Agent insists Oghenekaro Etebo has joined CD Feirense in Portugal

The midfielder's agent insists he has completed a move to Portugal amidst claims by Warri Wolves he is yet to be transferred

Oghenekaro Etebo’s proposed move to Portuguese side Clube Desportivo Feirense is still very much alive, with the transfer window set to officially close in Portugal in the next 48 hours, the player’s agent claims.
Endurance Ogbemudia, Etebo’s agent and advisor has stressed that the striker’s transfer to the Segunda Liga side from Warri Wolves is already in the bag, having penned a two-and-a-half-year deal, and he will be jetting out to Portugal in the coming days.
“Etebo is still expecting his visa from the Portuguese embassy, by the grace of God if the visa comes out he'll travel to Portugal,” Ogbemudia explained to Goal .
“He has already signed a two-and -a-half year contract effective January 10, 2016 to June 30, 2018. The deal is 99.99 percent concluded, CD Feirense have all documentations.”
The Nigeria Under-23 striker had been linked with possible moves to Esperance and CS Sfaxien in Tunisia and Ismaily in Egypt, before he committed his future to CD Feirense.
“One of the major reasons Etebo rejected those offers is that the owner of Feirense had a long chat with him and told him of his plans for the club.
“The offer from Feirense was more realistic than the other options available. He explained that he wants to bring the club to limelight by signing Nigerian stars.
“They want to gain promotion to the elite division at the end of this season, Kunle Soname is truthful to his words,” Ogbemudia concluded.

Etebo rose to prominence at the Africa Under-23 Cup of Nations last December and was subsequently rewarded for his outstanding performance, with CAF naming him the Most Promising Talent in Africa early last month.

Etebo: I'm not chasing personal Olympics glory

Having helped the Dream Team VI secure victory in their first game, the forward admits he would rather win the gold medal than go after personal honour

Oghenekaro Etebo has set his sights on winning the Olympics gold medal after leading Nigeria to victory against Japan on Friday.
The forward was in blistering form as he powered four goals past goalkeeper Masatoshi Kushibiki as the Dream Team VI silenced the Asians 5-4 at the Arena Amazonia, Manaus.
The 20-year-old who is expected to lead Samson Siasia’s forward line against Sweden on Sunday revealed that it would be a futile exercise scoring goals aplenty without winning the top prize.
 "Scoring all the goals in this competition and not winning the gold medal would have amounted to a waste of effort and that's not my target,” Etebo told NFF website.
“Yes, it would be great to see my efforts contributing to the success of the team, but if it will not lead us to the gold, then I don't want it."

The Portuguese based forward who becomes the first African to score four goals in a football game at the Olympics also praised coach Siasia for his role as a father.

From plane to pitch, Nigeria football team wins Rio 2016 Olympic opener

The Nigeria team faced the uncomfortable situation of spending the day of its debut at the Olympics aboard an airplane on a more than six-hour flight.

The Nigerian men’s football team didn’t show any fatigue from a last-minute trip that brought the players to Brazil just hours before their Rio Olympics opener, beating Japan 5-4 Thursday night.

A mix-up at the airport forced Nigeria to make a late flight from Atlanta to Brazil. The team arrived in the jungle city of Manaus about six hours before overcoming jet lag and the heat and humidity in the Amazon city to win a thrilling game.

The team faced the uncomfortable situation of spending the day of its debut at the Olympics aboard an airplane on a more than six-hour flight and facing a Japan team that was in Brazil for several days preparing for the contest.

There are conflicting reports about how the team ended up in this position.

Bunmi Jinadu, founder of United football Africa, disputed reports that the team missed its original flight because of a money issue between the Nigerian government and a charter company. Delta Air Lines cited a “communications mix-up” that grounded the team’s original Friday flight.

Jinadu said the problem stemmed from poor planning and coordination on the part of the Nigerian team in leaving Atlanta, where it has been training to prepare for the games. He said the team had assumed it could simply buy plane tickets to Rio at the last minute _ just like Nigerians do in their home country to book travel.

They then encountered a crush of travelers and lack of flights at the busy Atlanta airport, where several Brazil-bound trips were originating. The team thought it had a backup plan on Wednesday, but the plane wasn’t big enough to accommodate the team, Jinadu said.

The flight the team finally boarded was on a chartered Delta jet. A spokesperson for Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines said it stepped in to help the team get to its destination _ free of charge _ after learning of the flight issue.

The plane normally is used to transport NBA teams, and the same aircraft will fly the U.S. men’s basketball team back to the U.S. after the Olympics.

Atlanta was the site of Nigeria’s greatest football triumph as it won the gold medal there in the 1996 Olympics.

“This came to our attention on the 20th anniversary of the Nigerian football team’s win at the Atlanta games,” said Delta spokesperson Betsy Talton. “Everyone was happy to help them with another miracle by getting them to Manaus.”

Jinadu said the mood remained upbeat among the players as they headed to Brazil at the last minute.

“Nigeria has tough skin,” he said. “All the players playing on this team know this is their livelihood and they have been overly anxious to get to Rio.”

It’s not the first time an African football team had to make a last-minute flight for a high-profile match in Brazil.

In 2014, Cameroon’s World Cup team refused to board a plane to take them to Brazil because of a dispute over bonus payments for the tournament. Their national football federation took out a loan to meet their demands, and the team caught a later flight.

26 Golden Eaglets Players Fail MRI Test

No fewer than 26 out of the 60 Golden Eaglets players failed the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan ahead of Saturday’s CAF U-17 AFCON qualifier against the junior Mena of Niger Republic in Abuja.

According to report, almost the starting XI players have been affected by the mandatory MRI scan test. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) employed the services of independent doctors to oversee the after; of which an Egyptian doctor supervised Nigeria’s screening exercise last week.

It becomes more worrisome the rate at which the players failed the test, which has questioned the selection process of coaches in charge of the team, having selected players outside the age limit for the cadet championship; like it happened in the previous years. Several of the players were in tears and total shock when the final results came through this morning. The affected players have since quit the team’s training camp in Abuja for their various bases.

Nigeria will be hugely depleted for Saturday’s U17 AFCON qualifier at home against Niger after a staggering 26 players out of 60 failed the mandatory MRI screening conducted last week. Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets’ are the current champions and have won the FIFA U17 World Cupa record five times – 1985, 1993, 2007, 2013 and 2015 respectively.

Four United names dropped by Mourinho

Bastian Schweinsteiger, Adnan Januzaj, Andreas Pereira and Paddy McNair have all been left out of the Manchester United team for Wayne Rooney’s testimonial.

Speculation surrounding their future continues with manager Jose Mourinho reportedly set to axe a number of his stars ahead of the new season.

Schweinsteiger was banished to the reserves earlier this week and is thought to have played his final game for the Red Devils.

The others have reportedly been told to find new clubs.

The real reason why Babangida toppled my government in 1985: Buhari

Thirty-wo years after the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari was ousted from office as then military head of state in a putsch led by  Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (retired), the President has offered what was really behind his being pushed aside by the top echelon of the military at the time.

Babangida was the chief of army staff until he toppled Buhari who was the head of state and installed his team.

According to Buhari,   he was kicked out of office on August 27, 1985 by the then Chief of Army Staff, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, because he was fighting corruption.

Buhari, who was the military head of state for 18 months, spoke an exclusive with The Interview Magazine.

The president  said the then Head of Military Intelligence, Aliyu Gusau, was allegedly involved in some sharp practices and he had recommended his sack from the military leadership, pointing out that Buhari  he insisted on Gusau's removal was because he did not want his anti-corruption war to appear one-sided.

But, that according to him, was to cost him his position as the President as Gusau, Babangida and other officers banded together to oust him.

Buhari while reacting to a December 2015 interview by Babangida in which he (Babangida) said the plan to remove Gusau had nothing to do with the 1985 coup, said that leaving Gasau unpunished would have sent negative signals about his fairness.

He explained, “I learnt that Gen. Ali Gusau, who was in charge of intelligence, took an import licence from the Ministry of Commerce, which was supplies, and gave it to Alhaji Mai Deribe. It was worth N100, 000, a lot of money then.

“When I discovered this, I confronted them and took the case to the army council. Gen. Malu was the Chief of Defence Staff; Gen. Babangida was the Chief of Army Staff; Tunde Idiagbon was the Chief of Staff, Defence Headquarters and I was the Head of State.

“I said if I didn't punish Gusau, it would create a problem for us. It is North versus South; majority versus minority; Muslim versus Christian. That was what it showed.

“So, I said Gen. Ali Gusau had to go. He was the Chief of Intelligence. That was why Babangida got some officers to remove me. Let him repeat his own story. Ali Gusau is still alive.”

He also spoke about the 2016 budget fiasco, which resulted in avoidable delays in the passage of the budget and the ripple effects of such delays which are seen in the economy today.

For him, that development is a thing of the past and  would never happen again.

On the  critics who accuse him of not having an economic team, he has this to say:  “What do they mean by team? The Vice-President heads our Economic Management Team. You have a finance minister, a budget and planning minister; a minister of trade and industry and investment; a governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a national economic adviser and others and yet some people still ask for a team.

“We will listen to everybody but we are averse to economic teams whose private sector members frequently steer government policy to suit their own narrow interests rather than the overall national interest.”

MEND working to free Henry Okah, avengers' affiliate tells FG

A new twist has emerged from the crisis in the Niger Delta region as Ultimate Warriors of Niger Delta ( UWND) , an affiliate of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) , alleged on Sunday that the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) , which recently unveiled the names of some respected leaders from the region to negotiate on behalf of militants, is only working to free Henry and Charles Okah.

MEND had earlier in the day confirmed that it was in talks with the Federal Government to end attacks on oil pipelines in the Niger Delta region and urged the Federal Government to ignore NDA, whose members it described as criminals.

In their response to the characterization of NDA members as criminals by MEND, UWND accused it of only being interested in freeing its leader Henry Okah, who is presently languishing in a South African jail and his brother, Charles, who is being held at the Kuje Prison in Abuja.

The militant group said in a statement by Sibiri Taiowoh, its spokesman, that it would not be part of the MEND Aaron Team, as there was no longer any militant group called MEND in the region.

According to UWND, the current MEND otherwise called Aaron Team 2 was a concoction of the Okah brothers and family, adding that it has not given them (MEND) the go ahead to negotiate for them.

“Our attention have been drawn to statement credited to defunct MEND that is now an internet-based group of jobbers and we want to let the public know that the MEND that we know under which the likes of Tompolo, Boyloaf and other ex-warlords operated has since be disbanded by the group of ex-agitators who were registered under the Amnesty Programme.

“The sole aim of this so-called MEND and the flaunted Aaron Team is to get Henry Okah and Charles Okah pardoned under the Presidential Amnesty Programme. But they have forgotten that the Okah brothers were actually the ones who tried to sabotage the amnesty programme initiated by late President Yar'Adua and former President Goodluck Jonathan,” UWND said.

While accusing MEND of trying to sneak into the renewed militancy through the back door, the militant group added, “We are against the MEND Aaron Team arrangement because it is utterly against our mission and their aims is in conflict with ours.

“What they are pushing for is freedom for the Okahs which they trying to use to sabotage our agitations for resource control, rapid development, and freedom for the poor people of the Niger Delta.”

“MEND was nowhere when this new face of the struggle started so they should stop trying to lord over us. What is happening is that MEND is trying to leverage on the renewed crisis to press for the release of the Okahs through the Amnesty Programme which the duo failed to support at inception.

“We pity the statesmen that the so-called MEND is assembling under their concocted Aaron Team 2. It is better they all back out from the Aaron Team plot because the government is not prepare to commence the dialogue from their perspective.

“We are not going to hand it over to MEND to constitute team for us. If the government truly wants to dialogue; the grandstanding by the so-called MEND might be a clog. This is our position,”.