Shock could best describe the expression on the faces of members of the press as they listened to the confessional statements made by 50-year-old Oby George, over the role she, and other members of a baby-for-sale syndicate, played in helping women deliver babies.
Making the confession recently in Lagos, at the state Police Command, the Port Harcourt-based woman, who had been in the business for over a year, confessed to having helped women deliver countless number of children through a very questionable method.
This she does after she is been paid between N1,500,000 to N3,000,000, depending on the sex and number of babies her clients requests for.
Waterloo
The bubble, however, bust when a 61-year-old Lagos-based woman, identified as Cecilia Adesope, who was allegedly delivered of a set of twins at the Port Harcourt delivery centre, was arrested by the police in Lagos, when she took the babies to a hospital for inoculation.
Embattled Oby said: “I am now ready to talk, because it seems we are hiding something here. Cecilia was brought to me by one Mr. and Mrs Peller. No… she was brought to me by Mrs Okoro, who is now at large. She has been treating her, and she pleaded with me to help her deliver a set of twin babies.
That all her life she has not had any child of her own, that she is desperate.
“Mrs Okoro told me that we should use my apartment since her husband was around and she does not want him to know about this issue. So I agreed and N1,500,000 was paid into my account for the job. On her due date, she travelled down to Port Harcourt and we all went to my place.
I gave her some herbs to chew after which she went to the toilet, when she got out, we asked her to lie down and push with all her might while I held her hands.
“At a point, we used a razor blade to give her some tear so that blood will come out and make the whole thing look real. Mrs Okoro then brought the babies, whom she had arranged from somewhere. That was when mama heard the cries of babies.”
Mother’s story
Asked how she met Mrs Okoro and where the babies were brought from, Oby told newsmen that she knows Mrs Okoro very well, as both of them work together in ‘helping women deliver,’ but declined to give any information on where the babies were brought from.
On her part, Cecilia Adesope, told newsmen that she was brought to Oby by a woman still at large, believed to be Mrs Okoro, who had told her Oby would be able to help her. She said she was asked to go to Port Harcourt for delivery after she paying N1,500,000.
Cecilia said she was given some herbs after which she noticed her stomach getting bigger and she was convinced she was finally pregnant.
She said: “When I got to Port Harcourt for delivery on the date I was given, I was given something like a seed to chew. After I did, I felt like going to the toilet. When I got out of the toilet, I was asked to lie down and push with all my power.
“After that, I heard cries of babies. I also noticed some blood on my private part, and was given a pad to use. I did not go to the hospital during the pregnancy period, because I was instructed not to do so, as the hospital scan will not see the babies.
“When I returned to Lagos with my set of twins, I decided to take them to the hospital for inoculation injections. I don’t know what went wrong, but while we were waiting for the injection, the police came and arrested me.”
Another expectant ‘mother’
Also paraded was 43-year-old Joy Ibe, a supposedly pregnant woman, who lives at Ajah area of Lagos.
She told newsmen she has been married for 18 years without any issue, a dilemma that sent her everywhere seeking for the fruit of the womb, until she came in contact with Port Harcourt-based Oby Gorge.
Joy told newsmen how she met Oby, and what followed: “One of my neighbours visited Nigeria and heard about Oby. After she travelled back to the Unites States, she sent me Oby’s number and asked me to contact her if I am interested.
“I called up Oby and told her my problems. She gave me her address to come and meet her in Port Harcourt.
When I got to there and met with her, she gave me some herbs, which I took and returned to Lagos. After sometime, I noticed that my stomach started getting bigger, and I believed I was pregnant.
“I was also asked to come to Port Harcourt when I am due to deliver. I have not gone to the hospital for scan, because the instruction given to me was that the scan will not be able to identify the babies in the womb. I paid her N2,700,000 for triplets.
Signs of pregnancy
“The only signs I have as a pregnant woman is my swollen stomach and legs which you can see. I still see my period sometimes.
“On the day I was arrested by the police, Oby had invited me to Port Harcourt for check-up, so she could ascertain if I am due for delivery. I went and she checked me. After that she said I was not due, that I have to wait for a little longer.
“But because it was late for me to travel back to Lagos that very day, she said I should pass the night at her house. I obliged. That was when the police came and arrested us. From what I am seeing right now, I don’t believe that I am pregnant despite my swollen stomach and legs.”
I think I’m pregnant
Information made available to members of the press by the Public Relations Officer, Ngozi Braide, revealed that it took a while for Cecelia to be convinced that she did not actually deliver the babies, going by the supposedly pregnancy period and delivery experience she had.
It was also gathered that the babies have been taken to one of the orphanage homes in Lagos.

Due to the increase in the number of people participating this time around, I've had to change the format of the challenge a little. To participate, please join the DeBie Hive's 30 Day Photo Challenge Group on Facebook. All photos need to be posted there, with a notation of which day in the challenge the image represents.  I will consolidate them into albums to be shared on the DeBie Hive Facebook Page.


Here are the rules:

1) One picture per day per person, all MUST be posted in the group.
2) There is no requirement that you participate every day to be eligible for the contest.
3) Only one picture per person will be selected for the contest.
4) What is chosen for the contest is entirely at my discretion.
5) I will remove photos I deem offensive, and reserve the right to do so.
6) Only post pictures of people you have permission to post images of.
7) The idea is to take NEW pictures, not re-use old ones.
8) The contest runs after the challenge ends, hosted on my blog, for seven days. 
9) The prize is never that exciting, so you're mostly playing for bragging rights.
10) HAVE FUN!!!! I love photography and started doing these to get people out there experimenting with their cameras.

The full list of the prompts can be found here.

If you are new to the challenge, you can check our prior year's contests here:
- Last year's contest
- The contest from 2011
- Last Fall's Holiday Photo Challenge Contest

Area boys in Oshodi Lagos state had a fruitful Democracy, as they celebrated the day with beer from ill-fated lorry that was transporting crates of Goldberg beer. The Area boys went into frenzy when the vehicle lost its footing and letting off a huge amount of its content by the roadside.
Despite that the unfortunate incident happened around the office of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, the area boys started pounding on other bottles that were unbroken as they selectively picked for themselves among the ruins on the sidewalk of road.
As the merriment continued, with some of them drinking more than five bottles, shouts of  Up Democracy Day and other street slangs soon raided the air while few of them drank to stupor.
They were however appreciative as they showed good gestures by helping in the clearing of the debris and gathering of crates which were later taken into the lorry.

THE Federal Government may soon commence a clampdown on “extremist groups”, especially the Oodua People’s Congress and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra.

President Goodluck Jonathan has said the OPC, MASSOB and  the violent Islamic sect, Boko Haram, constitute threats to national security.
“The Nigerian state faces three fundamental security challenges posed by extremist groups like Boko Haram in the North; the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra in the South-East; and the Oodua People’s Congress in the South-West.
“The activities of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra and OPC, though not as violently intense as those of Boko Haram, they still pose a serious security challenge to the Nigerian state,” Jonathan said in his 234-page mid-term report presented to Nigerians as part of the activities marking the nation’s Democracy Day, a copy of which was obtained by our correspondent on Thursday.
But both factional leaders of the OPC, Dr. Fredrick Fasheun and Chief Gani Adams, on Thursday denied the allegation that their group constitute security challenges to the country. They spoke separately to one of our correspondents on the telephone.
While Fasheun described the allegation as unfair, Adams said such assessment did not take into consideration the activities of the group in the last eight years.
“OPC does not constitute any security threat to any people let alone Nigeria. So, anybody that ties the rope of insecurity around our waist is being unfair to us. We love Nigeria but we love social justice more,” Fasheun said.
Adams added that rather than constituting a security threat to the country, OPC had for the past eight years, helped to promote peace in the South-West Zone of the country and by its festivals, helped to develop Nigeria tourism.
The MASSOB also denied that its members constituted threat to national security.
Its Director of Information, Mr. Uchenna Madu, told our correspondent on telephone that the President could not have said MASSOB had been a threat to national security.
He said this was because MASSOB supported and voted for Jonathan in the last election because of the role he played in the burial of the late Biafran leader, Chief Emeka Ojukwu.
Madu said, “MASSOB is not a threat to Nigeria’s security. We have been conducting ourselves in a non-violent manner in line with the Constitution of Nigeria.
“If they are looking for those that are threatening national security, they should go after Boko Haram. They should go after government officials who through corruption have become the greatest threat to national security,” he said.
Already, The PUNCH learnt that the Federal Government had put both OPC and MASSOB under security watch while a full-blown military offensive against Boko Haram is ongoing under the emergency rule declared in the three northern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
Curiously, Adams was among the dignitaries at the event where Jonathan presented the document on Wednesday in Abuja. Some former Heads of State, including ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, had shunned the event.
The President stated in the document that the Nigeria Police Force was upgrading its intelligence and counter-violence infrastructure across the country to respond appropriately to the threats being posed by the groups.
He said, “… the greater challenges are in the North where Boko Haram continues its intense violent campaign against citizens that have led to loss of lives and the destruction of poverty in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Kano, Bauchi and Gombe states.
“While attacks have been launched on government and international institutions like the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters and the United Nations House in the Federal Capital Territory, government has contained the violent activities of the Boko Haram sect by restricting it to communities in the North-East where the Joint Task Force, of our national security agency, is currently engaged in anti-terrorism battle.
“The challenge of containing a group with no identifiable structure is huge: but within our broad counter-terrorism coordinated framework, government has scored several successes with the arrests and trials of many insurgents.”
Jonathan said whenever any group organised itself against the prevailing laws and established democratic institution, government would stand up and effectively remove such threat to ensure that the protection of lives and property was not compromised.
Meanwhile, the President again met with security chiefs behind closed doors on Thursday.
Presidency and security sources said the meeting was to appraise the state of the nation’s security vis-a-vis the military operations in the North-East states under emergency rule.
The meeting which held at the Villa had in attendance the heads of the Navy, Army, Police and the State Security Service, among others.
National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.); Minister of State, Defence, Olusola Obada; Minister of Police Affairs, Navy-Capt. Caleb Olubolade (retd.); and Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, also attended the meeting.
Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, who is also the Minister of Special Duties, Mr. Kabiru Turaki (SAN), and a female member of the committee also made an appearance at the meeting.
As usual, none of those who attended the meeting was willing to talk to journalists at the end of the meeting, but a  source close to the meeting told one of our correspondents that the meeting reviewed the success of the state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states.
He said Turaki also presented to the meeting the progress report made by his committee that had been meeting with members of Boko Haram, and other stakeholders in troubled parts of the country.
The source added that issues bordering on early lifting of the emergency rule in the affected states to further give room for dialogue took centre stage at the meeting.
Jonathan had on Sunday, during a talk with the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, on the sideline of the 21st Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Africa Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, hinted that the state of emergency declared in the three northern states might soon be called off.

This announcement is for the official unveiling of Nigerian new premium america collaborated independent digital record label- TOTO MUSIC EMPIRE , most of the major music professionals across Nigeria and beyond had been turning their attention to the evolution of a new music label power house all from far away united state of america.
In partnership with MAGNIFICIENT RECORDS INC and With 6 blazing nigerian artists already signed to the label and 2 more artists to be signed by the label after the official unveiling party, TME has become the most anticipated music industry event for the year 2013 with talks,tweets,posts,broadcasts and news about it becoming the new headings across the Nigerian music social media community.
Currently signed to the new label are SAMMY F, , D SNUZ, 8-FIGURE and XBOSX. The 4 new artists have collaborated on an official visionary introductory all stars song titled "ROLLCALL" with nice delivery from all the artists. First official single off the compilation album of the label"TME".
XBOSX is a new dynamic singer to watch out for. His style of singing is what set him aside among others. One of the key artist on the label with a debut single "EFFIZI OF MONEY" which is a club and party banger any day. His verse on the label first all stars track was remarkable, giving the song that needed attractive assurance from the start as a good song. Mark the name XBOSX he is sure to be among the next top rated new act for 2013.

D SNUZ started his professional music career as a member of an urban group of two guys himself and his then group partner KAYQ with the name BBC-Black Beat Culture. After dissolving the group, he was with 2 Concepts Records alongside YQ and Tustep then, before moving on when the label focused all their efforts on YQ.
Signing with TME is a blessing and opportunity for him to prove himself.D SNUZ is a creative artist with what can be defined as iconic swag. Looking at him without listening to his song, you can tell he is into music. His debut single under TME "FREE ME" was a fusion of African sound with blend of RnB singing style. D SNUZ is surely a brand to look forward to combining his styles and looks.
SAMMY F is best known for his street slang. A controversial artist for his vocal texture that sometimes sounds like T.I but he defines himself as a talent that has class.His style is unique and his voice is easily noticeable among others because it has a powerful texture that made many refer him as sounding like American born legendary T.I. His delivery on the TME All stars track "ROLLCALL" defined him as a future star and with time SAMMY F will be leading the next generation of music stars.
8-FIGURE passionate voice and vocal delivery style present him as a candidate in the generation of celebrated artists. 8-FIGURE live up to the definition of his name, he is the hook master of the TME All stars. His debut single under the label "WAYO" is a classic and party started any day. 8-FIGURE is also someone to look out for.
TOP NIGERIAN DJ SQUIZZE says, "2Digits Records fills a void for talented independent artists and embraces their talents". The time is now for the world to hear their music, their voices and their messages. Our record label transcends cultural lines, opens doors, and gives vision to a vast global market."
KENNY OGUNDE described the label as a new revolutionary imprint that will be named among one of the world’s leading music companies in few years to come. Becoming home to some of the next generation most successful and best known recording artists.

CEO
Philli O TME FACEBOOK LINK

The Governor Jonah Jang faction of the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF, has commissioned its secretariat in the Maitama District of Abuja.
The secretariat, a butter colour two-storey building, located at No 2, Nana Street, Maitama District, was officially opened by Mr. Jang, Plateau State Governor and his self-appointed NGF Vice Chairman, Olusegun Mimiko, the Ondo State Governor.
Altogether, 14 state governors and two deputies were present at the event. The governors present include Kaduna, Kogi, Abia, Katsina, Ondo, Plateau, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Delta, Ebonyi and Taraba States. The deputy governors present were those of Benue and Gombe.
NGF, an association of the 36 state governors in Nigeria was factionalised Friday when 18 governors refused to accept the re-election of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers state as chairman. Mr. Amaechi defeated Mr. Jang  by 19 votes to 16 to emerge chairman.
Vice President Namadi Sambo was not present as expected.

I'm not going to lie to you people because that's not how I roll. The last week or so has been rough around here. It seems like there are few lulls in the drama around these parts, and those lulls never seem to last very long when they do show up.

Also in the past week or so, we've watched a lot of movies. Some were escapist, transporting me to a different world entirely. The older I get, the more I like those movies, because they're so far out there that there is no way to tie them to reality. Maybe that is why I find myself watching more and more science fiction type stuff. Even if it's entirely ridiculous, at least it doesn't stab me in the heart.

Then there are the other movies. The stab me in the heart movies.

Last week sometime, we watched Silver Linings Playbook. I've heard the book is better, but can't speak to that personally since I haven't read it yet. If you haven't seen it yet and want to, you might want to stop reading. I'm usually far enough behind with watching movies that it's safe for me to write about them, but there's always going to be someone who tells me I'm a spoiler. So, if you're going to read this then tell me I am a spoiler, just stop now.


Anyway, it's a good movie. We had to watch it in pieces though because it was so emotionally overwhelming. I don't know how I would have done if I had watched it in a theater.  Bradley Cooper's character has bi-polar disorder, diagnosed after he completely loses control when he catches his wife cheating on him and almost beats her lover to death. He ends up in a psychiatric hospital until his mom goes out on a limb,signing him out to care for him at home.

He won't take his meds. He thinks he's fine. He is obsessed with exercise. He is socially awkward. He is totally preoccupied with trying to win his wife back, restraining order and all. There are scenes in the movie that were so painful for me that I had to avert my eyes, the worst being the one where he is tearing his room apart looking for their wedding video.

Then you get to know his parents more. Mom is a fixer. She is the glue in the family, and her main currency is information. She tells people what she thinks they need to know, she hides the rest, because she wants to fix things. Dad has OCD and a pathological gambler. He wants a relationship with his completely messed up son, but wants the relationship that he wants, not the one that his son is capable of having or wants with him. Mom is a fixer, he is a forcer.

Goddamn apple trees. It's one thing to have to deal with them on a daily basis, but seeing it play out before your eyes is overwhelming at times. We all get our crazy from somewhere, and we don't usually have to look too far to find it.

Jennifer Lawrence's character lost her husband and her life spiraled out of control. She's heavily medicated too, but seems to manage her emotions a little better. Even if they are ugly at times, at least she's aware of them. She has anxiety, she's depressed, she's acting out, she's lost. Then she finds a guy who's even more messed up than she is. It's a match made in dysfunctional heaven.

Good lord.

One of her lines in the movie is me, completely: I do this! Time after time after time! I do all this shit for other people! And then I wake up and I'm empty! I have nothing!

I cried buckets after that movie ended, the kind of crying where your head hurts for a few days afterwards and you end up dehydrated. Seeing so much mental illness crammed into two hours, so much of it the illnesses that exist in my own tree, was too much. I want better for my children. I'd give anything to help them avoid some of the things that have happened to me.

Doing that means taking long, ugly, hard looks in the mirror. Confronting it all. Dealing with it. Having awareness of it. It means you can't pretend it's not there, you can't wish it away. You have to suck it up and deal. You have to.

No other option but to face it all, or you are doomed to take the repeating cycle for another generational spin.

Then last night we watched This Is 40. It's a comedy. It's by Judd Apatow. There will be fart jokes, right? He likes fart jokes. It will be funny, right???

Parts of it were hilarious. Like holy shit there are people following me around with cameras and they know what happens in my house and they put it in a movie hilarious.

Parts of it weren't funny at all, and I found myself crying too many times to count. I asked my fans on Facebook what to expect yesterday, and some of them warned me. Some of them said it was just stupid or that it wasn't very funny. I think I envy them a little, because they just aren't there yet. I shouldn't be there yet. I'm not 40, but according to this movie I'm at least that old.

Financial crises, people who run away from their problems, mouthy kids, insecurity about getting older, the threat of the younger woman, addiction, unplanned pregnancies, an accident prone husband, trying to find connections with parents who aren't very parental....all of it.

Pete: Did you ever think marriage would get easier?
Barry: No, it gets harder. Much harder.

A-freaking-men

Check, check, check.

Is this really what happens when we hit mid-life?

Does everyone go through the same shit eventually? Is it that universal?

Why am I so lucky that I get to do it all years or decades before everyone else?

I'm a little bitter this morning, forgive me.

I'd like a refund on my youth, it ran out long before the warranty was up.

Thanks, Judd.

I think the next movie I watch will need to have robots or aliens or talking animals in it. This is getting ridiculous.

SaharaReporters has learnt that Nigerian military authorities were questioning four foreign nationals suspected to be from a Middle Eastern country over a large consignment of arms and ammunitions intercepted in a warehouse located in the Bompai area of Kano, the Kano State capital.
A security source also told SaharaReporters that the owner of the warehouse, simply identified as a Lebanese national, was also a guest of Nigerian military interrogators over the shock discovery.