No fewer than three people, including a mother and child, were reportedly electrocuted at Mowe Market in Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State.

The incident reportedly happened on Monday following the restoration of power after the Sunday downpour.

The Chairman of the Local Government, Ambassador Adesina Ogunsola, during his visit to the market on Wednesday gave a seven-day notice to all the traders with shops and stalls under the high-tension powerline to vacate to forestall a repeat of the tragic incident.

An eyewitness said that the electric shock was from the step-down transformer suspended on an electrical pole next to the shop where the incident happened, just as the shop owners arrived for their daily sales in the market.

The woman and her son were said to have been burnt beyond recognition.

The Director of Information at the Obafemi Owode Local Government, Segun Soneye, confirmed the incident on Thursday.

Soneye, in a statement, blamed the incident on the erection of shops made of iron under the powerline by the traders.

He said, “The chairman of the council had visited the affected shop owners and commiserated with them over the incident.

“The LG boss has already given shop owners a seven-day ultimatum to evacuate their make-shift shops built under the high tension powerline to forestall the recurrence of the incident.”

Speaking during his visit to the market, Ogunsola who commiserated with the families of the victims, also blamed the incident on the nonchalant attitude of the.

The LG boss wondered why people would disregard safety rules and have their shops close to electrical poles that carry step-down transformers.

Ogunsola, while giving the vacation order to the traders with shops and stalls under the powerline, said, “Let me also say that everyone that has extended its shop beyond where it should be, particularly those under high-tension cables should start removing it from today.”

The police spokesman, Omolola Odutola, also confirmed the incident but said only the mother, Ujuwa Okechukwu, died from the incident.

German police said Wednesday they had arrested 11 suspected members of a Nigerian mafia group behind a large-scale dating scam.

The Black Axe gang was involved internationally in “multiple areas of criminal activity”, with a focus in Germany on romance scams and money-laundering, Bavarian police said in a statement.

The dating trick was a “modern form of marriage fraud”, police said.

“Using false identities, the fraudsters for example signalled their intention to marry and in the course of further contact repeatedly demand money under various pretexts,” police said.

The money was subsequently transferred to Black Axe in Nigeria “via financial agents”, authorities said.

In the process, the gang used a “commodity-based money laundering” scheme where products, often with a seeming “charitable purpose” were bought and delivered to Nigeria.

Some 450 cases of romance scamming had been reported in the region of Bavaria in 2023 alone, with the damages rising to 5.3 million euros ($5.7 million), police said.

The suspects, who all held Nigerian citizenship and were aged between 29 and 53, were arrested in nationwide raids on Tuesday.

Law enforcement swooped on 19 properties, including both homes and asylum shelters, police said.

The Black Axe gang had “strict hierarchical structures under leadership in Nigeria” operating different territorial units, police said.

The group had a “significant influence” on politics and public administrations, in particular in Nigeria.

Globally, the gang’s main areas of operation were “human-trafficking, fraud, money-laundering, prostitution and drug-trafficking”.

Black Axe operated under the cover of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, an ostensibly charitable organisation used as “camouflage” for the gang’s structures.

The action against Black Axe was the first of its kind in Germany, police said.

AFP

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has filed a fresh charge against Godwin Emefiele, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

In the four-count charge, the anti-graft agency accused Emefiele of approving the printing of N684,590,000 notes at the rate of N18.96 billion.

EFCC alleged that Emefiele broke the law with intent to harm the public during his implementation of the naira swap policy under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

The agency also accused the former CBN governor of unlawfully approving the withdrawal of N124.8 billion from the consolidated revenue fund of the federation.

Emefiele will be arraigned on these counts before Maryann Anenih, judge of a federal capital territory (FCT) high court, on April 30.

This would be the third criminal case pending against Emefiele.

On November 17, 2023, Emefiele was arraigned before Hamza Muazu, a judge of the federal capital territory (FCT) high court, on a six-count charge of procurement fraud, to which he pleaded not guilty.