AFCON 2013: Strict Discipline In Super Eagles Camp

As the Super Eagles begin preparation to take on the Eagles of Mali, Sport writer, Kayode Tijani, who visited the Nigerian team’s camp at Durban, South Africa, said the players are focused and disciplined.

In a telephone interview Mr Tijani said though the confidence of the players is high at the moment having beaten the tournament favourite, Cote D’Ivoire, the team handlers are working on making them concentrate on the match against Mali.
"I have never seen a Super Eagles camp where there is no distraction like this," he said.
Mali and Nigeria meet in the first semi-final in Durban on Wednesday, followed by the match between Burkina Faso and Ghana in Nelspruit later the same day. The Super Eagles Coach Stephen Keshi is basking in the satisfaction of seeing his controversial selections pay off.
"Somehow, the Nigeria fans don’t appreciate their players. But I know my team, I know their mentality. I know the boys I picked were right, I have confidence in them," he said.
Mali’s charge is being led by 33-year-old Seydou Keita and augmented by a team full of players with European league experience, particularly Ligue 1.
They have proven to have a powerful midfield and in Mamadou Samassa, Coach Patrice Carteron claims to have the best goalkeeper in the competition.
Samassa is likely to return from suspension to replace Soumbeyla Diakite, who was the hero of Saturday’s penalty shootout win over hosts South Africa in the quarter-final.
Naij

Kalou pays up $5,000 bet with Mikel Obi after Eagles’ victory

John Mikel Obi’s former team mate at Chelsea, Salomon Kalou, has paid up a $5,000 bet he had with the Nigerian midfielder, after the Super Eagles defeated Cote d’Ivoire 2-1, to move into the AFCON 2013 semi-finals.
Kalou and Obi struck up a good friendship from the times they spent together at Stamford Bridge and the Lille forward so was confident, that he told Obi that he would score one of the goals in the game.
However, Emmanuel Emenike and Sunday Mba ensured Cheik Tiote’s header didn’t count and Kalou has now confirmed he has given Obi the money.

He told Brila FM: “We played a very good Super Eagles, they started the game well and scored a good goal to take the lead. I have redeemed my pledge to Mikel as he won the bet.”
InformationNigeria

Declaring Me Wanted Is An Abuse Of Power In A Democracy – Maina

Embattled Chairman of Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina, has lampooned the Police over the purported “declaration” of his arrest saying it amounted to an abuse of power.

 

In a statement personally signed by him yesterday, Maina expressed surprise at the purported declaration by the police.

 

“The said declaration by the Nigeria Police is definitely an abuse of power in a democracy”, he said, adding that there was no time he was invited either verbally or in writing by the Nigeria Police for any reason whatsoever.

 

“It is after such invitation has been dishonored that an order for his arrest can be employed, followed by declaring me wanted”, he said. Maina expressed his suspicions over the conduct of the police adding, “I am not a criminal to be declared wanted just like that”, he said.

TalkOfNaija

Rotimi’s Family Paid N13m to Free Wife From Kidnappers, Says Suspect

Abductors of Mrs Titilayo Rotimi, wife of former Western State Military Administrator Gen Oluwole Rotimi, collected N13million from the family before releasing her, a member of the gang said in Ibadan yesterday.

Mrs Rotimi was kidnapped in front of her company on December 10 last year and released 10 days later.

Kingsley Udom-Johnson, a member of the four-man gang that kidnapped her, also recounted how they abducted the businesswoman at her Alakia office in the Oyo State capital after the close of work.

Udom-Johnson was paraded along with two other suspected members of the gang by Oyo State Police in Ibadan yesterday.

Recalling how the four-man gang captured their victim, the suspect said they took off from their location at Ilasa in Lagos in a Nissan car and laid a siege to the premises of her logistics firm until she closed from work.

On sighting her car coming out of the large compound, Udom-Johnson recalled that the three of them, armed with guns, swooped on the businesswoman and forced her into their waiting car. They then zoomed off.

According to him, their victim was taken to a building in Ala, Ogun State. The building, he said, they rented for the purpose of keeping kidnap victims.

The suspect explained that they supplied Mrs Rotimi all the food she desired throughout her 10-day stay in their custody.

Udom-Johnson said the overall head of the gang, one Daniel Effiong, contacted Gen. Rotimi’s family whose members brought the money to J4 Community – an Ogun village that borders Ogun, Osun and Ondo states – before Mrs Rotimi was released.

Effiong, according to Commissioner of Police (CP) Mbu Joseph Mbu, is now dead.

Two other members of the gang paraded by the police are Akaneyere Sunday and Godwin Mfon. They all hail from Akwa Ibom State.

Udom-Johnson said he received N2.5 million as his share of the ransom. Explaining how he spent it, he said he cleared a debt of over N1 million and then bought a Honda Accord car for use as airport taxi in Lagos.

The kidnap suspect regretted his action and called on others still in the criminal act to “repent”.

Members of an armed robbery gang that robbed a family of a 4matic Mercedez Benz car in Lekki, Lagos, locking up a young girl in a wardrobe until she suffocated, were also paraded by the police. They were arrested in Sabo, Ibadan after selling the second car they snatched from Lagos.

Two other gang members were paraded with the two robbery and kidnap gangs. Mbu said: “We patiently went into the matter, dug into it and we were able to arrest the kidnappers in Ogun State. They have confessed to the crime. We got information from Nigerians, worked on it and we finally got them. Very soon, the law will take its course.”

The police chief added that one of the suspects is a former employee of Mrs Rotimi’s firm, AOP Logistics Limited.

 TalkOfNaija

Ebonyi State to generate 2,000MW by September

By Robert Obi

The Ebonyi State government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a firm to produce 2000 megawatts of electricity by September 2013.
The State Governor, Martin Elechi, who disclosed this during a town hall meeting to round off the National Good Governance tour of Ebony State, said the principal partners, last week, signed a production agreement of the turbines in South Korea. He said the State government was committed to putting in place critical infrastructures that would promoted economic activities and attract investors into the state.
The governor noted that the World Bank, federal ministry of finance and its Water Resources counterpart were assisting the state to ensure the completion of the state water projects. He said that the only project embarked upon by his administration was the new campus of the State’s university estimated to cost about $500million Dollars.

He explained that the repayment of the N20billion bond secured by the state from the capital market has been structured in a way that by September 2015, the debts would have been liquidated.
“We are not going to leave a debt burden for the next administration. By the time I leave office, the administration that would come after me would only pay about N560million every month for four months. After the liquidation of the debts the benefits would be there in the state to enjoy forever.”
 BusinessNews

Capital Oil drags Access Bank to Court over contempt

By Robert Obi

Capital Oil and Gas Limited and its Chief Executive Officer, Ifeanyi Ubah, have begun to initiate contempt proceedings against Access Bank Plc and some of its principal officers.
It follows the banks alleged refusal to comply with the order of a Federal High Court in Lagos directing it to discontinue a suit it filed against Ubah and others in a London court.
Justice Okon Abang had on January 28 berated the bank for filing the suit in a London court while the suit was before him in Nigeria and subsequently ordered the bank to withdraw the suit.
But rather than discontinue with the suit, Ubah alleged that the bank returned to the foreign court on January 31 and got a fresh order directing Ubah and his company to, among others, take steps to vacate all orders made by the Nigerian court.
As a result, Ubah and his firm have filed and served Form 48 to the bank. This is a “notice of consequences of disobedience to court order,” which warns a party against who an order is made, to obey, failing which it would be cited for contempt.
Form 48 is usually followed by Form 49 -a formal application for committal of the person (s) who refuses to obey the court order or ruling.
Ubah and his company said their step was informed by the alleged failure of Access Bank to withdraw the suit: Claim No. 2012 Folio 1300, which it filed at the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench division, Commercial Court, London, in relation to the dispute between them over a purported loan.
While ordering them to discontinue the London suit within 48 hours, Justice Abang also ordered them to exhibit a notice of discontinuance at the next hearing date, which is Monday February 4.

The judge, in that ruling, faulted the bank’s decision to secure an order from the London court despite a subsisting order of his court barring Access Bank and others from interfering with the property and business interests of Capital Oil and Gas Limited, pending the determination of a suit by Ubah and his company.
The judge upheld the argument by made by Ubah’s counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun, that by heading for London over a dispute in relation to a transaction that took place in Nigeria, the bank has “ridiculed the Nigerian judiciary.”
Justice Abang further restrained the bank from enforcing the order made by the London court against the assets and business interests of Capital Oil.
The judge held that Ubah and his company were at liberty to apply to his court for leave to commence contempt proceedings against the bank and its principal officers, should they fail in complying with the order.
He further held that Ubah and his company could sue for damages if they so wish.
The ruling was on an application by Ubah and his company, challenging the propriety of a worldwide assets freezing order obtained by Access Bank from the London court on November 9 last year, in relation to issues that formed the subject of the pending suit before the Nigerian court.
 BusinessNews

Buhari’s aides attack Obasanjo over el-Rufai’s revelations

Spokesperson for a former head of state, Maj.-Gen Muhammadu Buhari, Yinka Odumakin, has described revelations contained in a book written by former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai’, about political events prior to the 2011 elections, as a factual account.
El- Rufai’, in a yet-to-be released book, is said to have revealed a plot by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to dump President Goodluck Jonathan for Buhari but later changed his mind.
Odumakin told one of our correspondents in a telephone interview on Sunday, “I have read it. That is the honest truth. It shows that whenever Obasanjo takes a position, people should understand why he is taking the position. Whenever he is taking a position, he is always fighting for his personal interest.
“Jonathan backed Daniel faction of the PDP. That was why Obasanjo made a U-turn and said he would support Buhari/Okonjo Iweala ticket.”
Also, the National Publicity Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, described the revelations as a reflection of the true character of Obasanjo.
Fashakin, who spoke in a telephone interview, said although he and several others were not privy to the behind-the-scene dealings at the time, he was not surprised by Obasanjo’s behaviour.
He said, “Mallam el-Rufai has opened up on some very intricate issues, giving us very incisive details of some behind-the-scene acts that many of us were not privy to. I was not privy to that, I didn’t know about that.
“But what Nigerians should understand clearly and see here playing out is that of who the real Obasanjo is and has been all his life. I have always told people that Obasanjo sees the world, nay Nigeria through a four-sided prism.
“That is, Olusegun Obasanjo one, Aremu Obasanjo two, Okikiolu Obasanjo three, and Matthew Obasanjo four. He sees the world through that four-sided prism so that it is first about what is in it for me in this thing?
“Before he now sees what is in it for Nigeria. He has only behaved through to type and you saw the way he sold the dummy to the AD governors in 2003 and all of them had to bite the dust for believing him.
“It is not surprising what Rufai was saying. Thank God, el-Rufai did not say that Gen. Mohammadu Buhari bought into that lie that Obasanjo was trying to sell.
“Because Gen. Buhari knows Obasanjo very well, and he (Buhari) is the man that believes in the truth and believes in going about the Nigerian project in a very clean and decisive manner.
“You need to ask yourself there is a big gap, a world apart between Gen. Buhari and Obasanjo in terms of what they stand for.
“Buhari is all through and through a patriot, who truly loves Nigeria, who is not in this project for monetary or pecuniary gains but he is in it to be able to elevate, to be able to emancipate the Nigerian people.”
Naij