from the country in the first five months of the year.
The Public Relations Officer of NIS, Mr. Ekpedeme King, told SUNDAY PUNCH, that the figure represented the total number of immigrants arrested without proper documentation in different parts of the country.
“According to our records, from January this year to the first week of May, the Nigerian Immigration Service arrested and repatriated 31,822 illegal immigrants. I know there is the temptation to link the number to the security situation in the country and the Boko Haram insurgency. But this is the total number of illegal immigrants we have repatriated so far this year, as part of our duties to ensure that every foreigner in the country has adequate documentation,” he said.
Findings showed that most of the deportees were nationals of Niger, Mali and Cameroun, while a small number from other West African countries like Ghana and Benin Republic.
Minister of Interior, Mr. Abba Moro, who confirmed this development, said the illegal aliens came into the country through the many porous border inlets, adding that to fight terrorism in the country, it was necessary to “throw them out.”
Moro explained that the deportation was part of the measures adopted by government to check the incursion of strangers into the nation and to further contain the security threat posed by Boko Haram.
According to him, it will cost about N500m to provide the manpower and gadgets needed at the borders.
He said, “Manning our international borders effectively to check illegal entry of persons is almost impossible in the nation today. We have to admit the fact that we don’t have enough manpower and equipment to have real control of the situation.
“And I admit to you that prior to the present situation we face, it used to be worse. We used to take so many things for granted until we came to the point of this daring and dire security challenge.
“Part of the measures to succeed in the task had led us to getting into partnership with the American government to procure advanced surveillance equipment for better border security. The illegal immigrants were sent out of the country by the appropriate authorities under the ministry.”
In a related development, Amnesty International has called on security forces to adhere to international human rights standards and the rule of law.
It said it would continue to document human rights abuses by the security forces and Boko Haram, and the dire situation of the people trapped in the middle.
It stated, “We will continue to call on the Nigeria government to take action to protect the population. Nigeria must adopt measures that prevent, investigate and prosecute attacks by Boko Haram, while fully respecting and ensuring human rights in accordance with Nigeria’s international obligations and commitments. The population will not be truly secure until everyone in Nigeria can be confident not only that the risk of attacks from Boko Haram has been reduced, but also that they will not face human rights violations at the hands of the very state security forces mandated with their protection.
“Unfortunately, at the moment in Nigeria we have a situation where the military are behaving like they are above the law – like they don’t have to respect the rule of law. So, in some respects, the issue is not so much which law the military are operating under, although it is vitally important that the law complies with international human rights law and standards.”

I Gave Obasanjo N100m For 1999 Elections –Kalu

Former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, has said he gave ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo N100m to run his campaign in 1999.
He said he gave another N100m to the Peoples Democratic Party prior to the 1999 elections.
The former governor said this as ‘Guest of the Week’ on a Kaduna-based Liberty FM radio programme on Saturday.
He said, “I made millions before joining politics. I was doing business between Maiduguri and the East. I carried fish from Maiduguri to the East and palm oil from the East to Maiduguri. So, I had money and invested so much in the PDP.
“If the party is a company, I would have been a major shareholder. I and (Saminu) Turaki spent more on the party than any other Nigerian. How much did (President Goodluck) Jonathan have before he became the President? I was the first to give the party N100m to register. I was also the first to give Obasanjo N100m to campaign during the 1999 election.”
On the frosty relationship between him and Obasanjo, Kalu said things fell apart between him and the former leader when he discovered that Obasanjo was deceiving Nigerians.
Kalu said, “I fell apart with Obasanjo on the issue of third term. He wanted to be a life President. Nobody can tell me that Obasanjo was not interested in a third term. Huge money was involved in the project. Two senators from my state came with the money and I asked them to return it.
“It was the then President of America, George Bush, who genuinely derailed the third term agenda. I told Bush about it and that is why Obasanjo hates me. Bush told him that it was not possible in a constitutional democracy. I try to avoid him (Obasanjo) at public functions.”
On the 2015 election, Kalu said, “People should stop imposing the President on Nigerians. Let the people chose their President.
“Igbo are going to vote for Igbo in 2015. Jonathan has the constitutional right to run but he is not an Igbo man. There are many qualified Igbo men. I am not saying I’m running for President now but there are possibilities that other Igbo men are thinking about that. Northerners should support us for the presidency in 2015 because we supported (Shehu) Shagari. We supported (Umaru) Yar’Adau, (Yakubu) Gowon and Tafawa Balewa,” Kalu added.
He said his return to PDP was to give the party a second chance and to see if he could make positive changes in the party.
On the state of emergency declared by the President on three North-East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, Kalu said the declaration was nothing but a movement of troops from one place to another, adding that the security chiefs did not advise the President properly
He said the President should have allowed the amnesty committee to work for at least three months before declaring the state of emergency.
The former governor said, “I am for amnesty. The President should have allowed the amnesty committee at least three months. He shouldn’t have made any announcement. There is nothing like state of emergency but just a movement of troops. Jonathan is not that wicked to be playing politics with human life. Let’s remove politics or 2015 from this thing.”
However, Obasanjo’s Media Assistant, Vitalis Ortese, said the former President would not join issues with “Kalu who has credibility and integrity deficit.”
He said, “This is a man who is known to have stuffed paper as money in a bag and donated it at a public function in Maiduguri. He has no credibility and integrity. So, we will not like to join issues with him.
“He is only trying to cover his lack of credibility by seeking to join issues with someone, who clearly is not in his level or class. He is only seeking relevance. Good luck to him.”

Revealed: Subsidy Thieves Own Most Private Jets in Nigeria


femi falana
Human Rights Lawyer And Senior Advocate of Nigeria member Femi Falana recently reacted to the latest call for the removal of fuel subsidy in Nigeria by IMF.
He also revealed that most of the private jets in the country are owned by subsidy thieves.
“As the government needed to import fuel to augment local consumption, it enriched its cronies who engaged in fraudulent importation of fuel through fake mother and daughter vessels. Most of the 150 private jets in the country today are owned by fraudulent fuel importers.
Last year, the IMF and its local lackeys claimed that the economy would collapse if petrol was not sold at N141 per litre. But with massive strikes and protests, the price was reduced to N97. Did the economy collapse? These are voodoo economists.
“I hope the Jonathan regime will have the courage to ask the IMF to name one country that has succeeded after implementing its anti-people’s prescriptions. There is no success story anywhere in the world.
Let the IMF be honest to tell Nigerians the cost of producing a litre of [crude] oil. You will be shocked!,” he said.
According to our source, IMF is pushing the president to embark total removal of fuel subsidy to ensure fiscal adjustment.

Retired School Principal Reveals How He Killed His Mother and Hid Her Body for 10 Years



man who killed his mother
Dr. Chimezie Osigwe is a 64-year-old retired school principal of Awa Community Secondary School in Oguta, Imo State.
He allegedly killed his 78-year-old mother Lucy Osigwe ten years ago. He admitted that he dried her remains and stored them in a cupboard that is located in one of the rooms of his house.
Mrs. Osigwe went missing in 2003 and nobody had a clue about her whereabouts.
2 stories have been told on how the remains of Osigwe’s mother were found.
The first story had it that one of Osigwe’s relatives asked the suspect to pay his debt.
Osigwe refused to pay him so he just searched his house to find whatever he could lay his hands on.
Instead of finding some money, the young man found the remais of Osigwe’s mother. He told their other relatives about it.
The relatives rushed to Osigwe’s house and confirmed the story.
The second story had it that some youths from Mrs. Osigwe’s maternal home said that they had a shocking discovery.
It was said that some villagers have decided to double-check the stories that was told by Osigwe.
“On getting to Ejemekwuru, our people demanded to know why the woman had remained missing for 10 years. The son told the villagers that his mother was mad at a point and ran away to an unknown place.
With this startling discovery, the villagers quickly lodged a complaint with the police who subsequently swung into action,” the villager said.
Imo State Commissioner of Police Mohammed Katsina confirmed the discovery of the old woman’s body.
He said that it was found in a large cupboard inside a private room in the suspect’s house.
He alleged that Osigwe is a member of a sect. “Preliminary assessment of the scene of crime revealed that the late woman could have been murdered for ritual purpose,” he said.
Osigwe has already been arrested by the police. He refused to say anything because he does not want to be attacked by his enemies.
“Do you know that I have escaped three assassination attempts? Please, I will not say anything because my enemies are all over the place so that they will not use it to attack me,” he said.
mother corpse