President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Mr Ibrahim Mairiga as the Executive Secretary, Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board (FGSHLB).

Folasade Yemi-Esan, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF), made this known in a statement by Mrs Olawunmi Ogunmosunle, Director Information, Office of the HOCSF on Friday in Abuja, NAN reports.

According to Yemi-Esan, “the appointment took effect from July 24 for a term of four years in the first instance.”

She stated that the new appointment called for dedication, hard work and commitment for the realisation of the mandate of the board.

Yemi-Esan advised Mairiga to bring his wealth of experience and knowledge to bear on the task ahead.

Mairiga from Gombe State holds Master’s Bachelor’s Degrees in History obtained from University of Maiduguri and Bayero University, Kano, respectively.

He has attended many professional courses within and outside Nigeria.

Before his current appointment, Mairiga was Director, Employment Mobility and was overseeing the office of the Permanent Secretary, Career Management, Office of the HOCSF.

(Daily Post)

Lionel Messi has made a dramatic U-turn and will now stay at Barcelona for the 2020-21 season.

The Barcelona captain stunned the world in August when he announced he wanted to leave the LaLiga giants this summer after a trophyless season at the Camp Nou.

In an interview with Goal, Messi admitted that he has been discussing his Barcelona exit over the past year and has criticised many aspects of the club.

With the Argentine set to stay, we went through what Messi has revealed to the public word-for-word…

Messi on why he wanted to leave Barcelona:

‘I told the club, including the president (Josep Maria Bartomeu), that I wanted to go. I’ve been telling him that all year. I believed it was time to step aside.

‘I believed that the club needed more young players, new players and I thought my time in Barcelona was over. I felt very sorry because I always said that I wanted to finish my career here.

‘It was a very difficult year, I suffered a lot in training, in games and in the dressing room. Everything became very difficult for me and there came a time when I considered looking for new ambitions.

‘It did not come because of the Champions League result against Bayern, no – I had been thinking about the decision for a long time.

‘I told the president and, well, the president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I wanted to go or if I wanted to stay and in the end he did not keep his word.’

Messi on his family and their role in the saga:

‘When I communicated my wish to leave to my wife and children, it was a brutal drama. The whole family began crying, my children did not want to leave Barcelona, nor did they want to change schools.

‘But I looked further afield and I want to compete at the highest level, win titles, compete in the Champions League. You can win or lose in it, because it is very difficult, but you have to compete.

‘At least compete for it and let us not fall apart in Rome, Liverpool, Lisbon. All that led me to think about that decision that I wanted to carry out.

Messi told his wife and two sons about his decision to leave Barcelona

‘Mateo is still little and he doesn’t realise what it means to go somewhere else and make your life a few years elsewhere.

‘Thiago, he is older. He heard something on TV and found out something and asked.

‘I didn’t want him to know anything about being forced to leave, to have to live in a new school, or make new friends.

‘He cried to me and said ‘let’s not go’. I repeat that it was hard, really.

‘It was understandable. It happened to me. It is very difficult to make a decision.

His eldest son, Thiago, begged the 33-year-old not to leave Barcelona

‘I love Barcelona and I’m not going to find a better place than here anywhere. Still, I have the right to decide. I was going to look for new goals and new challenges. And tomorrow I could go back, because here in Barcelona I have everything.

‘My son, my family, they grew up here and are from here. There was nothing wrong with wanting to leave. I needed it, the club needed it and it was good for everyone.

‘My wife, with all the pain of her soul, supported and accompanied me.’

Messi on the contract dispute and the release clause:

‘I thought and was sure that I was free to leave, the president always said that at the end of the season I could decide if I stayed or not.

‘Now they cling to the fact that I did not say it before June 10, when it turns out that on June 10 we were competing for La Liga in the middle of this awful coronavirus and this disease altered all the season.

‘And this is the reason why I am going to continue in the club. Now I am going to continue in the club because the president told me that the only way to leave was to pay the £624m clause, and that this is impossible.

Messi was in a contract row with Barca over a release clause which can see him move for free.

‘There was another way and it was to go to trial. I would never go to court against Barca because it is the club that I love, which gave me everything since I arrived.

‘It is the club of my life, I have made my life here. Barca gave me everything and I gave it everything. I know that it never crossed my mind to take Barca to court.’

Messi on what happens now:

‘Actually, now I don’t know what will happen.

‘There is a new coach and new ideas. That’s good, but then we have to see how the team responds and whether or not it will give us to compete at the top level.

‘What I can say is that I’m staying and I’m going to give my best for Barcelona.

‘I will continue at Barca and my attitude will not change no matter how much I have wanted to go. I will do my best.

The 33-year-old admitted he will remain committed to Barcelona over the coming season

‘I always want to win, I’m competitive and I don’t like to lose anything. I always want the best for the club, for the dressing room and for myself.

‘I always put the club before anything else. I had the possibility of leaving Barca many times. Every year I could have left and earned more money than at Barcelona. I always said that this was my home and it was what I felt and feel.’

‘To decide there was somewhere better than here was difficult. I felt that I needed a change and new goals, new things’.

Messi on the media’s reporting of the saga:

‘It has hurt me a lot that things are published against me and above all, that false things are published. Or that they came to think that I could go to trial against Barca in order to benefit myself.

‘I would never do such a thing. I repeat, I wanted to go and it was entirely my right, because the contract said that I could be released. And it is not, ‘I’m leaving and that’s it’. I was leaving and it cost me a lot.

‘I wanted to go because I thought about living my last years of football happily. Lately I have not found happiness within the club.

The Argentine claimed he was disappointed of the media’s reporting of the transfer saga

‘But I did feel hurt by things that I heard from people, from journalists, from people questioning my commitment to Barcelona and saying things that I think I didn’t deserve. It also helped me to see the truth in people.

‘This world of football is very difficult and there are many fake people. This happening has helped me to recognise many fake people. It hurt me when my love for this club was questioned.

‘No matter how much I go or stay, my love for Barca will never change.’

Barcelona captain and all-time leading goalscorer Lionel Messi has agreed to stay at the club , 10 days after telling the club he wanted to leave.

Messi, 33, sent a fax to Barca last Tuesday saying he wanted to exercise a clause in his contract which he said allowed him to leave for free.

That prompted widespread speculation over where he may move.

More to follow…

As part of its commitments to boost upstream operations, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that it has secured a prepayment funding of circa to the tune of $1b to support upstream operations of the national oil company.

It explained that the crude oil prepayment has enabled NNPC to pay its subsidiary saddled with upstream operations, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) tax obligations to the Federal Government of circa $700M with the balance utilized to fund NPDC’s capital and operating expenditures.

NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affair Division, Kennie Obateru, said that the prepayment financing was backed by future oil production of NPDC, and utilizes a well-established structure.

Through a statement released to newsmen, Obateru revealed that the said established structure was designed to enable the purchaser of the crude, Eagle Export Funding Limited, to raise financing in the domestic and international markets, to fund an upfront payment to NNPC under a Forward Sale Agreement (FSA).

“The financing which funded the prepayment has been structured over two tranches: a 5 year USD amortizing tranche (“Tranche 1”) and a 7 year NGN amortizing tranche (“Tranche 2”). Both tranches benefit from a cash sweep with the 7-year tranche having a 1-year non-call period.

“These tranches shall be repaid by Eagle Export Funding Limited from the export sale proceeds of the NPDC crude, which in turn are backed by Letters of Credit, issued by banks with a minimum credit rating, in line with market precedent.

“The export price for the crude is the relevant NNPC Official Selling Price (OSP) for the corresponding calendar month and crude grade. Vitol and Matrix Energy have executed the standard NNPC Crude Oil Sale & Purchase Agreement,” the statement said.

The NNPC spokesperson listed participants in the eagle export funding limited deal to include Standard Chartered Bank, United Bank for Africa, Afrexim Bank, Union Bank and two oil trading companies, Vitol and Matrix Energy.

According to him, the pricing and terms obtained for the USD and NGN funding tranches were competitive and better than precedent transactions despite constrained liquidity situation in financing markets occasioned by outbreak of  due COVID-19.

A Chief Magistrate Court sitting in Kano on Friday remanded a 45-year-old driver, Usman Aliyu, at a correctional centre for allegedly defiling his three nieces.

The defendant, who resides at Tumfafi Village in Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area of the state, is facing a two-count charge of rape and incest.

The Prosecutor, Pogu Lale, told the court that one Aisha Usman of Hotoro Quarters Kano, reported the case at Hotoro Police Division on August 5.

He said that on August 3, the complainant discovered that her three daughters aged between six and 10 were defiled by their uncle.

The defendant, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Lale said the offense contravene sections 283 and 390 of the penal code.

The Chief Magistrate, Muhammad Jibril, ordered the remand of the defendant and case file be sent to the state Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for advice.

Jibril adjourned the case till Sept.14 for mention.

Senior lawyers, socio-political organizations and civil rights groups on Thursday described as unconstitutional, attempts by the House of Representatives to adopt the public hearing it conducted in the eighth assembly for the Water Resources Bill.

The legal practitioners and groups such as the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, and the Middle Belt Forum, in separate interviews with newsmen said the National Assembly should jettison the plan.

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2017 presented the controversial bill to both chambers of the National Assembly.

The bill seeks to transfer the control of water resources from states to the Federal Government.

The bill was not only rejected by the public in 2018, but it was also not passed by the eighth National Assembly, whose members were divided over it.

But on July 23, 2020, the current Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Rules and Business, Abubakar Fulata, reintroduced the bill.

Despite the public outcry, he said a public hearing was held in the eighth Assembly on the bill, adding that no fresh one would be conducted.

He also lashed out at individuals and organizations that were opposed to the bill, saying inputs of civil rights groups were taken in the eighth assembly.

But two Senior Advocates of Nigeria said any attempt to reintroduce the bill, which was shut down by the eighth National Assembly without subjecting it to a public hearing, would be illegal.