The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has spoken on why the passport of Modupe Odele, an #EndSARS advocate was seized saying that it had nothing to do with the campaign against police brutality.
Odele, a legal practitioner and member of the Feminist Coalition, had narrated how NIS officials stopped her from travelling out of the country.
The Feminist Coalition, which is the promoter of the #EndSARS protest, raised about N147 million for the cause.
The lawyer, who was actively involved in the campaign, offered legal aid to persons who were arrested during the demonstration.
Speaking on Thursday, Sunday James, NIS spokesman, said the passport was seized as part of a routine border assignment.
He said whenever a restriction is placed on any individual, the immigration service is responsible for its enforcement.
James added that the action is unconnected to the #EndSARS protests.
“As an enforcement agency in charge of border management, if there is an order restricting anybody from entry into the country, we enforce it without any prejudice. This doesn’t have anything to do with EndSARS protest or an individual, it is a routine assignment,” NAN quoted him to have said.
The federal government has been accused of generating a no fly list of #EndSARS promoters — but it denied this claim.
Saudi Arabia will join the Formula 1 calendar with a night race in the 2021 season.
A street circuit in Jeddah will stage the inaugural race in November of next year.
Saudi Arabia will become F1’s third race in the Middle East after Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.
“We are excited to welcome Saudi Arabia to Formula 1 for the 2021 season and welcome their announcement following speculation in recent days,” said F1 chairman Chase Carey.
“Saudi Arabia is a country that is rapidly becoming a hub for sports and entertainment with many major events taking place there in recent years and we are very pleased that Formula 1 will be racing there from next season.Now TV now just £25 a monthSave over 25% and grab a NOW TV Sky Sports Month Pass for just £25 a month for 3 months. Cancel anytimehttps://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1324358101827465216&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skysports.com%2Ff1%2Fnews%2F12433%2F12124480%2Fsaudi-arabian-gp-to-join-formula-1-calendar-from-2021-season&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
“The region is hugely important to us and with 70 per cent of the population of Saudi being under 30 we are excited about the potential to reach new fans and bring our existing fans around the world exciting racing from an incredible and historic location.
“We will be publishing our full provisional 2021 calendar in the coming weeks and this will be submitted to the World Motor Sport Council for approval.”
Saudi Arabia, which has staged recent high-profile boxing, football and golf events, has faced criticism from campaign groups for its human rights record.
In a statement, Amnesty International UK’s Head of Campaigns, Felix Jakens, said: “Formula One should realise that a Saudi Grand Prix in 2021 would be part of ongoing efforts to sportswash the country’s abysmal human rights record.
“In the lead-up to a race in Jeddah, we would urge all F1 drivers, owners and teams to consider speaking out about the human rights situation in the country, including by expressing solidarity with jailed human rights defenders.”
A spokesperson for F1 said: “For decades Formula 1 has worked hard be a positive force everywhere it races, including economic, social, and cultural benefits. Sports like Formula 1 are uniquely positioned to cross borders and cultures to bring countries and communities together to share the passion and excitement of incredible competition and achievement.
“We take our responsibilities very seriously and have made our position on human rights and other issues clear to all our partners and host countries who commit to respect human rights in the way their events are hosted and delivered.”
In the statement announcing what has been described as a “long-term partnership” between F1 and the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation, sports minister Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz Bin Turki AlFaisal Al Saud said: “Saudi Arabia is accelerating forward and the speed, energy, excitement of Formula 1 perfectly reflects the transformational journey the country is on.
Harry Kane marked his 300th appearance for Tottenham with his 200th goal as Jose Mourinho’s side dominated a Europa League mismatch in Bulgaria.
Kane, 27, long-since cemented his place in the Spurs history books but few could have predicted his prodigious goalscoring rate when he came into the first team seven years ago.
Only 1960s legends Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Smith stand ahead of him in the club’s records and if he stays fit – and at the club – the England captain looks set to break record after record.
He could, and should, have already scored twice when he headed in a Lucas Moura corner to put Mourinho’s side ahead against Ludogorets.
Kane then set up Moura for Spurs’ second before being replaced at the interval as the Premier League side utterly dominated the multiple Bulgarian champions.
Mourinho was furious last week with his side’s insipid display in Antwerp and was rewarded with a controlled, ruthless first-half performance, but the hosts were able to reply early in the second half through Claudiu Keseru.
That was an anomaly though, as Giovani lo Celso’s tap-in secured a routine victory that puts Spurs back in contention in Group J.
Chasing down Greaves
Jimmy Greaves scored 266 goals for Spurs in 381 games – within reach?
Two hundred in 300 games, 101 in his last 135, 100 away from home – Kane’s goalscoring record bears comparison with the all-time greats.
Next in his sights at Tottenham is 1961 double-winner Smith, who scored 208 times between 1955 and 1964, with overall record holder Greaves at least another season away on 266.
The Ludogorets defence had no answer to Kane’s ability, but did see an uncharacteristic early miss with the striker blazing over after a fine pass from Harry Winks.
Kane then thumped the post from 25 yards but wiped the frustration from his face when he beat Gareth Bale to a corner to head in goal number 200 – 3,248 days after number one against Shamrock Rovers.
Mourinho is blessed with attacking talent this season, illustrated as Son Heung-min set up the third for Lo Celso just 17 seconds after coming on.
Bale showed promising signs of reaching full sharpness, starting the move for Moura’s goal and going close with a dipping free-kick, while Kane’s replacement Carlos Vinicius was raw but dangerous.
Steven Bergwijn also came on and Dele Alli was left on the sidelines as Spurs cruised to a needed win in the group.
Mourinho won the trophy with Manchester United in his only other Europa League campaign – could Tottenham end their silverware drought in Gdansk next May?
The stats
Tottenham picked up only their second away win in their last 10 away Europa League matches (W2 D2 L6).
Ludogorets have lost their last five Europa League matches, their worst ever losing run in the competition.
Tottenham’s Harry Kane is the top scoring Premier League player in all competitions this season, netting 12 goals in 13 appearances, with only Robert Lewandowski scoring as many for a team in Europe’s top five leagues (also 12 for Bayern Munich).
Harry Kane has been directly involved in 22 goals in just 13 appearances in all competitions for Spurs this season (12 goals, 10 assists).
Including qualifiers, Jose Mourinho has won 15 of his 21 matches in the Europa League with Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur (71% – W15 D3 L3).
Ludogorets striker Claudiu Keseru has been directly involved in 12 goals in 15 Europa League group stage starts (10 goals, 2 assists)
Rafael Nadal became the fourth player to record 1,000 ATP Tour wins with victory over fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez at the Paris Masters.
American legend Jimmy Connors leads with 1,274, followed by Nadal’s long-time rival Roger Federer (1.242) and Czech great Ivan Lendl (1,068).
The feat comes a month after Nadal won his 20th Grand Slam, matching Federer’s record, with a 13th French Open title.
“To arrive at that number I must have done a lot of things well,” said Nadal.
The Spaniard was presented with a glass trophy with ‘1,000’ emblazoned on it in golden numerals after his landmark victory.
Asked whether he was proud to still be playing at a high level, he said: “Probably yes. I have faced some challenges in my career in terms of injuries.
“It’s a privilege to be playing at the age of 34 – but it’s not just me, it’s the whole team and family.”
Nadal will play either Borna Coric or Jordan Thompson in the last 16 at the Paris Masters.
A breakdown of Nadal’s wins
It has been a remarkable career for the Spaniard, who turned professional in 2001 and won his first ATP Tour match in 2002 when he defeated Paraguay’s Ramon Delgado in the first round of the Mallorca Open.
He remains 68 wins shy of Lendl, which is within his reach but whether he manages to eclipse Federer and Connors remains to be seen.
British three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray has won 676 ATP matches.
Who has Nadal beaten the most?
Long-time rival Novak Djokovic has lost 27 times to Nadal, most recently in last month’s French Open final. The Serb still edges their head-to-head battle, though, with 29 victories.
Next on the list is Nadal’s compatriot David Ferrer, who lost 26 of the 32 meetings against his younger rival.
And spare a thought for Richard Gasquet. The Frenchman is eighth on the list after losing all 16 of his matches against Nadal.
Where has he won most?
Staggeringly, Nadal has secured a 10th of his career victories at the same venue. That is, of course, Roland Garros.
By beating Djokovic to win his 13th French Open title, Nadal became the first player to reach a century of singles wins on the Paris clay.
In total, the Majorcan left-hander has earned 445 victories (from 485 matches) on his favoured surface.
Hard courts have provided 482 wins (from 617 matches) for Nadal, with 71 victories on grass courts and two on now-defunct carpet surfaces.
From 46 minutes to over five hours, how Nadal gets the job done
Nadal’s most emphatic victory at a Grand Slam came with a 6-0 6-1 6-0 win against Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili at the 2017 French Open – the match lasting just 90 minutes.
The Spaniard’s quickest completed win – a victory where an opponent did not retire – was a 46-minute demolition of France’s Florent Serra at the Cincinnati Masters in 2008.
That was one of 14 best-of-three-set matches which Nadal has won either 6-1 6-0 or 6-0 6-1.
Nadal’s longest win came in an epic Rome Masters final against Guillermo Coria in 2005, which lasted five hours and 14 minutes
Nadal’s milestone wins
First win: Ramon Delgado 6-4 6-4 – Mallorca R1, 2002 (age 15)
100th: Hugo Armando 6-1 6-2 – Stuttgart R2, 2005 (19)
200th: Juan Martin del Potro 6-0 6-4 – Miami R4, 2007 (20)
Surprised with the results coming out from different states, and the margin therein, United States President Donald Trump, Thursday appealed to Americans to stop ‘ the fraud’,
The ongoing election has been faulted by Trump who yesterday said he was astonished at the level his votes magically disappeared.
Maintaining his stand, the fearless Trump opined: “STOP THE FRAUD!
“All of the recent Biden claimed States will be legally challenged by us for Voter Fraud and State Election Fraud. Plenty of proof – just check out the Media. WE WILL WIN! America First!
The Senate on Thursday told State House officials to restrain the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), from foreign trips for medical treatment in order to ensure the State House clinic becomes functional this year.
The Senate Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs gave the warning when the State House Permanent Secretary, Tijani Umar, appeared before the panel to defend his 2021 budget estimates.
The State House official had presented a budget of N19.7bn for 2021, out of which N1.3bn was proposed for the State House Clinic.
Reacting to the proposal, the Chairman of the Senate panel, Senator Danjuma La’ah, said the committee would approve the budget for the State House Clinic but insisted that the President and other top officials of his government should no longer be flown abroad for medical treatment.
In an interview with journalists after defending his budget, the Permanent Secretary promised to put necessary arrangements in place to meet the medical needs of the President and other top officials once the budget was approved.He said, “We have appealed to the committee to assist us with the presidential wing of the State House Clinic.“The N1.3bn is absolutely inadequate when you juxtapose the amount proposed, the labour, and the status of the principals that the project is going to serve.“When compared with worldwide standards you see that it is not anything near what we need.“It (the clinic), is considered a legacy project for us because we want to leave something down.“It is not correct to say the state house clinic is in comatose. It is not.”
As the US election results slowly pure in, one of the areas of confusion is that different media outlets are showing different results for the electoral votes.
The president is elected by winning at least 270 electoral college votes, not the outcome of the popular vote. Because there is no centralised federal election system, it has become tradition in the US that “decision desks” at media organisations make a call that states have been won by one candidate or the other when enough votes have been counted.
States that are too close to call – such as Nevada and Georgia at the moment – remain in the balance until a network “calls” them.
For example, The Guardian uses the data collected and analyzed by the Associated Press (AP) news agency as the source for when they call election results. There are a number of other highly reputable election decision desks in US media, including NBC, Fox News and others. They may call races earlier or later than AP. US networks obviously use the decisions from their own desks – other channels may chose to follow one, or wait for two desks to call a state before they count it.
This year, Arizona has brought this into sharp relief. The Guardian’s current total of 264 electoral votes for Joe Biden includes the fact that AP has called Arizona for the Democratic nominee. Not all decision desks have yet.
Associated Press, AP has issued this guide to all of the states it has called. This is what it says about Arizona:
The AP called the race at 2.50am EST Wednesday, after an analysis of ballots cast statewide concluded there were not enough outstanding to allow Trump to catch up. With 80% of the expected vote counted, Biden was ahead by 5 percentage points, with a roughly 130,000-vote lead over Trump, with about 2.6m ballots counted. The remaining ballots left to be counted, including mail-in votes in Maricopa county, where Biden performed strongly, were not enough for Trump to catch up to the former vice-president.
With the current trend in the mainstream media, following indications showing the bombardment of fake news alongside corrupt media, it is almost hard to get believability that can be said to be objective and unbiased.
Donald Trump has lost his first challenge to electoral processes after a judge in Georgia dismissed his case
A judge in Georgia has denied a Republican attempt to question the vote counting in the state, in the first ruling from a flurry of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign.
The case was filed on Wednesday in Chatham County, after a Republican witness said, without providing evidence, that he did not know whether a pile of 53 ballots were received on time.
On Thursday morning Judge James Bass dismissed the case in a one-sentence ruling, without giving his reasoning.
“After listening to the evidence, I’m denying the request, dismissing the petition, thank you gentlemen,” he concluded at the end of the hour-long hearing in Savannah.
In their complaint, the Trump campaign argued: “Failing to ensure that absentee ballots received after the deadline are stored in a manner to ensure that such ballots are not inadvertently or intentionally counted, as required under Georgia law, harms the interests of the Trump Campaign and President Trump because it could lead to the dilution of legal votes cast in support of President Trump.”
The complaint also contained a sworn declaration by a poll watcher named Sean Pumphrey with a “vague account about a stack of 53 ballots,” according to lawandcrime.com.
He alleged, but provided no evidence of, impropriety.
The board’s witness said the ballots were indeed received on time, and Sabrina German, the director of Chatham County’s Voter Registration Office, backed up the board witness’s testimony.
Jeff Harris, from the Democratic Party of Georgia, said that both of the Republican witnesses conceded they had no idea about when those 53 ballots were received.
“They have been flatly incapable of proffering competent evidence to prove that point,” he said.
“Courts don’t resolve disputes about whether something may or may not be happening.”
Colorado voters approved Proposition 113 this week to join a national pact that will elect a president based on the popular vote in place of the Electoral College.
“Officially called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, by joining the group, Colorado would pledge to give all of its electoral votes to the national popular vote winner,” according to KDVR.
The state currently has nine electoral votes but is expected to pick up a tenth because of its rapid population growth, the outlet said.
However, the compact will only go into effect “once enough states have joined to ensure that they will control the outcome of the election,” according to Colorado Public Radio (CPR):
The battle over how Colorado will allocate its electoral votes in the future started with a bill in the 2019 legislative session. Democrats pushed hard for the idea that joining the compact would bring more fairness to presidential elections, by giving each vote across the country equal weight. They argue the Electoral College encourages candidates to focus on a handful of swing states — of which Colorado is no longer one — while ignoring most of the country.
Two Republican officials who tried to repeal the law said the impact of a national popular vote would “erase the influence of rural areas in favor of vote-dense cities and suburbs,” the CPR article read.
Despite the concerns, Democrat State Sen. Michael Foote claimed the national popular vote was “a very straightforward concept.”
“One person should always equal one vote, and the presidential candidate who gets the most votes should win the election,” he continued, according to Fox News.
However, former Republican state House Speaker Frank McNulty said the state’s votes should be decided by its residents, adding, “They were tricked by California billionaires, who spent millions of dollars to buy our votes for president.”
“This is going to reduce Colorado’s clout, and it’s going to reduce our influence on issues like transportation, water, health care and funding for our military bases,” McNulty concluded.
President Donald Trump made significant strides in traditionally Democrat-held counties on or near the Texas border in Tuesday night’s election. Biden lost more counties than almost any Democrat candidate in Texas’s history, according to a political consultant interviewed by Breitbart News.
Statewide, Biden only won 21 of the Lone Star State’s 254 counties — 12 of these in the state’s border region.
“There is a systematic bias in the Democrat world that pigeonholes people into voting certain ways,” Dave Carney, chief political consultant for Texas Governor Greg Abbott, told Breitbart Texas Wednesday afternoon. “There is a belief that if more Latinos voted, more Democrats would get elected.”
Tuesday, more people, including Texas Hispanics, voted and yet, Republicans continued to win. Results for Republicans actually improved in many counties south of San Antonio, Carney explained.
In 20 Texas counties located on or near the state’s border with Mexico, President Donald Trump won eight, according to numbers widely reported on the day after the presidential election. This is up from only three counties won by the 2016 Trump campaign. While these counties that run from Brownsville to El Paso remained predominantly Democrat, President Trump increased his number of votes in 19 of the 20 counties. He only lost ground in El Paso County when compared to 2016 results.
In contrast, Joe Biden’s numbers only increased in seven of the 20 counties and dropped in 13 counties.
Statewide, Biden only won 21 of the Lone Star State’s 254 counties — 12 of these in the state’s border region.
President Trump mobilized Texas voters in this region by delivering on his promises regarding economic growth and border security, Carney said.
“Trump’s performance with Latino voters was impressive,” Carney stated. “In many counties, he doubled his 2016 turnout.”
More people voted, he said, and Texas is redder than before.
The counties surveyed include, in no particular order, Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, Webb, Willacy, Kenedy, Brooks, Jim Hogg, Dimmit, Maverick, Presidio, Val Verde, Brewster, Hudspeth, Culberson, Jeff Davis, Terrell, Kinney, and El Paso.
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