Oshaniwa signs three-year deal with Hearts

Super Eagles defender, Juwon Oshaniwa, has signed a three-year contract with Scottish side, Hearts, after passing his medicals on Friday.

The 24-year-old, capped 17 times by the three-time African champions, left Ironi Ashdod after the team was relegated to the second division, Goal reports.

Hearts manager Robbie Neilson believes the wait for the Nigerian international will be vindicated when he eventually plays his way into the team.

“It has been difficult because we had hoped to get him for pre-season so we could build through there with him but hopefully it will be worth the wait,” Goal quoted Neilson as saying after the deal was concluded.

“We did it last season with [Adam] Eckersley and [Miguel] Pallardo. They were guys who came in after we had started and it’s just part of football and you just have to deal with it.

“Everyone wants to get their full squad in for the first day of pre-season but it never happens like that.

“We are expecting him to do really well for us and it’s usually worth the wait when guys like this come in.

“It has been the longest transfer saga ever. He needs to come in and he needs to train and get to know the players, with a view of next weekend or possibly the midweek game against Motherwell,” he concluded.

Buhari under pressure to move against oil thieves

Pressure is mounting on President Muhammadu Buhari to kick start his clampdown on oil thieves following his recent admission that he now has in his possession a list of such thieves.

Buhari, addressing Nigerians during his just concluded trip to the United States, had announced that Washington gave him the list.

He said that some members of the Jonathan Federal Executive Council stole as much as 250000 barrels of crude daily.

Several Western countries including the United Kingdom and France are said to have reached out to him to waste no further time in bringing the suspects to book.

Nigerians are also itching to know the identities of the oil thieves .

A cross section of prominent Nigerians say President Buhri should make the names public forthwith and prosecute them.

Frontline lawyer,Professor Itse Sagay (SAN) told The Nation yesterday that he shocked by the magnitude of the stealing.

“Before this fresh revelation, one was very disturbed when Okonjo Iweala, raised the alarm that about 400, 000 barrels were being stolen every day. To hear that the quantity is as much as one million barrel per day is something else,” he said.

“It shows the country went into a total rot under the last regime of President Goodluck Jonathan. They would have looted the country to bankruptcy within a year if they were not removed from office. We should be grateful that a disciplined and upright man has taken over to clean the mess and save the country.

“The punishments are not farfetched. They are already enshrined in our law books.

“We may ultimately have to resort to special court with specific time frame to decide the cases. The situation is very grave and we need to deal with it in an exceptional way.”

Also shocked by the revelation is Chief Ladi Williams (SAN) who said: “the President should make public everything about it because the oil they stole belongs to the good people of Nigeria. The people have the right to know what is happening.

“Some schools of thought have suggested that the Chinese option should be applied in dealing with the suspects. It is a common knowledge that corrupt public officers in China always end up being executed. But here in Nigeria, we have the criminal and penal code. The suspects should be tried.

“The National Assembly has the power to establish a tribunal to try the suspects because the courts have too many cases already. From the tribunal, the next step should be Supreme Court because many of us are not happy with the way the Appeal Court has discharged itself. The Supreme Court has discharged itself creditably well.

“The suspects should be made to produce the money they realised from the sales of the stolen products. Any of them that parts with a substantial part of the money should be leniently dealt with.”

Elder statesman Tanko Yakassai said:“The president should not only tell us about the crime, he should go a step further to list the names of those involved in the criminal act and the amount involved. He should get them arrested and prosecuted. The truth is that these atrocities didn’t start today. They started way back when Obasanjo was the head of state.

“Key figures during that regime became instant multi-millionaires. There is not going to be any solution to the atrocities except the perpetrators are brought to book. I want to appeal to President Muhhamadu Buhari not to limit the probe to the Jonathan administration. If he really wants to get to the root of the problem, he should go back to the days of Obasanjo as military head of state.”

Another Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Second Republic politician, Enechi Onyia, said the suspects should be made to face the wrath of the law.

“The government should not stop at that. They should also do everything possible to retrieve the full value of the money that the country ought to realize from the product from the suspects. The government should not be swayed by sentiments that people are likely to express about its position or action plan because in everything that happens in life, people would always express sentiments,” he said.

Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamio called for prosecution of everyone found culpable in the crime, saying: “The effort of the President in fighting corruption in the country is highly commendable. This is what Nigerians looked forward to when they voted for him and I am glad that he is living up to his electioneering promises. I want to do everything possible to make sure that the perpetrators do not escape justice.”

Former Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Abubakar Tsav, expressed surprise at the revelation.

He said:“ “If the president’s statement is true, then, it is a serious matter. How can one person steal such quantity of crude oil? What are they using the money for when many people are hungry, homeless and sleeping under the bridge?

“ The crime is capable of collapsing an economy of a developing country. The perpetrators don’t mean well for the country and should be severely dealt with.

“I don’t support death penalty, but the offence is worth it. I will suggest that they should be sent to 25 years or life imprisonment. If the suspects are not fished out and dealt with, there would be a big challenge if Buhari is not re-elected after four years. If Buhari is not elected and another government that is worse than Jonathan’s come tom power, the country would be worse for it.

“If I were Jonathan, I would be ashamed of myself and refrain from making any comment. I think he should also be probed because it was before his very eyes that all this rots was taking place and he did nothing to stop it.”

The Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Lagos State chapter, Joe Igbokwe, said more sad revelations of the activities of government officials in the Jonathan’s administration are coming.

According to him, “What Nigerians are hearing and seeing now will be a child’s play when the full story of how Nigeria was pillaged and plundered under Jonathan is told.

“In the fullness of time Nigerians will get to find out that former President Jonathan’s tenure was a systematic regime of heists. I am believing God that President Buhari will have the energy, strength and power to go the whole hog in repositioning Nigeria in the comity of civilized nations. Nigeria is getting better and this, l believe because a good man is in charge.”

Three Boko Haram suspects arrested in Cameroon

Cameroon officials have arrested three suspects carrying a bag containing improvised explosive devices in the northern town of Maroua where a spate of suspected Boko Haram suicide attacks killed at least 40 last week, sources have said.

The men were caught on Thursday evening at the entrance of the city following a tip-off, a senior military source with the Central African nation’s special forces in Maroua told Reuters.

“The suspect who was carrying the bag with the explosives is a Nigerian. The other two are Cameroonians, according to their identity cards,” another senior local government administrator said on telephone from Maroua.

He said the young men, aged about 20, were suspected Boko Haram militants planning another attack.

Cameroon has increased troops and tightened security in the northern regional capital following the suicide bombings, the deepest incursion by suspected Boko Haram militants from neighbouring Nigeria.

Cameroon security officials also carried out a raid on Thursday in Kousseri, some 220 km (140 miles) north of Maroua, where some 2,000 Nigerians who were living in the country without permits were loaded in trucks and taken across the border.

A local administrator said the raid was part of measures aimed at improving security and controlling movements along the border region.

Ife declares 7-day oro festival

A seven-day sacred traditional oro festival known has been declared in Ile-ife, Osun State.

According to traditionalists, during the period of the festival‎, residents of the ancient town, especially women must not stay outaside beyond 7.00 p.m.

Meanwhile, major markets in the ancient town remain opened, as commercial and economic activities continued.

Also, the Ooni palace at Enuwa was devoid of the usual human and vehicular traffic, except for the presence of the private guards and about four police men manning the gates of the palace.

Though the reason for the declaration of the oro festival was not known, but informed sources believed it might be in connection with the alleged death of the traditional ruler of the town, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, which his chiefs have continued to dismiss and described as mere rumour.

Preferring anonymity, the sources said that whoever violates the traditional order of the oro festival might have himself to blame for a dire consequence.

According to the sources, traditionalists would use the period of the festival to appease the gods and perform necessary rituals that would make the town to enjoy peace and also avert looming danger in Ife and its environs.

The sources, however, disclosed that the festival had nothing to do with the alleged death of the Ooni.

They also claimed that this year edition of the festival only coincided with the “rumoured death” of the town’s monarch.

To prove that Oba Sijuwade is alive, they said: “There is a door that remained closed during the life time of a sitting monarch, and since the door remained closed, it means that the monarch is presumed to be alive.

“The closure of markets to business and ringing of a special bell to announce the death of the monarch are two major significant signs to show that a monarch has joined his ancestors and these are yet to be done.”

Boko Haram: Cameroon deports 2,000 Nigerians in fight against Boko Haram

Cameroon has deported more than 2,000 Nigerians who were living in the country illegally as part of new security measures intended to prevent suicide attacks by Boko Haram jihadists, according to reports last night.

Regional newspaper L’Oeil du Sahel reported that about 2,500 Nigerians had been “rounded up” in Kousseri, in the far north of Cameroon, and sent back to their country on Thursday.

The weekly posted a photo on its Facebook page showing several departing trucks crammed with hundreds of passengers.

A source close to regional authorities confirmed that “more than 2,000 ‘irregular’ Nigerians have been expelled from Kousseri”.

Mey Aly, an official from a local NGO, said that most of the Nigerians “had fled the atrocities of Boko Haram” to take refuge in Cameroon.

Thursday’s deportations came just a day after President Muhammadu Buhari visited Cameroon for talks on how to combat the escalating regional threat from Boko Haram.

Buhari and Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya pledged to strengthen cooperation between their two countries in the fight against the insurgents.

The Cameroonian border post at Kousseri — which has been hit by two suicide attacks since June — occupies a strategic position, with just a bridge separating it from Chad’s capital N’Djamena.

Authorities in Cameroon’s far north have taken significant steps to boost security, including banning women from wearing the full face-veil amid fears that suicide bombers could use the garment to conceal explosives.

“With these attacks, the tone of the authorities has changed,” said a security source in Maroua. “They have asked that foreigners (notably Nigerians) and displaced people in the border areas go home.”

Some 300 Cameroonian children were removed from their Koranic schools in Maroua and taken back to their villages on Friday, according to a source close to local authorities, as the schools’ managers feared that insurgents could try to use them for suicide attacks.

Produce Daura’s membership card or keep quiet, APC tells PDP

• PDP releases evidence

The All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday insisted that the Director-General of the Department of State Service (DSS), Mr. Lawal Daura, was not a card-carrying member of the party. It said nothing short of producing Daura’s membership card or evidence of his membership registration would convince discerning Nigerians that he was indeed a member of the APC as alleged by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The APC in a statement issued in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said: “While it amounts to rabblerousing and crass politicking for the PDP to have wrongly accused Daura of being a member of the APC without a scintilla of credible evidence, the PDP has weakened its argument by using the pictures in which Daura appeared with the President and the fact that he served in an election committee as evidence of his membership of the APC.

“Possession of an APC membership card by Mr. Daura or evidence of registration as a party member at his ward, local government or state will be the only conclusive evidence of his membership of the party.” The party noted that: “Until such an evidence is produced, we are sorry we have to tell the PDP to shut up!” The party said the PDP was jittery because it was aware of the kind of impunity perpetrated under the Federal Government it sired from 1999 to 2015. According to APC, “PDP has forgotten the saying that he who must come to equity must come with clean hands.

When Mr. Mike Okiro chaired the security committee of the PDP campaign in 2011, did that prevent him from being appointed the Chair of the Police Service Commission, which is responsible for issues concerning the welfare, promotion and discipline of all police personnel, in 2013? “When the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr. Mike Omeri, was appointed into the Jonathan election committee in 2015, did he resign his appointment as head of the agency or did he automatically become a card-carrying member of the PDP? “Did retired Col. Kayode Are not become the DG of the DSS despite being a close confidante of Gen. (Olusegun) Obasanjo during his electioneering to become President? Was this not under a PDP Federal Government? “In any case, even in the world’s most advanced democracy, United States, was a card-carrying Democrat, Mr. Leon Panetta, not named as head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by President Barack Obama in 2009? Here in Nigeria, the APC-led FG has not even gone that far, and the PDP is blabbing.”

But in a swift reaction, the PDP in a post by online portal, titled: “The Limit of Lies and Deceit…’Lai Mohammed When Will The Lies End?” said it had published three documents: two photographs and a register of APC Presidential Campaign Security Directorate with Daura on number eight on the list. One of the images released showed members of the security directorate in a group photograph with its then President Muhammadu Buhari during a campaign The DSS DG is also shown in the group photograph with Buhari and others.

Three sisters die as fire destroys three vehicles, eight shops in Lagos

Tragedy struck yesterday in Lagos when a fire outbreak gutted a house in Oke Afa area in Ejigbo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), killing three sisters and destroying properties worth millions of naira. Three vehicles, eight shops and some houses were also completely burnt in the inferno.

Although the cause of the fire could not be immediately ascertained, three sisters of ages seven, five and two who slept in one of the razed shops were said to be burnt beyond recognition. It was also gathered that there was an outbreak of fire at Travel Day Inn at Toyin Street, Ikeja, while no fewer than five shops and parts of Divine International Hotel at Owode Ajegunle were also razed by fire overnight.

Confirming the incidences, the state Director of Fire Service, Mr. Rasak Fadipe, said the incident occurred overnight when many residents were asleep. According to him, the children’s mother was not in the shop where the children died. “We were told that their father doesn’t live with them and their mum was not with the kids when the fire razed the shops and consumed the kids,” he said.

Also speaking, the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Alhaji Sanni Sidi, appealed to Nigerians to be safety conscious and take utmost precautionary measures against action that can cause fire outbreak. Sidi, who spoke through the agency’s South-West spokesperson, Ibrahim Farinloye, said some of the disasters recorded lately were preventable if only people could take safety precaution. Speaking on the incident, the vice-president of the Estate, Mr. Adedeji Gbadamosi, lamented the impact of the fire incident.

Also, the General Manager of the state Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Mr. Micheal Akindele, who inspected the incident scene, alleged that the fire outbreak was caused by a vehicle loaded with petroleum products which collided with a stationary bus. Meanwhile, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode yesterday commiserated with the family of the three children who lost their lives when fire gutted a section of some lock-up shops at Rainbow Avenue, Jakande Estate, Isolo area of the state. Three children, Christiana 12, Feranmi 8 and Pelumi 6 of the same parent lost their lives in the fire incident which occurred overnight.

Expressing deep regrets over the unfortunate incident, Ambode, who sent a delegation led by the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Deputy Governor, Michael Ola-Dawodu, said the loss of any life is always painful, how much more losing three kids to a preventable fire incident. He said: “It is indeed an unfortunate incident and words cannot really express our sadness as a government over the loss of three innocent lives, who have become victims of an incident they know nothing about. It is indeed a pathetic situation and we can only express our condolence and commiserate with the bereaved family over this incident.”

Chelsea must be more unpredictable, says Mourinho

Chelsea must add a new dimension to their brand of football if the champions are to mount a strong defence of the Premier League title they won in some comfort last season, said manager Jose Mourinho.

The Stamford Bridge club finished eight points clear of second-placed Manchester City in May but Mourinho said his players had to continue to evolve and could not afford to simply stand still.

“We are trying to add new qualities to our game to improve what we did in the past,” the Portuguese told reporters during Chelsea’s pre-season tour of the United States.

“We are trying to be a little more unpredictable because opponents know us well and we want to go to the season with high motivation.

“The title cannot give us bad things, it can only give us good things. The good things are confidence and motivation for more,” said Mourinho. Chelsea played a free-flowing style in the first half of last season but when injuries, suspensions and loss of form kicked in after Christmas they started to adopt a more cautious, pragmatic approach in order to grind out results.

Mourinho’s men have been big spenders in the past but they have been almost frugal with their close-season expenditure compared to Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool and Mourinho said it would be a “great challenge” to try and retain the title.

While City, United and Liverpool have splashed out vast sums of money to strengthen their resources, the Londoners have merely tinkered with their squad, reports Reuters.

Club favourites Petr Cech and Didier Drogba have moved on to pastures new and been replaced by former Stoke City goalkeeper Asmir Begovic and Monaco striker Radamel Falcao who had an indifferent spell on loan at United last season.

“I have only one objective and that is to win the next game,” said Mourinho. “I have no other objective apart from trying to improve and improve and improve.

“It’s a great challenge to improve our team basically without new players, apart from Begovic and Falcao. I’m more than happy with that and the players are receiving this challenge with open arms.

“Every day we work really hard to try to improve and I see great motivation in the players. They are happy because we are the same group…because myself and the club have shown loyalty to them,” added Mourinho.

“We’ve said, ‘You are the champions, you made us champions, we trust you. Even if the other clubs have made huge investment we stick with you, we believe in you’.”

Chelsea, who have won the Premier League four times in 11 seasons, meet Cech’s new team Arsenal in Sunday’s Community Shield, the traditional curtain-raiser to the new campaign.

Mourinho’s men then kick off their league fixtures with a home game against Swansea City on August 8.

New Taliban leader calls for unity

The new leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, has called for unity in an audio message, saying that the group will continue fighting. Mullah Mansour was named as the new leader on Thursday, after the death of former head Mullah Omar was confirmed. But a Taliban spokesman told the BBC he had not been appointed “by all Taliban”, going against Sharia law.

The audio message said fighters should unite as “division in our ranks will only please our enemies”. It also said that the Taliban would “continue our jihad until we bring an Islamic rule in the country”. The 30-minute recording – in which a crying baby is heard at some points – was released to journalists by Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid on Saturday.

Some Taliban figures have accused pro-Pakistani circles of imposing Mullah Mansour, who is known for his support for peace talks, on them. But in the audio message, Mullah Mansour dismissed peace talks as “propaganda campaigns by the enemy”. At least one Taliban faction would have preferred Mullah Omar to be succeeded by his son. Another Taliban spokesman, Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, said those who elected Mullah Mansour had not followed the rules, reports the BBC.

“According to Islamic rule and principles, when a leader dies, a Shura (council) is called, then its leader is appointed,” he added.

Pedro’s likely to join United, says ex-club president

The President of Pedro Rodriguez’s first club claims the Barcelona forward’s mother “told me he was leaving for England”, likely with Manchester United. The Red Devils are being heavily tipped to sign the 27-year-old as a direct replacement for ex-Real Madrid star Angel Di Maria, who is closing in on a move to Paris Saint-Germain. “The other day, Pedro’s mother told me he was leaving for England,” Raqui San Isidro patron Jaime Lorenzo told ‘El Larguero’.