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Senate President Bukola Saraki (left); Speaker House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; Special Adviser to the President, Assembly Matters, (Senate), Ita Enang; Special Adviser to the President, Assembly Matters,(House of Representatives), Sulaiman Kawu; Acting President Yemi Osinbajo; Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma and Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari at the signing of the 2017 Appropriation Bill at the State House, Abuja …yesterday. • Saraki, Dogara, others witness ceremony • Experts lament delay, 2018 proposals ready in Oct Acting President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday signed the N7.44 trillion budget for 2017, ending months of speculations over the status of the document. The ceremony took place at the Presidential Villa, Abuja with both members of the Executive and the National Assembly in attendance. Specifically, Osinbajo was joined at the ceremony by Senate President Bukola Saraki; House of Representatives Speaker Ya...

Atletico Madrid’s French forward Antoine Griezmann celebrates a goal during the UEFA Champions League semifinal second leg football match Club Atletico de Madrid vs Real Madrid CF at the Vicente Calderon stadium in Madrid. Antoine Griezmann has agreed to extend his contract at Atletico Madrid by a further year, until 2022, the Spanish club confirmed on June 13, 2017. French star Antoine Griezmann has extended his contract with Atletico Madrid by a year, the Spanish club announced on Tuesday. Griezmann’s contract now runs until June 30, 2022, and ends rumours linking him with a move away from Atletico. “The first thing that I want to do is apologise to the people who misunderstood my statements,” the 26-year-old said. “Maybe I expressed myself badly or someone wanted to make news where there wasn’t any, but since I came, I have given my all for my club, my teammates and my coaching st...

Credit ratings agency Moody’s on Tuesday said it had downgraded a slew of top South African banks, insurers and local authorities prompted by fears over the country’s worsening financial position. It slashed the creditworthiness of the five largest banks — FirstRand, Standard, Nedbank, Investec and Absa — to just one notch above junk status, all with a negative outlook. “The primary driver for today’s rating downgrades is the challenging operating environment in South Africa, characterized by a pronounced economic slowdown, and weakening institutional strength,” Moody’s said in a statement. Insurers Old Mutual, MMI Group, Guardrisk and Standard Insurance were all downgraded one notch to either Baa2 or Baa3 — the lowest investment-grade level. “Recent political developments suggest a weakening of the country’s institutional strength which casts doubt over the strength and sustai...

Abdulwaheed Odusile The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Lagos State Council, has condemned Monday’s invasion of the Apapa, Lagos premises of The Sun Newspapers by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). A statement by the Chairman of the Council, Mr Deji Elumoye, described the seal-up of the newspaper house as “barbaric’’. The union wondered why the EFCC would ransack the premises of the media outfit without any search warrant and subject innocent workers to undue stress. According to the statement, the EFCC by the invasion had infringed on the fundamental human rights of the workers whose movement in and out of the company premises was curtailed by security operatives for over an hour “This is a great violation of the freedom of movement and association of the affected citizens, as entrenched in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, as amended. “The Council, therefor...

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has called on the Federal Government to extend its ‘whistleblowing’ policy to the power sector to curb energy theft. Fashola made the appeal in Enugu at the 16th Power sector monthly meeting, sponsored by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company. He said that available statistics revealed huge energy theft by Nigerians, adding that the problem had become a big challenge for not just the power distribution companies, but consumers as well. According to him, if nothing is done, those who pay for energy consumption will continue to bear the overall cost. The minister said that statistics revealed that only six million households consumed energy in the country, adding “if this is correct, it means that some people steal energy in the country, while only a few pay. “The statistics cannot be correct and it is therefore necessary to extend whistleblowing to the power sector in order to exp...

Rescue personel work at the scene after a seven-storey building collapsed overnight, on June 13, 2017 in the Nairobi suburb of Embakasi. Several people were missing on June 13 after a seven-storey building collapsed overnight in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, rescue officials said. Residents were evacuated to safety when the building developed cracks and then collapsed, police said. At least four people were missing after the collapse of a seven-storey building in the Kenyan capital Nairobi overnight, the Red Cross said on Tuesday. The incident occurred in a very poor neighbourhood near Nairobi’s international airport southeast of the capital, Red Cross spokeswoman Noellah Musundi told AFP. “The information is still scanty (about) the exact number of missing people, but at this stage, a mother and her three children are missing,” she said. Police and local residents said the authorities had been alerted on Monday evening after cracks appeared in the build...

Real Madrid’s Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo takes part in a training session at The Principality Stadium in Cardiff on the eve of the UEFA Champions League final football match between Juventus and Real Madrid.<br />State prosecutors have filed a complaint on June 13, 2017 against the Portuguese star, who they accuse of taking advantage of a corporate structure to defraud the Spanish Treasury of 14.7 million euros. Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo was on Tuesday accused of a 14.7 million euro tax evasion through offshore companies, the public prosecutor’s office in Madrid announced. The Portuguese footballer was accused of “four crimes against the public treasury between 2011-14… which involves tax fraud of 14,768,897 euros ($16.5m, £12.9m)”, the office said in a statement. “The accused took advantage of a company structure created in 2010 to hide income generated in Spain from his image rights from tax authorities, which is a ‘voluntary’ and ...