Veteran Nigerian actor, Ojo Arowosafe, popularly known as Fadeyi Oloro, is dead.

Arowosafe, who featured as Fadeyi Oloro in ‘Arelu,’ a classic Yoruba TV series of the 80s, died on Tuesday evening.

Fasunwon Bidemi Oluwafunke, the actor’s daughter, confirmed his demise.

The movie star had battled an undisclosed ailment for a couple of years.

Last month, Fadeyi was featured in a live Instagram session with Daddy Freeze, the media personality.

During the session, the Yoruba actor appealed to the public for financial assistance in order to foot his medical bills.

His plea attracted the attention of Tobi Adegboyega, the UK-based Nigerian pastor of SPAC Nation, who gifted him the sum of N3 million.

Daddy Freeze also disclosed that some unnamed persons supported Fadeyi with an additional N261,000.

Arowosafe was born on September 15, 1957, in Igbara Odo, Ekiti.

He gained fame during the cinematic era for his antagonistic roles and energetic recitation of incantations in Yoruba movies.

He also featured in hundreds of films like ‘Alagbara Ilu’, ‘Jagun Ina’, ‘Inu Bibi’, and ‘IJA Abija’.

Others included ‘Osimi Ika’, ‘Adani Lori’, ‘Fitu Fona’, ‘Ruke Rudo’, ‘Bola Ele’, and ‘Ade Ogun’.

In December 2021, the coalition for a better Nigeria called on well-meaning Nigerians to support the Yoruba actor in salvaging his ailing health.

 

Disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison in a Chicago federal courtroom Thursday following his conviction last year on charges of child pornography and enticement of a minor, his second such lengthy sentencing in the past year.

Kelly, 56, is already serving a 30-year prison term for his 2021 conviction on racketeering and sex trafficking charges in a New York federal court.

US District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber said in court Thursday that 19 years of the 20-year prison sentence would be served concurrently, or at the same time as his other sentence. One year would be served consecutively, or after that sentence is complete, he said.

Kelly was convicted in September on three counts of production of child pornography and three counts of enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity. A motion for a new trial was denied last week.

Prior to the sentence, attorney Christopher Brown read from a statement given by one of Kelly’s victims, identified as “Jane.”

“I have lost my dignity due to Robert Kelly. I have lost my dreams due to Robert Kelly. I have lost my teenage years to Robert Kelly,” he read.

She wrote that Kelly was “abusive and dominating” and made her suicidal.

“I will forever be the girl that R Kelly peed on,” Jane said through the attorney, referencing the infamous sex tape video shown during his trial which showed Kelly urinating on a victim.

The sentencing hearing is the culmination of nearly three decades of allegations Kelly had sexually abused underage girls, accusations first laid out in the Chicago Sun-Times. In 2002, Kelly was indicted on child pornography charges for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with an unidentified underage girl, but he was acquitted in 2008.

Through the allegations, Kelly was one of the most successful R&B artists of the 1990s and 2000s, known for hit songs “Bump N’ Grind,” “Ignition (Remix)” and “I Believe I Can Fly,” which won him three Grammy Awards. He has been nominated for 26 Grammy Awards in all, including as recently as 2015.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Kelly faced further allegations of wrongdoing in a 2017 BuzzFeed article and in the January 2019 Lifetime documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.” A month later, he was indicted in Cook County, Illinois, on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, and two federal indictments followed in July 2019.

Prosecutors had asked for 25-year sentence

Prosecutors had asked for a 25-year sentence to be served once his other 30-year prison sentence is complete.

“Robert Kelly is a serial sexual predator who, over the course of many years, specifically targeted young girls and went to great lengths to conceal his abuse of Jane and other minor victims,” prosecutors said in a filing. “To this day, and even following the jury verdict against him, Kelly refuses to accept responsibility for his crimes.”

The defense said in its filing Kelly is already serving a “de facto life sentence” and asked for any sentence be served at the same time as his 30-year sentence in the New York case.

“In the unlikely event that Kelly was to survive his 30-year sentence, there is no reason to believe he would reoffend as a geriatric in his mid-80s,” his attorneys wrote. “The overwhelming majority of Kelly’s criminal conduct was committed a quarter century ago.”

The advisory sentencing guidelines offer a range of 14 to 17.5 years in prison, according to the prosecution’s calculations, or 11.25 to 14 years in prison, according to the defense’s calculations.

The question of whether the two sentences will be served consecutively or concurrently was up to the court’s discretion.

What happened at the trials

The federal trial in Chicago last September was based on allegations from five minors who prosecutors allege were abused by Kelly in the late 1990s by making explicit videos with four of them.

One of the witnesses in the trial, a 37-year-old woman, spoke in federal court under the pseudonym Jane and testified Kelly began engaging in sex acts with her when she was 14 and had sex with her starting when she was 15. They had sex “hundreds” of times before she turned 18, she said.

She testified that she falsely denied they had a sexual relationship in interviews with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Chicago police investigators and to a grand jury in 2002.

“Why were you untruthful?” a prosecutor asked Jane in court.

“Because I was afraid to expose Robert. Because I was afraid of what might happen to my parents,” she said. “I also did not want that person to be me.”

The jury convicted Kelly of six charges, including three counts of producing videos depicting sexual conduct with Jane and three counts of enticing Jane and two other minors to engage in sexual activity. He was acquitted on seven other counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice. Two associates were acquitted of all charges.

At the time of the Chicago federal trial, Kelly had already been convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking in a New York federal trial.

In that case, prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York accused Kelly of using his status as a celebrity and a “network of people at his disposal to target girls, boys and young women for his own sexual gratification.”

The New York trial included testimony from witnesses who said they were sexually and physically abused by Kelly. The court also heard from people involved with orchestrating Kelly’s 1994 marriage to the late singer Aaliyah when she was just 15 years old and he was an adult after she believed she’d gotten pregnant.

Last month, prosecutors in Cook County, Illinois, dropped state sex-crime charges against Kelly, citing in part his lengthy federal sentence.

“I understand how hard it was for these victims to come forward and tell their stories. I applaud their courage and have the utmost respect for everyone who came forward,” Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said in a news release. “While this may not be the result they were expecting, due to the sentences that Mr. Kelly is facing, we do feel that justice has been served.”

CULLED FROM CNN

 

 

An American self-proclaimed ‘prophetess’ Tiphani Montgomery has sparked outrage after labelling record-breaking Grammy award winner Beyonce a witch and taking aim at her fans, shaming any of them who plans to attend her concert.

According to the Daily Mail, the American pastor and founder of The Covered By God ministry, attacked Beyonce in a video she shared on TikTok and YouTube on 12 February.

“Any of you who are going to Beyoncé’s concert I rebuke you in the name of Jesus, how dare you call yourself a Christian.

I don’t care what pastor you got who’s OK with it, I don’t care what pastor you got that think it’s cool, I don’t care what pastor you got that sing along to the songs because they want some clout,” she said.

Montgomery, an itinerant preacher who hails from North Carolina, then goes on to suggest that Beyoncé is ‘a witch’ and fans of the singer are part of a ‘coven.’

“When a witch has a coven it’s normally a small thing. Witch’s covens are normally three to seven people,’ the pastor added.

“When it becomes thousands it’s called a hive. Y’all a part of that lady Beyhive? And you call yourself a Christian? May the dealings of the Lord come upon you,” Montgomery maintained.

The video, which has had 50,000 views on both platforms combined, has sparked mixed reactions.

“I love the Lord with ALL my soul and I will bless His name at all times but this is a form of manipulation in the same way that she’s suggesting that Beyoncé is using her platform,” one Instagram user said.

Another person added: “As a Christian I’m not sure why judging others is such a thing smh (not everyone does it but….) We can guide others without being judgmental and commanding towards controlling people.

“Last time I check only God can judge. I wish we would simply guide and remind people of the love of God rather than bringing others down and speaking negative on people to remind them of God.”

Former Destiny’s Child member and Beyoncé’s friend Michelle Williams also made an Instagram reel addressing the video, saying: “It also looks like I am entering the chat.

“I am just watching a lot going on, things that are being said, specifically about entertainers, specifically about entertainers that I even have relationships with, entertainers that I know off the stage.

“I just wish we would pray as publicly for entertainers as we rebuke them and damn their soul to hell.

“I know it ain’t my calling mission to damn entertainers to hell and to say that they would drop dead. The devil is a lie,” Michelle said.

Michelle, who has often spoken out about her Christian faith, released a number of Gospel albums after leaving the R&B-pop group.

However, one supporter, Raven Hartwell, said she agreed with “everything [Montgomery] was saying, absolutely.”

She added there were ‘so many people mad right now, upset, and sticking up for Beyoncé and completely missing the message.’

Montgomery’s critics have also labeled her a ‘hypocrite’ after unearthing old tweets where she declared herself a fan of Beyoncé, and even said she attended the singer’s shows.

“Am I the only one addicted to Beyonce’s song: Why don’t u love me??? #nowplaying it again smh,’ she tweeted in 2010.

“Got a chance to catch the Jay Z and Beyonce concert and it was AMAZING!!!’ Montgomery added in another tweet from 2014.

The pastor, however, has come out to defend herself, addressing the resurfaced tweets on 13 February:

“I publicly came against and denounced their god baalyonce (sic) so they found these tweets from 2010, 2011, 2014.

“But I had just did a YouTube the night before saying I was the BIGGEST jay z and baalyonce (sic) fan… until I got saved in my shower in August 2015.”

She added in another tweet: “What’s my point? My point is anytime you’re a mouth piece for God they will try to discredit you. But I’m more afraid of The Living God than I am dead skeletons!”

Critics also took aim at her previously published adult books, including The Millionaire Mistress series, with Montgomery responding: ‘I stopped writing those six years before I got saved.”

“I will not listen to her sermons. Tiphani Montgomery is fake, living two lives, using the church for attention & money yet writing sleazy sultry sex books for money too. & before you say this is old it’s not, these books are from 2020,’ one person said.

To this point, Tiphani responded: “I stopped writing those books SIX YEARS BEFOREEEEEEE I got saved.

“I also have never received money from those books since 2010 bc I sold the rights to them away. I also can’t get them taken off of Amazon bc I don’t own them. I know bc I’ve been trying for years now.’

Montgomery describes herself as an ‘unlikely entrepreneur’ who was a teen mom and a college dropout

According to her website, she is the CEO of Millions Conference and founded Kingdom Entrepreneur University, ‘a high level online educational platform that has trained 3,000+ entrepreneurs worldwide.’

She started Covered By God, ‘a prophetic and teaching ministry designed to wake up and stir the church with an awakening of the Holy Spirit and build up God’s prophets and prophetic voices to impact the nations.’