Gist Arena

World football governing body, FIFA, today Thursday August 14th ordered the re-instatement of impeached Aminu Maigari as president of the Nigerian Football Federation, NFF. The directive, which was conveyed in an email signed by the Deputy Secretary General of FIFA, Markus Kattner and sent to the NFF Secretary General Musa Amadu, stated that the NFF leadership must remain as status quo prior to the World cup in Brazil.   Mr Maigari was on July 24th impeached from office after a vote of no confidence was passed by some members of the NFF board. This will be the second time FIFA will be using its power to reinstate Maigari. With this new directive, Maigari and all his 13 board members earlier suspended will return to office until August 26th  when a fresh election will take place.

Boko Haram have abducted 100 young men in Doron Baga, a village in Borno State during an attack on the village on Sunday August 10th. According to a resident of the village, Halima Alhaji Adamu who spoke with journalists, she said the sect men killed at least 10 people and abducted 100 young boys and men during the attack... "The attack was  on Sunday , in my family they killed six people, I don’t know about the other families but the Hadaijawa community which I belong also had 100 of the men abducted by the insurgents.” she said. Halima also revealed that she lost her husband during the attack.  Meanwhile the Nigerian military said they intercepted a mass movement of about 51 youths from Maiduguri to Abuja at about  3am  yesterday Wednesday night. According to a statement by the Defence Headquarters, the youths, all packed in three 18-seater buses where traveling in company of a woman who said she was moving them to Abuja on the orders ...

Who agrees with him? See more tweets below

The doctors under the auspices of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) had embarked on a strike to press home their demand for an improvement in their welfare on July 1 and several attempts to resolve the issue have ended in a stalemate. The government had earlier accused the doctors of neglecting their oath to protect lives and continue to turn down the request to suspend the strike, particularly during the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus and the ongoing insurgency in some parts of the country. In a letter signed by Honourable L. N. Awute, a permanent secretary in the ministry of health, the president ordered that the action should take immediate effect. “President Goodluck Jonathan has suspended the residency training programme for doctors in Nigeria indefinitely for the purposes of appraising the challenges facing the health sector,” read the letter. “In line with the above, the Honourable Minister has directed that you issue letters of termination of Residency Tr...

The Kwara state government on Thursday said a suspected case of Ebola virus disease has been reported in the state. The Chairman of the state committee on Ebola virus, Prof Sunday Opabola told reporters in Ilorin, the state capital allaying fear of outbreak of the disease in the state. He said the suspected case was on Wednesday discovered on a 7-month old baby newly brought in to the state from Ibadan, the Oyo state capital The professor of medicine, who doubles as a Special Assistant to Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed on public health emphasised that there is no confirmed case of the disease in the state as being speculated around. He added that the baby with the suspected case was found with some symptoms which are not exclusive to ebola disease but also have to do with those of lassa fever, cholera, malaria and some other diseases. Said he: “We need to do this because of all the rumours and talks going on in town and also on the social media. Kwara state has always had ...

A South African lady took to Twitter to reveal injuries she suffered after a brutal assault by her boyfriend. But why?

Adeniran Adebayo, (pictured above) a primary school teacher has been arrested and arranged in court by the Lagos state police command for raping a primary 4 pupil inside the toilet of their private primary school located on Olateju Ilesanmi Street, Baruwa, Ipaja area of Lagos,  Punch  reports. Testifying before a Lagos State Chief Magistrate Court in Ebutte Metta yesterday August 13th, the Investigating Police officer from the state Criminal Investigation Department Yaba said he interrogated the little girl three times in which she affirmed that her teacher, Mr Adeniran, who is married with two children, had lured her to the school toilet and forced himself into her and then threatened to flog her if she screamed. Continue... The police officer investigating the case said; "I interviewed the victim after the matter was brought to the SCID. She said on the fateful day, she was in school after the closing hours and was waiting for her younger brother, who atten...

NIGERIA'S Super Falconettes have qualified for the quarter finals of the Women's U20 World Cup topping their group in the process with a 2-1 victory over England last night. In their third Group C match played at the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, the Falconettes came from behind to secure all three points. They now top their group with seven points ahead of Mexico, England and South Korea and will face Group D runners-up New Zealand in the quarter finals. This will be the fifth consecutive quarter final in which the Falconettes have appeared and they remain among the favourites to lift the trophy.  Last night, England opened the scoring in just the fifth minute when Hannah Blundell played a clever through ball for Nikita Parris, who took one touch and then clipped a shot past the advancing Nigeria goalkeeper Ibijoke Sangonuga from the edge of the box. However, the Falconettes, who are African champions drew level four minutes before the interval after Lo...

Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote has donated N150million to help in the fight of the spread of the Ebola virus in Nigeria. The Chief Executive Officer of the Dangote Foundation, Mrs Adhiambo Odaga announced this at a media briefing at the Ministry of Health, Abuja on Monday. She said the money will be available for the establishment of an Ebola emergency operation centre in Lagos. “After bilateral discussion with the honourable minister and his team, Dangote foundation has funded the establishment of the Ebola emergency operation in Lagos, that is being done through grant from the foundation of just a little over N150 million,” she said. "The strategy that our chairman is deploying is the strategy to respond and to commend government for the effort, and to show that all Nigerians are concerned. We will continue to discuss with the ministry about what additional support can be offered. “And we also have been approached by several parties who are interested in pa...

An experimental drug developed by a Nigerian in diaspora for the treatment of Ebola is expected to arrive the country today, the Minister for Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, has said. The drug, called “Nanosilver”, has been approved for use by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an experimental treatment ethical in the case of the Ebola epidemic. The Federal Govt yesterday approved the use of experimental drugs in the treatment of the deadly virus.

A doctor who attended to late Patrick Sawyer at the First Consultant Hospital has been confirmed positive with the Ebola virus. Speaking at a news conference today, the Nigerian Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu said the doctor is currently undergoing treatment at the quarantine centre in Lagos. Prof Onyebuchi revealed  that some of the 169 secondary contacts of Sawyer were no longer under surveillance and had been released, having completed the 21 days of incubation period.  The Minister also said the nurse who had escaped the quarantine center in Lagos and traveled to Enugu state has been returned back to Lagos with her husband in a special traveling ambulance. In Enugu yesterday, there were 21 secondary contacts with the nurse. But after investigations, there are only 6 secondary contacts now.  The nurse who is newly wedded had no symptoms of the disease when she traveled to Enugu. She was transported back to Lagos in a sp...

Another nurse, 35year old Justina Obi Ejelonu, (pictured above) who  attended to late Liberian Patrick Sawyer while he was ill at the First Consultant hospital in Lagos, has died. According to Sahara reporters, her relatives called to inform them of her demise in the early hours of today. Ms. Ejelonu had been kept in a quarantine facility in Lagos and was very vocal in the campaign for the release of the ZMapp experimental drug to Nigerian Ebola disease patients.  Justina was quarantined at the B Ward, a male ward which is now referred to as the Ebola Ward of the Yaba Mainland General Hospital. May her soul rest in peace..amen.

Ruby Bridges, the brave little African American girl's entry into an all-white school on November 14, 1960. As soon as Bridges entered the school, white parents pulled their own children out; all teachers refused to teach while a black child was enrolled.  Only one person agreed to teach Ruby and that was Barbara Henry, from Boston, Massachusetts, and for over a year Mrs. Henry taught her alone, "as if she were teaching a whole class."  Every morning, as Bridges walked to school, one woman would threaten to poison her; because of this, the U.S. Marshals dispatched by President Eisenhower, who were overseeing her safety, only allowed Ruby to eat food that she brought from home.  Another woman at the school put a black baby doll in a wooden coffin and protested with it outside the school, a sight that Bridges said "scared me more than the nasty things people screamed at us."  At her mother's suggestion, Bridges began to pray on the way to sch...

I was on twitter minding my own business when I saw Nigerian blogger and illustrator Sugabelly's No Holds Barred #NHBi tweets. Thought some of you may want to see it? I can't shout!  #strollsaway  but you can like and see many more tweets below  

First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan pictured greeting officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Poland as she arrived the Gdansk Walesa International Airport in Sopoto, Northern Poland to commission a training ship built for the Nigerian Oceanographic Institute for Marine and Research purposes.

In defense of her late husband, Mrs Decontee Sawyerr, widow of Late Patrick Sawyerr, the Liberian man who came into Nigeria with the deadly Ebola virus, has said her sick husband risked all to come to Nigeria because he believed so much in the health system here & wanted to be properly diagnosed and treated. She explained her thoughts on her facebook wall and also took a swipe at the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who called out her late husband recently in a CNN interview. What she wrote below... "Good day my Facebook friends and FAM. I hope all is well with you.  Thank you  for all of your kind words and support for me and my family. You strengthen me more than you realize. According to an article written on Ava's birthday (August 10) by Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times , "...in another Liberian newspaper, The New Dawn, which cited footage from a  security camera  in the airport in Monrovia, Mr. Sawyer behaved strangely as he waited fo...