Uloma definitely knew Solomon was married to her. She said her first encounter with Uloma was back in 2010 when she called Solomon very late at night and she, Lilian, picked up the phone. She told Uloma that she’s Solomon’s wife and Uloma started crying. She said she even had to start consoling Uloma that night. After that phone conversation she didn’t hear from Uloma again but later found out she continued her affair with her husband. She said she called Uloma and warned her over the phone…
She and Solomon were not having any marital problems. She said Solomon told her he was going to Lagos to work a few days before the Saturday wedding. She said she was the one who helped him pack his bags and he even kissed her goodbye at the door. She said she communicated with him a day before the wedding, Friday April 12th and he was all lovey dovey with her. She munched the messages and sent to me…will show you guys some…
Lilian also made something very clear. She said if she and Solomon had been having issues, she wouldn’t have had the guts to do what she did at the venue. Solomon wouldn’t have even had to do the whole thing secretly. Not one member of Solomon’s family was at that wedding on Saturday. According to her, Solomon presented fake family members.
An Indian man has bought one of the world's most expensive shirts, made with more than 3kg of gold and worth $250,000. His is an extreme case of an Indian obsession with the precious metal.
Datta Phuge's nickname is "the gold man", and it's easy to see why.
His knuckles, neck, and wrists are weighed down by the precious metal - signet rings, chunky bracelets, and a medallion that even an Olympic champion might envy.
And on top of that, draped resplendently around him, glittering in the light, is a shirt of gold.
Weighing a staggering 3.3kg (about 7lb), it cost him a cool quarter of a million dollars (£162,000).
It's an extravagant fashion statement, to say the least, but for Phuge it's an important one.
"Some people ask me why I'm wearing so much gold but it was my dream. People have different aspirations. Some elite people want to own an Audi or Mercedes, and have big cars. I chose gold," he explains.
Given its impractical nature, the shirt only gets an outing on special occasions, like parties and important functions.
It elicits a mixture of reactions, Phuge says. Some people are impressed. Others are sniffy about what they regard as the excessive bling.
Either way, to ensure the shirt stays on his back, Phuge has a security guard with him wherever he travels.
"The challenge was to make this as comfortable as wearing a normal shirt," says Tejpal Rankar, of Rankar Jewellers, a 133-year-old business in Pune, a few hours' drive from Mumbai.
"Once we decided to make the shirt we researched designs and patterns. We didn't want it to be like wearing a sheet of gold."
To that end Rankar and his team of craftsmen decided to make a gold cloth based on an Italian weave, using a special machine.
They drew inspiration from old images of Indian kings wearing suits of armour. To prevent it scratching, they stitched a velvet lining inside.
The finished shirt is - as this writer can testify - heavy to wear and a little clunky. It can't be washed so care needs to be taken not to let it get dirty, or indeed too sweaty. The latter is unavoidable in an Indian summer.
Phuge says wearing it makes him feel good. For him it is the ultimate manifestation of achievement and gives him a status he has craved since he was young.
"When I was at college, people would say you were from a rich family if you had gold. So from the age of 20, I started wearing gold. Back then in smaller quantities, like 10 or 15g."
Actually, he wasn't from a rich family, he was from a humble background.
He made his big break as a property speculator, then became a money lender in the town of Pimpri Chinchwad, outside Pune.
Every six to eight months, when his company turns in a profit, he buys something else made of gold. Next on his list is a mobile phone made entirely from gold, and perhaps a pair of gold shoes.
Some press reports have suggested Phuge only bought the shirt to woo women but he is happily married to Seema, a government worker, who also has a penchant for the precious metal.
"She owns 500kg of gold, I've bought her necklaces and bags made from it," he says proudly.
But Phuge is also keenly aware of gold's value as an investment.
"If the need arises, I can sell the shirt and have the money," he says.
In this he is like many other Indians, the world's largest consumers of gold.
"Everyone in India buys gold," says Rajiv Mehta, a gold analyst from financial research firm India Info Line.
"Gold has become a status symbol or a symbol of wealth… especially in the last 10 years we've seen a lot of people kind of showcasing their gold ornaments or trying to become more flamboyant."
As the symbol of the Hindu goddess, Lakshmi, gold is seen as very auspicious. It is used to decorate Hindu deities in temples, and traditionally given as a gift at weddings.
According to Mehta, of the 18,000 tonnes of gold which is held in India, about two-thirds is in rural areas. Among the millions of people without bank accounts, gold is seen as an alternative way of saving.
Rankar says he is seeing more and more requests for gold handbags and belts and there's been a rise in the number of Indians buying gold bars, which can now even be acquired from some ATMs.
Gold-leafing, where 24-carat gold is applied to an object, is also becoming more popular, says Shezhad Khan, of the Gold Leafing Studio, Mumbai.
The company has recently been asked to gold leaf a toilet for a client, and also added a golden touch to the staircase at the world's most expensive home, Antilia, the Mumbai high-rise owned by the country's richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
For Datta Phuge, whose shirt which could have paid for a luxury house abroad, or a number of extra cars, it was money well spent.
"I wanted the world to know me as 'the gold man' with this shirt," he says. "And now, they do."
The girls were declared missing by the college authorities.
Three female undergraduates of Tai Solarin College of Education, Omu-Ijebu, Ogun State, who were declared missing have been sighted in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates(UAE), PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.
The students, Omoeneme Maureen, Ajao Aminat Romoke and Oludegun Morufat Olayinka, have been missing from the school for several weeks, and had become a source of worry for the college management and their parents.
The school authorities and the families of the three100 level French students, had searched various parts of the state including various accidents scenes and mortuaries during the search for the students.
There had also been rumours that ritualists might have kidnapped and used the ladies for ulterior actions.
One of the girls eventually made contact and told a search party that they were in Dubai to seek greener pastures.
When contacted, the Registrar of the College, Tunji Kanimodo, confirmed the story, adding that the students’ action was amazing.
Mr. Kanimodo told PREMIUM TIMES that the police had been informed that the girls were in the United Arab Emirates.
He said the students had paid their fees and registered for the ongoing academic session before they went missing; and the school authorities would wait for appropriate action by the police before it takes further actions.
Pandemonium was reported on Saturday, April 13, 2013 in Lagos when the eight months old pregnant wife of Nollywood actor, Solomon Akiyesi, Lilian Akiyesi, stormed the secret wedding of his husband to another woman. The ugly incident happened at the Overcomers World Outreach located at Overcomers Close, off Ramlat Timson street, Aguda, Surulere. As gathered, Solomon allegedly dumped his pregnant wife in their base in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on the pretence of coming to Lagos for a movie shoot.
Unfortunately for him, his wife got wind of his plan to marry an alleged pregnant lover in Lagos.
His wife stormed Lagos ahead of the wedding and zoomed to the wedding venue with some policemen and some of her relatives. Before the pastor could join the new lovers together as husband and wife, Lilian reportedly disrupted the announcement which abruptly ended the marriage ceremony.
Solomon and Lilian have been reportedly married for seven years without a child until she recently got pregnant for the actor.
A young girl in India has such an extreme case of hydrocephalus that her head has swelled to an alarming size.
Runa Begum has had the condition -- in which cerebrospinal fluid collects in the skull -- since she was born, her mother, Fatima, told Reuters. Doctors in the Tripura region, where the family lives, have been unable to provide relief. Runa's father, Abdul Rehman, doesn't earn enough as a brick factory worker to pay for more medical help.
Dr. Peter Heydemann, a pediatric neurologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told The Huffington Post that the girl could perhaps be treated with a shunt inserted to drain the fluid, but he expressed doubt whether any brain damage could be reversed. "Her brain has been under a fair bit of pressure," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if the child was blind."
Heydemann suggested Runa (or Roona, as identified by some news outlets) might have hydranencephaly, in which the brain hemispheres are absent and the empty space is filled by cerebrospinal fluid.
Heydemann said he had never seen such an extreme case, but he added that the prominent veins on her scalp are a "common piece of this puzzle."
Gill Yaz, a health official for Shine, a British charity for hydrocephalus victims, told the Daily Mail that the shunt procedure takes just 30 minutes and that the shunts themselves cost between $300 and $1,200. But Rehman (or Rahman as he is referred to in the Mail) makes just $2.75 a day.
