Nigerian film actor, Lekan Olatunji has recollected how he sold his two cars for N4 million to save his dying wife, Wunmi from cancer.

The Yoruba actor disclosed this in a recent interview with Biola Bayo, in which he revealed that he did not know his wife had cancer until they went for a check-up and found out that the cancer had hit her spinal cord, which made her unable to work.Lekan Olatunji said:

“When we came to Lagos for the check-up, we didn’t even see any Nigerians, they were like apprentices there. Indians were the ones operating the machines. From there we were given the result and when we saw the result, it was cancer. But instead of reacting in her body, it hit her spinal cord. That was why she couldn’t walk again. Cancer of the breast, she just had something little there, but it wasn’t paining her.

“When I questioned her about it, she said she told her Matron and she said it was due to family planning and it wasn’t paining her truthfully. It wasn’t reacting in her body at all.

“Even the doctors that examined her said her body ought to have started decaying, at the level that it was. They said we were going to do 2 urgent surgeries worth N12.5million.

“In her presence, she looked at me and started crying. I said don’t worry, I went outside and started crying. 12.5m, where will I see it? So the whole family had to be involved because we couldn’t hide it anymore. We were about to fly her out, but unfortunately, we didn’t get a Visa on time. Because the family head said we should bring her over to America, and the expenses will be deducted from his salary. If we don’t do the first operation to correct the spinal cord, she won’t be able to walk again. I sold two of my cars for 4 million.

“The first surgery we did was 5.8million, everything we spent was about N7.8million in Lagos and she was there for like two weeks”.

Lekan announced his wife’s death in an Instagram post on September 2023.

Lekan and Wunmi had three children in their marriage.

The federal government has said that the situation in the country would be more terrible if petrol subsidy was not removed.

The minister of information and national orientation, Mohammed Malagi, stated this on Thursday during a programme on Channels Television.

He insisted that it would be difficult to carry out meaningful development without removing subsidy.

Defending President Bola Tinubu’s decision, the Minister argued that the economy would have been worse if petrol subsidy was not removed.

He insisted that Tinubu was aware that Nigerians would encounter some difficulties after the removal of the subsidy.

“You are premising your argument on the fact this problem just started yesterday. The foundation of our economy had taken a beating a long time ago. The substructure of our national economy has been one that cannot hold a meaningful substructure on it.

“So, it is important that Nigerians recognise that the President and his team would have to go back to reset that and that is why from day one, he said, ‘Look, subsidy issue has to go.

“He had to expect that there would be this pain, of course. He anticipated that Nigerians would encounter some difficulties. But it would be worse if that subsidy did not go. It would have been difficult to carry out any meaningful development. We needed to free up resources,” Magaji said

He further said the impact of the subsidy was not felt by the masses as some select persons were benefiting from it.

According to Malagi, security agencies are working to arrest the culprits.

“Of course, everybody is being investigated. Security agencies are doing their jobs in that direction,” he said.

It is estimated that about 70.92 million Nigerians are in extreme poverty, according to the World Poverty Clock. The figure translates to 11 per cent of the world’s extreme poor. This means that, at least, one out of every 10 extremely poor people live in Nigeria.

It would be recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had earlier in its report said over 133 million Nigerians were multidimensionally poor.

Sulaiman Adesina Yusuf of the Department of Agriculture Economics, University of Ibadan, related the statistics yesterday in Abuja in his presentation at a one-day public lecture.

The lecture was organised by the Federal Cares Unit of the Nigeria Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) programme.

Yusuf, who was the guest lecturer, said Nigeria ranked 163 out of 191 countries in 2021 on the Human Development Index (HDI), and 109 out of 125 countries in 2023 on the Global Hunger Index.

Yusuf said this was not only unacceptable for a country that hopes to compete at the global stage but also calls for concern from policymakers.

While acknowledging efforts made by successive administrations in the country to fund intervention programmes, he said the major challenge has been the lack of political will on the part of the government to fully fund the programme.

The don called for the passage of the Social Protection Bill to generate the political commitment for social protection at the federal and state levels as well as realign the allocation of resources to scale up social protection.

Earlier, Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, commended the work NG-CARES is doing to lift Nigerians out of poverty. He said the current administration was very passionate about poverty alleviation, a reason President Tinubu, a few weeks ago, directed a wholesale review of the national social protection scheme.

“Much as you think we have achieved progress, there is a lot that remains to be done,” he said. He promised that the federal government would do all within its power and available resources to ensure that the sad tales of poverty were reversed.

The manager of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board Computer-Based Test (JAMB CBT) has been arrested and detained for allegedly participating in an online discussion with a 15-year-old candidate while utilizing information obtained during her exam registration.

The situation was exposed when the candidate’s mother, who had registered her daughter using her phone number, received inappropriate messages on her device shortly after the registration procedure

A social media post by the candidate’s mother accused JAMB of incompetence and a lack of data protection, sparking an investigation.

According to the mother’s statement, the CBT manager got the phone number from the registration form and started a text discussion, presuming he was conversing directly with the candidate.

Despite being informed of the teenager’s age, the manager persisted in communicating and requested that the communication be kept anonymous.

JAMB then launched an internal investigation and coordinated with law enforcement authorities, resulting in the arrest of the accused staff member and an alleged collaborator within hours.

Speaking to newsmen after the arrest, JAMB’s ICT consultant, Damilola Bamiro, on Thursday said, “Today, based on the social media report that has gone round where a mother complained that her 15-year-old daughter was being approached by a staff of one of our CBT centers, and immediately we got that information, we swung into action.

“We identified the center and since our system identifies who has registered a candidate, we were able to apprehend both the person that registered the candidate and the person that approached the minor.

“We have them in custody already, just to assure Nigerians that JAMB will always swing into action whenever any case against any candidate is reported.”