Former Tottenham forward Gareth Bale has maintained that he will remain at the Santiago Bernabeu come next season.
The 25-year-old made a world record transfer to Real Madrid in 2013,
worth €100 million. In his first season at Madrid, he won the champions
league but has been heavily criticized this season for a series of below
par displays.
Despite this though, the Welshman is confident that he will remain at Madrid come next season.
When asked by The Sun if he will be at Real next season, the Welshman
replied: “Of course, yes. I’m a Real Madrid player and I’ll carry on as
normal. I am enjoying it and hopefully I can continue to.
“I feel settled. I’m looking forward now to playing and winning more
trophies. My goal is to keep improving, performing and to win as many
titles as I can.”
Veteran musician Charly Boy has added his thoughts to the ongoing argument about Bruce Jenner transforming to Caitlyn Jenner at 65.
He shared a post on Facebook saying:
I
must ask you this question. In our pursuit for happiness, do we focus
on the dictates of life based on our social environment or on our own
personal need of what individually makes us happy? For the past few days
the global social media has been agog with Bruce Jenner sex change, he
now wishes to be called Caitlyn.
Surfing
through some of our local blogs, I have read some yahoo yahoo comments
from Nigerians who feel that their yeye comments are really of any
importance in the decision taken by this great Olympian, now, the gender
bender.
Yes, I saw Bruce Jenner
Vanity Fair interview. I read it over and over, it sounded so gutsy,
sincere, truthful and so free. Bruce had always been married, had kids,
and a successful career but for a long time he had never been happy and
content with being a man. Sometimes we find it difficult understanding
what prompts one to make those kinds of changes that are physically and
emotionally permanent and we start to speculate, Maybe he wanted to
rebrand, wanted to put himself back into serious reckoning again. Yes,
sometimes it can be about the drama and the almighty dollars who is to
say. However, It just may be devoid of all those and just be a spiritual
journey to finding self, purely a pursuit of happiness, about being
free, and finding strength to be that which makes one feel complete
irrespective of who’s ox is gored!
My take
It is not one’s
masculinity or femininity alone that defines one’s identity, it is the
harmony between the two that determines how comfortable and integrated
one’s identity is going to be. In other words, shocking as this may be
to the more macho in our midst, inside some men, lies an unexpressed
woman. And even more shocking is the proposition that the object of
masculine identity development is not the elimination of this woman, but
acknowledging the existence of, and fine-tuning the feminine side with
the masculine part of the identity. In other words, blending the two
fundamental principles of yin and yang to influence our behavior.
The
“masculine woman” has become more socially acceptable than the
“feminine man”, who is still an object of derision. And herein lies the
root of the gender conflict. Women find it easy to pursue their
masculinity; men find it disagreeable to even acknowledge, let alone
pursue their femininity. A few people have been able to find that
balance and I am happy that Linda lives here, in me? Yesoooooo!
So
to those of you in your personal pursuit for happiness whatever it is,
climb every rainbow and follow every star till you find your dream.
In a recent interview with Stylecaster.com, Kim got to answer 10 questions which included topics like Caitlyn Jenner‘s Twitter skills, North‘s
perception of the concept of pregnancy, her Tumblr habits, her
pregnancy style & new dos and don’ts for this pregnancy and more.
Read excerpts from the interview;
On her pregnancy habits this time around
Last pregnancy, I ate a donut a day, and I’m not going to do that this
time. I have a nutritionist who’s going to help me. But, I’m also going
to take it easy and enjoy myself, whereas last time I was so
uncomfortable. Pregnancy isn’t the most comfortable thing for me, but I
am really going to try to embrace it. So far, lot of things make me
nauseous. A lot of things I can’t smell or see. I’ve just been trying to
sleep more or take lots of naps.
What North knows (or thinks she knows) about pregnancy
She knows that mommy has a baby in her belly. But she thinks that
everyone has a baby in her belly. I don’t think she’ll really understand
until my belly gets bigger.
On her pregnancy style
I’m definitely going to be more simple and I don’t care if I wear the
same thing over and over, as long as it fits and I am comfortable. I’m a
little nervous! Kanye didn’t help me last time. He helped me right
after, he was like ‘Okay I can’t take this anymore, I’m gonna help you.’
On her website launch and making videos
This morning on Twitter I was like, I can’t wait for my website to
launch because I’m going to do video streaming and just every time I
hear some stupid rumor people take as fact, I’m just gonna get online
and get on them.
I love to work with
different people and be creative. It’s my version of how I talk on
social media. It’ll be my own platform. I’ve been doing beauty tutorials
daily, I love doing hair and makeup tutorials. And a lot of original
photo shoots.
Today is World Environment Day and in a bid to help preserve nature, Nollywood actress Ini Edo has been named an Eco Ambassador.
She shared the news on Instagram and wrote:
To
the glory of God, and with gratitude to the Eko restoration foundation,
I’ve just been made an Eko Ambassador at Lekki beach today. My job is
to join in the walk of preserving nature. I couldn’t feel more
honoured.#Godwin
She
also shared her outfit of the day and wrote ‘Off to sign
papers. #ambassor #goodwillisearned #alwaysontop #honoured #gogreen’
It’s more news the North wants GEJ out of the way, so their
licenses can be renewed cos most of them are expiring from 2016 upwards.
Monumental injustice is being perpetrated to the people of Niger Delta on whose soil the oil was found.
These people constitutes the main opposition to President Goodluck Jonathan today. Please Read on:
(1) This oil block business is so lucrative that Danjuma’s Sapetro
divested of its investment in Akpo condensate for $1billion dollars.
This business is second to none in Nigeria. That is why any attempt to
investigate the activities in this sector will always be futile. The
money is so much that they give bribes in millions of dollars.
A birthday gift or child naming gift from an oil block owner to a
government official could be as paltry as $2million dollars, and if the
official’s father died, the condolence gift could reach mere $3 million
dollars. When they want to bribe legislators, it is in millions of
dollars and any ongoing investigation ends within weeks. They are so
confident that with excess money they can buy up Nigeria and they are
succeeding
(2) OML 110 with high yield OBE oil fields was given Cavendish Petroleum
owned by Alhaji Mai Daribe, the Borno Patriarch in 1996 by Sanni
Abacha. OBE oil field has estimated over 500 million barrels of oil. In
layman’s language and using average benchmark of $100 dollars per
barrel, translates to $50 billion dollars worth of oil reserve. When you
remove the taxes, royalties and sundry duties worth about 60% of the
reserve payable over time you get about $20billion dollars worth of oil
in the hands of a family.
(3) OPL 246 was awarded to SAPETRO, a company owned by General
Theophilus Danjuma, by Sanni Abacha in 1998. Akpo condensate exports
about 300,000 barrels of crude daily.
(4) NOML 112 and OML 117 were awarded to AMNI International Petroleum
Development Company owned by Colonel Sanni Bello in 1999. Sanni Bello is
an inlaw to Abdulsalami Abubakar, former Head of State of Nigeria.
(5) OML 115, OLDWOK Field and EBOK field was awarded to Alhaji Mohammed
Indimi from Niger State. Indimi is an inlaw to former Military President
Ibrahim Babangida.
(6) OML 215 is operated by Nor East Petroleum Limited owned by Alhaji Saleh Mohammed Gambo.
(7) OML 108 is operated by Express Petroleum Company Limited is owned by Alhaji Aminu Dantata.
(cool OML II3 allocated to Yinka Folawiyo Pet Ltd is owned by Alhaji W.I. folawiyo
(9)ASUOKPU/UMUTU marginal oil fields is operated by Seplat Petroleum.
Seplat is owned by Prince Nasiru Ado Bayero, cousin to the Central Bank
Governor Lamido Sanusi. This oil field has the capacity of 300,000
barrels of oil daily. This translates to $30million dollars daily at
average benchmark of $100 dollars per barrel. Deducting all sundry
taxes, royalties etc , this field can yield $12billion dollars daily for
the owners .
(10)Intel owned by Atiku, Yarádua and Ado Bayero has substantial stakes
in Nigeria’s oil exploration industry both in Nigeria and Principe and
Sao Tome.
(11) AMNI owns two oil blocks OML 112 and OML 117 which it runs Afren
plc and Vitol has substantial stakes in oil blocks. Afren plc is
operating EBOK oil fields in OML 67. Vitol lifts 300,000 barrels of
Nigerian oil daily. Rilwanu Lukman, former OPEC Chairman has stakes in
all these named three companies.
(12) OPL 245 was awarded to Malabu Oil& Gas Company by Sanni Abacha.
Dan Etete, Abacha’s oil minister owns Malabu Oil. In 2000, Vice
President Atiku Abubakar convinced Obasanjo to revoke OPL 245 given to
Malabu Oil. Etete had earlier rejected Atiku’s demand for substantial
stakes in the high yield OPL 245 and it attracted the venom of Ota
Majesty who revoked the licence. However, in 2006, Obasanjo had mercy on
Dan Etete and gave him back his oil block worth over $20 billion
dollars.
(13) OPL 289 and OPL 233 was awarded during Obasanjo era to Peter Odili
fronts, Cleanwater Consortium, consisting of Clenwater Refinery and
RivGas Petroleum and Gas Company. Odili’s brother in law, Okey Ezenwa
manages the consortium as Vice Chairman.
(14) OPL 286 is managed by Focus Energy in partnership with BG Group, a
British oil concern. Andy Uba has stakes in Focus Energy and his modus
operandi is such that you can never see his name in any listings yet he
controls OPL and OML through proxies
(15)OPL 291 was awarded to Starcrest Energy Nigeria Limited, owned by
Emeka Offor by Obasanjo . Immediately after the award, Starcrest sold
the oil block to Addax Petroleum Development Company Limited (ADDAX)
Addax paid Sir Emeka Offor a farming fee of $35million dollars and still
paid the signature bonus to the government. Emeka Offor still retains
stake in ADDAX operations in Nigeria.
(16) Mike Adenuga’s Conoil is the oldest indigenous oil exploration
industry in Nigeria. Conoil has six oil blocks and exports above 200,000
barrels of crude daily.
(17)The oil block national cake sharing fiesta could take twists
according to the mood of the Commander-in –Chief at the particular time.
In 2006, Obasanjo revoked OPL 246 which Abacha gave to Danjuma because
he refused to support the tenure elongation bid of the Ota Majesty. In
2000, Obasanjo had earlier revoked OPL 241 given to Dan Etete under the
advice Atiku. However, when the Obasanjo-Atiku faceoff started, the Ota
Majesty made a u-turn and handed back the oil block to Etete.
(18)During the time of Late President Yarádua , a panel headed by
Olusegun Ogunjana was set up to investigate the level of transparency in
the award of oil blocks. The panel recommended that 25 oil blocks
awarded by the Obasanjo be revoked because the manner they were obtained
failed to meet the best practices in the industry. Sadiq Mahmood,
permanent secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum endorsed the report to
then president with all its recommendations. As a result of the report
Yarádua revoked eleven oil blocks.
(19) In April 2011 Mike Adenuga attempted to buy Shell’s OML 30 for $1.2
billion dollars. The Minister for Petroleum and Nigeria’s most powerful
woman refused the sale of the OML30 to Adenuga citing national
interest. This block was later sold to Heritage Oil for $800 million
dollars eleven months later.
(20) In the name of competitive bidding, which Obasanjo introduced in
2005, Officials bring companies overnight and through processes best
described as secretive and voodooist they award blocks to party
faithful, fronts and phoney companies. They collect gratifications
running into hundreds of millions of dollars which is paid into offshore
account and the nation loses billions of dollars of revenue to private
pockets.
During the third term agenda, Obasanjo was deceived that the allocation
of oil block to party faithfuls is to fund the third term agenda. With
the failure of the third term, the beneficiaries went home with their
fortunes and thanked God or Allah for buttering their bread.
Senator Andy Uba co ordinate the award of the last rounds of oil block
by Obasanjo in 2005 and 2007. The then minister of petroleum, Edwin
Daukoru was a mere errand boy who took instructions from the
presidential aide
The process of sharing Nigeria’s oil block national cake is as
fraudulent now as when Ibrahim Babangida started the process of
discretionary allocation of oil blocks to indigenous firms.
Discretionary allocation of oil blocks entails that a president can
reward a mistress who performs wonderfully with an oil block with
capacity for cumulative yield of over $20 billion dollars without
recourse to any process outside of manhood attachments.
Babangida, Abacha, Abdulsalami and Obasanjo awarded discretionary oil
blocks to friends, associates, family members, party chieftains,
security chiefs and all categories of bootlickers, spokespersons and
cult members without any laid down procedures.
The recipients of such oil blocks will get funds from ever willing
offshore financiers and partners to graciously settle the benefactors,
the awarders, facilitators and the Commander-in-Chief through fronts.
These settlements mostly paid into foreign accounts runs into hundreds
of millions of dollars according to the potential yield of the block.
Sometimes, the awarder (sharer of national cake and direct
intermediaries) demand additional stakes in the bidding company. The
awarder sends fronts as part of the directorship and management of the
bidding firms without leaving a link to them. That is how the oil block
national cake is distributed to a few Nigerians.
Signature bonuses which are paid when an investor successfully bids,
wins and signs agreement with the petroleum ministry, running into tens
of millions and sometimes hundreds of millions of naira ,is often waived
off. There is actually no waiver; rather a diversion of what would have
been paid to government t coffers is paid into private purse as
appreciation gifts.
That is why those in the Petroleum Ministry dread retirement as though
it signifies going to hell fire. No matter how little your influence,
something substantial must enter your hands especially in hard currency.
The nation loses billions of dollars in diverted revenue whenever any
round of auction occurs.
The regime of President Goodluck is not showing any signs of changing
the status quo. Controversies have trailed the activities of the
Minister of Petroleum and many players in the Industry accuse her of
demanding stakes from every oil deal. It is hoped that President
Goodluck Jonathan will remember his transformational promise to
Nigerians and endeavour to face the hawks in the oil industry.
The angst in the air is so much that if this monster of illegal
allocation of oil block is not addressed, the much touted revolution
could begin all of a sudden and all who condoned this illegality at the
expense of hungry Nigerians may have nowhere to hide.
Culled from How Babangida, Abubakar, Abacha, Obasanjo Shared Nigeria’s Oil Blocks – Written by Obinna Akukwe
In an exclusive interview on set of D’Banj‘s latest project, D’Banj sat down with Raro Lae, and dished her all of the tea!
D’Banj spoke of working on “Coming To America” music project for 6+ months (Including I’m D’Banj Album & EP) celebrating his 10th year anniversary, million dollar Jesus piece jewelry given to him by Kanye West, exclusive info about his latest music video, being inspired by Beyoncé for current project (He’s already filmed 5+ videos) , paving the way for international artist, Ciroc sponsorship and more.
D’Banj also talked about being the P.Diddy, Michael Jackson, Jay Z of Africa as well as the struggles & obstacles he faced in the past 10 Years of being in the music industry!
The interview was filmed by Champion Studio, in collaboration with Lafamedia Productions, iCirculate & Kedu TV.
Some 150 people have died in a fire at a petrol station in Ghana's capital, Accra, officials say.
The
fire on Wednesday night started as people in the city were trying to
cope with two days of heavy rain, which has left many homeless and
without power.
The flooding hampered rescue efforts and may have led to the fire, the BBC's Sammy Darko reports from Accra.
President John Dramani Mahama has announced three days of national mourning to begin on Monday.
It
is thought that people were in the petrol station sheltering from the
downpours when the fire broke out, our correspondent says.
A further 25 people have died in the floods, officials say.
President Mahama visited the burnt-out petrol station and described the deaths as "catastrophic" and "almost unprecedented".
He vowed to take tough measures to stop people building on waterways, which appeared to have been a factor in the disaster.
"I
think that the time has come for us to remove houses out of water and
the public should understand that it is necessary to save everybody
else," he said.
Following an emergency meeting of cabinet and
security chiefs on how to tackle flooding, the government says it will
release £9m ($14m) to help flood victims.
Schools were closed across the capital and children asked to stay at home.
The fire broke out on Wednesday night
Survivor Yaw Aforve said he was sleeping in his car at the petrol station when he heard the fire
Bus conductor Yaw Aforve was sleeping in his vehicle which was parked at the petrol station when the fire started.
He said he jumped into the floodwaters and when he came up for air, the fire burnt his face.
"I was swept away by the water to the other side [of the road]," he added. "I saw so many people screaming and shouting."
The fire services say flooding contributed to the fire
The petrol station was totally destroyed by the fire
The flooding helped cause the fire, the Ghana fire service said.
The
waters "caused the diesel and petrol to flow away from the gas station,
and fire from a nearby house led to the explosion", spokesman Billy
Anaglate said, the Associated Press news agency reports.
One of those who died in the blaze was a child
The child's mother was consoled by bystanders
On the scene - Sammy Darko, BBC Africa, Accra
Two days of heavy rain has brought much of the city to its knees.
There are chaotic scenes with cars being carried away by the water and many roads blocked off.
Hundreds
have been trapped in their offices and some have been forced to spend
the night in their cars as traffic came to a standstill.
Parts of
Accra have been left without power as electricity sub-stations have
been damaged in the flooding, which is making the ongoing energy
shortages even worse.
Blood was seen under the truck which was carrying away the dead bodies
Cars have been washed away and roads have been blocked by the flooding
Many homes have been flooded and people have been wandering around in their nightclothes after being forced to leave their beds.
One
man told a local radio station that he had put his children on top of a
wardrobe to save them from the water coming into his house.
Weather forecasters are saying that more rain is on its way. Correction
5 June: This story was amended to make it clear that 150 people are
believed to have died in the petrol station blaze and 25 from the
flooding.
We all know 31-year-old mother of 1 – Amber Rose loves making a statement with her fashion choices – but with her latest beauty look we couldn’t help but ask what you think?!
The model, video vixen and ex-wife of rapper Wiz Khalifa debuted a striking new look with bleached brows on her Instagram page for her over 6.6 million followers to see. And this isn’t the first time wither.
Captioning the photos with an alien emoji and the words “Sweet Cherry Pie” the personality has been feeling her new look sharing several photos on the social media site.
