PaulNaija

Obafemi Martins | credits: File copy Seattle Sounders forward, Obafemi Martins, reportedly snubbed coach Sigi Schmid following his substitution with Marc Burch in the 82nd minute of their game against LA Galaxy which ended 1-1. Martins was visibly upset at being substituted and made a point of avoiding Schmid as he walked toward the bench. But while Schmid admitted players could be emotional during matches, he said he and Martins had settled the misunderstanding. “It’s an emotional game. Emotional players are emotional. That’s what you expect. Nobody is going to be happy when they come off the field,” Schmid told Seattle Times .

Ethiopia has confirmed a definite date for the first leg match against Nigeria in the final playoff leading to Brazil 2014 World Cup. The first leg of the World Cup qualifying clash will take place on Sunday, October 13 in Addis Ababa, their football association officials have confirmed. All ties will take place between October 11 and October 15 and the Ethiopia Football Federation has only now confirmed which day the match will be staged. “We have played our home games on Sundays and the match against Nigeria will not be an exception,” commented EFF general secretary Yigsaw Bezuayehu. The return match will be held on Saturday, November 16 at the U.J. Esuene Stadium in Calabar. The Nigerian federation has also retained Saturday as match day for the Super Eagles and Calabar as the venue for all the qualifying games.

Mike Ozekhome There were indications on Wednesday that a major financier of a  kidnapping ring in Edo and other surrounding states, Kelvin Oburuvbe might have been arrested by men of the Department of State Security. It was reliably gathered that the kidnap kingpin was picked up in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, by operatives of DSS and is currently being interrogated. There were however conflicting reports that the arrested kidnapper might be the one who recently issued a 60-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to declare amnesty for him and his gang, otherwise his group would blow up oil installations in Urobo speaking areas of the country. It was further gathered that Oburuvbe was instrumental to the recent abduction of human rights lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, his driver and a leader of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Athansius Ugbome on Saturday, August 24, 2013. Ozekhome and Ugbome were released about one week apart after over two weeks in the kidnappe

File photo of a street in Benisheik, the Borno State community where Boko Haram killed scores of people on September 17. A video believed to have been released by the wanted leader of  the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, also known as Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, surfaced in Maiduguri on Wednesday. In it, a man claiming to be Shekau, debunked earlier claims by the Nigerian military that he died from gunshot wounds on August 19, 2013. The  then JTF spokesman in Borno State,   Lt Col Sagir Musa, had in a statement said, “Intelligence report available to the JTF  Operation Restore Order revealed that  Shekau, the most dreaded and wanted terrorists’ leader may have died. “He died of gunshots wounds received in an encounter with the JTF in one of their camps in Sambisa Forest on  June 30 , 2013. Shekau was mortally wounded in the encounter and was sneaked into Amitchide-a border community in Cameroon for treatment from which he never recovered.”

Barely a week after a similar clash at the House of Representatives, supporters of the main Peoples Democratic Party and those of the Kawu Baraje-led faction of the party clashed again at the Senate on Wednesday. A timely intervention by Senate President, David Mark however saved a crisis situation on the floor of the senate when members were making their contributions on a motion on the demise of late former Ondo State governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu. Trouble started when a former governor of Gombe State, Danjuma Goje, representing Gombe Central Senatorial district, while extolling Agagu’s virtues, described himself as a member of the New PDP with Alhaji Kawu Baraje as the National Chairman.

President Goodluck Jonathan and ASUU Chairman, Dr. Isa Faggae | credits: File copy Nigerian universities have been buffeted with agonising months of strikes for over a decade and until now, the story is pretty much the same. Government is still unwilling to give the education sector a shot in the arm. The Academic Staff Union of Universities has been on strike since June 30 and has engaged in a series of dialogue with the Federal Government over 11 times, albeit, inconclusively. This underscores the lukewarm posture of government towards the striking lecturers and from ASUU’s body language and utterances, it has made it abundantly clear to anyone who cares to listen that it is ready to continue the strike even if it takes years, insisting that its decision was adequately taken in a bid to revitalise Nigerian universities.