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A Nigerian in the United States, Osa Alohaneke, faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in jail, after he was convicted by a court in Fort Bend County, Houston for the 2015 stabbing to death of his fiancée, a Cameroonian. After deliberating for some 13 hours, a jury late Friday afternoon convicted 59-year-old Osa Alohaneke in the slaying of Evelyne Ebane Epiepang, 52. Alohaneke looked down and showed no emotion when the verdict was read in court. Prosecutors alleged that Alohaneke used a kitchen knife to attack Epiepang, his fiancée, and her friend, Veronica Taku. Alohaneke, who was living at the time in a section of southwest Houston that lies in Fort Bend County, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Jurors acquitted Alohaneke of the assault charges. Epiepang was stabbed more than 30 times and died as she called 911 operators for help. Screams echoed in the courtroom for more than four minutes when prosecutors played the 9...

Fire on Friday night gutted three duplexes in Gowon Estate, Federal Housing Authority, Egbeda, Lagos. According to News Agency of Nigeria reports, no casualty was recorded. The fire was first noticed at 7.15 pm in one of the duplexes before spreading to others. The arrival and efforts of a combined team of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency and State Fire Service officials at the scene helped put out the fire. Some of the residents commended the early arrival of the LASEMA personnel, saying that they got to the scene 30 minutes after being called. “They came with five trucks, all with sufficient water that tackled the inferno before it was finally put out,’’ the Community Development Association Chairman, Mr Nathanel Okoro, said. He also praised the DPO of the Gowon Estate Police Station, Mr Adeniyi Adedeji, for personally leading his team to the scene to provide security.

Uganda could begin enforcing the death penalty again, President Yoweri Museveni has said, 13 years after the country's last execution. Mr Museveni said his "Christian background" had prevented him from going ahead with executions, but this "leniency" was encouraging criminals. Human rights groups have warned against the move. In Uganda, 28 offences merit the death penalty, the highest in East Africa. Some 278 people are on death row. "I have not been assenting to hanging of convicts because of my Christian background but being lenient is causing people to think they can cause harm and get away with it," President Yoweri Museveni wrote on Twitter. He also said he would "hang a few" at a graduation ceremony for prison wardens in Kamapala on Thursday. "Executing prisoners won't end crime," the executive director of Uganda's Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, Livingstone Ssewanyana, told the Washington Post. "The...

For the seventh year in a row, the President and Chief Executive of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has been adjudged as the richest man in Africa with a net worth that Forbes pegged at $12.2bn for 2017. That was an increase of $100m from a year earlier. Bill Gates maintained his position as the richest in the world with a net worth of $86bn, while Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos were second and third, respectively with a net worth of $75.6bn and $72.8bn. “Dangote is looking beyond cement – his most valuable asset – and has been investing in a fertiliser production company and a large oil refinery. Dangote Fertiliser is expected to start operations in the second quarter of this year,” Forbes stated. Dangote was recently the only African selected among Bloomberg’s world 50 best persons in the year 2017. Wow I think it should be Dangote with the money oooo 😂😂

Members of the House of Representatives are alarmed over what they call the “worrisome spending plans” of the Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative, which had a budget of N45bn in 2017. Between December 2016 and May 2017 alone, the committee spent a whopping N6.1bn on “foodstuffs and catering materials,” “drugs and medical supplies,” “medical services consulting,” “refreshment and meals” and “purchasing of bulling materials.” The PCNI, a temporary intervention measure by the Federal Government, is to provide relief services to Internally Displaced Persons in the North-East. The IDPs are mainly the victims of Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East and are scattered in various camps in Borno, Adamawa, Yobe , Gombe and Bauchi states. Budget documents The PUNCH obtained in Abuja on Thursday, showed that the committee got approval to spend another N21bn in 2017 on largely the same services and got a retention of another N45bn in the 2018 budget now before the National Assembl...

The leader of a Nigerian gang responsible for the death of a British aid worker has been killed, according to the Nigerian army. A manhunt for gang leader Peregbakumo Oyawerikumo, known as Karowei, had been underway in southern Nigeria since last year. He co-ordinated the kidnap of four British missionaries in October. Three were released but one man, Ian Squire, was shot dead in captivity. Kidnapping for ransom is common in southern Nigeria though most often those taken are freed after a ransom is paid. The Foreign Office currently advises against all but essential travel to Delta state, saying there is a "high threat of criminal kidnap". A special military task force said it arrested the gang leader in a village. As the task force led him back to his camp they were ambushed and in the fighting, Karowei was killed, the army said.

Taylor Swift assembles her "A-Team" of Ed Sheeran and Future for a round of international parties in the official music video to "End Game," which dropped overnight. Joseph Kahn takes director duties for TayTay's latest glossy clip, which sees the pop star hit the party scene in Miami, Tokyo and London. The pop star also slams shots with her good pal Sheeran at a karaoke bar in Tokyo, orders kebabs and drops by a house party in London on New Year's Eve.