Banyana Banyana hat-trick hero Andisiwe Mgcoyi is confident that they can beat Nigeria for the first time when the two sides meet in the semi-final of the 2012 African Women’s Championship in Bata today.

Former External Affairs Minister, General Ike Nwachukwu (rtd), yesterday, cautioned President Goodluck Johnathan against taking a hasty decision to deploy Nigerian troops to Mali as part of the multilateral military intervention force to rout the Al-Qaeda-backed Tuareg rebels that have taken the northern part of the Sahelian country.

GOVERNOR Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, yesterday, warned that reptiles such as snakes and other dangerous animals, could be prowling in the abandoned homes of flood victims and warned that they should not rush home until government had fumigated and cleaned-up the affected areas.

Super Falcons coach, Kadiri Ikhana declared yesterday that South Africa’s Bayana Bayana will not prove a stumbling block when they clash today in the semi-final of the African Women Championship in Equatorial- Guinea.

Unknown gunmen yesterday shot the Managing Director of Nigerian Compass, Mr. Sina Kawonise and his police orderly.

AT LEAST three persons have been confirmed dead and two others still missing at Otumara, near SPDC flow station, Warri, Delta State, following last weekend’s gun attack on the community by some youths.

Deputy Director, Publications of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Mr. Peter Atilola, has said NYSC members were being trained on martial arts to defend themselves when the need arose.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the South-West has called for the resignation of the Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.

THE Ondo State House of Assembly yesterday wielded the big stick by suspending indefinitely nine out of the 18 chairmen of local council caretaker committees for undermining their authority.

DELTA State House of Assembly will today consider a bill for a law stipulating death penalty for kidnappers and terrorists in the state.

Barely three months after the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, accused him of unwittingly contributing to the undue delay in prosecution of high profile cases of corruption in the country, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, yesterday, fired back, blaming it on ineptitude of judges.

Determined to build sports culture on school children, Delta State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan has moved the venue of today’s opening game of the Governor’s Cup to the Saint Patrick College, Asaba.

HAM or Jaba land, in Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State is popular world-wide as a citadel of an ancient civilisation of iron dating back centuries before Christ was born. Nok village in Ham land is sited beside gaping caves on the foot of the rugged Nok hill, a strolling distance from Koi, the administrative headquarters of Jaba land.

THE United Nations, UN, yesterday said if Nigeria as a country must achieve environmental sustainability, it must force foreign oil companies that must have polluted the communities to engage in a total clean-up of the areas they operate.

As the controversy over ownership of the disputed Soku oil wells rages, Bayelsa State Government, yesterday, said there was no iota of truth in Rivers State Government’s claim that Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, wrongly paid the state N17bn from escrow account.