Author: David Great

Manchester City have agreed a £45m deal with Leeds for England midfielder Kalvin Phillips. The club will pay £42m for the 26-year-old with potential bonuses of £3m. The Premier League champions made Phillips their number one summer transfer target, with Fernandinho leaving this summer after nine years with the club. Kalvin Phillips was in the Leeds academy and has made 214 appearances for the side since his senior debut in 2015. The midfielder is expected to provide back up for Rodri at City in the single defensive midfield position favoured by manager Pep Guardiola. A key player for Leeds under…

Lagos State Traffic Management Authourity (LASTMA) has denied complicity in the burning of buses. Filade Olumide, Asst. Director, Public Affairs in a statement said, “Attention of the management of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authourity (LASTMA) has been drawn to a video trending online since yesterday, Thursday, 23 June 2022 alleging complicity of LASTMA officials in the burning of a bus at Obanikoro area on Ikorodu Road by an uninformed Blogger on Facebook. “LASTMA Management after due diligence on the video, sympathise with the vehicle owner but categorically deny complicity of any of its officers in the incidence portrayed on…

President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, ruled out bail for the detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu. He said Kanu, who is currently on trial, was being given every opportunity under the law “to justify all the uncomplimentary things said against Nigeria while he was in Britain.” This was as he reiterated his commitment to leave office for the next administration in May 2023. According to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, the President said this at a bilateral meeting with the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, on the…

A global business intelligence report by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has ranked Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial city as the world’s second least liveable urban area. EIU ranked Lagos 171 out of 172 countries in the list of most liveable cities in the world for the first quarter of 2022, according to the latest 2022 Global Liveability Index. This report makes the Nigerian best city the worst in Africa as Damascus (Syria) and Tripoli (Libya) continue to anguish at the bottom of the list along with Lagos (Nigeria) as they face social unrest, terrorism and conflict. The least liveable cities were Damascus…

Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo, 37, is reportedly concerned over Manchester United’s transfer business under new manager Erik ten Hag and is considering quitting Old Trafford. (Record – in Portuguese) Bayern Munich could make a move for Ronaldo if Lewandowski leaves them this summer. (AS – in Spanish) Barcelona have finally made a bid for Bayern Munich and Poland striker Robert Lewandowski, 33, which is worth up to £34m (40 million euros). (Telegraph – subscription required) Manchester United have increased their bid for 25-year-old Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong from a fixed 60m euros (£51.5m) to 65m euros (£55.8m), but the…

The US Senate has passed a gun control bill – the most significant firearms legislation in nearly 30 years. Fifteen Republicans joined Democrats in the upper chamber of Congress to approve the gun control measure by 65 votes to 33. It follows mass shootings last month at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and a primary school in Uvalde, Texas, that left a combined 31 people dead. The gun control bill will now have to pass in the House of Representatives before President Biden can sign it into law. This could happen within days. Although significant, the proposals fall far…

The technical working group on repatriation of Nigerians displaced from the North-East on Thursday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, submitted its report to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. President Muhammadu Buhari, had in February, inaugurated a Presidential Committee on the Repatriation, Returns and Resettlement of Displaced Persons in the North-East chaired by the vice president. Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno, who chaired the technical working group, spoke with State House correspondents after the submission of the report to the vice president. Zulum disclosed that no fewer than 50, 000 indigenes from the North-East who were refugees in Cameroon, Chad and Niger…

A three-man panel of the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, on Thursday upheld the conviction of a former Managing Director of the defunct Bank PHB Plc, Francis Atuche, as well as the bank’s former Chief Financial Officer, Ugo Anyanwu. Atuche and his co-convict, Anyanwu, had approached the appellate court to set aside their conviction by Justice Lateefa Okunnu of the Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos on June 16, 2021 over a N25.7 billion fraud. The panel, comprising Justices Sadiq Umar, Adebukola Banjoko and Kayode Bada, while resolving all the issues in the appeal in favour of the…

Justice M.T.M Aliyu of the Kaduna State High Court sitting in Kaduna, has convicted and sentenced two brothers: Saifullahi and Al’Ameen Hamisu to six months imprisonment for impersonation. In the same court, Justice Aliyu convicted and sentenced Musa Haruna to three months imprisonment for impersonation. Two other convicts: Andrew Ebuka and Mubarak Adeyemi bagged eight years imprisonment for impersonation by Justice Darius Khobo. They were all jailed on Thursday, June 23, 2022 after pleading guilty to one-count separate charge bordering on impersonation preferred against them by the Kaduna Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. The one…

Justice D.U Okorowo of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, has convicted and wound up Marqott Nigeria Limited, one of the 30 companies associated with the Process and Industrial Development Limited, P&ID, for money laundering. The company was convicted on Thursday, June 16, 2022 after being found guilty of four count charges bordering on money laundering preferred against it by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. Count one of the charge read: “That you, Marqott Nigeria Limited, being a designated Non-financial Institution; and Giovanni Beccarelli, Valentina Fantoli, and Dimitri Duca, being directors of and signatories to the bank account of Marqott Nigeria Limited,…