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After federal arrest, rapper denied bail despite offering to surrender passport and over $1 million Tekashi 6ix9ine (real name Daniel Hernandez) is facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 32 years in prison, according to the prosecuting U.S. attorney at the rapper’s arraignment on Monday night. The rapper was arrested on Sunday night and faces federal charges including racketeering allegations stemming from Hernandez’s involvement with the Nine Trey Bloods, as well as a previously unreported armed robbery. Hernandez faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. [Hernandez] is a member of a violent sect of the Bloods,” said Assistant US Attorney Michael Longyear at the arraignment. “This defendant participated in multiple acts of violence.” Hernandez’ attorney, Lance Lazzaro, advocated for bail for his client under the condition that Hernandez surrender his passport, pay over $1 million for bail and be placed under house arrest. However, the judge denied bail, opting to keep Hernan...

Abraka, the once peaceful university community has been thrown into confusion over the deadly activities of internet fraudsters popularly known as 'Yahoo Yahoo Boys'. With average age of 15 to 30, the perpetrators are involved in fetish and criminal practices. In the past, the society sang their praises as they shower millions of illegal dollars into the local economy. Some of the modern cars and buildings in town belong to Yahoo boys. Owners of hotels and bars smile to the banks daily. But the people live in fear, the fear of killer-Fulani-herdsmen and Yahoo boys. A young boy was allegedly apprehended at Winners road today collecting used pampers and pads. And a young boy was caught at River's road using a stick to collect pants and braziers from ladies' bathroom windows. To the society, the dollars are fraudulently gotten from foreigners, whom many claimed a  pay back time for the evil of colonisation done on our forefathers during the colonial era. But many fai...

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped 15 girls overnight in a village near Toumour, southeastern Niger, the local mayor said on Saturday... According to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, Boukar Mani Orthe, the mayor of the town in Niger’s Diffa region near the border with Nigeria, said about 50 unidentified armed men seized the girls in a village about nine kilometres from the town centre. On Thursday suspected Boko Haram fighters killed eight people working at French drilling company, Foraco’s water well site in Toumour. Boko Haram has been waging an insurrection since 2009 aimed at establishing an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria. It has launched repeated attacks into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The violence has killed thousands of civilians and forced millions to flee their homes in the large Lake Chad basin region. Kidnapping of schoolgirls has been a Boko Haram horror mark, since its fighters in 2014 kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno Stat...

Efe Ejeba, the winner of BBNaija Double Wahala has said he has N75,000 left from his N25million prize money. He made this revelation, while he was a guest on a radio show on Hot FM. When the radio host asked him, how much he had left of his prize money. He said, “Yo man, I basically have like 75k in my account. It used to be 100k, but yesterday night, we went to the least expensive bar to chill with the 25k."

The United States Institute of Peace, USIP, has predicted that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Muhammadu Buhari may win the 2019 presidential election. USIP said this in a report it published on the forthcoming general election in Nigeria. The report also claimed that having peaceful election in Nigeria will depend on the performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. The report said though Nigerians feel their expectations were not met by the current administration, it would not cost Buhari his victory. The USIP report contradicted the two predictions by The Economist magazine, which stated that Buhari would be defeated in the February poll. Part of the report read, “Many Nigerians feel their hopes have not been met. Some respondents suggest the electorate is sufficiently disappointed that voter apathy will be greater in 2019 than it was in 2015, with the unifying narrative of change that helped elect the APC in 2015 ...

The Nigerian music industry is fast-paced. One could become stale in the blink of an eye. In this piece, SYD BLAZE  takes a look at some of the top artistes in the industry without a hit song to their names in recent times. Asa Asa is one of the most easily recognisable names in the Nigerian music industry. However, it’s been a while since we last heard her velvety voice on a hit song. Her last known album, Bed of Stones, was released in 2014. As it is well known, Asa hasn’t been resident in Nigeria for a while now. At the peak of her career, the singer had relocated to France. As a matter of fact, her debut album was recorded there. However, that has never affected her appeal back home, as most of her songs have enjoyed airplay in Nigeria, despite her ‘absence’. It is arguable that Asa has, in a way, transcended the Nigerian music space. Her music has a global appeal and she is quite big in France. However, it will also amount to closing one’s eyes to the obvious not to ...