The International Press Institute, IPI, has condemned the hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World by its publishers.

A top security chief yesterday accused some judges in some states of the north of frustrating efforts by security agencies to prosecute the arrested members of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram just as Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State raised an alarm that members of the sect have infiltrated the country’s security agencies.

Justice Pat Ajoku of a Federal High Court in Lagos has granted leave to Guaranty Trust Bank, GTB, to serve billionaire businessman, Chief Abdulazeez Alao Arisekola, court processes in the bankruptcy suit it instituted against him, by substituted means.

The first ever international beach soccer competition has been scheduled to hold between December 9 and 11 in Lagos. England, Brazil, South Africa and Nigeria are billed to compete for honours in the four-nation holding at the Victoria Island.

As Coach John Obuh names his Flying Eagles squad for the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Colombia today, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has absolved itself of any blame for the failure of three Under20 players, Stanley Okoro, Mohammed Aliyu and Ramon Azeez to get travelling visas to join up with the team in Portugal.

OYO Traditional Council of Obas and Chiefs was yesterday embroiled in crisis as the Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Samuel Odulana and the Onipetu of Ijeru, Oba Sunday Oyediran clashed openly.

WHAT determines where President Goodluck Jonathan is found? Who decides who the President of the biggest black nation on earth meets? What considerations seal decisions on the President’s public conduct? We are concerned and we want to state our abhorrence to the continuous diminishing of the Presidency by the people the President meets and the miniscule circumstances of those engagements.

Amid the controversy triggered by the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to introduce Islamic banking in the country, Bishop John Alagbala Osa-Oni of Vineyard Christian Centre, Lagos, has said the banking model was a potential threat to national unity.

Oyo State government has given the immediate past Governor of the state, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala, a seven-day ultimatum to withdraw what it called “a regime of spurious lies” being orchestrating in the media against it or face legal action.

The ongo ing legal tussle before the presidential election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja, assumed a new dimension yesterday, with President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, vowing to drag the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, to the Supreme Court.