Mum charged for the murder of her 13 year old son due to starvation

MINOT, N.D. (AP) -- A North Dakota woman whose 13-year-old son died weighing just 21 pounds sometimes locked the boy in a dirty bedroom filled with trash, a detective testified Thursday during a hearing where a judge determined she would stand trial on murder and other charges.

Judge Gary Lee heard testimony and arguments from attorneys in Minot before deciding the state had more than met the burden of proof necessary to try the 35-year-old Jessica Jensen, of Kenmare, for one count of murder, one count of neglect or abuse of a child and one count of failure to report the death of a child. Jensen has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

State Medical Examiner William Massello said in his autopsy that Jensen's son died from chronic starvation due to untreated juvenile appetite disorder. He listed the manner of death as homicide.

Jensen's attorney, Bob Martin, argued that she neglected her son's untreated medical condition but did not deliberately starve him and should not be charged with murder.

For more than an hour, prosecutor Kelly Dillon interviewed Detective Laura Forbes, an investigator whose answers painted a detailed picture of the living conditions in some areas of Jensen's house and the alleged mistreatment of her middle child. Forbes said Jensen told the detective that she had at times locked her son in a bedroom on the second floor of her home.

Forbes testified that both windows in the bedroom were covered in black plastic and were boarded up with plywood. She said the room was filled with trash, that the room smelled of feces and urine and that food was splattered across the walls.

Court documents show Jensen had homeschooled her children since 2009. Forbes said investigators found few educational materials in the home; everything they found fit in one paper grocery bag full of books.

Forbes said they also found a Kindle reading device that had several books about child abuse on it.

Forbes said Jensen's mother told detectives that she believed Jensen did not want her son. She also said that after Jensen's son had died, Jensen allegedly told her mother that "she was at ease."

Jensen is charged with failing to report the death because authorities contend she waited more than two hours to call police. By the time police arrived, the boy's body was stiff.

Forbes said that when she saw the body in the hospital on the night the boy died, she didn't realize at first that he was in the bed. He was "very thin, only bones with skin on them," she said.

Jensen told investigators her son had a hormonal growth problem and that his pituitary gland did not function properly. She said her son would eat and then throw up.

Forbes said medical records show he had not seen a doctor for several years.

Forbes testified that there was plenty of food in the house and it didn't appear the family was tight on money.

Jensen didn't testify Thursday, but sat silent, often looking down at her attorney's notes.

Martin requested more time to file motions before the trial, citing his busy schedule. A pre-trial conference is scheduled for September.

The Southerners prepare against Boko Haram

Governments of states in the southern part of the country are bracing for possible attacks by the Boko Haram sect. There are fears that the sect, which has its base in the North-East, may extend its targets to the South.

The terrorist group had claimed responsibility for several attacks and kidnappings in the northern part of the country, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Abuja, the seat of the Nigerian government, has recorded three major attacks in 2014 alone.

Boko Haram suspects in detention at the headquarters of the Department of State Services attempted a jailbreak on March 30, leading to a shootout. The terrorists have also attacked Nyanya, Abuja twice, killing over 100 and injuring many others.

On Friday, the Kwara State Government, which described the recent Abuja bombings as horrible, inhuman, barbaric unacceptable and lamented that nowhere was safe in the country. It said the entire country was apprehensive over the activities of terrorists.

The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Tunji Moruonfoye, said the government was collaborating with security agencies to prevent any terrorist incursion or attacks.

He, however, expressed fears that the terrorists could still break through the security system.

Moruonfoye said, “Nowhere is safe in Nigeria today. It has nothing to do with Kwara alone.  It is all of us. If anybody will be hit, we should be bothered.  Our children are being kidnapped and taken away by this sect. It could be anybody’s child.  The whole country is apprehensive.

“We are going to be consumed, if we do not do something about it in uniformity.

“We are doing a lot of underground work such as intelligence and investigation.  If we see suspicious people, they are interrogated.  There are other security measures that I will not make public. We are providing logistic support for the law-enforcement agencies.”

Moruonfoye added that the Kwara State Government was focusing on intelligence gathering.

Also, the Akwa Ibom State Police Command urged residents of the state not to panic over the bombings in Abuja. The Police said it had mapped out strategies to tackle insecurity in the state.

The command’s Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Etim Dickson, said the force had bomb disposal units at different motor parks, airports and some other strategic places, with a view to preventing disaster.

He said, “Although this incident has not occurred in the state, we have taken a number of precautions.”

Similarly, the Nigeria Police, Cross River Command, said it was not taking anything for granted.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Cross River State, Mr. Hogan Bassey, said the Thursday blast in Abuja was a warning that the insurgency was bound to affect all the states in the country.

He said, “Any part of Nigeria that is touched will affect all the states. We are, however, putting modalities in place to make sure we do not have that kind of experience here.”

In the same vein, the state government, through the State Security Adviser, Mr. Rekpene Bassey, said going by the developments in Abuja, it had become necessary to step up intelligence.

The Ondo State Government said it was collaborating with various security agencies in the state and it was fully prepared to protect the lives of Ondo people.

The state Commissioner for Information, Kayode Akinmade, said on Friday that there was the need for a synergy among all security agencies and governments to curtail the rampaging insurgents.

He said, “We want to assure the people of Ondo State that structures have been put in place to ensure their safety. However, we cannot be talking about the strategies to curtail the terrorists on the pages of newspapers.”

Meanwhile, the Enugu State Government on Friday said the security network in the state had not been compromised. It gave residents in the state the assurance that there would be no Boko Haram bombings.

The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Chuks Ugwoke, said, “We keep improving on the security network so as not to take chances.”

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Ebere Amaraizu, equally said there was no cause for alarm.

“We have mounted heavy security presence in all entry points to the state,” said Amaraizu.

Similarly, the Osun State Government said it had put in place a number of security measures to ensure that such attacks did not occur in the state.

The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Sunday Akere, told one of our correspondents that security agencies had intensified their patrol of the state.

He said, “The government has purchased over 300 patrol vans for security agencies and they were distributed.  This has enhanced the mobility of security agencies in the state because they are now able to patrol the state.”

Kidnapped girls: Patience Jonathan takes over investigation

Mrs. Patience Jonathan, the wife of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, on Friday night practically took over investigation into the case of girls who were abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, on April 15.

At a time her husband, President Goodluck Jonathan, was setting up a fact-finding committee on the matter, she was presiding over a five-hour marathon meeting of stakeholders that ended at about 11pm.

While adjourning the meeting to Sunday by 4pm, the President’s wife summoned some individuals which she believe would assist in unraveling the circumstances leading to the girls’ abduction and their whereabouts.

Among those summoned were the Borno State Commissioner of Police, the state Commissioner for Education, the chairman of the local government, the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Chibok, the wife of the village head, the school principal and the school gateman.

Others are at least two teachers from the school, the chairman and secretary of the school’s Parents Teachers Association, two house parents, two parents of missing children, as well as two parents whose children had returned home.

Mrs. Jonathan said if the schoolgirls were not found by Sunday, she would not hesitate to lead women on a protest match to Maiduguri to demand for their whereabouts from the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima.

“By Sunday, we must have our children. If not, we will match to Borno and ask the governor to give us our children. We will match to National Assembly to see the Senate President and will also match to see the President,” she said.

She also announced the composition of a committee saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that those she summoned attend the Sundaymeeting.

The committee which she said would be chaired by the wife of Borno State governor who was absent at the meeting, has wife of the Senator and member of the House of Representatives from the affected constituency, wife of the minister from Borno State and wife of the chairman of the affected local government area as members.

Mrs. Jonathan said she had been dealing with the issue secretly since the news of the abduction broke and had decided to come to the open. She said failure would not be an option.

She said, “Within three days, something will happen. We will get to the root of the matter. I don’t come out and go back empty. I have come out and something must happen..

“We will not fold our hands and see our children kidnapped, our husbands, sons, daughters also being killed. We should be more concerned.

“We will form a committee to call on appropriate persons to come and answer questions. They must answer us. If they say they won’t answer us, then they should go and bring our children. The demonstration will take place at their doorsteps.

“When they answer us, we can then approach our neighbours, the President, Senate President and others to help us.

“I have been dealing with this secretly but you have taken me to the market square. There is no more hiding.”

Mrs. Jonathan said as the chief security officers of their states, governors must be ready to take the heat for any act of insecurity in their domain.

Jonathan asks for all the offices and schools in FCT to close from 7th of May till 9th of May for the World Economic Forum for Africa

All government offices and schools within the Federal Capital Territory will be closed from May 7 till May 9 as part of arrangements for hosting the World Economic Forum on Africa.

President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the measures, making exception only foк institutions on essential services. He also recommended large private organizations to follow suit,

The directive was contained in the statement by Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, and is aimed at ensuring free flow of traffic in the centre of Abuja, as well as enabling the participants to carry out their assigned roles in the WEC agenda.

Nigeria will become the first West African country to host the event. The theme for the 24th edition of the forum is Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs. It will attract participants from over 80 countries, including heads of governments and statesmen, CEOs of global firms, leading financiers, policy and development technocrats.

Security concerns 

Some observers, however, suggested that the development follows recent devastating activity by insurgents in the very heart of Nigeria, its capital. It will be recalled that at about 8 p.m. a suicide bomber 

Speaking in the wake of yesterday's bombing in Abuja Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was quik to assure that the FG would provide adequate security for participants.

Mr. Eze Onyekpere, an economist, and Catholic Bishop of Sokoto State, Most Rev. Mathew Kukah, both agreed that the FG should not cancel the event despite recent tragic events. This would demonstrate Nigeria's will to conquer terrorism and show that there are people in charge of the security situation in the country.

Govt Sets Up Committee On Chibok Girls Abduction

The Nigerian government has set up a fact finding committee comprising security agencies, civil society groups and international organisations to get to the roost of the whereabouts of the girls abducted by suspected members of the Boko Haram sect on April 14 and work out more rescue strategies.

The committee was set up on Friday after a meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and Security Chiefs where the security situations in Nigeria’s north were discussed.

This is coming three days after concerned women and relatives of the abducted girls began protest in the Federal Capital Territory to push the government to take action and rescue the girls. The protest is in its third day and the women have said that they would not end the protest until concrete action had been taken.

The functions of the committee are to liaise with the Borno State Government and establish the circumstances leading to the School remaining open for boarding students when other schools were closed, liaise with relevant authorities and the parents of the missing girls to establish the actual number and identities of the girls abducted, interface with the Security Services and Borno State Government to ascertain how many of the missing girls have returned and to mobilise the surrounding communities and the general public on citizen support for a rescue strategy and operation.

They are also to articulate a framework for a multi-stakeholder action for the rescue of the missing girls and advise the government on any matter incidental to the terms of reference.

Brig. General Ibrahim A. Sabo (Rtd.) is the chairman of the committee with Barrister Femi Falana, Hawa Ibrahim and Fatima Kwaku as members.

The committee will have two representatives of National Council of Women Societies, two representatives of the Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools, two representatives of the National Parents Teachers Association, twp representatives of the Nigeria Police and two representatives of the State Security Service amongst others as members.

It will be inaugurated at the State House, Abuja on May 6.

The girls were abducted on April 14 after the suspected members of the sect attacked the Chibok community where the Government Girls Secondary School is situated.

The Borno State Commissioner of Police (CP), Tanko Lawan and the State Director of the Department of State Security, Ahmed Abdullahi, on Friday confirmed that 276 students of the Government Girls Secondary School Chibok were actually abducted.

Both men gave the confirmations at a joint news conference in Maiduguri, the state capital.

Mr Lawan said: “So far, we have established that no fewer than 276 girls were abducted at the Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), Chibok on April 14, 2014 by suspected members of the Boko Haram Terrorist Group”.

He further disclosed that; “out of the 276 abducted students of the school, 53 female students have been rescued; while 223 are still missing; and suspected being held by Boko Haram terrorists in various parts of the state”.

Terrorists planning to attack a Sheraton hotel in Lagos

US diplomats in Nigeria on Friday claimed in a travel note to citizens warning of security risks associated with Sheraton Hotel.

“As of late April, groups associated with terrorism allegedly planned to mount an unspecified attack against the Sheraton Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria, the US Consulate General in Lagos said in an emailed advisory.

“There was no further information regarding which of the two Sheraton Hotels in Lagos was the possible target, or if both of the Sheraton Hotels are possible targets.

“There is no further information regarding the timing or method of attack. US citizens are cautioned to avoid these hotels at this time.”

Four Points Sheraton Hotel In Lagos

The warning comes a day after a car bomb exploded in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, killing 19 people and wounding scores more, just yards (metres) from a bus station where a previous bombing on April 14 killed at least 75.

Boko Haram claimed the April 14 attack and both bombings have raised fears about a possible change in tactics and targets by the Islamist militants, whose increasingly deadly, five-year insurgency has largely been confined to the north.

Concern has mounted that the violence could spread to other parts of the country given the military’s apparent inability to stem the bloodshed.

A hotel attack by Islamist extremists would not be unprecedented.

In November 2008, heavily armed gunmen attacked three luxury hotels, a railway station, Jewish centre and popular tourist cafe in the Indian city of Mumbai, killing 166 and wounding more than 300.

Sheraton has two hotels in Lagos: the Sheraton Hotel Lagos in the Ikeja area of the city near the international airport and the Four Points by Sheraton in Victoria Island.

The latter is situated off the expressway to Lekki, home to many wealthier Nigerians and expatriates.

The US travel advisory said the security situation in Nigeria remained “fluid and unpredictable”, warning its citizens to stay away from all travel to Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states which have borne the brunt of the violence.

All three are in northeast Nigeria and have been under a state of emergency since May last year.

Parents of the Kidnapped girls plead for mercy

Parents in Chibok begged for the kidnappers to have mercy on their daughters and for the government to rescue them.

A week after several girls were kidnapped in Borno, more than 200 girls are still missing despite pursuit by security forces and an independent search by fathers who headed into dense forest to find their daughters.

"I have not seen my dear daughter, she is a good girl," said Musa Muka, whose 17-year-old daughter, Martha, was taken away. "We plead with the government to help rescue her and her friends. We pray nothing happens to her."

Some of the students managed to escape by jumping from the back of an open truck after they were kidnapped in the early  hours of Tuesday last week, or by running away and hiding in the forest.
The number of students missing is still unclear. Education officials had said 129, which was the number of students sitting an exam. The girls had been recalled for a physics exam after all schools in Borno state were closed four weeks ago for security concerns.
But as parents rushed from across Borno state to the boarding school, the number of missing grew. On Monday, parents gave the visiting state governor a list of 234 missing girls aged between 16 and 18.

The school's principal, Asabe Kwambura, said 43 students had been accounted for and 230 were missing. The extremists set the school ablaze.
The mass abduction is an embarrassment for Nigeria's military, which announced last week that security forces had rescued all but eight of those kidnapped, and then was forced to retract the statement.
"The operation is going on and we will continue to deploy more troops," said Major General Chris Olukolade, a defence ministry spokesman.

As confidence in the military eroded, parents and other residents in Chibok pooled money to buy fuel for motorcycles and headed into the nearby Sambisa forest, a known hideout of extremists. One father said they pursued the abductors for 30 miles into the forest before turning back. He said they did not encounter any soldiers.

The Nigerian air force has halted what were near-daily bombings of the forest, presumably because of the kidnapped students. The extremists have abducted handfuls of students in recent months but this mass kidnapping is unprecedented.
Nigeria's military already faced mounting criticism over its failure to curb a five-year Islamist uprising despite having draconian powers under an 11-month state of emergency in three north-eastern states covering one-sixth of the country.

More than 1,500 people have been killed during the insurgency so far this year, compared with an estimated 3,600 between 2010 and 2013.
Claims by the military and the government that the extremists were cornered in the remote north-east were shattered by a explosion at a bus station in the capital, Abuja, on 14 April, which killed at least 75 people and wounded 141.

In a video received on Saturday, the leader of the homegrown terrorist network Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, claimed responsibility for the Abuja bombing but said nothing about the kidnapped students.
Shekau repeated his opposition to "corrupting" western influences, saying: "Everyone that calls himself a Muslim must stop obeying the constitution, must abandon democracy, must stay away from western education." Boko Haram means "western education is sinful" in the local Hausa language.
The insurgency has forced 750,000 people, many of them farmers, to flee their homes, raising fears of a food shortage. Refugees in neighbouring countries said they were escaping militant attacks as well as the often brutal response of Nigeria's military.

God help us!!!

'Koro Claims he can't afford the N16m low cost house based on his N4m salary

Mr Musiliu Obanikoro, Nigeria’s minister of state in the defence ministry, has disclosed that he is not earning enough to buy a low cost house of sixteen million Naira.
He disclosed his annual salary with all the allowances in a year add up to N4 million while answering questions on his recent face off with Lagos state government over low cost housing in ilubirin.

Obanikoro also claims he did not distrupt work going on site when he visited the project site. However, he berated Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola for raising false alarm over the visit.The miniter also told channels TV reporters that the low cost housing is not low cost.”As a minister I can’t afford what they call low cost housing where a two bedroom flat goes for 16 million”,he said.