London 2012 tickets
By Duro Ikhazuagbe
Tuesday morning, a UK based, 33-year-old Nigerian, Olufisayo-Joseph Taiwo, was among the 11 persons who were charged on suspicion of illegal re-selling of tickets to the games here.
However, details of his fines were not available as at press time, the German amongst the 11 who was arrested with tickets worth just 23,000 pounds got a 435 pounds fine and all the tickets confiscated. Wolfgang Menzel was caught selling tickets to the opening ceremony outside the Olympic Park in Stratford for 1,100 pounds each. He had 31 tickets on him with additional 20 discovered in his hotel room in Bloomsbury.
The judge, Mark Radway said Menzel got the light sentence because he accepted that the German did not realise that he was not entitled to re-sell the tickets in Britain. Scotland Yard admitted that 29 persons have so far been arrested in connection with ticket touting since the Games started.
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Esiri Robbed of Passport, Money
Veteran Nollywood actor, Justus Esiri and Segun Arinze who are in London in connection with music and dance festival are seeing the other side of the English people here. During the week both Esiri and Arinze lost valuables at their Travellers Lodge in Gilford.
Esiri told THISDAY Tuesday that he lost his international passport and other valuables right inside his hotel room.
"I am still waiting for explanation from the hotel manager what happened to my passport and my travelling bag in his hotel room. I went out and return only to discover that my bag and passport have disappeared. I have reported the case with the police here while the Nigerian High Commission officials here have been wonderful in making case for me to have another passport,'' said the Delta born actor.
He confirmed that Arinze, fondly called the 'Black Arrow' also lost his laptop.
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Transport Blues
Services on a key transport route to the Olympic Park were suspended for several hours after a fire alert Tuesday.
The problem meant that no trains were running on a section of the Tube's Central line which serves the Olympic Park station of Stratford. To add to Olympic travellers' difficulties, rail services in and out of Liverpool Street main line station were affected by a signalling problem. The Central line was suspended between Liverpool Street and Woodford/Newbury in both directions but was reopened by around 10am.
A Transport for London (TfL) spokesman said: "The suspension is due to a train being taken out of service at Leyton after the driver reported smelling smoke. This has been investigated and all passengers left the train and station without reported problems."
As you can trust, most Nigerians here for the Games who did not have the exact details of the smoke alert, took it to mean that there was fire on the Central Line. Those of us who are used to the crazy Apapa traffic, most especially the former gridlock of Creek Road, were comfortable with opting for the 'Go Slow' encountered by the buses.