South African pastor performs 'miracle' by pouring boiling water on congregation

South African pastor has claimed he performed a miracle after allegedly pouring hot water on members of his church.
Pastor Thamsanqa Sambulo, who is just 23-years-old, is the founder and apostle at Thy Word Kingdom Harvest Ministries...Accoring to a post on the Church's facebook page,

The apostle then told someone to go boil water in a kettle at the kitchen. One young man went there and did so... He came back with boiling water. The Son of God took the kettle and put it on himself (on his chest, he hugged it). The congregation was in shock, as they shouted: "NO!"

Some couldn't even look. He then asked; "who has faith here?"One by one, people came and did what the apostle did, and were not hurt. He re-boiled the water... as he did; ...one young woman came to him and said; "Papa I have faith, pour it on my hand as hot as it is." The Son of God first poured on Himself, then poured unto this lady. The rest of the congregation, one by one followed, as they also wanted to test their faith.

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Source: misspetitenaijablog.com 

by Isidi Monica











The immediate past Theater Commander Operation LAFIYA DOLE, North East, Major General Yusha'u Mahood Abubakar on Tuesday died in a ghastly auto crash along Maiduguri/ Damaturu.

The General Officer Commanding (GOC) 3 division of the Nigerian Army, Jos, Brigadier General Muhammed Aliyu, was also involved in the auto-crash but survived with serious injuries

The cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained. Both the GOC and his driver including late Yushau Mahmood were brought to the Emergency ward of the General Sani Abacha Specialist hospital Damaturu under heavy military security guard before they were conveyed back to Maiduguri to be flown to Abuja for proper medical attention.

Reports reveal that Mahmood was going to Damaturu from Abuja for the graduation of a special military force currently being trained in the troubled Buni Yadi area of Yobe State in northeast Nigeria. On his arrival, according to the report,  Mahmood was received at the Maiduguri International Airport by Aliyu, from where they embarked on the ill-fated journey.


The Deputy Governor of Yobe State, Abubakar Aliyu, in company of the Secretary to the State Government, Baba Wali, the State Police Commissioner, Zanna Ibrahim, the Head of Service of Yobe State, Dauda Yahaya, and other sympathisers have visited the Damaturu Specialist Hospital.

Source: channelstv.com

Senate charges Buhari to intensify efforts to rescue Chibok girls

by Isidi Monica

The Upper Chamber of the National Assembly has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to step up efforts to ensure the freedom of the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram insurgents 690 days ago.

The Senate said the Federal Government should also come up with micro-economic policies that will encourage women to participate in small scale businesses.
These resolutions were sequel to a motion on International Women’s Day by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, APC, Lagos Central.

In her presentation, Senator Tinubu, who lamented the growing gender inequality in the country, in spite of several gender friendly laws, said Nigerian women had suffered several forms of discrimination, ranging from abduction, rape to male dominance on inheritance.
She said: “I am concerned that rape is on the increase in the country and this is with little prosecution. There is, therefore, a need for re-orientation on gender equality, women’s rights and adequate allocation of resources.”
On his part, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, also expressed worries that in spite of the growing level of democracy in the country, the representation of women in all arms of government was dwindling.
He said that if not promptly addressed, the trend would lead to non-representation of women in governance, adding that such would be detrimental to the development of the country.

Making her own contribution, Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Biodun Olujinmi, PDP, Ekiti South, called for solution to child marriage and other practices that had been detrimental to the survival of the girl-child in the society. He noted that all the issues plaguing women should be placed in their proper perspectives, if Nigeria as a country must reap the benefits of having the girl-child.
She said, “Mr. President, today is our day, the International Women’s Day. I want to congratulate the chairman of the women affairs committee, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, who brought up this motion.
“We want the whole world to put on the front burner the issues of gender equality, the issues of our children, the issues of rape, the issues of abduction and the issues of child marriage. we have to put all of them on the proper perspective for the country to be able to reap from the benefits.
‘’Whichever way you want to see it, we are the salt of the earth. We make everything fine and where ever we are as women, there is always sanity, probity and there is always accountability.”
In his remarks, President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, noted that the 8th Senate would ensure that amendment of all relevant laws were carried out to involve more women in government.

Source: dailypost.ng

Unions Shut down NNPC Offices Nationwide

by Isidi Monica














Oil workers have shut down the operations of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) nationwide.

The decision followed Tuesday’s unbundling of the corporation.

The Cable reports that members of staff and management of the corporation arrived their various offices on Wednesday morning only to discover that they could not gain entrance following the total strike.
The immediate impact of the strike will be nationwide fuel scarcity as products will not be lifted by NUPENG. It is not expected to affect the crude oil export yet except the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) joins in solidarity.
It was gathered that at the end of the meeting, Group Executive Councils, GEC, sent this message to all members:
“The GEC of NUPENG & PENGASSAN at its meeting of 8th March 2016, which started at 10:00pm has extensively discussed the pronouncement of the GMD on NNPC UNBUNDLING. We observed that the GMD/HMSP totally disregarded due process and failed to engage STAKEHOLDERS. Hence, from midnight today, ALL NNPC LOCATIONS will be SHUT DOWN COMPLETELY until further notice. Further directives will be communicated accordingly.”

Source: dailypost.ng

The story behind the new saint- Elizabeth of the Trinity

Elizabeth of the Trinity

Vatican City, Mar 8, 2016 / 03:03 am - Pope Francis acknowledged a miracle worked through the intercession of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, a Carmelite nun of the 20th century, paving the way for her canonization likely later this year.

“The Lord has chosen to answer her prayers for us…before she died, when she was suffering with Addison's disease, she wrote that it would increase her joy in heaven if people ask for her help,” said Dr. Anthony Lilles, academic dean of St. John's Seminary in Camarillo.
Lilles earned his doctorate in spiritual theology at Rome's Angelicum writing a dissertation on Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity.
“If her friends ask for her help it would increase her joy in heaven: so it increases Elizabeth's joy when you ask her to pray for your needs,” he said. "That's the first reason (to have devotion to her): the Church has recognized the power of her intercession."
Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity was born in France in 1880, and grew up in Dijon close to the city's Carmelite monastery. Lilles recounted that when one time when Bl. Elizabeth visited the monastery when she was 17, “the mother superior there said, 'I just received this circular letter about the death of Therese of Lisieux, and I want you to read it.' That circular letter would later become the Story of a Soul; in fact, what she was given was really the first edition of Story of a Soul.”

...it was a lightning moment in her life, where everything kind of crystallized and she understood how to respond to what God was doing in her heart.

“Elizabeth read it and she was inclined towards contemplative prayer; she was a very pious person who worked with troubled youth and catechized them, but when she read Story of a Soul she knew she needed to become a Carmelite: it was a lightning moment in her life, where everything kind of crystallized and she understood how to respond to what God was doing in her heart.”
Elizabeth then told her mother she wanted to enter the Carmel, but she replied that she couldn't enter until she was 21, “which was good for the local Church,” Lilles explained, “because Elizabeth continued to work with troubled youth throughout that time, and do a lot of other good work in the city of Dijon before she entered.”
She entered the Carmel in Dijon in 1901, and died there in 1906 – at the age of 26 – from Addison's disease.
Elizabeth wrote several works while there, the best-known of which is her prayer “O My God, Trinity Whom I Adore.” Also particularly notable are her “Heaven in Faith,” a retreat she wrote three months before her death for her sister Guite; and the “Last Retreat,” her spiritual insights from the last annual retreat she was able to make.
Cardinal Albert Decourtray, who was Bishop of Dijon from 1974 to 1981, was cured of cancer through Bl. Elizabeth's intercession – a miracle that allowed her beatification in 1984.
The healing acknowledged by Pope Francis March 4 was that of Marie-Paul Stevens, a Belgian woman who had Sjögren's syndrome, a glandular disease.
In 2002 Stevens “had asked Bl. Elizabeth to help her manage the extreme discomforts of the pathology she had, and in thanksgiving, because she felt like she had received graces … she travelled to the Carmelite monastery just outside Dijon,” Lilles said. “And when she got to the monastery, she was completely healed.”

Lilles added that a second reason to have devotion to Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity is because she died “believing that she had a spiritual mission to help lead souls to a deeper encounter with Christ Jesus.”
“You could call it contemplative prayer, or even mystical prayer. She said her mission was to lead souls out of themselves and into a great silence, where God could imprint himself in them, on their souls, so that they became more God-like.”
In prayer, he said, “we make space for (God) to transform us more fully into the image and likeness he intended us to become, but which sin has marred. Contemplative prayer is a means towards this transformation and Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity believed before she died that her spiritual mission would be to help souls enter into that kind of transformative contemplative prayer, where they could become saints.”

She understood that the way she loved souls all the way was to help them find and encounter the Lord.

During her time in the Carmel of Dijon, Bl. Elizabeth found encouragement from the writings of St. Therese of Lisieux, particularly her “Offering to Merciful Love,” a prayer found in Story of a Soul, Lilles said: “You find references to the Offering to Merciful Love throughout the writings of Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity, it was probably something she herself prayed often.”
“The second way that Elizabeth of the Trinity was influenced by Therese of Lisieux was a poem that St. Therese wrote called 'Living by Love'; in this poem Therese celebrates how the love of Jesus is the heartbeat, the deepest reality of her life, and because he lived to lay down his life for her, she wants to live to lay down her live for human love, which as the poem goes on, means loving all whom he sends her way, without reserve and all the way, giving people the generous love that we have received from Christ, sharing it with others.”
“That idea deeply, deeply influenced Elizabeth of the Trinity and in fact inspired her own way of life and her own spiritual mission to help lead souls into mystical prayer,” Lilles reflected. “She understood that the way she loved souls all the way was to help them find and encounter the Lord.”
“So, the spiritual missions of Therese of Lisieux and Elizabeth of the Trinity coincide: great theologians like Hans Urs von Balthasar recognized that. And these spiritual missions have both greatly influenced the Church in the 20th and early 21st centuries in very powerful ways.”
“I'm so glad that Elizabeth has been recognized for her part in building up the Church in the 20th century.”

Source: catholicnewsagency.com

Lagos Assembly orders relocation of Mile 12, Owode markets

by Isidi Monica

Resulting from the last week crisis in the Mile 12 market area of Lagos, the State House of Assembly yesterday told the state government to begin arrangements for the relocation of the popular foodstuff market.

The market, which is due to be moved to Parafa, in Ikorodu, according to the House, has overstayed its welcome in the area and should no longer be tolerated in the heart of the city.
Also penciled for relocation is the Owode Market on Ikorodu road and others of such market that have expanded to the highway.
Presenting the issue at Matters of Urgent Public Importance, during Monday’s plenary, member of the House, Jude Idimogu, drew attention of his colleagues to the last week mayhem in which 12 people were killed, scores of persons maimed and raped and over 15 houses razed.
Idimogu noted that such violence and tribal clashes had become one too many in the market with security agencies also fingered for taking sides with one tribe against the other.
While he commended the state government for rising to the occasion to quell the crisis, the lawmaker said that it was high time the government had relocated the market to a better site and away from residential community.
Idimogu’s colleague, representing Epe II Constituency, Abiodun Tobun, recalled that the Mile 12 market dated back several decades, was established when the area was not as developed as it is today.
Tobun said: “Not only has the area developed, the market too has enlarged with many trailers now parked on the road side to enter the market creating traffic on that corridor. Government is doing much to keep street traders off the road, but the market itself deserves to be relocated.”
Lawmaker representing Ikorodu I Constituency, Sanai Agunbiade, observed that the traffic around that corridor was due to the market that has overstayed its welcome.
Agunbiade recalled that the last administration had in fact designed a large expanse of land for regional food market in Parafa, where Mile 12 was proposed to be relocated.
But the lawmaker representing the area (Kosofe II Constituency), Tunde Buraimoh, pleaded with the House to exercise caution on such move, citing that the disagreement between trading Hausas and the Yoruba host community would be resolved and peace would soon returned.
Several of his colleagues, however, disagreed, urging the state government to put sentiments aside and use its political will to relocate “the nuisance of a market”.
Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa, in his ruling, said it was high time the government had done the needful on Mile 12 and set all machineries in motion to relocate both Mile 12 and Owode market, assuring that the House would support with the needed budget for such exercise.

Source: guardian.ng

Nigeria's 'bad bank' AMCON seeks to sell Keystone Bank

Nigeria's state-backed "bad bank" AMCON said on Monday it was seeking prospective investors to buy Keystone Bank, the last of the nationalized banks yet to be sold.

The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) said in a public notice it had decided to divest its 100 percent interest in the bank and ask prospective buyers to submit their bids by March 4.

AMCON appointed Citibank's local unit and FBN Capital as financial advisers to manage the process, asking prospective investors to submit bids, showing evidence of credibility and eligibility for the transaction.

Nigeria nationalised three lenders, Afribank, Spring Bank and Bank PHB in 2011, while AMCON then recapitalised them and changed their names to Mainstreet Bank, Enterprise Bank and Keystone Bank. Two of the banks have since been sold.

Based on audited account as of June last year, Keystone bank has total assets of about 317.6 billion naira ($1.60 billion), equity of 18.9 billion naira and a loan portfolio of about 98.2 billion naira.

By Dec. 31, the Bank had 156 branches across the country with four subsidiaries, of which two are international, AMCON said in the notice.

Nigeria's Sterling Bank told Reuters on Friday it was aiming to buy one or two mid-sized commercial lenders as sharp falls in the value of the naira and increased regulatory pressure are forcing banks to recapitalise.

AMCON was set up in 2010 to absorb non-performing loans in exchange for government bonds, after the central bank injected $4 billion to rescue nine lenders from collapse seven years ago. ($1 = 198 naira) (Reporting by Oludare Mayowa, editing by David Evans)

Source: af.reuters.com