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There are indications that the Boko Haram insurgents have demanded ransom before releasing members of the Living Faith Church (Winners Chapel) they kidnapped two weeks ago. Gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram had kidnapped a member of the National Youth Service Corps, Ibrahim Amuta and three other members of the church on their way to Chibok to distribute relief items to internally displaced persons and evangelise. Amuta’s housemate, Success Ezeanya, whose tweet about the abduction went viral on Saturday, told The PUNCH on Monday that he was told by a member of the church that the insurgents had demanded N200m before they could release those they kidnapped. Although a source in Maiduguri said Boko Haram demanded N100m ransom, Ezeanya said that the family of the abducted corps member was communicating with the church Ezeanya stated, “I haven’t heard anything from AB’s family members. I think they are communicating directly with the church, so I have

A total of 1,275 student athletes across the 25 Local Government Areas of Delta State will vie for honours on Tuesday (today) and Wednesday in the schools’ sports festival. It is the final lap of the competition, which began with preliminaries in various LGAs in the state. Just as Governor Ifeanyi Okowa revived the Principals Cup competition, the administration also revived the school sports festival, which has been in limbo for seven years. This edition is the first after the revival as the pupils compete in nine sports namely athletics, chess, scrabble, volleyball, basketball, handball, badminton, table tennis and tennis. The final of the Headmasters’ Cup football competition organised for primary schools in the state also takes place on Wednesday, the final day for the Delta School Sports Festival. The state’s Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Chiedu Ebie, is excited about the talents expected to be discovered from the competition. Ebie

Mr. Dele Belgore (SAN), who is being prosecuted for allegedly laundering N450m in the build-up to the 2015 general elections, told the court on Monday that he gave N10m out of the money to the then Commissioner of Police in Kwara State, whose name he gave as Garba. Belgore made the admission before the Federal High Court in Lagos, where he is being prosecuted alongside a former Minister of National Planning, Prof Abubakar Suleiman. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission claimed that they collected N450m out of the $115.01m, which a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, allegedly doled out to compromise the 2015 presidential election. Belgore and Suleiman were accused of handling the money without going through any financial institution, contrary to the provisions of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act. But the two defendants have denied the allegations. They maintained that though they were invited on March 26, 2015 –