Mary Konye, the 21 year old jealous friend being
accused of attacking Naomi Oni with acid in Dec.
2012 made some shocking allegations of her own in
court today. She told the courts through her lawyers
that Naomi set up the attack and asked her (Mary
Konye) to 'play the stalker' and throw the acid on
her face, which was all part of an elaborate plan to
be rich and famous.
This makes no sense to me. Why would you want to
do that to yourself to be rich and famous? How
many rich and famous people have their faces
disfigured by acid? The things you hear.
Today Miss Oni insisted she was not 'obsessed'
with plastic surgery or the story of fellow acid
attack victim Katy Piper, despite an internet
search history on her laptop suggesting
otherwise.
In cross examination Sally O'Neill asked her to
explain to jurors the story of Ms Piper before
asking whether she had become obsessed by the
disfigured model.
Miss Oni said: 'I wouldn't say obsessed but it
deeply moved me. I read about other attacks but
it was not an obsession.'
Ms O'Neill said it was the defence case that she
hatched a plan with Konye to pour acid over
herself to improve her future prospects.
She said: 'You said if something similar to that of
Katy Piper happened to you then that wouldn't be
the end of the world because Katy Piper probably
had a career boost.'
Miss Oni simply replied: 'No.'
The defence barrister asked her why she had
visited a series of plastic surgery websites.
Miss Oni answered: 'I do not think I was very
pretty at all.
'I went on the sites for no reason in particular - I
had body issues and I was interested in plastic
surgery for my body but there was no particular
reason.
'I remember searching for my eyelids because I
had double eyelids which I didn't like so I planned
one day to see if I could do something about it.'
But Ms O'Neill said: 'You formalised a plan in
which you would become the victim of a random
acid attack in the hope that you would receive the
same type of fame and fortune as Katy Piper
had.'You were of the view that Katy Piper still
looked lovely after the attack but that you would
need something else to support the attack
because the police wouldn't believe you and that
was where you brought Mary Konye into it.
'Your play was, I suggest, that you would make
an allegation that you had been followed and
attacked and you wanted Mary Konye to be part
of that - you wanted her to follow you and also,
initially, wanted her to throw the acid.
'She absolutely refused to do that and you said
that you were actually going to throw the acid
yourself towards your neck area.'
Miss Oni replied: 'That is very untrue.'
Mary Konye, 21, admits disguising herself in a
niqab and stalking Naomi Oni, also 21, on her way
home from work, but denies she doused her in
sulphuric acid. Miss Oni yesterday described the
moment she was attacked and told Snaresbrook
Crown Court after she saw the damage done she
thought: ‘I’m ugly, no one’s going to marry me
now.'
Jurors were also shown CCTV of student Konye
disguised in a Muslim veil as she followed her
friend on the Tube, before she was attacked late
at night on an east London street.
Yesterday, she described how, on her way home
from work at a Victoria’s Secret lingerie store,
she got off at her bus stop in Dagenham, East
London, and felt a ‘presence’ before turning to
see someone in a niqab.
She then felt a ‘massive splash’ as the acid was
thrown at her, scarring her for life and disfiguring
her face, dissolving her hair and eyelashes and
burning her tongue as she screamed.
Describing how she felt after the attack, she said:
‘Am I a bad person? Why has this happened to
me? I work hard ... No one’s going to marry me
now.’
Miss Oni also revealed that when she told her
alleged attacker what had happened, her friend
texted back: ‘OMG. Can’t believe it.’
She also cried down the phone to Konye, who
offered her support, Snaresbrook Crown Court
heard.
She said: ‘I just had my bandages removed and it
was the first time I saw my face after surgery
and I broke down and I had spoken to Mary that
night and I was crying on the phone to her and
she was on the phone to me telling me, “don’t
worry, you’ll be OK”.’
Giving evidence yesterday, Miss Oni described
how she felt a ‘presence’ behind her as she
walked home.
She said: ‘I was still on the phone to my boyfriend
and I felt a presence. I turned to my left and I
saw someone and a black abaya [cloak] or a
black niqab.
‘I remember it facing me, staring. A presence
directly looking at me. All I could see was eyes.’
She then said she felt the splash as the acid was
thrown in her face and ran home shouting ‘acid,
acid’.
The court heard that the pair had a ‘rocky
relationship’ and had stopped speaking from April
to September 2011 after a row over Konye
sending text messages to Miss Oni’s boyfriend.
Miss Oni said: ‘I remember asking her why she
wanted to do that and I said she’s a monster or
something like that.
'I said you are a monster, you are an ugly
monster. I remember us insulting each other’s
looks.
'She also told me she was so angry she wanted
to throw acid at me, but she was advised not to
by her friend.
'Her friend said, “That’s stupid, you could go to
jail for that”.’
Asked what she thought at the time about the
threat, Miss Oni said: ‘I thought it was quite
bizarre, I felt insulted again. But she seemed like
she wasn’t serious. I thought she was trying to
frighten me a little bit.’
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the
opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, were
yesterday, locked in a war of words over use of
religion to achieve political goals.
While the PDP, which first threw the gauntlet that
the APC was shaped in Islamic fundamentalist robe
insisted on its claim yesterday and challenged the
opposition party to name its 35 interim officers.
The APC on its part said the use of religion by the
PDP was a new low for a party it claimed stands for
incompetence, looting and election rigging.
Reiterating its earlier accusation that the APC was a
party adorned in religious attire. The PDP in a
statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary,
Chief Olisa Metuh, thus dared the leading opposition
party to name its interim officials for the world to
know.
Metuh said “it is shocking that the APC would
attempt to hoodwink Nigerians even in the face of
incontrovertible facts exposing its religious
inclinations and plots to divide the nation along
religious lines.”
The PDP said contrary to the denials posted by the
APC in a hollow statement yesterday, “the
revelations by an Islamic cleric, Ambassador Yusuf
Garba and the Religious Equity Promotion Council,
REPC, that APC seeks to impose an agenda like the
Egypt Muslim Brotherhood remains a fact that
cannot be brushed aside.”
Counter to clams by the APC that the PDP was
playing a religious card to overheat the polity, the
ruling party said it decided to “buttress an alert to
Nigerians on the evil machination of the APC with
every sense of duty to ensure that Nigeria remains
united as one and not fall to the evil plot of the
APC.”
The ruling party reiterated that it “remains
committed to the interest of all Nigerians
irrespective of religious, tribal, ethnic or regional
affiliations” adding that it will continue to expose
and resist anything that seeks to cause divisions
among the people and balkanize the country.
“It therefore called on Nigerians not to succumb to
the antics of the APC which is now bitter that its
plans have been exposed, but to be alert and
ensure that the enemies of the nation are not
allowed to have their way.”
The APC in a sharp riposte articulated by its Interim
National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed
said: “this irresponsible accusation by the PDP that
the APC is dividing Nigerians along religious line is a
new low even for a party that stands for nothing but
incompetence, looting and election rigging. It is an
indication that the desperadoes in the PDP will
throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into
their campaign to stop the wave of change blowing
across Nigeria.’’
According to the party, the reason it has refrained
from joining issues with the PDP, despite its
sponsored campaign to portray the APC as an
‘Islamic party’, is because it knows the dangers
that religious politics portends for any nation that
brings religion into politics, and that no nation which
has descended into religious warfare has survived
intact.
The APC said no party wishing to lead Nigeria aright
can do so on the basis of religion or ethnicity.
Therefore, we are compelled to warn the PDP not to
play what it believes to be its trump card, the
religious card, against the APC, because whatever
politicians do, they must refrain from ethnic or
religious politics and put the country above selfish
considerations. Only an irresponsible party will play
the religious card for any reason.
“It alleged that even when President Goodluck
Jonathan decided to wear religion on his sleeve,
kneeling down before respectable religious leaders
and pushing the pictures into the media in an
apparent ploy to score political gains, the APC
refrained from making any comments on it.”
The party further alleged that when President
Jonathan also decided to lead a bloated delegation
of his cabinet to an extended pilgrimage in Israel
and ferret to the media back home the pictures of
the delegation members at the Wailing Wall and
other religious landmarks, the APC did not make an
issue of the glaring exhibitionism.
“The basis of our circumspection is that in the first
instance, we believe that all Nigerians are
constitutionally guaranteed their right to any faith of
their own, and that playing their religious card
should be avoided at all cost in the larger national
interest,’’ APC stated.
The party said it is neither logical nor rational to
accuse a party whose 35 interim officials are
almost equally split between the adherents of the
two major religions (18 Muslims and 17 Christians)
and cuts across all ethnic lines; a party whose
elected officials – Governors, Senators, House of
Representatives members etc – profess various
faith and a party that has never expressed any
preference for one religion over another as an
Islamic party.
“We are therefore warning the PDP to stop this
dangerous campaign forthwith, unless of course it
has decided that its interest supersedes that of the
nation. If the PDP fails to stop this campaign, we will
be compelled to conclude that the party (PDP) is
trying to plug in to the global stereotype against
adherents of a certain religion just to spread fear
and garner support in certain circles,” it said.
APC appealed to Nigerians to ignore the dangerous
game that the PDP is playing by labelling the APC an
“Islamic” party as a scaremongering tactic that the
comatose ruling party hopes will revive it.
The Glo/CAF African Player of the Year Award 2014
will hold tomorrow Thursday January 9th at Eko
Hotel and Suites in Lagos and one of its nominees,
Super Eagles and Chelsea midfielder, John Mikel
Obi, will be specially flown into Lagos for the
ceremony in a jet provided by his club, Chelsea.
“I am coming for the CAF awards, I will be flown
in and out of Nigeria by the Chelsea jet. I will
arrive on the awards day and return immediately
after,” Mikel told MTNFootball.com “It is an
honour to be selected and nominated for the
award. I am looking forward to winning it for my
country.” He also said
Mikel is up against Cote d'Ivoire and Man City
player Yaya Toure and Cote d'Ivoire and
Galatasaray player, Didier Drogba. Yaya Toure won
it last year..you think Mikel deserves to win it this
year?
The Nigerian NYSC scheme was established in a bid
to reconstruct, reconcile and rebuild the country
after its Civil war. The pre-civil war innocence that
Nigeria lost in the midst of bloodshed and untold
hardships also played out in human relationships,
thereby threatening the 'One Nigeria' dream. This
necessitated the need to create an avenue for both
human, cultural and geographic exchange. The
scheme also aims to inculcate in Nigeria’s youths
the spirit of selfless service to the community,
irrespective of their social, ethnic or religious
affiliations...
Gidi Culture Festival is a strong advocate of the
NYSC scheme; with a strong belief that youth
empowerment is key to the development of the
society. It understands that a society must invest in
its youth in order to position itself for advancement.
As the cliché goes, 'they are the leaders for
tomorrow'.
The Road to Gidi Culture Festival kicked off with
a free concert at the Lagos State NYSC Camp in
November last year.
"The Gidi Culture Festival is all about empowering
the youth as well as ensuring that entertainment is
affordable and accessible to the youth" said Chin
Okeke, Founder of Eclipse Live.
The show provided unknown artistes such
as Uchman an opportunity to showcase their music
to a crowd of over 3000 people, as well as sharing a
stage with upcoming acts such as Nedu, Flowsick,
Blink, Tesh Carter and Sammy. The exposure that
these young artists got from theGidi Culture Festival
initiative has helped to foster their careers and has
created more exposure for them in the music and
entertainment space.
‘We are looking forward to organising a similar
concert after the success that we had last year.”
Okeke said. “ It is important that we carry on
engaging with the youth through the power of music
and reminding them of their responsibilities to their
communities and the society as a whole”.
The Gidi Culture Festival itself is scheduled to take
place in March 2014, with a line-up that boasts
some of Nigeria's hottest young musical talents in
the industry.
The NYSC scheme remains a key development
initiative in Nigeria, with the ultimate goal of
establishing a united, strong and self reliant nation.
To the NYSC March campers in Lagos, are you
ready for the fun?
A paper authored by a team from the Federal
University of Technology Akure, FUTA, has been
adjudged the best presentation at the 8th
International Conference for Internet Technology
and Secured Transactions (ICITST-2013) held in
London, United Kingdom, in December 2013.
Entitled DGM Approach to Network Attacker and
Defender Strategies, the paper, which was
presented by Dr Kayode Alese, was co-authored by
himself, Iwasokun Gabriel Babatunde and Haruna
Danjuma Israel (all from the Department of
Computer Science, FUTA), beating 1,241 papers
received from 96 countries to emerge the overall
best according to the panel of assessors.
The paper, which was later adjudged as the best for
the year 2013, dwelt on novel strategies to
checkmate infiltrations of secured transactions on
the information super highway. A lot of uplifting
remarks from the international faculty went in
favour of the ambassadors of FUTA who presented
the award-winning paper.
Alese, who is the current Dean of Students Affairs,
said the general consensus at the conference was
that FUTA showed great strength in global
competitiveness through excellence in technological
advancement, learning and research.
