The Ogun State Police Command, on Monday, said a pregnant woman, Rahemat Lateef, who claimed to have been abducted by some unknown gunmen while going to the state hospital at Ijaiye, Abeokuta for child delivery, is a case of fake kidnap.

The spokesperson for the state police command, SP Omolola Odutola, disclosed this on her X handle on Monday.

Odutola said the woman having found out that she had suffered another miscarriage decided to fake her kidnap to avoid the wrath of her husband who was naturally expecting her to put to bed.

Mrs Lateef was said to have escaped to Kwara State and showed up back in Abeokuta with her father.

It was learnt that the housewife was said to have been frustrated due to repeated miscarriages and cooked up the kidnap story as an escape route.

Odutola while giving updates on the incident said, “Rahemat Lateef who the husband reported abducted, was never abducted, but planned her journey to Kwara State, to escape the wrath of her husband, because she has remained unlucky due to miscarriages.

“She planned the stories, she travelled to Kwara State herself, she was far from kidnap. She had a miscarriage, was frustrated due to repeated recurrences, and feared her husband’s reactions, so she orchestrated the script. The anti-kidnapping team started tracking her, till she showed up.

“She is under medical attention, safe,” she added.

Rahemat’s husband, Ogunbunmi Lateef, had last week Thursday claimed to have received a WhatsApp message notifying him of his wife’s kidnap by some abductors.

Odutola while confirming the report on her X handle had said, “One Ogunbunmi Lateef of Oke Lantoro reported that his pregnant wife due for delivery left home for the State Hospital, Ijaiye, Abeokuta.

“He received a WhatsApp message confirming the abduction of his wife by unknown armed men.”

The Presidency has appealed to Nigerians not to pile unnecessary pressure on President Bola Tinubu, assuring that he would transmit the proposed bill on the new minimum wage to the National Assembly once it is ready.

Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, made the plea on Monday.

The assurance comes barely 24 hours after the Organised Labour urged the President to consider consulting and reaching an agreement with its leadership before transmitting the bill to the National Assembly.

The workers’ union admitted that their much anticipated meeting of the National Executive Committee, which will accommodate about 300 Labour leaders, is being stalled by Tinubu’s delay to transmit the wage bill.

The last time the NLC and the TUC held a joint extraordinary National Executive Council was on June 4.

It was an emergency meeting to determine whether to continue its strike or shelve it following the agreement they reached with the government.

The President had announced in his Democracy Day broadcast that a consensus had been reached between the Federal Government and Labour on the new wage, a claim both the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress debunked.

A month after his speech, Tinubu has left the camp of Labour and Nigerians waiting in anxiety on what the FG was up to.

Reacting, Onanuga wondered what the rush for the transmission of the bill was all about.

While admitting that he had no knowledge of the date for submission, the presidential aide pleaded for more time.

“People should be patient,” he stated.

His appeal comes one week after he reiterated that the N250,000 wage being demanded by the workers’ union is unsustainable, warning that the Federal Government cannot channeled all its resources to meet such demand.

1. Southern governors on Monday said having state police will give them more control over security decisions in their states. They believe locals are better placed to fight crime because they understand the terrain and language.

2. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu yesterday said he appointed Northerners into major defence positions because of their knowledge of the region to fight insecurity. Speaking at a function in Katsina, Tinubu said even though the various strategies adopted by his administration to tackle the security challenges in the North were yielding results, the people needed to complement the success.

3. The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has raised an alarm over alleged plan by Governor Ahmed Aliyu of Sokoto State to depose the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III. The Executive Director of MURIC, Prof. Isiaq Akintola, raised the alarm in a statement on Monday.

4. A fresh graduate of the Department of Quantity Surveying, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Ifunanya Miracle, aka Bliss, has lost her life during an attempt to escape a yet-to-be-identified prankster’s robbery on the premises of the school in the Awka area of Anambra State. Ifunanya’s friend, identified simply as Peace, a student in the Department of Pure and Industrial Chemistry, who was also involved in the robbery, sustained varying degrees of injury.

5. The Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court on Monday sentenced a 27-year-old cleaner, Saviour Udoh, to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting a five-year-old girl on a church premises. Justice Ramon Oshodi held that the defendant’s action was reprehensible and deserving of the maximum punishment under the law.

6. The Ogun State Command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency said it recovered 3.33 tonnes of cannabis sativa and 10.949kg psychotropic substances between January and May of this year. Other seizures made during this period were 0.017kg of cocaine; 227.0 litres of skuchies; 11.0 litres of codeine and 0.129kg of methamphetamine.

7. Ogun State Police Command, Monday, said a pregnant woman, Rahemat Lateef, who claimed to have been abducted by some unknown gunmen while going to the state hospital at Ijaiye, Abeokuta for child delivery, is a case of fake kidnap. The spokesperson for the state police command, SP Omolola Odutola, disclosed this on her X handle on Monday.

8. Suspected bandits have killed the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Prof. Yusuf Saidu. Prof. Saidu, who was DVC Research, Innovation, and Development at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, met his untimely death on his way from Sokoto to Kaduna on Monday.

9. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, NCDC, has reported 1,598 suspected cases of cholera across 107 local government areas in Nigeria. The Director-General of NCDC, Dr Jide Idris, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja.

10. Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, was on Monday elected Chairman of the Southern Governors’ Forum. Anambra State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, emerged Vice Chairman. They were elected during a meeting of the Southern Governors Forum in Abeokuta, Ogun State.