TodayPrice

Category: Tragedy

  • Mr Eazi loses mother Ifeoma Ajibade

    Mr Eazi loses mother Ifeoma Ajibade

    Nigerian singer Oluwatosin Ajibade, popularly known as Mr Eazi, has lost his mother, Ifeoma Edith Ajibade.

    The artist shared the heartbreaking news on Instagram today, March 6, alongside a touching tribute and a photo of them together.

    He wrote, “Thank you, Mummy For your strength, your sacrifices, your unwavering faith. For raising us with love, discipline, and devotion to God. For teaching me confidence, entrepreneurship, forgiveness, and family.

    “You were my greatest protector, my toughest critic, and truest Fan.”

    “You were not perfect, but you were perfect to me. Your legacy lives on. Rest well lfeoma Edith Ajibade.”

  • Australian great Stolle dies aged 86

    Australian great Stolle dies aged 86

    Australian tennis great Fred Stolle, who won two Grand Slam singles titles in the 1960s, has died at the age of 86.

    Stolle won the French Open in 1965, the US Open in 1966 and reached the final in six other Grand Slams, including three at Wimbledon.

    He also won 10 Grand Slam men’s doubles titles and seven mixed doubles.

    Tennis Australia said the sport had lost “one of its great players and characters”.

    “When we speak about Australia’s golden era and the progression from amateur to professionalism, Stolle’s name is right up there with the best,” said CEO Craig Tiley.

    “His legacy is one of excellence, dedication, and a profound love for tennis.

    “His impact on the sport will be remembered and cherished by all who had the privilege to witness his contributions.”

    Stolle was among the Australians – along with Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and John Newcombe – who dominated the men’s game late in the amateur era and start of the professional.

    Stolle, who described playing for Australia as “everything to me”, helped them win the Davis Cup in 1964, 1965 and 1966.

    After retiring he became a coach and then commentator.

    Laver, the only man to win all four majors in one year during the Open era, described Stolle as “too nice a guy to hold a grudge”.

    “It took the best to beat the best,” he said on X.

    “We never tired of reliving the past as we travelled the world looking into the future with an enduring love of the sport.”

    Former Australian doubles player Paul McNamee said: “What a player, what a commentator, what a bloke.”

    “One of that great group of Aussie tennis players who made history, and whose legacy is perhaps unrivalled.”

  • 2 dead as tanker explodes in Ibadan

    2 dead as tanker explodes in Ibadan

    Two persons, the driver and his motor boy, yesterday lost their lives when a tanker, carrying petroleum product, exploded in Ibadan, Oyo State capital.

    The incident, which occurred at the New Garage area, Oluyole Local Government Area of the state, has thrown the entire people in the neighborhood into a state of mourning.

    At press time, men of the Oyo State Fire Service, with the assistance of the security agencies, are battling to prevent the inferno from spreading to other commercial outlets and residential buildings.

    The Special Adviser on Fire Services Reform to Governor Seyi Makinde and Chairman of the State Fire Services Agency, Moroof Akinwande confirmed the incident.

    He said: “We received the distress call at 5:15 am and immediately responded. The situation is now under control.”

  • Catholic Church kicks as kidnappers abduct priest, seminarian in Edo

    Catholic Church kicks as kidnappers abduct priest, seminarian in Edo

    BENIN CITY— THE Edo State Police Command, yesterday, confirmed the kidnapping of a Catholic priest identified as Rev. Father Philip Ekeli and a seminarian, Peter Andrew, at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Ivukwa, Etsako East Local Government Area of the state.

    A statement by the Police Public Relations Officer, Moses Yamu, said the incident took place on March 3, at about 11:30 pm and that the police initiated a rescue operation with the vigilantes in the area, including hunters who rushed to the scene.

    According to him, in the process, one of the suspected kidnappers was killed while four suspects were arrested but other fleeing kidnappers escaped with their victims while the body of the dead kidnapper was deposited at the General Hospital, Agenebode.

    The police statement said: “Two pairs of rubber shoes, one button Tecno phone with two sim cards, one power bank, one dagger jacket, a bag containing biscuits and Nescafè beverage, the sum of N168, 850 were recovered in his possession.”

    He said the Commissioner of Police, Betty Otimeyin, has detailed additional teams of the anti-kidnapping unit to join forces with Police Mobile Force personnel alongside their military counterparts in that area,   to ensure the unconditional release of the victims and apprehend their abductors.

    Reacting, the Catholic Diocese of Auchi, expressed worry over the incessant kidnap of catholic priests in Edo North Senatorial District where the diocese superintends.

    A  release by  its Director of Communication, Rev. Fr. Peter  Egielewa announcing the kidnap of the priest, said: “The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Auchi, Most Rev. Dr. Gabriel Dunia expresses sadness at the frequency at which priests in his Diocese are attacked and kidnapped and that the once peaceful Edo North of the state, which houses the Diocese of Auchi, has become a field of the absurd where kidnappers come in at will and at regular intervals and kidnap people for ransom.

    “It has become a business centre for kidnappers, calling on the government to address these persistent security challenges in Edo North and other parts of Edo State.

    “The Catholic Diocese of Auchi requests all people of goodwill to join the faithful of the Diocese in prayers so that the abductors release Fr. Ekweli unharmed.”

    On how the kidnapping was carried out, the statement read that “at about 9.30 pm on Monday 3rd  of March 2025, the Priest’s rectory and church of St Peter Catholic Church, Iviukhua-Agenebode, Etsako East LGA of Edo State, was violently attacked by gunmen. Doors and windows in both the rectory and church were pulled down accompanied by gunshots. The local vigilantes engaged the kidnappers in a gun duel. However, due to the superior weapons in possession of the kidnappers, the parish priest, Rev. Fr. Philip Ekweli was unfortunately taken away along with the major seminarian serving in the parish into the surrounding forests. At this time, no communication has been had with the abductors yet.”

  • Ferry sinks in Belgium, 188 people drown

    Ferry sinks in Belgium, 188 people drown

    A British ferry leaving Zeebrugge, Belgium, capsizes, drowning 188 people, on March 6, 1987. Shockingly poor safety procedures led directly to this deadly disaster. Lord Justice Barry Sheen, an investigator of the accident, later said of it, from top to bottom, the body corporate was affected with the disease of sloppiness.

    The Herald of Free Enterprise ferry was an 8,000-ton ship owned by Townsend Car Ferries, Ltd. It usually carried passengers and vehicles from Dover, England, to Calais, France, and back. However, in March 1987, the ferry was transferred into service on the company’s Zeebrugge, Belgium, to Dover route. It made one of its first trips on the new route on a Friday morning with 543 people, 84 cars and 36 trucks on board as it headed across the English Channel to Dover.

    The Herald was designed to allow vehicles to drive on and off the ship quickly and easily. Still, in order to save even more time, it was the unofficial policy of the ship’s crew to leave port with the bow doors open and to close them as the ship was already moving, a practice that allowed a small, but normally inconsequential, amount of water into the ferry. The March 6 trip left port with the doors open and the person assigned to close them asleep in a bunk. (It was later revealed that this, too, was not unusual.) The crew members who were supposed to take over this assignment were unable to close the doors as the Herald pushed out to sea.

    As crew members frantically pounded the doors with hammers, water flooded into the cargo hold. The vehicles in the hold were tossed back and forth in the water, and a sudden shift in weight caused the ship to tip to the port side. Within minutes, the Herald capsized. Many passengers were thrown into the sea and quickly drowned in the cold 30-foot-deep water. Life preservers kept some afloat until rescuers were able to reach them.

    Still other passengers remained trapped inside the Herald, some for more than a day, until rescuers could reach them. Ultimately, more than 400 people survived the disaster, including the ship’s captain and first officer, though both were suspended for their lax safety procedures. The disaster also resulted in the establishment of new and more extensive safety regulations for ferries crossing the English Channel.

  • The death spiral of Napster begins

    The death spiral of Napster begins

    After a string of adverse legal decisions, Napster, Inc. begins its death spiral on March 6, 2001, when it starts to comply with a Federal court order to block the transfer of copyrighted material over its peer-to-peer music-sharing network.

    In the year 2000, the new company had created something of a music-fan’s utopia—a world in which nearly every song ever recorded was instantly available on your home computer—for free. Even to some at the time, it sounded too good to be true, and in the end, it was. The fantasy world that Napster created came crashing down in 2001 in the face of multiple copyright-violation lawsuits.

    Oh, but people enjoyed it while it lasted. At the peak of Napster’s popularity in late 2000 and early 2001, some 60 million users around the world were freely exchanging digital mp3 files with the help of the program developed by Northeastern University college student Shawn Fanning in the summer of 1999. Radiohead? Robert Johnson? The Runaways? Metallica? Nearly all of their music was right at your fingertips, and free for the taking. Which, of course, was a problem for the bands, like Metallica, which after discovering their song “I Disappear” circulating through Napster prior to its official release, filed suit against the company, alleging “vicarious copyright infringement” under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1996. Hip-hop artist Dr. Dre soon did the same, but the case that eventually brought Napster down was the $20 billion infringement case filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

    That case—A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc—wended its way through the courts over the course of 2000 and early 2001 before being decided in favor of the RIAA on February 12, 2001. The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected Napster’s claims of fair use, as well as its call for the court to institute a payment system that would have compensated the record labels while allowing Napster to stay in business.

    Then, on March 5, 2001, District Court Judge Marilyn Patel issued a preliminary injunction ordering Napster to remove, within 72 hours, any songs named by the plaintiffs in a list of their copyrighted material on the Napster network. The following day, March 6, 2001, Napster, Inc. began the process of complying with Judge Patel’s order. Though the company would attempt to stay afloat, it shut down its service just three months later, having begun the process of dismantling itself on this day in 2001.

  • David Buick dies

    David Buick dies

    On March 5, 1929, David Dunbar Buick, the founder of the Buick Motor Company, dies in relative obscurity and meager circumstances at the age of 74. In 1908, Buick’s company became the foundation for the General Motors Corporation; however, by that time David Buick had sold his interest in the company.

    Buick was born in Arbroath, Scotland, on September 17, 1854, and moved with his family to Detroit, Michigan, as a child. As a young man, he worked in the plumbing industry and developed, among other inventions, a successful process for bonding porcelain enamel to cast-iron bathtubs. During the 1890s, Buick became interested in automobiles and the gasoline internal combustion engine. In 1903, he founded the Buick Motor Company. The following year, William Durant, a titan of the horse-drawn carriage industry, invested in Buick’s company, which was by then based in Flint, Michigan.

    That same year, the company made a total of 37 autos, known as the Model B. By 1906, Buick had lost control of the business and sold his stock, which would later be worth millions of dollars. Two years later, in 1908, William Durant made the Buick firm the cornerstone of his newly formed holding company, General Motors. Durant soon acquired Cadillac and Oldsmobile, among other car companies. In 1923, Buick built its 1 millionth vehicle. The Buick brand would play a key role in General Motors’ rise to become the world’s largest automaker by the early 1930s (a title it held until 2008, when it was surpassed by Japan-based Toyota). Today, Buick is GM’s entry-level luxury brand and one of the auto industry’s oldest nameplates.

    After selling his interest in his company, David Buick became involved in a series of unsuccessful oil, real-estate and automotive ventures. He eventually returned to Detroit, where he worked menial jobs before his death in 1929.

  • Joseph Stalin dies

    Joseph Stalin dies

    Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union since 1924, dies in Moscow.

    Ioseb Dzhugashvili was born in 1878 in Georgia, then part of the old Russian empire. The son of a drunk who beat him mercilessly and a pious washerwoman mother, Stalin learned Russian, which he spoke with a heavy accent all his life, in an Orthodox Church-run school.

    While studying to be a priest at Tiflis Theological Seminary, he began secretly reading Karl Marx and other left-wing revolutionary thinkers. In 1900, Stalin became active in revolutionary political activism, taking part in labor demonstrations and strikes. Stalin joined the more militant wing of the Marxist Social Democratic movement, the Bolsheviks, and became a student of its leader, Vladimir Lenin.

    Stalin’s first big break came in 1912, when Lenin, in exile in Switzerland, named him to serve on the first Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party—now a separate entity from the Social Democrats. The following year, Stalin (finally dropping Dzugashvili and taking the new name Stalin, from the Russian word for “steel”) published an article on the role of Marxism in the destiny of Russia.

    In 1917, escaping from an exile in Siberia, he linked up with Lenin and his coup against the middle-class democratic government that had supplanted the czar’s rule. Stalin continued to move up the party ladder, from commissar for nationalities to secretary general of the Central Committee—a role that would provide the center of his dictatorial takeover and control of the party and the new USSR.

    Stalin demanded—and got—absolute state control of the economy, as well as greater swaths of Soviet life, until his totalitarian grip on the new Russian empire was absolute.

    Stalin proceeded to annex parts of Poland, Romania, and Finland, and occupy Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In May 1941, he made himself chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars; he was now the official head of the government and no longer merely head of the party.

    After Germany’s surrender in the spring of 1945, Stalin oversaw the continued occupation and domination of much of Eastern Europe, despite “promises” of free elections in those countries.

    Stalin did not mellow with age; he pursued a reign of terror, purges, executions, exiles to the Gulag Archipelago (a system of forced-labor camps in the frozen north) and persecution in the postwar USSR, suppressing all dissent and anything that smacked of foreign, especially Western European, influence.

    To the great relief of many, he died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on March 5, 1953. He is remembered to this day as the man who helped save his nation from Nazi domination—and as the mass murderer of the century, having overseen the deaths of between 8 million and 20 million of his own people.

  • Athletics: Tributes for late coach Momoh

    Athletics: Tributes for late coach Momoh

    Tributes have been pouring in from top athletes, officials and stakeholders following the death of former national athletics coach, Harrison Momoh, who passed away last Saturday, in Ilorin, Kwara State, The TodayPriceNG reports.

    Athletics Federation of Nigeria President, Chief Tonobok Okowa, has led the athletics fraternity in mourning the 83-year-old coach who retired from coaching 15 years ago.

    “I was deeply saddened and shocked to learn of the passing of Harrison Momoh,” Okowa said.

    “To the athletics fraternity, Harrison Momoh who helped raise top athletes in the past is not just a coach but a true friend and a very patriotic Nigerian. Through his knowledge, Momoh set the pace for the development of Nigerian athletics by giving his time and resources to the sport we all love.”

    Former African Games 100m hurdles champion, Taiwo Aladefa, broke the news on Saturday in a WhatsApp message on an athletics group chat.

    “Just to let you know my coach, Coach Harrison Momoh, passed on to Glory a few minutes ago! May his gentle, sweet, and selfless spirit rest in peace!” she wrote.

    Kehinde Aladefa, in her tribute, described the late coach’s dedication to the sport writing, “His selflessness was unmatched. His work ethic was tireless. His confidence, is unwavering.

    “He left an impression on everyone he encountered, and his name is etched in the history of Nigerian track and field. Coaches across the world respected his mind, admired his insight, and sought his wisdom. His impact transcended borders, generations, and disciplines.

    “Coach Momoh was more than a mentor, he was a father figure, a beacon of hope, and a man who gave his all to the sport and the people he loved. To say we will miss him is an understatement; we will carry his lessons, his spirit, and his legacy in every race we run, in every competition we face, and in every life we touch, just as he touched ours,” she stated.

    Momoh discovered and groomed numerous Nigerian elite athletes during the golden era of Nigerian track and field, and at various times coached the Nigerian team at the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and African Games.

    Some of the Olympians he nurtured include the late Sunday Bada, Olapade Adenekan, Olu Sule, Taiwo and Kehinde Aladefa, Omotayo and Omolade Akinremi, Bisi Afolabi, Airat Bakare, Angela Atede, and Saidat Onauga, among others.

    Among those who visited the family shortly after the news of his death were former captain of the Nigeria Olympic team in the eighties and renowned sports analyst Hammed Adio, current Executive Chairman of Kwara State Sports Commission Bola Adisa, and former Director of Sports and current Technical Director Badminton Federation of Nigeria Mallam Tunde Kazeem.

    The Vice Chairman of Kwara State Athletics Association Kayode Afolabi, and other members of the track and field Family also paid their respects to the family of the late coach.

    “We shall always remember Harrison Momoh as a humble, patriotic, wise, and passionate athletics enthusiast and a coach who dedicated his life to raising the standards of athletics in Nigeria and sports in general,” Okowa added.

    “May God Almighty touch and sustain the bereaved family during this period of grief and may the soul of Harrison Momoh rest in eternal peace.”

    The highly disciplined trainer, who hailed from Oshimili North Local Government Area of Delta State, is survived by his wife and two daughters.

  • Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, the head of Murder, Inc., is executed

    Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, the head of Murder, Inc., is executed

    Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, the head of Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing Prison in New York. Lepke was the leader of the country’s largest crime syndicate throughout the 1930s and was making nearly $50 million a year from his various enterprises. His downfall came when several members of his notorious killing squad turned into witnesses for the government.

    Lepke began his criminal career robbing pushcarts as a teenager. When he met Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro while trying to rob the same pushcart, the two quickly became a formidable team. With Shapiro’s brute strength, the two established an extortion business, forcing pushcart owners to pay for protection. Lepke and Shapiro then joined Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen’s Lower East Side gang and turned their attention to the bigger game.

    One by one, Lepke and the gang terrorized the local garment workers’ unions. They took over control of the unions and forced kickback payments from both the members and the employers. Soon, they had taken over the entire New York garment industry. In the 1920s, they added liquor bootlegging, and gambling and later began importing heroin and other narcotics.

    Lepke assembled a large team of hired killers to enforce his control. At one time, this team may have included as many as 250 hitmen. Lepke also began to coordinate operations with the other big crime kingpins around the nation. With Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and Dutch Schultz, Lepke virtually controlled organized crime throughout the country. In 1935, Schultz wanted to kill New York District Attorney Thomas Dewey, but Lepke, fearing that it would bring even more intense scrutiny and pressure from law enforcement, had Schultz killed instead.

    In order to generate more income and keep his hit men occupied, Lepke started Murder, Inc. in 1933. Murder, Inc. was authorized to kill anyone (approved by the syndicate) for a profit. With his hit squad protecting him from rivals and paid-off judges and officers keeping him out of jail, Lepke was America’s premier criminal until he was betrayed by his own men. Reportedly, he was able to order final hits on his betrayers from jail before his execution.