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A cleric, Apostle Eugene Ogu, has flayed the recent appointment of Chief Tony Anenih as the Chairman, Board of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), and described it as an insult to young intellectuals across the country. Ogu, who is the founder of...
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She kicks against the resort to military actions to douse the spate of bombings, killing and maiming of innocent souls and destruction of property by suspected Boko Haram sect and other forms of insurgency in the country, saying the action is expensive...
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Super Eagles right full back, Chibuzor Okonkwo is positive his side will have a good game against the Catalonian selected side in Wednesday’s friendly in Spain. Okonkwo missed the friendly tie no thanks to non-possession of valid Shengen Visa. Th...
Victor Obinna Nsofor has explained that moving to Eastern Europe may have hurt his chance of making Nigeria’s Afcon provisional squad. The Nigerian striker joined Russian Premier League club, Lokomotiv Moscow from Inter Milan in June 2011 but now...
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Nigerian Ambassador to Spain, Amb Bainca Olivia Odimegwu Ojukwu has charged the Super Eagles of Nigeria to go all out for victory against Catalonia in today friendly match. Coach Stephen Keshi led squad is using the game to fine-tune their preparation ...
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has denied a report claiming that 15 worshipers were killed in an outskirt town of Chibok Local Government Areal of Borno State on Sunday. The agency, through it spokesperson, Yushau A. Shuaib, said thoug...
Musa Amadu, the General Secretary of the Nigeria Football Association said the inability of the Super Falcons to defend the African Women Championship (AWC) was a major regret of 2012.
Amadu made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
He described the team’s poor performance at the championship hosted by Equatorial Guinea as an embarrassment to the FA.
He said the entire team would be overhauled soon following the ``disgrace it brought to the country's football''.
``A rebuilding process has begun. We are going to overhaul the team and we are going to overhaul the technical crew.
``By the first quarter of 2013, we will see the result of the rebuilding process. ``This will enable us put together a good team and expose them to friendly matches before the qualifiers for the Women World Cup in Canada in 2015 begins in earnest,” Amadu said.
The NFA scribe said that the inability of the FA to unite the football family was also part of their regrets for the out gone year.
``I would want to say that we have not been able to really unite the football family. The process has begun and it has not been completed.
``We still have some groups that are still not moving in the same direction with the FA as far as football development is concerned in Nigeria.
``I will be praying that in the year 2013 onwards, the football family becomes stronger, so that we can have the same objective in this project which is to move Nigeria football forward.”
NAN recalls that Anyim Pius Anyim, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Sports Minister, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, had in 2012 brokered peace on the crisis marring Nigerian football.
Some of the parties involved in the crisis, including the National Association of Nigeria Footballers (NANF), were persuaded to withdraw the court cases.
NAN also recalls that various committees had been set up in the past to make peace in the country's football. One of such committees’ was the Gen. Dominic Oneya’s nine-man committee.
The committee was set up by the former Sports Minister, Yusuf Suleiman, in August 2011, to seek pragmatic ways of solving the incessant recurrence of crisis in Nigeria’s football.
A New Year's Eve fireworks display in Ivory Coast turned from celebration to tragedy early Tuesday when 60 people - most of them women and children - were crushed to death in a stampede, officials said.
Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said another 40 people were injured, two of them seriously.
Earlier, state media reports suggested that between 100 and 200 people had been hurt in the incident in Abidjan, the country's largest city and former capital.
The 60 dead included 26 children, 28 women and six men, said Minister of Youth Alain Lobognon, via his official Twitter feed, after visiting the hospital morgue where the bodies were taken.
The official AIP news agency earlier said the victims were all children, ranging in age from eight to 15.
Bakayoko said the tragedy happened as hundreds of people were trying to go back home after the fireworks display ended in Plateau, the city's central business district.
The crush was near a stadium, Bakayoko said, adding that the proper security measures were in place during the fireworks show.
It's still not clear exactly what triggered the stampede at about 1 a.m.
Many of the victims were trampled on or suffocated by the surging crowd, a senior fire official said on national television.
Rescue workers were at the scene two hours later but could not save the victims, the AIP news agency said.
A police official in Abidjan told CNN that most of the victims were young people who wanted to join in the celebration while their elders stayed at home.
The stampede occurred in an area of narrow streets, according to the official, who did not want to be named as he is not authorized to talk to the media.
He said the parents of those involved are at the hospitals and are being assisted by state authorities.
Before the night's events took a deadly turn, AIP reported that thousands of people had poured into the streets to join the celebration, seen by some as symbolizing the nation's return to peace.
Nearly 5,000 extra personnel were deployed to ensure people's security, the news agency said, most of them in the Plateau area.
Ivory Coast suffered months of violence following disputed presidential elections in November 2010. Laurent Gbagbo, then the incumbent president, refused to step down after Alassane Ouattara was declared the winner.
Gbagbo was arrested five months later and is now awaiting trial at The Hague, in the Netherlands, accused of crimes against humanity for the civil unrest and deaths.
The International Criminal Court also wants Ivory Coast to hand over his wife, Simone Gbagbo, to face allegations of crimes against humanity.
The West African nation is home to around 22 million people, according to the CIA World Factbook.
- CNN