Author: Chief Editor

By Omoshola Deji One of the primary responsibilities of government is to provide – or regulate the provision of – efficient service to the populace. Successive Nigerian government has failed in this regard. It has become a convention to get inefficient service, despite paying high. Both private and public institutions are culpable, but the latter errs more. Public officials are more of exploiters than service providers. The uniformed ones are worse. You are bound to pay extra before being attended to. Such is the case of the Nigerian Immigration Service. This piece brings you a firsthand account of the…

Tottenham Hotspur ended Manchester City’s European ambitions last season and they will be looking to dent Pep Guardiola’s side’s hopes of winning a third successive Premier League title when they meet at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday. A rare setback in a nearly impeccable season from City came in April with a dramatic exit to Spurs in the Champions League quarter-final. City won the second-leg 4-3 but went out on away goals after a late goal from Raheem Sterling, which would have sent City through, was dramatically ruled out for offside following a VAR video review. Just three days later…

Jurgen Klopp hailed “incredible” UEFA Super Cup hero Adrian and then admitted he had no idea where the goalkeeper even was a fortnight ago. The Spaniard, only in the side because of an injury to number one goalkeeper Allison Becker, saved Tammy Abraham’s penalty to give Liverpool a 5-4 shootout win against Chelsea after the showdown between Champions League and Europa League winners had finished 2-2 in Istanbul on Wednesday. The 32-year-old former Betis shot-stopper joined Liverpool on a free transfer to replace the departed Simon Mignolet on August 5, the day after Klopp’s team lost on penalties to Manchester…

Imo State governor, Emeka Ihedioha has appointed former footballer Kanu Nwankwo as his Senior Special Assistant on Sports. The former Arsenal player has will help the Ihedioha administration on rebuilding the sports sector in Imo State. “The governor, Emeka Ihedioha, received one of the country’s football legends, Kanu Nwankwo, at the Government House, Owerri,  on August 14, 2019,” a statement from Izuchukwu Akwarandu, the governor’s aide on new media said. “Papilo, as fondly called by his fans, came to present his most recent CAF award, which was given to him at the just concluded Nations Cup in Egypt, to the sports-loving governor…

US and Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka returned to the world number one spot in the WTA rankings on Monday. The 21-year-old lost to Serena Williams in the quarter-finals of last week’s Rogers Cup but benefitted from the second round defeat of former number one Ashleigh Barty and the failure of Karolina Pliskova to reach the semis in Toronto. Osaka first hit top spot in January, after winning back-to-back majors in New York and Melbourne, making history as the first Japanese player to achieve it. After seven weeks on top, Barty slips to second with Pliskova in third. The only…

By Jerome-Mario Utomi There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away-Winston S Churchill (the hinge of fate). For most Nigerian youths today, there is just no way of analyzing the list of 43 ministerial nominees, by President Muhammadu Buhari, without arriving at these separate but similar thoughts. First, apart from the disproportionately skewed list screaming with evidence that youth’s political highway remains slippery, rough and riddled with potholes and hopelessness, the list eloquently laid bare an ingrain falsehood of Mr. President’s promise in 2015 that he will work with the…

Matthew Adeleye To Governor Nasir el-Rufai, zoning arrangements across the geopolitical zones should give way to allow for competence in governance. One may not really understand the governor’s definition of the word “incompetence”. This is because for a serving governor to attribute malfunctioning of government apparatus and underdevelopment to incompetence of leadership, is he in essence saying even himself as governor is not competent? Or, are all those in the positions of leadership in this country incompetent? Contrary to el-Rufai’s assertion however, it is certainly not zoning that produces incompetent leadership which currently constitutes the bane of our development. Instead,…

Tunde Odesola The wise say two wrongs don’t make a right. But three wrongs make a right in Nigeria. First wrong: lunatic soldiers shot dead an innocent civilian along with three well-trained Intelligence Response Team policemen on national duty in Taraba State while the military hierarchy dipped the memories of the murdered Taraba Four in a cauldron of excreta by justifying the killing with an insane logic and writing ‘kidnapper’ on the foreheads of each of the brutally slain men. Second wrong: hip-hop artist, Tekno, opened a new chapter in entertainment madness in Nigeria as he danced publicly with naked…

Henry Boyo The undeniably violent, heavily armed, and merciless extremist group, Boko Haram, which has systematically decimated tens of thousands of Nigerians within the last 10 years, clearly remains the present major security threat to the Nigerian government. Although other ethnic, regional or political associations such as IPOB, MASSOB, Afenifere and PANDEF have at various times openly decried perceived injustice and inequity in government policies, these pressure groups have, so far, never been known for such violence nor do they resort to self-help. Admittedly, the IPOB leadership, under Nnamdi Kanu, has been more openly confrontational and even demanded self-determination, with…

Rafael Nadal needed a set to get adjusted before unloading on Fabio Fognini for a 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory and a place in the ATP Montreal Masters semi-finals. Nadal, who won his fourth title in Canada a year ago, needed almost two hours on Friday to overcome the Italian veteran who shocked him on clay at Monte Carlo in April. “It was an up-and-down match, but a positive match for me because I played better and better as it went on,” Nadal said. “I lost the first set feeling that I was not playing badly. Things were just going too…