Nigeria smashed South Africa’s dreams of progressing beyond the group stages of the African Nations Championship Sunday, beating the hosts 3-1 and ensuring Nigeria joined Group A winners Mali in the next round.

The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, on Sunday urged parents in the country to allow their children to be fully immunised against polio.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar on Sunday in Abuja said his initiative of making all-round consultation would reinforce the country’s shared values and move Nigeria forward.

Many of the 2,672 Nigerians who got attestation to visit Ghana in 2013 did so for religious and education purposes.

Manchester United’s Premier League title defence died another death on Sunday as Samuel Eto’o’s hat-trick earned Chelsea a 3-1 win that left the champions 14 points off the pace.

Eto’o’s treble, his first in English football, gave manager Jose Mourinho his 100th Premier League victory, while United, who replied through Javier Hernandez, slumped to their seventh loss of the campaign and saw captain Nemanja Vidic sent off in stoppage time.

IT is an old story in Nigeria-the story of ‘political farmers’ who routinely hijacked every incentive or initiative introduced by the government for Nigerians in the agriculture sector. From fertilisers to soft loans; from the east to the west and the north to the south, the real farmers were always schemed out of projects or programmes meant to encourage agriculture activities. That was the order of the day for well over four decades until the Jonathan administration came on board; or so, the Federal Government says.

A Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Abdullahi Bafarawa, on Sunday said that lack of party ideology was the major reason politicians were cross carpeting.

Bafarawa, a former governor of Sokoto State, made the observation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Sokoto. According to him, unless leaders of political parties form and maintain political ideologies on their stand, cross carpeting from one party to another will continue to exist.

The anti-immigration UK Independence Party (UKIP) on Sunday suspended a local councillor who blamed recent flooding across Britain on the government’s decision to legalise gay marriage.

David Silvester, a devout Christian who defected from Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party in protest at last year’s move to allow same-sex marriage, claimed Britain had been “beset by storms” in recent weeks because the new law had angered God.

I once read a book on journalism which warns that one may not be objective if one pretends not to have biases or sentiments on issues or towards some people.

42-year- old Hamani Tijani, a suspected cross-border robbery kingpin, died on Sunday after suffering partial stroke for nine months at the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons in Lagos.