Author: Chief Editor

Liverpool will fight “for everything” this season but manager Jurgen Klopp expects it to be a really tough battle between several clubs as his side bids to regain the Premier League title that Manchester City reclaimed last term. Whilst new signings, unlike their main rivals, have been kept to a minimum — France Under-21 defender Ibrahima Konate was announced back in May from Bundesliga side RB Leipzig — Liverpool have focussed on getting key players to sign new contracts. Goalkeeper Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander Arnold, Fabinho and notably, on Friday, Virgil van Dijk all agreed to new deals. Klopp says…

Former Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos is expected to make his debut for new club Paris Saint-German in September when he has fully recovered from a calf injury, the Ligue 1 giants said on Friday. The Spanish defender is only likely to take the field “after the international break”, probably for the home game against Clermont on September 11. Ramos, 35, signed a two-year contract with PSG earlier this month after a storied career with Real Madrid where he won the Champions League four times. He is also a World Cup winner and a two-time champion of Europe with Spain.…

Virgil van Dijk gave a timely boost to Liverpool on the eve of their first Premier League match of the season with newly-promoted Norwich City by signing a new long-term contract, the club announced on Friday. The 30-year-old Dutch international central defender’s new deal is reported to tie him to the club till 2025. Van Dijk’s absence due to a knee injury suffered in the Merseyside Derby with Everton last October cost Liverpool dear in their defence of the title last season and also saw him miss Euro 2020. “Virgil van Dijk has today signed a new long-term contract with…

• No generalised lockdown for now, govt insists • Nigeria records highest daily tally since February • Lagos reactivates COVID-19 oxygen treatment, sample collection centres • Doctors strike: FG insists on no-work, no-pay policy • Dependence on imported vaccines is playing with nation’s health, says GMLD • Urges government to resuscitate vaccine centre in Yaba Amid rising cases of COVID-19 infections across the country, the Federal Government, yesterday, said it was not considering a fresh lockdown. Speaking at the weekly ministerial briefing organised at the State House in Abuja, Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said the number of cases…

As part of efforts to mitigate the effect of the third wave of COVID-19 infection in Lagos State, the state government has activated 10 COVID-19 Oxygen Treatment and Sample Collection Centres. The state Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, in a statement on Thursday, disclosed this while reviewing reports of operations at the centres. He said that 20 local government areas based COVID-19 Sample Collection Sites were also reactivated. Abayomi said that the centres, which were established during the first and second waves of the pandemic, had been rejigged to provide swift oxygen therapy to residents who require it. He…

The federal government on Thursday took delivery of 177,600 doses of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine procured through the African Union collaborative venture with the Afreximbank. Speaking while receiving the first batch of the vaccine from the AU brokered facility meant for Nigeria, the Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr. Faisal Shuaib, said that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine will be strategically deployed to cover areas that have difficult terrains and where health officials will only need to visit once to administer the one dose vaccine. He said that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine…

“Over the last 16 days, you amazed us with your sporting achievements. With your excellence, with your joy, with your tears, you created the magic of these Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. You were faster, you went higher, you were stronger, because we all stood together – in solidarity. You were competing fiercely with each other for Olympic glory. At the same time, you were living peacefully together under one roof in the Olympic Village. This is a powerful message of solidarity and peace” –International Olympic Committee President, Thomas Bach, during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on…

“If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe. But, as today’s report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses.” – UN Secretary General António Guterres, Monday, August 9, 2021. On October 6, 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, popularly known with its acronym IPCC, issued a special report titled, “Global Warming of 1.5 °C”. Essentially, the report analysed the impacts of a 1.5°Celsius increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels, and detailed what should be done to limit global warming to 1.5°Celsius. The IPCC is the United Nations body for…

Abimbola Adelakun Recently, a video crediting congregants’ bank accounts with money in churches in Nigeria and the USA surfaced on social media. In the video, Apostle Johnson Suleman of Omega Fire Ministries prophetically declared that angels would deposit money in the bank accounts of those present and the viewers at home. Shortly after, several congregants claimed they had received credit alerts and exultantly rejoiced to the pulpit, where they shared their testimonies. In a bizarre turn of events, one of those who questioned the veracity of the “miracle money” video, Israel Balogun of the Wholeness Africa Initiatives, was invited by…

Sometime last week, I was in a conversation with a group of older friends, people who grew up during some of Nigeria’s most glorious days. The gist mainly was around the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.)’s legacy when he hands over in about 21 months. For many people, 21 months looks like a very long time, an eternity pregnant with possibilities. But that is not necessarily so with politics and governance, especially in a country like Nigeria, where politics and government patronage are the most thriving means of livelihood. This column raised the same point in a piece title:…