Obafemi Martins has admitted that he still dreams of pulling on the Nigerian jersey, but says it is up to the technical crew.
The striker, who has scored 10 times in 22 games for Seattle Sounders
in the American Major Soccer League, has only been invited twice to the
Super Eagles squad in three years.
“I’m here and I’m Nigerian, so we’ll see if I get picked. I have no control over it,” Martins told Fifa.com.
“Every coach has his favourites. All I can say is that I’m playing good football in Seattle and I’m happy doing it.
“If I’m in the Nigeria team, great, and if I’m not, I wish them all the best. I always want Nigeria to do well.
Martins, 30, also stated that Nigerian players are embraced in every
league in the world, because they are talented and passionate about
football.
“We don’t have the best domestic league system in Nigeria, but we do have some of the best players – too many talented players.
“Go to Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, wherever, and you’ll find
Nigerians playing there. They might not be the big stars, but they’re
out there showing what Nigerian football is all about.
“Nigerians love to play football and it’s not like here in the States
where there’s American football, baseball, basketball. All we have is
football in Nigeria. And we love it.”
MMartins has played 39 games for Nigeria and scored 18 goals.
Lagos recorded its second case of Ebola on Monday as a doctor who treated the Liberian victim, Patrick Sawyer is said to be down with the virus. Nigeria’s Health Minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu had disclosed.
Sawyer died in Lagos last month after arriving in Lagos via a plane from Liberia.
Ebola has killed 826 people in West Africa since the outbreak began in February, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
“As of today, one of the doctors that treated the late Mr Sawyer has tested positive to the Ebola virus,” Chukwu told a news conference.
He added that of the 70 people who were under surveillance, eight had been “quarantined at an isolation ward provided by the Lagos state government.”
Ebola is one of the world’s deadliest diseases, with a mortality rate of up to 90 percent of its cases.
The disease starts with headaches and fever, and final-stage symptoms include external and internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. There is no effective treatment and no vaccine to protect against it.
The outbreak began in the forests of remote eastern Guinea in February.
President Goodluck Jonathan on
Friday sacked the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Andrew Yakubu.
The President, in a statement by his
Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, named Dr.
Joseph Dawha as Yakubu’s replacement.
Abati
also announced the appointment of Mr. Anthony Ugonna Muoneke as the new
Managing Director of the Nigeria Petroleum Development Corporation.
Further shake-up in the NNPC as approved
by the President , according to the statement, saw Ms. Aisha Mata
Abdurrahman reassigned as the corporation’s Group Executive Director,
Commercial and Investment; while Dr. Attahiru B. Yusuf was named the
Group Executive Director, Business Development.
All the appointments take immediate effect.
The new GMD of the NNPC hails from Borno state.
He has served previously as the Group
Executive Director, Exploration and Production, NNPC and Managing
Director, Integrated Data Services Ltd, a subsidiary of the NNPC.
Muoneke, the new MD of the NPDC, hails from Anambra state.
Called to the Nigerian Bar in 1985, he
has over 29 years’ experience at both local and international levels in
the oil and gas as well as the energy and power sectors, including
serving as Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Niger Delta
Power Holding Company Limited.
Delegates at the National
Conference are planning not to sign the final report of the conference
unless they are given copies to read before they would append their
signatures on it.
Investigations by our correspondent in
Abuja on Wednesday showed that the delegates felt that they needed to
see the details of the reports.
Already,
some of the delegates were said to have agreed that this condition must
be met before they would append their signature to the conference’s
final report.
It was leant that the promoters of this
demand might have been influenced by some delegates who were not happy
with some of the decisions arrived at during the debates on the reports
of the 20 committees of the conference.
Some of the delegates were afraid that
some contentious issues that were not agreed on or not favourable to
them, could be inserted in the final report.
One of such decisions was the issue of
derivation, which spilt the delegates during the plenary, as those from
the northern part of the country said they would not support its
increment from 13 to 18 per cent.
The northern delegates were asking that
five per cent from the Federation Account be also set aside as National
Intervention Fund for the reconstruction of the northern part of the
country, which they said had been destroyed by the activities of
terrorists.
While the northern delegates insisted
that the fund must be enjoyed by the three zones in the region, which
are North-East, North-West and North-Central, the southern delegates
were of the opinion that the fund must be made available to all the
zones in the country.
They also said the administration of the
fund must start with the North-East, a proposal that was not favourably
disposed to by the southern delegates.
This division made the Chairman of the
conference, Justice Idris Kutigi, to announce on the day the plenary
closed, that the issue of derivation and the intervention fund would be
left for the Federal Government to determine.
“Conference therefore recommends that
government should set up a technical committee to determine appropriate
percentage for the three issues and advised government accordingly,”
Kutigi had said.
It was issues like this that made the
northern delegates to say that they would insist that the complete
report must be made available for them before they would agree to sign
it.
The spokesperson for the delegates, Dr.
Junaid Mohammed, who spoke with our correspondent in Abuja on Wednesday,
said there was no way the delegates would be forced to sign.
He said, “Up till now, they have not
told us how the report would be. They just asked us to report, like
school children, on August 4. The leadership is so disorganised and may
not know what to do.
“There are issues we did not agree on
apart from the issue of derivation, and I’m saying that nobody can force
us to sign what we have not read or go through or issues we even
disagreed on substantially.
“Neither Kutigi nor Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi can force us to do that. We are waiting for them to bring their joker.”
A delegate from the South-South region,
Mr. Paul Enebeli, also said that the delegates were yet to be briefed on
the way the report would be presented.
But he said the delegates might demand
for the records of proceedings at the plenary to enable them to study
issues that were discusse and were agreed on or rejected.
“We need sufficient time to go through
the reports. But we have requested for verbatim reports of the
proceedings during the plenary,” he added.
Another delegate, who is a former
President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Mr. Lanre Arogundade,
said it would be wrong for the northern delegates to insist on the five
cent intervention fund.
He said the money for the reconstruction
of the zone was the one the Federal Government had asked the Gen.
Theophilus Danjuma committee on Victims Support Fund to raise.
He also added that the intervention fund
been demanded by the delegates from the North could also make their
counterparts from other parts of the country to make similar demand.
Arogundade said, “What do they want to
do with that again? The N30bn that the Danjuma Committee has been
charged to raise is enough. We should not encourage all these kinds of
issues to be coming up. Why did you think our brothers from the eastern
part of the country are also asking for money to be paid for the victims
of civil war?”
President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday met behind closed-doors
with Speaker of Nasarawa State House of Assembly, Musa Mohammed, some
key leaders of the House and the Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus.
The meeting which held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja followed the
impeachment notice served on Governor Tanko Al-Makura of the All
Progressives Congress (APC).
The
Assembly on Wednesday ordered the state’s Chief Judge, Justice Umaru
Dikko, to set up a seven-member committee to investigate the governor of
alleged misconduct.
Youths in the state have since taken to the streets in protest over
the impeachment move, insisting the governor must serve out his two
terms. Al-Makura is the second APC governor to face impeachment charges.
Former governor of Adamawa State, Admiral Murtala Nyako, was last week
removed by the House.
Cornered by State House correspondents after meeting with the
President to divulge what transpired, the Speaker, accompanied by some
principal officers of the House, declined comments.
“It is a private visit. I don’t have the mandate of the Assembly to
brief the press. Chairman of the House Committee on Information has the
mandate to speak to the press on anything concerning impeachment”, he
said.
Secondus, who emerged a few minutes after the lawmakers, also declined to state what the meeting was all about.
He said: “It’s consultation. I can’t say whatever transpired now. We are consulting”, as he hurriedly left the Villa.”
The plenary session of the National Conference drew to a close
on Monday following completion of debate and adoption of resolutions
arising from reports of 20 committees that considered critical issues
arising from the convocation of the Conference.
Conference Chairman and former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice
Idris Kutigi, said the next plenary session would be on August 4, 2014
when delegates would reassemble to consider and approve the final
reports of the Conference for presentation to the Federal Government.
Specifically
on Monday, Conference formally adopted the Report of the Committee on
Devolution of Power but without conclusive decision on the vital issue
of derivation principle and what percentage should be paid mineral
producing areas.
After days of fruitless discussion by leaders of geo-political zones
at the Conference, Justice Kutigi and other principal officers of the
Conference met with selected leaders of delegations to the Conference;
co-chairmen, chairmen and deputy chairmen of all the Standing Committees
to decide on the matter.
The first meeting scheduled for Friday last week did not hold as most
of the selected delegates scheduled had already concluded their travel
plans in view of the imminent closure of Abuja airport that Friday
afternoon for maintenance work on the runway.
As soon as the Conference resumed on Monday, Justice Kutigi said:
“I’m still of the view that the Committee that is handling the matter of
coming to a compromise will still do their job.
“We couldn’t have the meeting on Friday. So, I am proposing that we
give them two hours to meet with us.” He then invited the “Fifty Wise
Men, Committees Co-chairmen, Chairmen and Deputy Chairmen to meet now in
our usual place.”
After five hours of close-door deliberation with the leadership of
the Conference, both the southern and the northern delegates refused to
agree on some of the issues thrown up in the initial meetings of some
regional leaders.
From the presentations of the leaders, three issues were raised
during their discussions. The issues were: 18 per cent derivation for
mineral producing area, five per cent for the development of solid
minerals and five per cent for the reconstruction of states in the
northern region ravaged by insurgency and internal conflicts. The last
seemed to have been the point of controversy as some of the leaders
insisted that the intervention fund should be for the entire country
where such was required.
The issue split the delegates along the north/south divide, but
during meeting between the selected delegates and principal officers, it
was suggested that since there are other areas that funds are being
allocated from the Federation Account outside the issues being
considered, it would be proper to have a technical committee to take a
global look at the revenue allocation framework and determine the
appropriate percentages on the three issues under consideration and
advise government accordingly.
But before endorsing that decision, the meeting had critically
examined the issues in contention and recognized the need to review the
percentage of revenue allocation to oil producing states including those
producing other resources; to reconstruct and rehabilitate areas
affected by problems of insurgency and internal conflicts; and the
diversification of the economy by fast tracking the development of solid
minerals.
Conference chairman, Justice Idris Kutigi then conveyed the decision
of the leaders to delegates at resumption of plenary. Although some
delegates kicked against the decision lamenting the irreconcilable
positions of the delegates from both sides, majority of them agreed that
the decision was not just a compromise position but a reasonable one in
view of the technical nature of the revenue allocation infrastructure.
As delegates started re-opening debate on the issue, the chairman
declared, in line with the Rules of Procedure that having adopted the
report of the Committee, “this effectively brings us to the end of this
debate.”
The Resolution reached at the meeting of the leaders and principal officers of the Conference reads thus:
Having critically examined the issues in contention, Conference recognizes the need to:
a) Review the percentage of revenue to states producing oil (and other resources)
b) Reconstruct and rehabilitate areas affected by problems of insurgency and internal conflicts; and
c) Diversify the Nigerian economy by fast tracking the development of the solid minerals sector;
The Conference also notes that assigning percentages for the increase
in derivation principle, and setting up Special Intervention funds to
address issues of reconstruction and rehabilitation of areas ravaged by
insurgency and internal conflicts as well as solid minerals development,
require some technical details and considerations.
Conference therefore recommends that Government should set up
Technical Committee to determine the appropriate percentages on the
three issues and advise government accordingly.
SIGNED
AKPANDEM JAMES
ASSISTANT SECRETARY, MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS
The United States has stated that its surveillance flights
could not locate the whereabouts of the over 200 girls kidnapped by the
Boko Haram sect on April 14.
According to the US, some of its surveillance activities have been
withdrawn since other countries like France and Britain have joined in
the search. The US says the withdrawal will not affect the original plan
aimed at rescuing the kidnapped girls.
“We
don’t have any better idea today than we did before about where these
girls are, but there’s been no letup of the effort itself,” Pentagon
spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters, according to Reuters.
According to Reuters, a US defence official who would not want his
name in print said American flights had been reduced only after a body
of intelligence had been gathered. Meanwhile, the British and the French
have joined the team.
However,Pentagon spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby said the US
flights over Nigeria had been reduced to accommodate increased US
surveillance over Iraq, where Washington is flying unmanned and manned
aircraft to gather intelligence about Sunni insurgents.
He explained that, some of the resources that were being used in
Nigeria had been diverted from other missions in Africa and could now be
used elsewhere on the continent.
Officials declined to say how long heightened U.S. surveillance over Nigeria had lasted.
Asked whether it was just a week or two, the defence official said,
“No. We were building this baseline for a good period of time.”
US surveillance flights over Nigeria were now intermittent, the source said.
The defence official said surveillance alone would not lead to a
resolution. “It will take the Nigerian piece of the equation with their
own sources and human intelligence coupled with the other forms to
really understand the picture.” He said.
