Author: Adejuyigbe Francis

Africa’s quest for a third Club World Cup final appearance ended after European champions Real Madrid beat Egypt’s Al Ahly 4-1 in the semi-final on Wednesday. Al Ahly’s well organised defence capitulated as Vinicius Jr opened the scoring three minutes before half-time with Federico Valverde doubling the lead just after the break. The Red Devils competed well after the hour mark, and the pressure paid off when Eduardo Camavinga tripped Hussein El Shahat inside the box. Tunisia’s Ali Maaloul tucked away the penalty to make it 2-1 in the 65th minute. Al Ahly had their moments during a frenetic second…

With 16 days to the commencement of the 2023 general election, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to remove the Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, in Lagos State, Olusegun Agbaje. Atiku said Agbaje had been accused of attempting to compromise the upcoming election. He noted that the REC’s insistence on using the Lagos State Park and Garage Management Committee led by Musiliu Akinsanya, also known as MC Oluomo to carry sensitive election materials was a ploy to compromise the election. Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communication,…

Fears remain over the wellbeing of former Premier League footballer Christian Atsu, who is among those missing after a devastating earthquake in Turkey. The Hateyspor star and sporting director Savut Taner were among those buried in rubble days after the disaster that has killed at least 11,000 people across Turkey and Syria. Initially it was claimed by his club’s vice-president, Mustafa Ozat, that he had been pulled from the wreckage, with the Ghana FA claiming that the ex-Newcastle and Chelsea winger had been found. However, Hateyspor club doctor, Gurbey Kahveci, and Atsu’s agent, Nana Sechere, have since spoken out to say the 31-year-old…

Hours after the Supreme Court stopped the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN from executing the February 10 deadline for the validity of old naira notes, the governor of the apex bank, Godwin Emefiele met with President Muhammadu Buhari. A seven-man panel of the Supreme Court led by Justice John Okoro, in a unanimous ruling had on Wednesday ordered that the old naira notes remain in circulation even after the new deadline. The development followed an ex parte filed on Tuesday by the Kogi, Kaduna and Zamfara state governments. The Supreme Court also held that the Federal Government and the CBN…

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike has commended the Supreme Court for saving Nigerians and democracy by restraining the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, from implementing the February 10 deadline on the phasing out of N200, N500 and N1000 old notes. Wike spoke during the Rivers State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign in the Abua/Odual Local Government Area, where he urged the people to preserve their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to vote for the candidates of the PDP at the state level. He also commended the government of the three states that filed the suit. He said the Rivers State Government…

LeBron James has become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 39-year-old record. Los Angeles Lakers star James, 38, hit 38 points in a 133-130 defeat by the Oklahoma City Thunder to surpass Abdul-Jabbar’s mark of 38,387. Abdul-Jabbar initially broke the scoring record in April 1984, eight months before James was born. “To be able to be in the presence of a legend and great as Kareem, it means so much to me,” said James. James, who needed 36 points to break the record, did so with a fadeaway jumper at the end of the third quarter and he…

The Supreme Court of Nigeria has restrained the Federal Government from continuing with the full implementation of the demonetization policy. Three northern states, Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara, had, in a motion ex-parte filed on February 3rd, prayed the apex court to halt the Central Bank of Nigeria’s naira redesign policy. A 7-man panel of the Supreme Court led by Justice John Okoro, in a unanimous ruling, granted an interim injunction restraining the FG, CBN, commercial banks etc, from implementing the February 10 deadline for the old 200, 500 and 1000 Naira notes to stop being a legal tender. The court…

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board said it cancelled the registrations of no fewer than 817 candidates that registered to sit the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations and Direct Entry examinations. The examination body said it made the decision owing to the discovery of certain infractions such as use of strange biometrics during the registration process. The registrar of the examination body, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, who cited some of the affected cases in a statement on Wednesday morning, stated that some registration officers in the affected 178 Computer-Based Test centres added their fingerprints to complete the registration process for the…

The biggest danger to the success of this year’s general elections are politicians and the electorate, the former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has said. Speaking on Tuesday in Abuja while delivering a keynote address at the public sensitisation on peaceful co-existence and the need to have hitch-free elections, Prof Jega observed that the so-called political class as active partisans and candidates, contestants in elections, are the category of stakeholders with perhaps the least noticeable improvements in the ways they engaged with the electoral process since 1999. He explained that their mindset is to…

The Federal Government has approved the use of Hijab for female Muslim students. This was contained in a circular dated February 1, 2023, signed by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Andrew David Adejo. The circular was sent to all Principals of all the 112 Federal Unity Colleges and Federal Science and Technical Colleges of the country. According to the circular “This is to bring to your notice that the Ministry has approved the use of corporate/cape size hijab as part of school uniform by female Muslim students in all the Federal Unity Colleges and Federal Science and Technical…

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has met with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, over, among other things, the naira note redesign and withdrawal limit. Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said the Commission is encouraged by the continuing willingness of the apex bank to support its determination to deliver credible elections on 25th February 2023 and 11th March 2023 The INEC boss noted that election in the country is a huge and complex undertaking and requires the engagement of critical services. “However, there are equally critical areas such as transportation and human support services that have to be…

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Lagos State says a total of 6,708,451 voters collected the Permanent Voter Card (PVC) out of the 7,637,402 voters that registered in the state. Mrs Adenike Tadese, INEC’s Head of Voter Education and Publicity in Lagos State, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos that the figure represented 87.8 per cent. According to Tadese, 928,951, which were not collected as of the Feb. 5 deadline, represented over 12 per cent. Tadese said that during the first batch, INEC had received a total of 6, 570,291 PVCs out of which…