UEFA Champions League: We have submitted our squad list - Manchester City

Manchester City have Submitted their Champions League group stage squad to the competition's governing body.

Below are the names submitted my the Pellegrini-lead squad;

Sergio Aguero

Wilfred Bony

Willy Caballero

Gael Clichy

Kevin De Bruyne
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Adesina assumes duty at AfDB, promises to curb inequality

Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina assumed duty as the 8th President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group yesterday with a promise to reduce inequality between regions and countries on the continent.
Speaking at the investiture in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Adesina said by unlocking the potentials of small, medium and large businesses, Africa will fast track industrial growth and development.
“Like the skyline of a city, we will create space for the small, medium and large businesses.

Dr. Akinwunmi A. Adesina 

 As businesses pay taxes, domestic resource mobilization will grow to support national and regional development from within Africa.

 The bank will prioritize the development of the private sector to drive the industrialization of Africa,” Adesina said in his speech at the ceremony.
He said his regime will build the African private sector to create wealth, noting that by developing financial markets and leveraging private capital markets, businesses will be able to access long term financing crucial to invest in needed machinery, equipment and working capital. 
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Odegbami in for the FIFA Presidency race

One of Nigeria’s greatest footballer of all time, Segun ‘Mathematical’ Odegbami, has joined the race to succeed Sepp Blatter, as FIFA president at the election scheduled to take place on February 26, 2016 in Zurich, Switzerland.

Segun Odegbami

Blatter stepped down as FIFA President last June following a spate of scandals that led to the arrest of several key stakeholders in the world governing body of the game.

According to Segun Odegbami, “The current scandal at FIFA is the organisation’s worst crisis in its 111 years of existence. Moving forward, FIFA thus require a new era of leadership that can restore the dignity of the noble sport and that of this esteemed international institution with global followership.”

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Breaking news: ICPC probes former govs Amaechi, Kwankwaso, Chime, Shema

The independent Corrupt Practices and other offences Commission (ICPC) has commenced investigations of four former governors following petition against them. 

The four governors are former governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers, Sullivan Chime of Enugu, Ibrahim Shema of Katsina and Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano. 

Already four teams have been raised to visit the states to check the books of the states to establish the allegations against the governors. 

Sources at the commission told Vanguard that the teams departed Abuja Monday morning to the various states to carry out their investigations.

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FORMER PRESIDENT JONATHAN’S 24 ACHIEVEMENTS IN HIS FIRST 100 DAYS

The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has reeled out the achievements of the Jonathan administration within the first 100 days of the life of the administration.

All Progressives Congress, APC, had yesterday blamed former President Goodluck Jonathan for the inability of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to record tangible achievements in 100 days of coming to office.
Below are 24 recorded achievements of Jonathan in his first 100days.

1. Nigeria’s oil industry expanded by 20% and we reclaimed our position as Africa’s largest oil exporter which hitherto had been lost to Angola.
2. Recognized by OPEC in July as the second largest oil exporter, second only to Saudi Arabia. It is the first time Nigeria has recorded such a feat.

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PMB’s Anti-corruption War, Turning Point For Intellectualism – Bogoro

PMB’s Anti-corruption War, Turning Point For Intellectualism – Bogoro

Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Professor Sulaiman Elias Bogoro, has said that the anti-corruption war of President Mohanmadu Buhari, if pursued to logical conclusion and effectiveness, could constitute the turning point to making intellectualism and knowledge as the key factors to help in moving Nigeria from the hitherto perceived culture of impunity.

Making this known at opening ceremony of the second phase of the International Workshop on Research and Development and Innovation organized an the University of Dayton, Ohio by the African Leadership Institute USA and TETFUND, Bogoro said discipline in governance and leadership by example as well as the aggressive fight against all forms of corruption were likely the key drivers of philosophy of governance enunciated by the president.

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SILENCING MEDIA FREEDOM: BLOGGER ARRESTED, GRANTED 3 MILLION NAIRA BAIL

A Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday granted bail in the sum of N3m to a blogger, Seun Oloketuyi.
He was arraigned by the police for allegedly publishing a defamatory story against the Chief Executive Officer of Fidelity Bank Plc. Nnamdi Okonkwo.


Oloketuyi had been detained in Ikoyi Prisons since August 25, 2015 after he was arraigned on two counts of “malicious publication” against Okonkwo before Justice Mohammed Yunusa.

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Greece’s Tsipras and Varoufakis: once friends, now foes!

Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis shared a vision once, but the double act of the Greek debt drama’s most colourful characters now appears well and truly over.

When Tsipras swept to power as prime minister in January, hiring maverick economist Varoufakis as his finance minister, both vowed to stand up to Athens’ much-loathed creditors and bring an end to the austerity they blamed for strangling the Greek economy.

With a shared love of motorbikes and a hatred of neck-ties, they were the fearsome twosome who took Greek politics by storm.

Alexis Tsipras

But eight months later, with Greece facing snap elections in which Varoufakis refuses to run, the rift between the pair is growing uncomfortably public — even if analysts say it is unlikely to do Tsipras much damage as he seeks a fresh mandate at the head of radical-left party Syriza.

The polls on September 20 will be “quite sad and fruitless”, Varoufakis told Australian broadcaster ABC.

Varoufakis

“The party that I served and the leader that I served has decided to change course completely and to espouse an economic policy that makes absolutely no sense.”

Tsipras quit on August 20, triggering new elections, after a major rebellion within Syriza over Greece’s huge third international bailout left him barely able to govern.

Varoufakis had resigned six weeks earlier, a day after Greece’s referendum on the proposed bailout, and as negotiations with the creditors — the EU, IMF and European Central Bank — grew increasingly bitter.

His confrontational tactics had infuriated the creditors for months, and in a blog post announcing his resignation he said he had been “made aware” that his departure would be helpful to Tsipras in continuing the talks.

“I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride,” Varoufakis wrote, adding that he would “fully support” the prime minister.

But that was before Tsipras’ spectacular U-turn. Just days later, Tsipras agreed to a deal that would see Greece accept 86 billion euros ($96 billion) in exchange for sweeping reforms — more austerity of the kind that voters had just rejected in a referendum.

Since then Varoufakis, never one to mince his words, has repeatedly blasted the deal in his frequent interviews with the international media.

“Ask anyone who knows anything about Greece’s finances and they will tell you this deal is not going to work,” he told BBC radio.

Tsipras has hit back, saying of Varoufakis: “Being a good economist doesn’t make you a good politician.”

And in a pointed tribute to Varoufakis’ replacement — who is as discreet and tight-lipped as his predecessor was confrontational — he added: “Euclid Tsakalotos has done a marvellous job… If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have achieved a deal.”

Varoufakis has said he now wants to focus on building an anti-austerity network across Europe, a project that analysts say should not directly threaten Tsipras at the polls.

Tsipras “still enjoys a degree of sympathy amongst Greeks. This election is up for grabs,” said Gabriel Colletis, a France-based economist who has advised Syriza.

At least 25 Syriza lawmakers who opposed the bailout have quit to form a new party, Popular Unity. But Colletis said of Varoufakis: “He won’t be joining forces with the rebels’ new party.”

– ‘Narcissistic one-upmanship’ –

For Michel Vakaloulis, a political scientist at the University of Paris, it was Varoufakis’ failure to embrace compromise that made the split with Tsipras inevitable.

Varoufakis himself later revealed that he had failed to convince Tsipras to back proposals he had wanted to take to the ECB, marginalising him within the government.

His flashy personal style also jarred with Syriza, “a very austere party”, Vakaloulis said.

A photo shoot with a glamorous French magazine was one moment that reflected his habit of “narcissistic one-upmanship”. With a quarter of Greeks unemployed, the shots of him “on his terrace eating fish, against the backdrop of the Acropolis” served to further alienate him from Syriza, Vakaloulis said.

Both men had charm and chutzpah, but in other ways they were very different.

Varoufakis had zero experience as a politician until January, while Tsipras, who at 41 is 13 years his junior, was on the barricades as a student activist and has barely left politics since.

While Tsipras stayed in Greece, Varoufakis lived for years in Britain and Australia and delivers a stream of eloquent English every time a microphone is thrust under his nose.

But it was partly this difference in gifts that led Tsipras to hire him in the first place, Vakaloulis observed.

“Tsipras chose him precisely for his huge talents at communicating — to show that Greece is not an isolated case in Europe, but that it’s a story that could happen to any country.”

Clued from The Guardian Nigeria

BORROWING TO PAY SALARIES, VIOLATION OF FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT — REMI BABALOLA

Former Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Remi Babalola, has decried the bailout program for states by the Federal Government, asking why states have to borrow to pay salaries in violation of Section 41 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The former minister, disclosed this on Tuesday, during a paper presentation, entitled: “Achieving the Nigeria of Our Dream: Responsibility of Professional Accountants,” at the opening of the 45th annual conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN).
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Our Political Parties Lack Basic Philosophies.- Leo Oketa

That change is the only universal constant is a truism. But the type of change that Nigerians crave in the Nigerian system of government is totally far from near. 

Since the dawn of the new political era, it's been the same word CHANGE. But for me, there's more to our problems than change of parties! The idea of moving from one political party to another in this country is born out of selfishness of our politicians. 

A political party should have a philosophy, what they believe in. Particular beliefs and schools of thoughts are constituted by believers and thinkers whose reasoning align with their schools. No matter what happens, criticism or no criticism, they always find ways to stand by what they believe in and find ways to root it firmly to avoid rational embarrassment. 

If they find holes spotted by other schools of thought, they go back, do their homework and come back strongly with superior reasoning to uphold that SAME BELIEF. That is what I call healthy competition for the good of what they believe in (the good of the country); a perfect example of what political parties should represent.

In a country like the United Kingdom, you have the conservatives, a movement, a party promoting the retaining of traditional social institutions. You have the Liberal democrats, Labour etc. all with their respective beliefs, arguing them out for the good of their country.

In the U.S, same thing, Democratic, Republican Parties, etc. all standing on their beliefs, arguing them out sincerely for the good of their people.

In my country Nigeria, APC and PDP are same except for change of names. They have no philosophies, no believes! Politicians move from one party to another for their selfish interests. A classic instance of the expression, that "he who pays the piper, calls the tunes."

It is horrific a thing to think of. Even as the fuel scarcity saga looms, it is still the same selfishness worn as permanent robes by some of us that have kept us in this road map to destruction. But God is with us! 

But come to think of it, where does this begin each time? it begins from you and me. That we have decided to vote according to the riches of our selfish interests, ethnic groups, religious affiliations and so on.

 If we want to get it right, let it start from you, from me! Believe in a good, stick to that good, see your belief out till the end. Let your change of mind be born out of sincerity of purpose and belief. But you see, as for now, the elections of last month were just changes of political acronyms.

I challenge our politicians to let us know the philosophies of their parties! Why is he or she a candidate of the PDP? Why is he or she a candidate of the APC? Until each of them answer these questions, and their answers give meaning to solutions of the problem of the ordinary Nigerian, they are huge jokes!