All You Need to Know about Lola Adeoye, the Miss Nigeria USA 2016 Winner + Stylish Photos from the Beauty Pageant

Osas Ighodaro-Ajibade & Founder, Miss Nigeria USA Organization, Joy Ikedinma

Yesterday we brought you the scoop that Lola Adeoye, representing Ekiti State, was crowned as Miss Nigeria USA 2016 at the beauty pageant which held over the weekend.

Click here if you missed it.

For the competition, the finalists competed in the Traditional Outfit, Swim Wear, Talent Display, Evening Gowns and Platform Presentation categories.

The judges were Osas Ighodaro-Ajibade, DPiper Twins, Ngozi Opara of Heat Free Hair, celebrity stylists Kanayo Ebi and Moses “Moashy” Ebite, Hana Unis, A.J Ross of ABC 7 News and Essence Magazine’s Charrea Jackson.

Miss Ekiti, Lola Adeoye  beat out the 18 contestants to emerge winner of Miss Nigeria USA 2016. She was crowned by the outgoing queen Olutosin Araromi (Miss Nigeria USA 2015).

Meet the New Queen

Lola Abeni Adeoye is a 2014 alumna of the School of Communications, Howard University. Immediately following graduation, Lola entered Howard University School of Law, where she’s currently a 3rd year JD/MBA student.

At Law School, Lola has the pleasure of serving as the President of the Sports and Entertainment Law Students Association and Graduate Student Assembly Secretary. She has had the pleasure of taking several intellectual property related courses which has solidified her interest in becoming an Entertainment Attorney. This past semester, she was honored to be a Student Attorney in the Intellectual Property and Trademark Clinic at the Howard Law Clinical Center, which gave her the experience needed to be selected as an intern in Viacom’s Business and Legal Affairs Department for BET Networks this summer. Outside Law School, Lola loves to serve her community through various avenues, including her church home Graceland Bible Faith and her beloved sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

As Miss Nigeria USA 2016, Lola’s year of service will focus on her platform- Suicide and Depression Awareness and Prevention; an issue dear to her heart.

This platform aims to expand the Nigerian Suicide Prevention Initiative from Abuja into the remaining 35 states in Nigeria and to also lobby the Nigerian government to review and update the Mental Health Act which has not been reviewed since 1959! She hopes that through this, the stigma of Mental Health in Nigeria will be broken and Mental Health issues would be taken more seriously.

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The two-day pageant finale started with the Miss Nigeria USA Charity Gala/Fund Raising Dinner on May 27th, 2016 at the John Jay Hall in Midtown Manhattan. The goal was to raise money for the Miss Nigeria USA Scholarship program in Nigeria. The girls also presented their individual platforms/pet projects to the judges and guests.

See photos from the Charity Gala below.

Joy Ikedinma

Photo Credit: www.facebook.com/MissNigeriaUsa

read more here

'Shield' actor Michael Jace convicted of wife's murder

A jury has convicted "The Shield" actor, 53 year old, Michael Jace of second-degree murder in the 2014 shooting death of his wife in front of their two young sons in Los Angeles. A jury of six women and six men deliberated about two hours before finding Jace, guilty in the killing of April Jace on May 19, 2014, prosecutors said.

According to Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef, the was obsessed with the thought that his wife was cheating on him and was very upset that she wanted a divorce.

When April Jace arrived home at about 8pm that fateful night at the couple's home in the city's Hyde Park neighborhood, he shot her once in the back, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office..

Jace then shot her two more times in the legs in front of their sons, who were 8 and 5 when the shooting happened.

The actor then called 911 about 8:30 p.m. told the operator he'd shot his wife and waited for the Police to arrive. Her body was found inside the couple's home along with their boys, who were unharmed. He was immediately arrested and had been in Police custody since then.

Jace, told detectives he didn't intend to kill his wife and only wanted to inflict pain. He had had been out of work for years and said financial struggles put a strain on the couple's marriage.

"I was just angry," Michael Jace told investigators, according to a transcript released Thursday. "All I intended to do was shoot her in the leg. And then I shot her in the leg and that was it."

Jace's lawyers acknowledged he killed his wife in the couple's home, but argued he should be convicted of voluntary manslaughter because it wasn't a premeditated act.

Text messages presented during the trial show Michael Jace had told his wife after she had told him that she wanted a divorce, that he had left their home, but instead was waiting with his father's loaded revolver.

He told detectives he planned to kill himself, but couldn't follow through. He also said he shot his wife the first time after she lunged at him.

Jace's now 10-year-old son testified that he heard his father tell his mother, "'If you like running, then run to heaven.'"

Jace had defaulted on the $411,000 mortgage on the home where his wife died, according to the documents

In the year before her death, April Jace worked as a financial aid counselor at Biola University, a private school in La Mirada, California, according to the school.


For Savoy Brown, the son of April Jace from a previous marriage, the verdict brings some closure.

"Finally it's less of a burden," he told reporters outside the courtroom. "It feels really empty because that's my mom. It's the person who literally brings you into the world and she's no longer there."

"The Shield" offered the biggest role in Jace's 22-year acting career. He appeared in 89 episodes as Julien Lowe, who started as a rookie officer in an inner-city Los Angeles police precinct and was promoted to a detective before the series ended in 2008.

The actor appeared to be under severe financial strain in the years before his 2014 arrest, according to court documents obtained by CNN.

Jace filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in March 2011, citing $500,000 in debts and an annual income of around $80,000 from residuals from his TV and film work, documents said.


Jace is expected to be sentenced on June 10. He faces 40 years to life in state prison.

Source: CNN

CENTRAL OF NIGIERIA SINKING OR SWIMMING

The Monetary Policy
Committee, MPC, of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, last week met
amidst worsening macroeconomic environment which had forced Nigeria’s
economic growth rate into negative for the first quarter of 2016, while
threatening to slide into recession by the end of current quarter.

As usual only two dominant issues were in focus: foreign exchange and
interest rates.

It is noteworthy that for the first time the apex bank   admitted
helplessness in the face of the huge economic problems facing its
policies. CBN  also expressed frustrations with the fiscal policy
environment which it had battled silently for years. The situation
deteriorated  since President Mohammadu Buhari’s regime.

The import of this landmark note was that the apex bank was forced into
decisions it would  normally not take.

First, the decision to have a three-tier foreign exchange market was not
 only forced on the bank by circumstances, but the CBN also appeared
reluctant and unprepared for the policy it announced. The apex bank is
yet to figure out the implementation mechanism one week (and still
counting) after the policy was introduced.

The three-tier foreign exchange market regime implied multiple exchange
rates where CBN, while abandoning its regimented system of fixing both
volume of supply and rates, has now liberalized one window for market
determined supply quantity and rate. It also retained a special window
for critical transactions, most likely at concessionary rate. The third
window would be the parallel market where almost any thing could go.

The second MPC decision: the apex bank left monetary rates unchanged
despite the compelling need for  change. In fact some sources close to
members of the Committee squealed that the decision to leave Monetary
Policy Rate, MPR, unchanged at 12 per cent was a last minute knee-jerk
response to the gross domestic product, GDP, report released by another
government agency, National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, just a working
day before the MPC, a development which altered the initial submissions
of the Committee members.

Consequently the apex bank was forced to retain an MPR rate that is
grossly negative to the inflation rate, contrary to the grundnorm in
monetary policies across the world.

Now we are in the thick of a fire-fighting foreign exchange and money
rate regime where we highlight some likely policy outcomes in the short
to medium term.

The forex market response has been largely stable with the official
window totally unchanged while parallel market saw a marginal 1.4 per
cent depreciation of Naira. However, the gap between the official and
parallel market rates widened to 65%.

Already the stock market has responded swiftly with an unprecedented
upswing that reversed year-to-date loss records, posting significant
positive returns instead.

Treasury instruments turned bullish while the yield spiked.

Overall we believe all the reactions were short term as both stock and
treasury markets as well as forex dealers still await the operating
guidelines and implementation details of the new “flexible” forex
market.

Consequently, we warn that the rebounds and reliefs witnessed so far may
 just be short-lived and illusory if the upcoming “flexible” forex
policy proves to be lacking   in real market principles and most
importantly, transparency. This is the opportunity to repair the damage
done to the economy in the past one year by rigid principles of
administrative controls in a free market economy.

The emerging policy would be a swim or sink for the CBN and the economy.

Nigeria’s Q1 trade account turns negative as oil prices fall

By Emmanuel Elebeke

Nigeria’s trade account turned negative in the first quarter after
exports fell by almost half, the National Bureau of Statistics said
yesterday, as lower prices for crude oil slashed government revenues and
 caused the economy to contract.
Buhari
Buhari

The economy faces its worst economic crisis in years, as the value of
exports, mostly crude, plunged 52 per cent to N1.27 trillion in the
three months to March from a year ago.

Much of the hard currency the nation needs to finance imports
evaporated.

With limited manufacturing capacity, Nigeria imports most of what it
consumes.

First-quarter imports dropped 15.8 per cent to N1.45 trillion, NBS said,
 pushing the trade account into the red for the period.

The balance of trade for the first quarter was -N184.1 billion, down
from +N937.4 billion in the same period a year earlier.

“The total value of Nigeria’s merchandise trade at the end of Q1 stood
at N2.72 trillion. This development arose due to a sharp decline in both
 imports and exports,” the statistics office said.

Exports fell 34.6 per cent by March from the last quarter and imports
declined 7.8 per cent. The decline in crude oil exports, which accounted
 for 64.7 percent of total domestic exports, hit the economy the most,
as it shrank by 0.36 per cent in the first quarter, compared with 3.96
per cent growth last year.

The dollar restrictions have also caused inflation to spike. This month,
 the statistics office said, annual inflation climbed close to a
six-year high of 13.7 per cent in April.

The Central Bank of Nigeria last week introduced a flexible currency
regime designed to improve exports, local manufacturing and stave off a
recession.

However, the bank is yet to clarify how the new policy would work,
spooking foreign and local investors, who have long worried about
getting caught in the middle of a currency devaluation.

On the other hand, the Nigeria Stock Exchange, NSE, posted its biggest
daily decline in 16 months on Monday.

Nigeria exports mainly to Asia and Europe. Imports were dominated by
machinery, petrol, chemicals and related products from Asia, Europe and
Americas. Imports within Africa grew by 5.7 percent.

Travel ban on govs could plunge Nigeria into civil war’

By Gbenga Olarinoye

OSOGBO—The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Osun State chapter, yesterday
warned President Muhammadu Buhari against acts capable of plunging the
country into civil war, saying tampering with the constitutionally
guaranteed immunity of governors would spell doom for the country.

The party, in a statement issued in Osogbo by its Director of Research,
Publicity and Strategy, Prince Diran Odeyemi, urged the President to
immediately drop plans to alleged plans to impose travel ban on
governors of Rivers and Ekiti states – Nyesom Wike and Ayo Fayose,
respectively, saying there was nothing done to Buhari by the duo that
Rauf Aregbesola of Osun did not do to Goodluck Jonathan while he was in
office.

Odeyemi said the same Section 308 of the constitution that gives the
President immunity also provides the governors with same leverage,
adding that, instead of tinkering with the idea of travel ban on the
governors, if any security infraction is noticed, the President should
approach the court.

Recalling how the PDP Obasanjo-led Federal Government approached the
court when the administration of Senator Bola Tinubu created local
government areas in Lagos State, Odeyemi opined that adding the salt of
travel ban on governors with immunity which is the same as the
president, to the injury of constant flouting of court orders by the
Buhari administration in the last one year is not portraying the
president as a true democrat.

The statement reads in part: “Since the news broke of plans by Buhari to
 ban PDP governors Ayo Fayose and Nyesom Wike from travelling using
Department of State Security, DSS, as threat, images of events of the
past years have kept on reappearing

“We don’t want anything that can truncate this democracy. Attempt to
strip two PDP governors of their immunity is capable of enacting civil
war .”

The party then called on all past leaders to prevail on President Buhari
 to shelve the idea to save the country of needless tension and
constitutional crises.

Militants’ activities affecting Bayelsa’s monthly allocation —DEPUTY GOV

By Emem Idio

YENAGOA—DEPUTY governor of Bayelsa State, Rear Admiral Gboribiogha
John-Jonah, retd, yesterday decried the activities of militants in the
creeks, lamenting that the blowing up of oil installations in the state
had adversely affected the revenues accruing to the state from the
Federation Account.
Gboribiogha John-Jonah
Gboribiogha John-Jonah

Jonah, who disclosed this during the monthly media transparency briefing
 in Yenagoa, appealed to youths in the state and Niger Delta to desist
from the destructive acts, as its effect was devastating to the ecology
and finances of the states in the region, stressing that the blowing of
the Nembe Creek 1, 2, 3 and Trans-Niger located in the state had
affected the production quota of the state.

He said: “A lot of destruction has happened, therefore we are not
expecting any improvement due to the current situation in the Niger
Delta. The future is not that bright even if indicators point towards
that direction. Already, the Trans-Niger trunk line and Nembe Creek 1,2
and 3, trunk line located in Bayelsa State which link the Bonny Terminal
 have been affected. We are appealing to our brothers and sisters that
in addition to the ecology, the damage is quite devastating to us as a
state.”

The deputy governor flanked by the Secretary to the State Government,
SSG, Serena Dokubo-Spiff, state Head of Service, Dr. Peter Singabele,
Chief Economic Adviser, Mr. Duate Iyabi and members of the State
Executive Council, declared a balance of N1 billion, 384 million, after
all statutory deductions for the month of March.

He, however, said in spite of the huge shortfall, the state government
would honour its commitment of payment of fifty-per cent salaries to
civil servants in the state.