Asaba to host Milo basketball finals

For the first time since its inception in 1999, the national finals of the Nestle Milo Secondary School Basketball Championship, has been moved out of Lagos State.

It will be held in Asaba, the Delta State capital this year.

The organisers of the championship, who made this announcement at a press conference heralding the 18th edition of the tournament on Thursday in Lagos, said the final play-offs will hold between June 5 and 12 at the Asaba Stadium.

The competition will feature four conferences: the Western Conference, which will be held in Lagos from April 21 to 27, with school teams from Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun, Ohe Central Conference, which will be hosted by Ilorin from April 27 to May 4, will have teams from Benue, FCT, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Sokoto and Zamfara states.

The Confluence Conference billed for Lokoja, Kogi State from May 5 to May 12, will have teams from Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Plateau, Taraba, Yobe and Kogi states.

Then the Equatorial Conference will take place from May 13 to 19 in Enugu with teams from Abia, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Ebonyi Rivers, Imo and Enugu states participating.

All teams in the national finals will receive N200,000 each, while the winners, first and second runners-up will get extra N150,000, N120,000 and N100,000 respectively.

The Managing Director, Nestle Nigeria, Dharnesh Gordhon, said this edition of the championship “will stretch to over 9,000 schools across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria, helping to find out potential talents.”

The firm’s Category Manager, Beverages, Olufemi Akintola, said the championship has played a key role in producing many national and international basketball stars.

“A good number of the players in the Nigerian Premier Basketball League participated in the Milo Secondary Schools basketball championship. Some of our champions are currently playing in international leagues in the USA, Spain, Germany, Portugal and even China,” Akintola said.

According to the General-Secretary of the National School Sports Federation, Olabisi Joseph, who represented the federation’s president, there will be data capturing and biometrics of players at the conferences to produce a database that will be “an undefeatable tool in the war against the cankerworm of the use of mercenaries.”

yo and Lagos states.

Mikel’s form key to Egypt tie – Adepoju, Fuludu

Former Nigeria internationals, Mutiu Adepoju and Edema Fuludu, have hailed the current form of Chelsea midfielder, Mikel Obi, saying he would be key to Nigeria’s pursuit of victory against Egypt in their Gabon 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.

Mikel, who is in his 10th season at Chelsea, has rediscovered his form since he returned to the starting line-up of the English League champions under interim coach Guus Hiddink. The 28-year-old scored his sixth Chelsea goal in his 358th appearance on Tuesday in a 2-1 loss to Paris St. Germain in the UEFA Champions League.

Nigeria will play Egypt on March 25 in Kaduna before playing the return leg in Cairo and the former Super Eagles players, who spoke with our correspondent in separate interviews, believe that Mikel has achieved a new level of confidence which would rub on his performance for the Eagles.

Adepoju said, “Mikel has achieved a new level of confidence in his game and it was what resulted in his ability to take the responsibility for the team against PSG. He saw himself as responsible for the opponent’s first goal and fought well to get one back for his team.

“This is a different player from the one he was under (Jose) Mourinho. This ‘new’ Mikel will be important in the Nations Cup qualifiers against Egypt. The Eagles can now count him among the players who are in form and will deliver the goodies for the country.

“What he needs more now is the creative edge he lost but he can still play well in the same defensive midfield position in the Eagles.”

For Fuludu, Mikel’s return to the Chelsea starting line-up will strike fear in the Eagles’ opponents.

“We all know what an in-form Mikel can do in a team. An example was what he showed on Tuesday. He may not be scoring the goals but he can create the chances and make timely tackles to dispossess the opponent of the ball,” he said.

“That is the kind of player that opponents are afraid of; a player who does the dirty jobs in the team and initiate attacks. Mikel is an example of what regular playing time can do to a player.”

Naira still making a drastic fall, now 391/dollar

The naira tumbled significantly at the parallel market on Thursday, hitting 391 against the dollar as foreign exchange scarcity continues to batter Africa’s biggest economy.

The currency appears to have entered into a free fall mode against the dollar at the black market, having lost 26 per cent of its value in less than two weeks.

The naira had exchange for 372 to one dollar on the streets of Lagos, Abuja and other major cities on Wednesday.

The local currency, which closed at 310 against the greenback last Monday, has been falling consistently and significantly in the past 11 days

Forex dealers and financial experts linked the persistent fall of the naira to panic buying of the dollar and other major foreign currencies by importers, individuals and businessmen.

Bureaux De Change operators in Marina, Ikeja and Apapa in Lagos, and Abuja, told our correspondent on Thursday that there were no signs yet that the rising demand for forex, especially the greenback, would abate any time soon.

A BDC operator in Ikeja, Hamidu Bashir, told our correspondent that the high demand for dollar might decline over the weekend.

He, however, added that the high demand pattern would likely continue next week, a situation that might compound the naira’s woes.

According to a currency strategist at Ecobank Nigeria, Mr. Kunle Ezun, the falling naira-dollar exchange rate at the parallel market has to do with the fundamental problem of inadequate forex supply that the nation is grappling with.

He said, “Unless we do something about the supply problem we are having with the foreign exchange reserves, it is a simple and basic economics law – the demand is far above supply. We don’t have the forex supply that can match our demand. The naira may sell for over 400 against the dollar over the next weeks because it is still falling.

“In my own opinion, we may be forced to freeze importation of non-essential items in the near future. There are many solutions but a drastic action may have to be taken if things continue this way.”

FG allocates N120bn for rail projects

The Federal Government has set aside N120bn for different railway projects across the country in the 2016 budget proposals, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said.

Amaechi stated this in Abuja on Thursday after an inspection tour of the Abuja-Kaduna rail modernisation project, adding that the facility had been completed and that the government would commence free test run services on the route by March.

The minister also stated that construction of the Lagos-Kano standard gauge rail line would commence this year, adding that the President Muhammadu Buhari would inaugurate the Abuja-Kaduna project in May.

When asked about the budgetary provisions for railway projects this year, Amaechi said, “We have N120bn, but we need more than that because the situation is very bad. And the President has taken railway construction as a priority project. So, we have a total of N120bn, and N60bn is for the Lagos-Kano project. We hope that this year we will commence the Lagos-Kano standard gauge.

 

"Our contribution for the Lagos-Kano railway is N60bn; the Chinese Exim Bank will make their own contribution. For the Lagos-Calabar line, another N60bn will be our counterpart funding. So, what we are doing is to implement those things that have not been implemented for so many years.”

On why he decided to embark on a tour of the Abuja-Kaduna rail line, the minister said, “The essence of taking this tour is to enable us assess whether we are ready for commercial activities. But I think we are. Tomorrow (Friday), I’ll be coming from Kaduna through rail to Abuja, and we think that by March, we should start the test run of the rail services.

“And we think it should be free for those who run between March and April. By May, we expect that the President will kindly accept to inaugurate commercial activities on the rail. That way, those who want to go to Kaduna by rail will actually use our services.”