An Ikeja S3xual Offences and Domestic Violence Court has heard how a man, Adewunmi Ajayi allegedly had unlawful s3xual intercourse with his 15-year-old stepdaughter.
The unlawful s3xual assault which began in 2019 resulted in multiple pregnancies and abortions.
An Investigating Police Officer, Aderinto Foluke, who made this known on Thursday, April 17, 2025 while giving evidence before Justice Abiola Soladoye, said the suspect impregnated the minor for the third time.
The IPO with AP No. 287997 attached to the Human Rights Unit of the Nigeria Police testified in the ongoing trial of a couple, Mr. Adewunmi, who is married to the survivor’s mother, Idowu Ajayi
The female inspector told the judge the outcome of the police investigation into the alleged s3xual assault.
“We concluded that Mr. Adewunmi has been sleeping with the survivor since 2019,” she said.
The prosecution witness, led by State Prosecution Counsel Abibat Ogunwemimo, told the court that the incident was reported to the Adeniji Adele Police Station, Lagos Island, by a teacher who came with a 15-year-old survivor and a referral letter from Alausa.
She further stated that the survivor’s stepfather had been having carnal knowledge with the minor and in the process, the survivor had two pregnancies, which her mother aborted.
She claimed the survivor also told them she was pregnant for her stepfather for the third time.
She said the survivor said she was afraid, so she confided in her teacher because of her mother who she claimed will abort for her again.
The IPO said trouble started for the couple in 2021 when they were arrested by the police.
Following the arrest of the first defendant, Ajayi, his wife, Mrs Idowu Ajayi, the second defendant, went to the police where they wrote statements
“The survivor also said she did not notice that her stepfather used to put drugs in her tea until the day her sister saw left-over particles in the cup,” the prosecution witness also said.
The IPO said the survivor complained to her grandmother, who in turn, talked to her mother
She said the mother denied it when she was told but took her daughter to hospital when she complained of stomach pain.
“The girl said she wanted to further her education, that is why she reported to her teacher.
“We gave her a referral paper and when the result came she was pregnant.
“We found out that the mother had taken her for abortions two times.”
Under cross-examination by the Defence Counsel Emmanuel Uwadoka, the IPO said she investigated the matter.
She however said she didn’t visit the crime scene nor the hospital
Uwadoka maintained that the survivor told the police that something was put in her tea.
She also claimed she spoke with the survivor’s grandmother over the phone during her investigation.
Two statements, a medical referral letter and a medical result were admitted as exhibits by the court.
Justice Soladoye adjourned the matter till May 28 for continuation of trial.
A 65-year-old woman, Margaret Mowalola Akinduntire, has died after the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) allegedly refused to perform a critical surgery, citing the recent Ramadan fasting.
This is despite complications from a previous botched procedure where the hospital left a surgical needle inside her body, SaharaReporters was told.
In an exclusive interview with SaharaReporters, her son recounted a harrowing series of encounters with LASUTH spanning over a decade, alleging gross negligence and abandonment by the state-run hospital.
“In 2013, they operated on her because of kidney problem then. I think it was the right kidney. They had to take that out in 2013 and year later, 2014, we were in the sitting room that day, when something just pierced her at the same point she did her surgery. She touched it and she realised it was a sharp something. We did not know what it was then. We had to start making calls, and she made calls to the people there in the hospital. And she had to go there. This time they did not even give her the drug that would not make her not to feel the pain in LASUTH.
“They had to open her again while she was still very conscious. She was seeing and feeling the pain when they were reopening her. Guess what they found inside her? It was a needle. It was the needle they used in stitching during the first surgery. How could a general hospital for that matter forget needle inside someone? My family wanted to put the case then but I could not really recall what happened later that made them to stop it.”
The son said although she later underwent a successful leg surgery, a fibroid diagnosis in 2024 brought her back under LASUTH’s care— and into another wave of negligence.
“Later again, she did leg surgery, that one was okay, and no issue. Then last year, 2024, we discovered that she has been having fibroid. I didn’t know what fibroid is until last year she detected she had that. So last year, and the hospital said they would have to remove it. They gave her a date and we made preparation and everything. They removed the fibroid. After they removed her fibroid, the issue got complicated, and they claimed there was an error in the stitching of her body after surgery.”
According to him, the surgical error led to severe abdominal complications.
“So the error from the fibroid surgery led to my mum developing an abdominal turmoil and when the hospital discovered that, they had to do cancer tests and others. So they discovered that the turmoil is not cancerous. We were even happy that this is not cancerous. So we told them let’s take this thing out immediately before it gets worse.
“Then LASUTH said Ramadan was coming, and they had to shift the surgery to after Ramadan. So I don’t know that in the Ramadan, if someone is dying, LASUTH can’t save the person because it is during Ramadan.”
Things reportedly deteriorated rapidly after the hospital delayed the surgery.
“So fast forward till after Ramadan, my mum became worse. She was very lean, and stomach became very big. It was as if my mum is shrinking, and her stomach is becoming big. So what is the issue?
“They took her back to LASUTH, the surgical emergency department, she was there, they were meant to operate her and guess what, during the day of the operation, she went there, then all of a sudden, LASUTH said they can’t find her file and without that, they are not going to attend to her. And they literally rushed my mom there. My mom could not even walk anymore. She could hardly speak at this point. You are telling us you can’t find her file. Why will a competent hospital misplace a patient’s file? A dying patient for that matter?”
In desperation, the family took her to a private hospital in Agege where she was revived temporarily.
“So we took her to a private hospital at Agege because she was in need of treatment, those ones first revived her, they gave her some drips, and everything. She got better at least.”
It took a social media campaign and the intervention of the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, for LASUTH to reverse course.
“At this point, my sister went to Twitter (X) to call LASUTH out and she also tagged the Governor. She shared me the link and I shared it to all my influencer friends, people with millions of followers, that please they should help me engage with the post. And the tweet gained traction and this led to the intervention of Lagos Governor. Sanwo-Olu called the hospital. After his call, the hospital texted my sister, and they said we should bring her back. Guess what? All of a sudden, LASUTH finds the file.”
He said internal sources later revealed the file was deliberately hidden because the hospital allegedly saw her as a hopeless case.
“It was later I heard from inside sources that the hospital intentionally held the file. Like it was intentional because they don’t want to waste their time. They said that she is going to die and why would they waste their time on her? And this is sad. Why would a hospital just give up on her like that? Someone that was still breathing. Her eyes were still opened. You just intentionally hid her files because you believe she is going to die.”
He concluded by saying she died on Wednesday at the Surgical Emergency Unit of LASUTH, still without receiving the critical surgery she needed.
“They hid the file, making no attempt to save her. And now my mum died on Wednesday at the Surgical Emergency Unit of the hospital.”
When contacted, the Management of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) denied the allegations.
The Chief Medical Director, Prof Adetokunbo Fabamwo described the claims as ‘untrue’ and baseless.
Speaking further, Prof. Adebowale Adekoya, another staff at LASUTH who is very privy to the incident also added that the allegations raised by the deceased’s son were false.
He said: “The son that met you was carried along in all the processes while treating his mum. We did not hide anything. And even the claim that the mother was denied surgery during Ramadan is not true. We have records to show several surgeries that were done during the Ramadan.”
Star Wars is one of the most beloved franchises ever created, and even after existing for so long, fans can’t get enough of the galaxy far, far away. At the Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 event today, a new Star Wars movie titled Star Wars Starfighter was announced to receive a release date. However, the best part of this movie is that it will star Ryan Gosling in the lead role, marking the actor’s entry into the Star Wars franchise.
What is Star Wars: Starfighter’s Release Date?
It has been revealed that Star Wars: Starfighter will be released on May 28, 2027. The movie will be directed by Shawn Levy. Since the movie is still to begin production, we don’t have a lot of details regarding the project, except a few shared by Levy himself.
What Do We Know About The Star Wars: Starfighter Movie?
The movie is going to start filming this fall. Starfighter is said to be a standalone film set in the Star Wars Universe. The plot of this movie will take place 8 to 9 years after the events of Chapter 9, The Rise of Skywalker, and might feature some cameos from the characters we have seen in the sequel trilogy.
However,we still have no information regarding the character Ryan Gosling will be playing in Star Wars: Starfighter. So, let’s wait till we have more information regarding the project and stay tuned for more updates.
Shashank Shakya
Shashank Shakya is an entertainment writer at Beebom. He has completed his Bachelors (Honors) in English Literature and is a published author.
Shashank boasts incomparable knowledge about the Marvel and DC universe, along with other branches of entertainment with substantial experience in the field of writing.
Search engine giant Google has been found to have an illegal monopoly in the ad tech sector by a U.S. federal judge, a landmark ruling that has far-reaching repercussions for the digital advertising business.
A larger antitrust case filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and multiple state attorneys general includes the ruling.
The court concluded that Google unjustly suppresses competition and hurts both advertisers and consumers by controlling important aspects of the internet ad ecosystem, such as publisher platforms, ad exchanges, and ad-buying tools.
READ ALSO: Court adjourns Nigerian’s $150m suit against Google, GoDaddy.com to May 27
In her ruling, Judge Brinkema stated, “Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.” She further explained that Google had strengthened its monopoly by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers, which had a detrimental effect on rivals and publishers. The conduct, she said, “substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”
In response, Google vowed to appeal the decision. “We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs. “The court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition,” she added.
Major structural remedies, such as the potential dissolution of portions of Google’s advertising business, could result from the ruling. Google has declared that it will appeal the decision, claiming that its services offer competition and value rather than coercion.
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, issued a sharp rebuke of a new executive order signed by former President Donald Trump aimed at reforming federal seafood and fisheries policy.
“You can’t manage and grow American fisheries when you fire the very scientists and fishery managers who are charged with supporting the more than one million jobs that rely on sustainable fisheries,” Cantwell said. “This executive order comes on the heels of the leaked Trump Administration draft budget which would slash the National Marine Fisheries Service budget by 27 percent and eliminate the Habitat Conservation Program and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, which fishermen rely on to restore salmon and other fish populations. The administration’s actions are hurting fishing families, not helping them.”
Cantwell’s comments were in response to Trump’s newly signed executive order titled “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness,” which outlines a sweeping overhaul of the federal approach to regulating and promoting the domestic fishing industry. The order criticizes what it calls federal “overregulation” that has restricted the ability of American fishermen to harvest seafood and compete globally.
The order directs the Secretary of Commerce, in coordination with other federal agencies and fishery councils, to identify and revise or rescind burdensome regulations within 30 days. It also instructs federal officials to explore opening marine national monuments to commercial fishing, expand fishing permit programs, and pursue trade enforcement strategies against nations engaged in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing or forced labor.
Trump’s directive builds on his 2020 executive order on seafood, which he claims streamlined regulations and improved data collection. The new policy aims to update those efforts by implementing an “America First Seafood Strategy” focused on increasing domestic seafood production, improving marketing and exports, and strengthening U.S. seafood supply chains.
Among its broader mandates, the executive order calls for:
• Public comment from the fishing industry, scientists, and stakeholders on modernizing fisheries management
• Reassessment of the Seafood Import Monitoring Program
• Development of a comprehensive seafood trade strategy
• Expansion of seafood education and nutrition initiatives through the U.S. Department of Agriculture
While the administration argues that the order addresses unfair trade practices and promotes American competitiveness, Cantwell and other critics argue that it undermines scientific integrity and removes essential environmental protections. Cantwell emphasized that proposed cuts to programs like the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund would directly affect efforts to restore declining salmon populations critical to the Northwest’s economy and ecosystem.
The executive order also includes provisions that could roll back conservation protections by re-evaluating the designation of marine national monuments, with the possibility of reopening them for commercial fishing.
Environmental and fishing advocates have expressed concern that the changes prioritize deregulation over sustainable fisheries management. Cantwell’s statement underscores growing fears among Pacific Northwest stakeholders that the executive order could lead to long-term damage to fragile fish stocks, particularly salmon, and undercut the scientific resources needed to sustain the industry.
It was a special night for Manchester United as they pulled off a completely crazy victory over Lyon.
The Red Devils secured a place in the Europa League semi-finals.
Old Trafford delivered the kind of night football fans dream about.
United battled back to win 7-6 on aggregate despite throwing away a comfortable 4-2 lead at half-time.
Ruben Amorim’s side produced one of the greatest comebacks in club history.
Manchester United make new European history
Many are already calling it one of European football’s all-time classics.
As Rio Ferdinand declared a miracle was needed, Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo and Harry Maguire stepped up to deliver exactly that in front of a stunned crowd.
Alongside the headline-making scorers, Casemiro’s leadership helped lay the foundation for United’s late fightback.
The win didn’t just send United into the last four – it also etched their name into football’s record books.
United became the first team in history to score two goals in the 120th minute or later of a major European match.
With Mainoo and Maguire rewriting the script at the death.
Opta Joe highlighted the remarkable sequence:
120 – Manchester United are the first team in history to score two goals in the 120th minute of a major European match. Amorimtime. pic.twitter.com/d9VCeb0Wiq
A clear nod to the famous ‘Fergie time’ that defined so many of United’s iconic comebacks under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson was present at Old Trafford on Thursday.
The former boss will no doubt have recognised the same fight and belief that were the trademarks of his own trophy-laden teams.
But that wasn’t the only record to fall on the night.
In total, five goals were scored during extra time, making it the first major European game in history to see such a goal rush in the added 30 minutes.
Kobbie Mainoo’s equaliser was the pick of the bunch.
However, it was Maguire’s header that sealed one of the most chaotic wins in the club’s European history.
5 – Tonight’s game between Manchester United and Lyon is the first match in major European football history to see five goals scored after extra-time. Chaos. pic.twitter.com/PwWruh2awz
In this episode of “True Crime News,” Chris Coleman had a busy job as the bodyguard for a famous televangelist, but it turns out he committed more than one sin — including murder. Plus, a new mom goes missing and is presumed dead after she tried to get away from her controlling boyfriend.
U.S. military planners are building an army of deadly but relatively cheap drones, as part of an emerging “unmanned hellscape” strategy to stymie a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
This drone army concept is an attempt to overcome some of the apparent challenges the United States would face if it were to come to Taiwan’s defense in a future conflict.
The hellscape strategy has emerged as successive war games have shown the U.S. military is likely to face a costly fight to defend the de facto independent island territory. One set of 2022 war games conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that the United States could win, but at a cost of up to two aircraft carriers, 20 other warships, 400 warplanes, and around 3,000 troops in just three weeks of fighting.
With U.S. lawmakers and military leaders unsettled by these findings, some strategists have begun to focus on a battle plan that could preserve their most exquisite weapons warships and weapons systems, and keep the human casualties to a relative minimum, by instead sacrificing thousands of rapidly producible air and sea drones.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, began to articulate this battle plan in a June 2024 interview with The Washington Post. As he explained it, the moment Chinese leaders order their troops to attack Taiwan, U.S. commanders will begin deploying as many small aerial, surface, and submersible drones as possible into the Taiwan Strait, to gather intelligence and harass the Chinese force as much as possible.
“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities, so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything,” Paparo.
The Taiwan Challenge
Since normalizing ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s, the U.S. policymakers have described the overall approach policy toward Taiwan as one of “strategic ambiguity.”
The United States treats it contacts with the de facto Taiwanese government as informal interactions, and continues to supply the island with weapons it could potentially use to resist a Chinese invasion, but still leaves unclear whether it will sail to Taiwan’s defense in a worst-case scenario.
For decades, this policy of strategic ambiguity has allowed a peaceful but uneasy status quo. But in that time, China has vastly increased the size of its military, and modernized its fighting capabilities.
In 2020, China officially overtook the United States as the country with the largest naval force, by sheer number of vessels. The country is also making advances with modern fighter jets, and missiles.
U.S. military planners have concluded a major component of this Chinese force modernization is the development of what’s known as anti-access, area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. As U.S. planners see it, the Chinese military is built to assert control over a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific region, and use their A2/AD components to block any outside forces from intervening.
Adding to the challenge in a Taiwan conflict scenario is the sheer distance from which the U.S. has to move. The Taiwan Strait puts about 100 miles distance between the island and the Chinese mainland, well within range of many advanced Chinese weapons systems.
U.S. forces, by contrast, would have to cross hundreds or even thousands of miles come to Taiwan’s defense.
With hundreds of miles of coastline to choose from, Chinese forces could easily array their A2/AD capabilities to fire on the avenues of approach leading up to Taiwan. In essence, the United States and any coalition of willing allies will have to sail into a veritable shooting gallery to get to Taiwan.
In a Taiwan conflict scenario, there is a real risk that China could make significant progress overwhelming the island’s defenses, or even capture the island outright, before the United States and its allies will have mobilized enough forces to fight back.
If Chinese forces have significant control over the island, the fight becomes much more difficult for the U.S. side. The 2022 CSIS found that Taiwan’s ability to contain a Chinese beachhead was one of four requisite components to a relatively successful defense of the island.
As Paparo explained it, his hope is that this “unmanned hellscape” strategy will provide a rapidly-deployable mass of drones that can stall and degrade a Chinese invasion force.
The ‘Hellscape’ Drone Army
The U.S. military is already taking some steps to build up the drone army needed to fulfill Paparo’s hellscape vision for Taiwan.
In 2023, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks revealed a program, dubbed “Replicator,” which aims to develop a portfolio of expendable unmanned systems for grinding down China’s military.
“Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass. More ships, more missiles, more people,” Hicks said at the time.
Hicks indicated the plan took inspiration from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, where both sides have rapidly weaponized relatively cheap drone systems to devastating effect.
Last May, the Pentagon announced it had chosen the AeroVironment Switchblade-600 as its first Replicator system, and had begun looking for vendors to produce unmanned surface vessels. The Switchblade-600 is a loitering munition that has already seen use in Ukraine. With a set of spring-loaded wings and a pusher prop, the Switchblade can be launched from a tube and hang around over a battlefield, searching for a target.
In November, Hicks announced the first batch of replicator drone systems would be ready to ship to the fighting forces by August of this year.
Other systems are also moving toward delivery. The Pentagon has chosen the Anduril Dive-LD as its first drone submarine.
The Army has chosen another two drone systems as part of the Replicator program. The first is the Anduril Industries Ghost-X drone; an autonomous operating drone helicopter for surveillance, which troops can pack down into a rifle case and assemble for flight in as little as two minutes. For their second new drone, the Army has chosen the Performance Drone Works C-100; an autonomous quad-copter drone capable of carrying and releasing munitions weighing up to 10 pounds.
The Marine Corps has chosen the Anduril Industries Altius-600; a tube-launched autonomous pusher-prop plane that can carry a variety of payloads, including explosive ordnance. The Altius-600 is a loitering munition with similarities to the Switchblade-600.
Alongside the main batch of Replicator systems, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit is also working to develop Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). The service is seeking an autonomous system that can fly for up to 500 nautical miles, at a speed of over 100 miles per hour, with the capability to carry a variety of different payloads.
Last month, the Air Force narrowed the ETV program to two finalists: the Anduril 500 Barracuda, and the Zone 5 Rusty Dagger Open Weapon Platform. Both companies have presented their offerings as relatively low-cost, rapidly-producible small cruise missiles.
It remains to be seen whether this Replicator drone army will ever be called into action, and whether it will be effective.
As with any widely publicized strategy, China is likely developing its own answers. A January paper by the China Landpower Studies Center at the U.S. Army War College notes China is preparing a range of systems to counter drones, including laser interceptor systems.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
There are indications that the House of Representatives and the Presidency may be jostling for control of the affairs of the Rivers State government.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu, while declaring emergency rule in Rivers State on March 18, 2025, had stated that the Sole Administrator, retired Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, would be reporting to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
However, the House of Representatives, while approving the emergency rule on March 20, 2025, had invoked Section 11(4) of the Constitution, shifting the power to exercise oversight function on Rivers State to the National Assembly.
As follow up, Reps Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, had on Tuesday, inaugurated a 21-member legislative ad hoc committee charged with the oversight function on the activities of the Rivers Administrator.
On Wednesday, the 21-member committee, chaired by Rep Julius Ihonvbere, summoned Ibas to appear before the panel the next day, to give account of his four-week stewardship as Administrator of Rivers State.
In a curious twist, however, the scheduled interactive session with the Administrator was postponed indefinitely, barely 24 hours after the summons were issued.
In a statement issued by House spokesperson, Rep. Akin Rotimi, in Abuja on Thursday, the lawmakers said the indefinite postponement was at the instance of the Administrator.
“In the spirit of transparent and effective oversight, the committee will promptly inform the public once the rescheduled date is confirmed,” Rotimi said.
Stakeholders have observed that the 24-hour notice the 21-member panel gave the Administrator might be inadequate for him to prepare for the session, more so as he would be traveling from Port Harcourt to Abuja.
But a competent source in the National Assembly confided in THE WHISTLER on Friday, that the Presidency may have objected to the decision of the House to oversee the running of the affairs of the state.
“The Presidency actually asked the House to back down on the mission for the simple reason that the President has continued to insist on the Administrator reporting directly to the FEC, which is chaired by the President himself.
“If the National Assembly is to oversee affairs in Rivers State, membership of the ad hoc legislative committee would have been jointly empanelled with members from both the Senate and the House.
“The leadership of the Senate had rightly guaged President Tinubu’s body language concerning who oversees the affairs of the Rivers Administrator.
“That is why the Senate did not nominate any of its members into the panel to avoid potential clash with the Presidency,” the source said.
Meanwhile, there has been a deluge of complaints over the running of the state under the Administrator, especially the dismantling of existing public and democratic structures.
They cited the sacking of commissioners, political appointees and top civil servants in the Rivers bureaucracy.
Similarly, the sacking of the Caretaker chairmen in the 23 local governments in the state, and the replacement of the chairman of the state’s Electoral Commission have continued to raise concerns as to the motives behind the Administrator’s actions.
Observers and civil society groups have accused the Administrator of acting beyond his briefs by usurping both executive and legislative functions in the state.
A source in the House of Representatives hinted that these were some of the anomalies the 21-member panel wanted to address when it summoned the Administrator.
The source, who craved anonymity for lack of authorisation to make public comments on the matter, said it’s apparent the House has washed its hands off the Rivers affairs.
“There is more to the indefinite postponement of the interactive session between the Reps panel and the Rivers Administrator than what is being served the public.
“The indefinite postponement, as announced by the House, may as well be ad infinitum. It’s a clever way of saying that Rivers is a no-go-area for the federal legislature.
Emergency Rule: Why House Of Reps Rescheduled Rivers Administrator’s Summon is first published on The Whistler Newspaper