As the footballing world is ensnared in the enthralling drama of the transfer window’s last breaths, Tottenham’s ambitions pierce through.

Johnson: A Star in the Making

Tucked away in Nottingham Forest, Brennan Johnson, with fire in his eyes and ambition pulsating through his veins, visualises himself donning the famous white of Spurs. “I expect to be a Tottenham player by the end of deadline day”, a sentiment echoed by insiders at Football Insider.

Johnson’s affinity for the City Ground is undeniable. But the pull of the London giants is palpable, pushing him to put Spurs atop the pedestal, overlooking other admirers.

Haggling Over the Forest Gem

The intrigue deepens. Spurs’ liaison with Forest revolves around the deal’s blueprint and the down payment’s magnitude. The numbers tossed around? A hefty £45-50 million, potentially an unprecedented exit sum for the stalwarts of the Midlands. And while the two sides wrestle over terms, optimism brews over an impending agreement.

Postecoglou’s Vision

Anchoring Johnson’s lean towards Spurs is Ange Postecoglou’s blueprint for the youngster. Immersed in the Australian’s doctrine, Johnson sees a pathway to metamorphose into a footballing colossus. Although this season witnesses a goal and assist drought in his four games, the previous term’s 10 goals and three assists in 44 appearances for Forest, tell a different tale.

Johnson’s ties to Forest are robust, his contract stretching till June 2026. But could the allure of Tottenham, still licking their wounds from Harry Kane’s departure and a mixed summer performance, sway the decision?

Verdict

As the clock dwindles and fans wait with bated breath, Johnson’s potential move could be the storyline that dominates the headlines. Only time will unveil where this tale leads.

[eplindex]

Nuno Tavares has joined Nottingham Forest on a season-long loan from Arsenal, with an option to buy.

Forest revived talks after the deal stalled last week and Aston Villa had considered the deal.

Tavares arrived at The Emirates in 2021, but has failed to establish himself in the Gunners first team and spent last season on-loan at Marseille. 

He is yet to feature for Mikel Arteta's side so far this season, and looks to have no future under the Spanish boss. 

The 23-year-old played 39 times for Marseille last season, scoring six goals, and now looks set for another loan move as he heads for the City Ground. 

Tavares is expected to be one of a number of arrivals at the City Ground on Friday, with Bologna midfielder Nicolas Dominguez and Benfica goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos, while Callum Hudson-Odoi is another expected to arrive should Brennan Johnson join Tottenham as expected.

The big one to watch is PSV midfielder Ibrahim Sangare. Forest have followed him all summer for the defensive midfield role and if they can do a deal, it is likely to break their transfer record.

[dailymail]

•  Enzo Maresca's Manchester City connections allowed him to bring defender Callum Doyle to Leicester City on loan.
•  James McAtee, who impressed on loan at Sheffield United, was a potential signing target for Leicester, but he is set to rejoin Sheffield United on loan amid strong interest.
•  McAtee's creative abilities and goal-scoring record would have been a valuable addition to Leicester's midfield, although they have performed well with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in that role.

When Enzo Maresca was appointed as Leicester City manager in the wake of their demoralising relegation back to the Championship, evident perks were attached.

 

One of those, of course, is his Manchester City connections.

The Italian operated as second-in-command to Pep Guardiola prior to trading the Etihad Stadium for the East Midlands over the summer, and also spent time coaching the club's Elite Development Squad, overseeing the nurturing and progression of some of the country's best young talent.

Unsurprisingly, he sought to tap into those relations and brought defender Callum Doyle to the club on a season-long loan, after he starred in Coventry City's ascent to the play-off final last term.

But there was an overarching feeling that Maresca was going to continue to optimise his credit in the bank at City and bring even more prospects to the King Power Stadium across the summer.

A player that seemed destined to potentially make the switch was James McAtee, who had been subjected to extensive interest after impressing on loan during Sheffield United's promotion campaign last time out.

Indeed, Leicester had wanted to add McAtee to their already-strong attacking ranks, but the hopes of that have now been ruled out completely.

 

Leicester City miss out on Man City's James McAtee

This is according to talkSPORT's Alex Crook, who has claimed that McAtee is set to rejoin Sheffield United in the Premier League on another season-long loan amid "strong" interest from the Foxes.

The McAtee development was then followed up by a report from Football Insider that detailed the additional interest displayed from top-flight duo Wolves and Nottingham Forest, meaning that a deal for Leicester will have likely been hard to secure in spite of Maresca's links.

It was previously reported via Alan Nixon's Patreon report that Guardiola had been running the rule over McAtee and was set to decide who would stay at the club this season out of him and fellow homegrown prodigy Cole Palmer, who has now completed oan eye-catching transfer to rivals Chelsea.

Would Man City's James McAtee have been a good signing for Leicester City?

For the Foxes faithful, this one will certainly sting.

McAtee was simply remarkable at times across his stay at Brammall Lane, with his balance and ball control allowing him to evade opposition defenders with ease and travel with possession into dangerous areas of the pitch, which subsequently yielded the nine goals he tallied up amid 21 starts in red and white.

A creative midfielder, the 20-year-old plays beyond his age with intelligence, vision and the inventive ability to break lines and carve out crucial chances, something that would not go amiss at Leicester.

Sure enough, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has occupied that more advanced creative role in Leicester's midfield today, and has done a mightily impressive job at that, but the strength in depth that they would have had with McAtee would really have been something to behold.

It is not necessarily a make or break not getting him, but he undoubtedly would have been a more-than-welcome addition to the side.

[footballleagueworld]

 

Yakubu Maikyau was sworn in as the 31st NBA president last Friday, August 25. Like most of his predecessors, he was conscious of the critical role of the judiciary without which a society descends into a state of anarchy where it ‘is the war of all against all’. Reading the mood of the nation correctly during his inaugural speech, just as he did during his first appearance on national television after his inauguration, he had expressed his concern for “terrorized, traumatized and pauperized Nigeria and Nigerians”. He went on to remind members of his noble profession of the need to protect the ‘voice of the legal profession’, which according to him “must speak against the terror in the land and the hardship that has taken over the lives of our people”.

Unfortunately, just as his predecessors did, the voice which he claimed “remains what is left of this country which cannot be emasculated” was misdirected into fighting a needless battle to whittle down the power of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by restricting it to investigative duties while the prosecutorial function is ceded to the bar or to another new body entirely.

Successive presidents of the Bar  as well as past attorneys-general have  adopted various strategies to emasculate EFCC despite the fact it can only be as independent as the supervising minister who has the last say on who to be prosecuted, wanted it to be.  It was on account of this open hostility of the Bar that EFCC in its statement of August 2016 took us on a journey through memory.  Back in 2005, Lanre Odogiyan as NBA president had called for outright scrapping of the EFCC during the Bar’s conference in Port Harcourt. That reactionary proposal was killed by some respected social crusaders including Chief Gani Fawehinmi who was present at the conference.  But Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa’s (Justice Minister 2007-2010) waged a silent war against EFCC.

The battle was again brought to the open by Abubakar Mahmoud who during his inauguration in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on August 26, 2016 as the Bar president called for reforms in the operations of the EFCC. He suggested that the anti-graft commission be made to only investigate while an independent agency carries out prosecution.

His crusade was hailed by another former NBA president, Chief O.C.J. Okocha (SAN). “The principle that the BAR is trying to pursue”, according to him is that “with thousands of lawyers looking for jobs, these legal practitioners should be employed to act as prosecutors at all levels of prosecution instead of police”. In other words for a Bar whose responsibility is first to the Bar according to Chief Idowu Sofola, one time Secretary General  of the Bar, and its president (1980-82), it is a matter of jobs for the boys.

Of course other senior members of the Bar seem to share the same mind-set. Only last week, August 24, Olisa Agbakoba, another  former  NBA president regarded as one of the pillars behind EFCC’s recorded success in its anti-corruption war suddenly remembered that EFCC as a ‘federal establishment  by virtue of being a creation of the National Assembly, cannot prosecute state offences and should not interfere in the affairs of state governors’. He has therefore urged the new Attorney General of Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, to ‘unbundle’ the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and restrict it to investigations while a new National Prosecution Agency should be established.

Unfortunately, some of the arguments brought up by the Bar to support their needless war fly in the face of available facts. First, EFCC is convinced that the war against is “a cleverly disguised campaign by powerful forces”, and so called attention to Section 6 (m) of the EFCC Establishment Act, 2004, which clearly spelt out the powers of the commission as including: “taking charge of, supervising, controlling, coordinating all the responsibilities, functions and activities relating to the current investigation and prosecution of all offences connected with or relating to economic and financial crimes.”

The anti-corruption body also wondered whether it was “not a strange coincidence that the suggestion to strip the EFCC of its prosecutorial powers is being floated few months after EFCC arraigned some senior lawyers for corruption?”

Besides accusing many senior members of the Bar of accepting “tainted briefs” to aid looters by providing them with technicalities on how to avoid prosecution and conviction, EFCC also believes government cases given to some senior members of the Bar for prosecution were deliberately bungled. It cited two examples. Abubakar Mahmoud as “the federal government-appointed prosecuting counsel in the trial of ex-Delta State governor, James Ibori, at the Federal High Court, Asaba. EFCC lost the   case in questionable circumstances while the same ingredients from that case were used to fetch Ibori a 13-year jail term in London”.  

Mahmoud according to the anti-corruption body was also the EFCC’s counsel in the appeal against the infamous ‘perpetual injunction from arrest and prosecution’ by former Rivers State governor, Peter Odili, which was still pending before the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt’, eight years after it was first filed.

Finally, Mahmoud was also reminded that of the over 200 fraudulent bankers responsible for the collapse of the banking sector, only four were brought to justice in a period spanning eight years when the brief were given to senior members of the Bar.

Besides, the body wondered why the Bar that has not lived up to expectation wanted to change a winning team that has in one year recorded more convictions than all the states and federal ministries of justices combined. And it was for this reason EFCC anti-corruption lawyer Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) believes NBA president’s comment borders on ‘corruption fighting back’ especially after pointing out that of about 20 agencies authorized by the constitution to investigate and prosecute, only the EFCC is more prominent having secured over 1000 convictions since inception in 2004 which involved former governors, public servants and businessmen.

Precisely because EFCC believes  there are some rogue elements in the Nigerian Bar Association giving the Bar bad name” which the Bar unfortunately have been unable to tame, it was of the opinion that a “Bar populated or directed by people perceived to be rogues and vultures cannot play the role of priests in the temple of justice.”

It is apparent that even with EFCC holding prosecutorial powers, most of the briefs will still have to go to the senior members of the Bar. The only control it has and which the Bar wants to take away is its power to decide in the interest of Nigeria which of those ‘celebrated’ rogue elements in the Nigerian Bar Association, giving the Bar a bad name and that must be left out because of   their notoriety for ‘tainted briefs from well-known fraudsters or for betraying the very essence of law which is the pursuit of justice.

This is why the joke today is on the Bar which must invalidate EFCC’s thesis that “the current self-serving campaign is intended to create a cabal of untouchables who can be investigated but may never be prosecuted.”

Central Africa is the den of despotism. It has, for almost 60 years, been the barnyard of autocratic geriatrics and playgrounds for the mostly Frenchified African rulers.

France, among the worst of the colonial and post-colonial oppressors and exploiters of Africans, has become the most disliked and repudiated European country in Africa!

Britain held that terrible medal of shame and injustice!

On August 30, 2023, the latest military coup in Gabon reminded us of the domestic strife and atrocities imposed by those presidents-for-life in the Central African economic bloc, CEMAC.

Gabon has substantial notoriety and corruption records.

It’s a long time member of the den of despots and despair in the geopolitical area known as Central Africa

While the soldiers in Nigeria’s neighboring Niger Republic seized power and kept the deposed president under “house arrest” only a few miles away from the other home/residence of Nigeria’s immediate former president MuhammaduBuhari.

Buhari is a veteran and key figure in a number of military coups in Nigeria.

While the recent military coup in Niger has caused major anxieties and characterizations of the regional ECOWAS and its new Chairman, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu as being relatively clueless. Especially for Tinubu whose educational sojourn to Chicago State University has become a major embarrassment even for Tinubu who seems  perennially engaged in one form of mendacious fix, or another, monthly.

In Gabon, familiar stories of the shameful evidences of the crassness of the Bongos are emerging— less than 50 hours of being booted out of office. The squandering of the massive resources of their oil-rich country is raising concerns.

Clearly, the grossness of the greed of these dictators and their tenure elongating, votes rigging schemes are fit for some Nollywood and Hollywood movies.

Already, a part of the reason I decided to caption my analyses of the coup in Gabon, Ali Bongo and the 40 Thieves, is that the pillaging of the country has many thieves, some of those are natives and many are original French citizens, not just ‘honorary French Africans’.

President Ali Bongo’s removal is being celebrated by citizens of Gabon. He became the leader following the death of his father Omar Bongo, in 2009. Omar ruled for 42 years. Ali was into the 14th year of his presidency for the controversial August 26, 2023 “election”. It simply means that the Bongo family ruled Gabon for 56 years!

As the dust and debate and tensions escalate across the Sahel region and the Central African areas of the continent, the latest questions are: What’s the best way forward amid the rash of military coups?

Do corrupt and incompetent politicians make it easier to topple governments?

President Bola Tinubu has said all diplo­matic options will be exhausted with the junta in Niger Republic before any last resort of military intervention comes into the picture.

He insisted that any forceful remov­al of a democratic government remains “wholly unacceptable.”

The president reissued the threat while receiving the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs led by the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Mu­hammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, at the State House, Abuja on Thursday.

In Tinubu’s words, the alternative of kinetic intervention in Niger Republic had not been jettisoned.

“I must thank you for your several visits to Niger Republic, Your Eminence, but you will still have to go back. My fear has been confirmed in Gabon that copy cats will start doing the same thing until it is stopped.

“We are neighbours with Ni­ger Republic, and what has joined Nigerians together with their great people cannot be broken. Nobody is interested in a war. We have seen the devastation in Ukraine and Sudan. But, if we don’t wield the big stick, we will all suffer the consequences together,” the president warned.

President Tinubu noted that Nigeria, under General Abdulsa­lami Abubakar, instituted a nine-month transition programme in 1998, and it proved very success­ful, leading the country into a new era of democratic governance.

The president sees no reason why such cannot be replicated in Niger, if Niger’s military author­ities are sincere.

“Your Eminence, please don’t get tired, you will still go back there. The soldiers’ action is un­acceptable. The earlier they make positive adjustments, the quicker we will dial back the sanctions to alleviate the sufferings we are seeing in Niger,” the president affirmed.

READ ALSO: FUTO Emerges Africa Centre Of Excellence In Future Energies, Electrochemical Systems
On the hardship faced by many Nigerians post-fuel subsidy removal, the president assured that all ongoing reforms will lib­erate and reposition the economy, which will benefit the majority of the population in terms of opportunities, infrastructure, healthcare and education.

“Nigeria is headed for a prom­ise. Our diversity will turn into prosperity, not adversity. We will build a country that our children will be proud of,” the president assured.

The president told the dele­gation that the Federal Govern­ment had opened talks with state governments to provide land for the proper sustenance of ani­mals with a view to developing pan-national animal husbandry and agro-allied production and processing facilities for mass export, job creation and revenue generation.

“If Nigeria is still looking for vaccines for basic health issues; if infant and maternal mortality is rampant, then we should ex­amine ourselves. I will commit to consulting with other leaders, like the NSCIA, and we will meet the needs of our people,” he said.

In his contribution at the meeting, Vice President Kashim Shettima said the president had budgeted N50 billion to support the ongoing rebuilding of lives and property in the North-West and North-East, and with a new focus on dialogue to address secu­rity challenges.

The Sultan of Sokoto pledged “one hundred percent loyalty” to the president, affirming that a leader can only reach a position by the will of God, and not man.

His Eminence assured the president that the NSCIA will be available to advice and support President Tinubu to realise his dream for the country, adding that “God will hold all leaders to account, in justice and fairness.”

He suggested that the distri­bution of palliatives across the country should be monitored and augmented, where it fails to reach some of the people who remain in dire need.

“I honestly believe we will come out of the challenges stronger,” the Sultan of Sokoto concluded.

It was a night of accolades for Africa’s foremost business conglomerate, Dangote Industries Limited, (DIL), as journalists in Lagos State conferred an award of excellence on the Group for its outstanding contributions to the economic development of Nigeria and Africa in general.

The award, according to the journalists, was because of Dangote’s aggressive employment generation drive, which has seen thousands of able youths, gainfully employed in the Group as well as the commitment to provision of critical infrastructure.

This award presentation was during the Gala/Awards Nite marking the end of the 2023 Press Week of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Lagos State Council, where some corporate organisations and certain individuals were also recognised for their contributions to society.

The NUJ award for Dangote Group came barely a week after the conglomerate emerged as Nigeria’s Most Valuable Brand for the sixth consecutive year, an achievement that was announced by the brand and marketing firm, TOP 50 BRANDS NIGERIA, as part of its comprehensive 2023 Top Brands perception assessment.

Dangote Cement Plc, a subsidiary of DIL, is the leading producer of Cement in the country and employs more than 65,000 direct workers and over 100,000 indirect workers, across all its Plants.

The journalists specifically lauded Dangote Group over the leading roles played by the Company regarding backward integration in the cement and sugar industries with continuous expansion of its operations, both within and outside the country, which has transformed the nation from being import-dependent to self-sufficiency and thereby creating the much-needed jobs for the employable youths.

September 1 is the transfer deadline day for most clubs in Europe’s top leagues.

The Premier League window closes at 11pm tonight, which means Deadline Day will run late into the evening.

It is similar in Scotland where the window closes at midnight, while LaLiga clubs have until 11pm to do their business.

France’s window shuts at 10pm but clubs in Italy will have to get their business done by 7pm, whereas the Bundesliga window closes at 5pm.

However, the Saudi Arabian window is open until September 7.

This means clubs still run the risk of losing players to the free-spending league once their windows have closed.

[DailyPost]

Human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) says the high level of poverty on the continent is responsible for the wave of coups in Africa.

He spoke at a Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) national symposium held in Abuja on Thursday.

Falana accused Nigeria’s ruling class of taking the people for granted. According to him, despite the poverty in the country, the National Assembly allocated billions to itself.

The theme of the symposium was “Nigerian Economy and the Crisis of Survival, Robbing the Poor to Pay the Rich”.

His comment comes on the heels of recent coups in Africa. The latest was in Gabon where soldiers seized power, ending decades of the Bongo dynasty’s reign.

The development has triggered condemnations from within and outside the continent.

President Bola Tinubu had described the wave of coups in Africa as a “contagious autocracy”