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Entertainment

'Bring U-17 World Cup as end-of-year gift' Buhari urges Golden Eaglets

Muhammadu Buhari has extended his warm wishes to Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets as they prepare for a victorious outing at the 2015 U-17 FIFA World Cup Tournament in Chile. 
As the tournament opens tomorrow, President Buhari urges the Golden Eaglets to do their utmost best to match the outstanding performance of their victorious predecessors who have won the competition four times including the inaugural edition in 1985 and the last tournament in 2013.
The President assures the Golden Eaglets and their handlers of the full support of the Federal Government and all Nigerians as they strive to bring more sporting glory to their fatherland by outplaying all their opponents in Chile and winning the Under-17 World Cup for a record fifth time.
President Buhari will follow the team’s progress through the tournament in Chile with keen interest and high expectation in the belief that the boys have the skills, dedication and determination required to make Nigeria world champions at the youth level once again.
He calls on the players to stay focused, avoid all distractions and put their globally acknowledged skills, ability and doggedness on display against the USA tomorrow, Chile on October 20, Croatia on October 23 and in all their subsequent matches to win the tournament and give millions of soccer-loving Nigerians the perfect end-of-the-year gift.

Garba Shehu

SSA to the President‎
(Media & Publicity)
October 16, 2015

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Entertainment

Lol! See how Messi, Ronaldo, Ibrahimovic, others will look like as managers.

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‎The team at Top Eleven: a  ‎football online management game has given us a glimpse of how some of our favourite soccer stars will look like when they hang their boots and opt for coaching roles. Featured are Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Francesco Totti, Sergio Ramos and Thierry Henry.  

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My best look is that of Cristiano Ronaldo. 

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Entertainment

Nike launches two new unique boots to commemorate Cristiano Ronaldo's new feat

In honour of Cristiano Ronaldo becoming the leading scorer in the history of Real Madrid, surpassing 500 career goals, foremost sportswear company, Nike has launched two new unique pairs of boots. 

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The first pair of boots is called Mercurial Superfly 324K Gold while the second is the‎ Mercurial Superfly CR7 Quinhentos (500).

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The boots  will be launched in March 2016. Prior to the game against Malmo in the Champions League, the Portuguese had, 499 career goals, he scored two goals that now have him at the topping the list of the leading scorers for the club. 

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Entertainment, Health

Babcock University Performs First Surgery

Babcock University Teaching Hospital, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria has performed its first heart surgery. The surgery which was a milk valve replacement lasted 6 hours and was performed on a 34-year-old woman.
The team of cardio thoracic surgeons who achieved the feat include;‎ Professor Kamar Adeleke, Dr. Michael Sanusi, Dr. Mudashiru Lawal and Dr. Edward Anderson.

The Senior Vice President of the university, Professor Iheanyichukwu Okoro said, “What is going on now at the Tristate Heart and Vascular Centre of the University is not the last of such operations until all afflicted hearts are rid of that which prevents their effective functioning.”



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Entertainment

Why Buhari Should Create a Ministry of Football | By: Jide Alaka

The list of ministers has been sent to the Senate and the screening is ongoing, and all things been equal, the supervising ministers of the various ministries will be known next week.
One ministry that is very important to millions of sports-loving Nigerians is the Sports ministry and this piece is to ask President Muhammadu Buhari to effect a change of nomenclature.
In societies where there is a cogent understanding of development and where these are correctly recognised and sanctioned, the strong develops the weak. But the opposite is the case for Nigeria, as it is in almost all areas – here we do the converse; the strong feed on the poor!
Sorry for all the rigmarole, the matter is that football in Nigeria is the king and Queen of sports and unfortunately the other sports are not even the subjects, they are the labourers.
In the 2015 fiscal year, the Federal Government budgeted N6.65billion for sports but the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), which is supposed to be a tributary of the National Sports Commission (NSC) got a direct subvention of N1.24billion [18.7 per cent of total] and the Nigeria Institute for Sports (NIS) got N475.5million [7.1per cent].
For those who do not know, the NIS is supposed to be the think-tank for sports policies in the land.
Now, football is just one of the 26 recognised sporting activities the NSC administers. Yet it takes approximately 74.2 per cent of the funds allocated to the sport ministry. In essence, the 25 sports individually have 3.13 per cent to use to develop and administer their genres for the whole year.
That is N214,795,000 – approximately $976,340 and some of these federations have to employ foreign technical advisers or coaches just like the Basketball federation did on their way to winning the Afrobasket Championship for the first time in August!
The NSC and other sports The other sports in the NSC’s stable include: Athletics, Badminton, Scrabble, Basketball, Boxing, Judo, Chess, Wheel-Chair Basketball, Cricket, Wheel-Chair Tennis, Cycling, Darts, Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Football, Tennis, Golf, Gymnastics, Weightlifting, Handball, Wrestling, Karate, Volleyball, Kung-Fu and Squash Racket.
We also have Para-Swimming, Amputee Football, Para-Soccer, Para-Athletics, Para-Table Tennis, Para-Powerlifting, Shooting, Sitting Volleyball, Deaf Sports, Fives, Traditional Sports, Rowing, Rugby and Kick-Boxing.
The functions of the National Sports Commission (NSC), amongst many others, are:
– To promote, in cooperation with other sports bodies or sports groups, the physical fitness and general well being of all persons in Nigeria.
-To organize, or assist financially, or otherwise, the participation in sports at inter-state, national and international levels.
That is the supposed to be the itinerary of the supreme sports body in the land although the budgeting and the size of the slice of the pie shows the sport that really reigns supreme.
And to buttress the fact that not all fingers are equal, a valid question was raised during the Afrobasket tournament when the players were said to have been given $4000 in total for the Afrobasket. And at the just concluded All Africa Games, athletes were paid about $100 as daily camp allowance while the Super Eagles collect $10,000 for a win and as much as $5,000 for playing in a friendly game.
Comparing that amount with what other athletes from other sports cadres haul in, then you begin to understand the disparity that currently exists between football and the other sports.
NFF
For a long time, it has been debated whether the football house should stand on its own but no lucid conclusion has been given for the arguments for and against.
The recent hefty N1.24billion earned by the NFF subvention is just a part of the monies earned by the Federation. It is fed by FIFA for every tournament in which it takes part.
Most of the travel expenses for the teams is borne by FIFA. Also, football is the only sports in Nigeria that has corporate sponsors, being backed by Globacom, Nike, Brila FM, Guinness, Emzor, Super Sport, IGI, Malta Guinness and Peak Milk.
The total sum that accrues to the football house could not be officially ascertained as at the time of this publication. The local league, the Nigeria Professional Football League, is also sponsored by Globacom – and apart from the male and female basketball leagues that have sponsors, most of the other sports enjoy no corporate backing.
So as President Muhammadu Buhari seeks to name ministers, we are asking that the erstwhile Ministry of Sports should be renamed Ministry of Football and Other Sports. That way, there will be no misconceptions on where the bulk of the money for sports goes.
Credit: Premiumtimesng.com‎
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Entertainment

Short Story: Grandma Grace | By: Tolu Ogunlesi

I count the wooden steps. I am wondering how many years each one represents. How much is each one worth. What is the unit of memory?
 ‎They take me to when she wore bungalow skirts and skyscraper clogs, and shoved four naughty mice to bed.
I step through. Through the doorway. Through a time capsule. I add fingerprints to the soot that wallpapers the dimly lit room smelling of old age. I add my fingerprints to join the legacy of the ancients. Do I need to seek permission. No. It is a duty. My duty. My sons will one day find space on this walls to squeeze in their own.
 Then the windows.
 The windows catch my attention. Countless. Dusty. Full of oldness, like a tree that has borne its fruits for ages, striving to keep them from rotting, still hoping the gardener will soon wake up from his grave somewhere ‘neath its roots.
 The windows open out on still, black-and-white scenery, frozen in time like a carving knife in a steaming turkey’s breast. Looking through them, nothing moves. Except a spider or two, going about his lawful duties. The world in the windows is under the spell of the Witch. (They were probably next on her list after Sleeping Beauty’s christening.) And only fifty years have yet passed.
 It seems the Witch has changed her modus operandi. She puts you to a waking sleep these days. For the folks behind those windows have their eyes wide open and their smiles peek behind black-and-white curtains of teeth.
 
Everything is black-and-white.
 Their smiles. Clothes. Dreams. Trees. Morals. Conscience. Everything.
There’s grandma’s wedding. Every old woman was once a young sparkling maiden whose grace and ways defied philosophy. Young men just fell in love without knowing why, without even knowing what was happening. The Spell of a Maiden.
 
Oh dear. Gladys will one day become an old drooping hag. Will she still make my heart beat fast. Will her eyes still stir storms in me…
 
Grandma never throws anything away. Never.
 
Tins, bottles, church pamphlets, funeral programmes of childhood friends, memories.
 
            Even babies.
 
She never lost a child. Which is remarkable if you consider that back then you planned for maybe ten kids, so you could be sure of at least four remaining by the time measles n polio n the Depression n stuff like that creamed off their choices. But she kept all.
 
There she comes. Peering from behind her oversized coca-cola bottom spectacles. She would love to do without them, I’m certain. Her great-grandmother “lived to be 120 without her sight waning”. But then, that isn’t odd considering the fact that her great-grandmother probably was Moses’ classmate at Pyramid University. He must have shared some secrets with her.
 
I prostrate. She picks me up, examines me like a puppy who strayed for a few hours and then sauntered home almost dead of hunger. I am almost twice her height. Yet she doesn’t hesitate before examining me. I almost get the feeling she’s looking for a wound I’m trying to hide. For goodness sake Ma’m, I am twenty one!
 
I am now a controversial civil servant facing parliamentary quizzing. A one-man, sorry, one-woman quizzing.
 
I hear grandpa bellow from his bunker. He’s been holed up there for like two years now, since not long after his eightieth birthday. Now he’s eighty two.
 
His voice is unusually strong. And urgent. He is calling his wife. Two minutes later I have to interrupt her and remind her he’s still calling. She pauses for a while – I’m sure it’s to remember where she stopped –
 
Don’t mind him, she says, finally.He’s been misbehaving lately. Disturbs the hell out of me so I can get out of the house and leave him alone. The devil.
 
Doesn’t make much sense, I think to myself. Can I see him, I plead. Reluctantly  she agrees. We wade into a room carpeted with old newspapers and curtained with the billowing smell and swell of urine. There he is, looking like a cloth dangling from a bone- hangar. His penis is ensconced in a plastic urine bag – It dawns on me – that’s where I came from. My origin. I bow and pay homage.
 
He doesn’t recognize me. Probably thinks I’m the new physiotherapist, or his wife’s new lover. She’s abandoned him for fresh blood. He’ll get her in his will. It’s in a cupboard somewhere, if the rats haven’t been there.
 
He wants to know today’s date. I roll my eyes around in my head as I try to retrieve the date.
 
Don’t tell him, she orders. What does he want to do with it. Let him check the newspaper he’s been reading all morning.
 
Silver and gold have I none, I think. But what I have – the date – gladly give I unto you, Papa… But she has dragged me out of the room.
I’m suddenly curious. I want to ask her if it’s true the manuscript of her funeral programme is ready, lying in one of those dust-soaked vaults (that reduce the capacity of the house by half), just awaiting publishing. Is it true she’s chosen her shroud – the aso oke she wore for her twenty first birthday.
 
            She’s not like my other granny. If you buried Mama Ibadan in anything other than the latest waxprint or lace, she’d resurrect “instanta” and punish you by being around for another half dozen years. And then, you’d be stuck with changing her wardrobe every three months.
 
Grandpa bellows again. His wife doesn’t hear him. She’s busy telling me of the four funerals she has to attend this weekend. And, yes, she remembers to tell me to steer clear of cults, and to beware of girls, whose tongues are “honeycombs that lead down to Sheol”, and whose laps are “cradles of sulphur and brimstone”.
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Tolu Ogunlesi is an award-winning freelance journalist/writer and editor. He contributes to a number of major publications‎ such as PUNCH, Naij.com, The Africa Report 
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Entertainment

Mourinho brands FA fine 'a disgrace', takes a dig at Wenger

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is obsessed with his archival, Arsene Wenger. He (more recently) never misses an opportunity to throw shades at the french man.
The Portuguese coach has branded his recent fine and one-match stadium ban by Football Association (FA) fine a “disgrace” after being ordered to pay £50,000. He was handed the hefty punishment yesterday after he claimed officials were afraid to award his team penalties after referee Robert Madley denied Chelsea a penalty during their 3-1 loss to Southampton.
The 52-year-old said that it could  have only been worse if he was made to wear an electronic tag.

“I’m happy I don’t have an electronic tag. £50,000 is a disgrace. The possibility of getting a stadium ban is astonishing.”

“Afraid costs £50,000. Weak and naive – you can do it,” He added, taking a dig at the Arsenal coach who was unpunished for calling Mike Dean “weak” and “naive” following Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat by Chelsea last month. “We can push people in the technical area. We can, no problem.” He chipped in.

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Entertainment

Raúl announces his retirement from football.

Spanish legend, Raúl has announced that he will hang his boots at the end of the North American Soccer League (NASL) season in November. He admitted that the decision was a tough one. Below is a statement ‎published by the New York Cosmo.
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“When I signed for the New York Cosmos in December, I said I would evaluate how I felt towards the end of the year and assess whether I would continue to play. My decision is to retire from playing at the end of this season. I am fully focused on finishing the season strong and helping the New York Cosmos win the NASL Championship. In the coming months I will decide the next step in my career”.
The statement continued: “Playing soccer has been part of my life for so long and the decision to retire is not an easy one but I believe it is the right time. I’m thankful to everyone who has supported me throughout my career and I look forward to playing my final games with the New York Cosmos over the coming weeks”.
‎The 38 year-old ex Real Madrid star scored 323 goals in 741 appearances for Real Madrid and
44 Goals in 102 appearances for Spain.‎ He won 6 La Ligas and 3 UCL trophies.  
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