An Igbosere High Court in Lagos has again renewed the arrest warrant it issued nearly two years and 11 months ago against ex-Super Eagles captain, Augustine ‘Jay-Jay’ Okocha, for alleged tax evasion.
Justice Adedayo Akintoye made the renewal following Okocha’s repeated failure to conclude an out-of-court settlement with the Lagos State Government.
Okocha has also failed to appear in court to answer to the charge.
Details shortly…
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari should blame himself and not the National Assembly for the delay in the passage of of the 2019 budget which was signed into law on Monday.
Dogara said since President Buhari assumed office, he ‘has been unable to present budget on time. His first budget was the 2016 budget, which was submitted on December 22, 2015, exactly nine days to the end of the fiscal year.’
He also said: ‘The minimum time the National Assembly requires to pass budget is three months. But he presented it just nine days to 2016’ and that ‘what Nigerians didn’t know and the President won’t say is that the Executive through the various ministries continued to propose additional projects to be included in the 2018 budget even as at April and May which further delayed the passage of the 2018 budget.
These were communicated officially and if anyone is in doubt the letters are there with the dates they were written and received. But here’s Buhari blaming the National Assembly.’
Dogara in a statement on Tuesday lamented that: ‘President Muhammadu Buhari a few days ago, in his usual characteristics of self righteousness, and buck passing blamed tardiness in the passage of budgets by the National Assembly for the delay in the completion of projects across the country by his government.
‘To be precise, the president said, “If the National Assembly takes seven months to pass a budget, then we should be commended for the much that we have achieved, and can still achieve. I personally feel very disappointed. I spoke with the leaders of the National Assembly on the issue that seven months is a long time to work on a budget.” A
‘Even though buck passing and blame game is not new to Buhari as it is now his stock in trade; in the past few days and weeks, there is no day that passes without the President blaming others in a desperate move to exonerate himself from any blame or failure of the Executive under his leadership to execute projects across the country.
‘In fact, very recently, Buhari blamed all his predecessors for failing to build infrastructure. And I wonder why? It was the general consensus that the former employees didn’t perform as expected and that was why Nigerians hired him for a job he has sought for four conservative time but here he is blaming the same people he replaced.
If you are the boss of ” Nigeria limited”, what will you do this employee? ‘Some weeks ago, he even blamed the media for failing to showcase his achievements. “ I’m very disappointed with the Nigerian press. They didn’t give this government the credit of the go back to land programme,” he said on 26 October. Time and space would not permit me to list all his “blamings”.
‘However, it is disingenuous for President Muhammad Buhari to blame the National Assembly for his government’s inability to implement budget and execute projects that affect the lives of Nigerians in the last three years.
‘To set the record straight, this is a President who, from inception of his government didn’t show any sign that he was well prepared and ready for the job he sought for four times in 16 years and for which we voted for him.
‘For instance, it took him six months, yes six months not six weeks to form his cabinet. It also took him two years to appoint board chairmen for most government agencies. This is was his greatest undoing and was principally responsible for plunging Nigeria into recession because activities in Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government were brought to a half for the period since civil servants could not take decisions due to absence of political heads in a country where public sector spending drives the economy.
At a point, he even said he was happy working with civil servants because ministers or politicians were noise makers because “they are only there to make a lot of noises”, he told a French television station in September 2015.
‘Now, after three years, with election in three months, the President is at it again, exonerating himself from apparent failure of his government thereby throwing the blame right at the doorstep of the legislature. But facts don’t lie and they could be stubborn and here are the facts:
‘Late budget presentation’
Since his assuming office, the president has been unable to present budget on time. His first budget was the 2016 budget which was submitted on December 22, 2015, exactly nine days to the end of the fiscal year.
‘The minimum the National Assembly requires to pass budget is three months. But he presented it just nine days to 2016. ‘Again, the 2017 budget was presented on December 14,2016, just 17 days to the end of 2016.
‘The earliest he presented budget was on November 7, 2017 which was the 2018 appropriations bill. It was less than two months to the end of the year. ‘However, his ministers refused to appear before National Assembly committees to defend the budget for five months thereby delaying the passage.
‘It was after the leadership of the National Assembly sought the President’s intervention on March 16, 2018 that the ministers reluctantly appeared before the committees, an exercise that takes at least one month to complete.
‘In fact , some of them who felt they were super ministers sent in their permanent secretaries. ‘What Nigerians didn’t know and the President won’t say is that the Executive through the various ministries continued to propose additional projects to be included in the 2018 budget even as at April and May which further delayed the passage of the 2018 budget.
These were communicated officially and if anyone is in doubt the letters are there with the dates they were written and received. But here’s Buhari blaming the National Assembly.
‘Violation of Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007
‘Since the inception of the Buhari administration, it has been in constant violation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act which stipulates that budgets should be presented in early September. The wisdom or import of the FRA is that the National Assembly will have at least three full months to work on the budget bill.
‘Intact, the Executive admitted its failure and inability to abide by the law on August 24,2018 when former minister of Budget and National Planning, now minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed disclosed that the Federal government will present the 2019 budget in September in a bid to restore the budget circle from January to December but here we are in November without the budget estimates before the lawmakers.
‘Buhari’s Failure/Refusal to assent to budget submission Bill
‘In a bid to address the issue of late budget presentation and passage, the National Assembly passed a constitutional amendment bill that requires the President to submit the Appropriation Bill not later than 90 days to the end of the financial year but unfortunately, very unfortunately, the president has vetoed the bill.
‘Veto of National Assembly Budget Office Bill
‘In an effort to improve institutional capacity of the Parliament to process and pass budget expeditiously, the National Assembly Budget and Research Office (NABRO) establishment Bill was passed into law. It was loosely modelled after the American Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Again, President Buhari has also vetoed the Bill.
‘Lack of Adequate Consultation
‘Under a Presidential system of government like ours where the doctrine of separation of powers and principles of checks and balances are well enshrined in our constitution, wisdom presupposes that the Executive at all time engages the legislature on all issues that requires legislation in order to have their buy in even before it is presented to the parliament formally.
‘The three President’s before Buhari, from 1999 -2015, Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’adua and Goodkuck Jonathan despite their failings sustained this tradition which is necessary for a harmonious relations between the Executive and the Legislature and smooth running of government. Under this, it is expected that the President meet with the leadership of the two chambers (Body of Principal Officers including members of the opposition) and brief them on the details of the budget and key projects he would want to execute.
They, in turn would brief their colleagues while the MDAs will then engage the committees over sighting them in pre-budget session. President Shehu Shagari used to hold such meetings monthly. ‘Doing this, would have helped in reducing the time it takes to pass the budget because even before it is presented, the MPs would have been well informed about it and their inputs taken into consideration at the preparation stage by the various MDAs. Unfortunately, this too has not been done in the last three years.
“National Assembly Not A Rubber Stamp Parliament”
‘The National Assembly has repeatedly challenged the Executive to approach the Supreme Court to seek interpretation on the constitutional powers of the legislature over budget, but up to now, they have failed to do so. Until then, the judgement of the Federal High court in FHC/ABJ/CS/259/2014 delivered on March 9, 2016 which was not appealed by either parties stands.
‘This is what his lordship Hon Justice Gabriel Kolawole said in delivering judgment in the suit by Femi Falana SAN “the National Assembly was not created by drafters of the Constitution and imbued with the powers to receive ‘budget estimates’ which the first defendant is constitutionally empowered to prepare and lay before it, as a rubber stamp parliament.
The whole essence of the budget estimates being required to be laid before Parliament is to enable it, being the Assembly of the representatives of the people, to debate the said budget proposals and to make its own well informed legislative inputs into it.’
Source: Vanguard
President Muhammadu Buhari has passed a vote of no confidence in the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, in the passage of the 2019 Appropriation Act.
Buhari, who spoke during a taped interview broadcast on Nigerian Television Authority on Monday night, said he had conveyed his reservation directly to the legislative leaders while assenting the bill on Monday morning.
Asked to comment on the delayed budget passage, he said, “I think a culture was developed in the National Assembly that they should dictate the terms, which was wrong. It is the executive that dictates the terms and takes it before the legislature. It (the legislature) will examine it and agree or disagree with it.
“But when they go around posing that they are the government and not the executive, then that’s the problem. I felt and I spoke personally to the Senate President, Saraki, and the leader of the House, Dogara. They could not deny it.
“I asked them how they felt to hold the country at ransom for seven months without passing a budget. Unfortunately, they were not hurting me; they were hurting the country. So, really, in terms of patriotism, I think I rated them very low indeed.”
The President noted that constitutionally, he could not help that there were things that had to go through the legislature.
“But to hold a budget for seven months cannot be justified if you really bother about the country,” he added.
Real Madrid could sell as many as 11 players this summer to fund a squad overhaul.
According to Marca, Real Madrid manager, Zinedine Zidane, is set to bolster his squad ahead of next season and could let up to 11 players leave the Santiago Bernabeu this summer’s transfer window.
Former Tottenham Hotspur star, Gareth Bale, tops the list.
Bale has been told that he will be frozen out of the Zidane’s first team, should he not be able to find a new club this summer.
The other 10 players include: Isco, Mateo Kovacic, Lucas Vazquez, Keylor Navas, Dani Ceballos, Mariano Diaz, Raul De Tomas, Borja Mayoral, Zidane’s son, Luca and Theo Hernandez.
Real Madrid were dumped out of the Champions League in the round of 16 by Ajax.
The Los Blancos have struggled in the La Liga this season. They finished in third position on the Spanish table behind Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
The Federal Government has declared Wednesday, May 29, as a work-free day, in commemoration of the 2019 Presidential Inauguration.
The Minister of Interior, Lt.- Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, (Rtd), made the declaration on behalf of the Federal Government, in a statement signed by Mrs Georgina Ehuriah, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, on Monday in Abuja, NAN reports.
Dambazau congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari for his re-election and Nigerians for the successful conduct of the 2019 elections, which were widely acknowledged as peaceful, free, fair, credible and transparent.
Dambazau called on Nigerians to support the policies and programmes of the incoming administration.
He said these policies are all geared towards the improvement of the lives of the citizens, as well as the unity, growth and development of the nation, as it moves to the next level.
He expressed confidence that, with the collaboration of all Nigerians, the nation would be transformed in the next four years to a country that would be the envy of other nations.
The minister wished the incoming administration, a most fulfilling tenure and Nigerians a memorable Presidential Inauguration Day.
President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital to commission some projects executed by the outgoing Ibikunle Amosun administration.
The president also used the opportunity to reconcile with his long time ally who was suspended from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the aftermath of the 2019 governorship election in the state.
Governor Amosun was suspended for anti-party activities when he threw his weight behind the election of Adekunle AbdulKabir Akinlade, the APM candidate, against his party’s governorship candidate, Prince Dapo Abiodun who eventually emerged victorious.
Buhari’s presidential chopper NAF 540 touched down at Archade Ground, State Secretariat, Oke – Mosan at exactly 10:18am.
Photos by Peter Moses
P.M News
Lewis Hamilton resisted intense race-long pressure on Sunday to secure a narrow, dramatic and emotional victory for a mourning Mercedes in the Monaco Grand Prix. Mercedes’ British driver Lewis Hamilton points at the name of late Formula One legend Niki Lauda on his helmet after winning the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Monaco street circuit on May 26, 2019 in Monaco. (Photo/ AFP) The defending five-time world champion and current series leader, who came home less than a second ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, said he survived the Dutchman’s late attacks by “fighting with the spirit of Niki (Lauda)”. ADVERTISING ADVERTISING He lifted his red helmet in tribute to the three-time champion Austrian and non-executive chairman of Mercedes who died on Monday. Verstappen, who was involved a pit-lane collision during the race, was classified fourth after taking a five-second penalty. This elevated Sebastian Vettel to second for Ferrari and lifted the luckless Valtteri Bottas to third in the second Mercedes. [READ ALSO] Mercedes Benz recharges with two new workhorses “Lewis, it’s James… Incredible drive,” said Mercedes’ strategist James Vowles before team boss Toto Wolff told him: “That was for Niki.” “That was the hardest race I think I’ve had,” said Hamilton. “I was fighting with the spirit of Niki. He’s been truly an influential person in our team and we miss him.” Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Pierre Gasly came home fifth ahead of Carlos Sainz of McLaren, Daniil Kvyat and his Toro Rosso team-mate Alex Albon. Daniel Ricciardo, last year’s winner for Red Bull, was ninth for Renault ahead of Romain Grosjean of Haas. It was Hamilton’s third win in Monaco and the 77th of his career, opening up a clear lead ahead of Bottas in the drivers’ title race. The result extended Mercedes’ run of season-opening wins to six, but brought an end to their sequence of one-two triumphs.
VANGUARD
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) is seeking an agreement between Nigeria and neighbouring West African countries to end the practice of Nigerian girls being used as sex slaves in Mali.
At a presentation to the ECOWAS Parliament during its First Ordinary Session on Saturday, NAPTIP Director-General Julie Okah-Donli told members of parliament that Nigerian girls were being sold for between N210,000 and N240,000 to work as prostitutes.
Presenting the report of the fact-finding mission to Mali, Okah-Donli said that after being sold, the girls were made to pay back between N1.08 million and N1.2 million, usually within eight months, to their madams.
She said that after gaining their freedom from their madams, the girls would then go into business, making money for themselves through prostitution before graduating to madams of their own.
“There are more than one million Nigerians residing in Mali. About 20,000 of these Nigerians are girls believed to be victims of trafficking and the number increases by 50 per day.
“Many victims are deceived to leave their livelihoods in Nigeria for greener pastures in Mali.
“Some of the victims are abducted from Nigeria, including those that arrive in school uniforms.
“On arrival at the border town between Burkina Faso and Mali, many of the girls are sold off for CFA 350,000 to 400,000; their new owners then make them pay back about CFA 1.6 million to CFA 2 million with one CFA being 0.6 Naira,” she said.
Okah-Donli said that as part of efforts to curb the trend, the mission recommended among other things, that Nigeria should develop a Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) with Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic, Guinea and Senegal.
The mission further recommended that all motor-parks through which the girls were trafficked should be sanitised and efforts made to stop extortion of Nigerians travelling to or through the aforementioned countries, she said.
“There is need for comprehensive sensitisation of rescued victims before repatriation and a comprehensive blueprint worked out for tracing, empowerment and rehabilitation of victims,” Okah-Donli said.
She said NAPTIP was ready to give technical support to Mali if it sought to establish an anti-human trafficking agency.
For the ECOWAS Parliament, the mission recommended that the protocol on Free Movement of persons and goods be properly implemented such that other nationals are not harassed in other ECOWAS countries, the director-general said.
Throwing more light on the findings of the mission, Okah-Donli said that efforts to repatriate girls were usually foiled through the complicity of Malian security forces, coupled with the willingness of many girls to return to the ‘sex-for-gold’ trade.
She said that there were some of the girls who were trafficked to the northern parts of Mali where they not only offered sex but were radicalized.
She said that many of the victims who were rescued in 2011 and some others in 2017, came back to Nigeria only to return with more girls.
The director-general further said some of the sex slaves were made to sleep with numerous men without protection while also being made to pay huge taxes by the complicit Malian authorities.
She raised the alarm that there was now a growing possibility of xenophobic attacks as Malian women were already grumbling that Nigerians were taking their men.
“The Malian authorities collect taxes from the victims on a weekly basis and sell condoms and other medications compulsorily to their victims every month.
“Malian women are already grumbling that Nigerian girls are taking their men, and there are fears of imminent xenophobic attacks.
“Three Nigerian girls were killed between November and December 2018,’’ Okah-Donli said.
She said that efforts to stop the trade at the borders had not been encouraged by border security as they had not made efforts to arrest the traffickers in spite of all information given to them.
“The border point between Nigeria and Seme-Krake and Burma Fas/Mali are notoriously porous, and despite numerous reports and pictures of traffickers sent to law enforcement agencies at the borders, no arrests or rescues have been made.
“The traffic madams are well known to the Nigerian community but they are afraid to report them because of the complicity of the Malian security agencies in human trafficking, especially the gendarmerie who assist the traffickers to carry out their activities.
“Nigerian victims are way-billed from a motor-park in Cotonou, dropped at Sikasso near the border with Burkina Faso, from where they are picked by Malian gendarmerie for delivery to their madams,” she said.
The director-general added that the Nigerian sex slaves lived in about 300 settlements in Malian bushes, with each settlement holding 100 to 150 girls.
The girls, aged between 16 and over 30, hang around bars and night clubs to display for their clients who take them into their huts made of polythene, Okah-Donli said.
As part of effort to curb the menace, she said the team met with the Ministry of Justice in Mali to find solution to the menace.
She said that the Malian Justice Ministry had called on NAPTIP to come up with an MoU that would provide a proper framework to end the trafficking and repatriate those already trafficked.
P.M News
Why does Asiwaju Bola Tinubu want to learn from a mistake instead of learning from history? History does not repeat itself. Men repeat history and that is a mistake. How can Tinubu be so naive to expect that even if the All Progressives Congress gives him its ticket in 2023 (possible, but iffy) that Northerners will leave prominent Northerners in the Peoples Democratic Party, like Atiku Abubakar, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal and Sule Lamido to vote for him?
If Tinubu thinks that what happened to the late chief MKO Abiola will happen to him, then he is allowing hubris blind his judgment.
I recommend to him the biography of Shehu Musa Yar’adua, titled ‘A Life of Service’, and written by Miss Jacqueline Farris.
In that book, he will read that the late Chief MKO Abiola was a political sacrifice by the Northern political elite of the Social Democratic Party, led by the late Tafida of Katsina (Shehu Musa Yar’adua) who knew beforehand (from intuition, not conspiracy) that General Babangida was going to annul the June 12, 1993 elections and only decided to support Chief MKO Abiola so that they could use Babangida to destroy Abiola and use Abiola to destroy Babangida, leaving the coast clear for them.
As a matter of fact, when prominent politicians asked Shehu Yar’adua why he was supporting Chief Abiola, he responded by saying that if he supported a Northerner, the Northerner would win, but Babangida would annul the election and the North would accept it because they were both Northerners. But if he supported a Southerner, like Abiola, when Babangida annulled the election, the South would rise up against him and he (Shehu Yar’adua) and his movement, will support the South and in one fell swoop, they will be rid of both Babangida and Abiola.
Let us face the truth, the North is by far more politically sophisticated than the South of Nigeria. Only one Southerner, to my knowledge, has been able to outflank the North, and that is former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Bola Tinubu does not have what it takes. He is being led by the nose, hopefully, not to his doom, but to his disgrace.
Recently, Nasir El-Rufai was in Lagos at the behest of the Bridge Club, which put up a hastily arranged, and probably custom-designed occasion tagged, “An evening with His Excellency Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.
It was a moment where El-Rufai delivered the general thinking of the Northern elite as regards Bola Tinubu.
At that event, El-Rufai, who had once knelt down for Tinubu, flippantly remarked “Godfatherism. This is Lagos. Let me tell you something sir; you know, Kaduna State used to be like that. There were three or four politicians in Kaduna that you could not become anything unless you had them on your side. Those were the godfathers of Kaduna politics and you had to carry them along and you know, the three words, ‘carry them along’ mean paying them regularly. “But we chose a different path and the long and short of it now is that after this election in 2019, we have retired all of them; we had to.”
Mr. El-Rufai then went on to give Lagosians tutorials on how to defeat their own ‘godfather’.
Defeat, is what the North has planned for Bola Tinubu!
And the problem with Bola Tinubu is that, unlike Obasanjo, he is a coward. The North knows that they have finished using Tinubu. After Buhari’s re-election, they see him as being as useful as a used sanitary pad. In their eye, he is only as relevant as the ‘p’ in psychology. They also know that he is too cowardly to stand up to them and so they are toying with him and disrobing him before his own people. They intend the complete and total demystification of the bullion van-loving lion of Bourdillon.
The drama between El-Rufai and Bola Tinubu just serves to expose the servile and bootlicking nature of Bola Tinubu. It is almost like an episode of Game of Thrones. In this episode, Nasir El-Rufai insulted Bola Tinubu. But rather than face his SLAVE MASTER, who insulted him, Bola Tinubu rather PROJECTED his anger in an UNPROVOKED attack on the Peoples Democratic Party, calling them all sorts of names.
This is what they call TRANSFERENCE in psychology, where a PSYCHOLOGICAL PATIENT transfers his aggression on another person because he is too COWARDLY to face the real object of his anger!
I urge the leaders of the Southwest to look at the man who parades himself as their leader. Surely, they cannot trust the fate of 40 million Yoruba to such an anodyne creature!
A man that can be insulted so irreverently by Nasir El-Rufai and just takes it. Say what you will about Olusegun Obasanjo, but this could never have happened to him.
Bola Tinubu once said this about Obasanjo in a March 25, 2012 interview with Vanguard newspapers:
“If you underestimate Obasanjo, it is at your own peril because he has the character, strategy and will to destabilize you and you are gone to the bush, you are gone to the rubble. Very deceitful.”
The above assessment is very correct. This is the type of leader the Southwest needs to plot their political ascendancy post 2019, not a servile bootlicker that can be toyed with by Nasir El-Rufai. Not at all.
Bola Tinubu is nothing but a Quisling. He is not fit to stand beside Olusegun Obasanjo, perhaps the greatest leader to have come out of Africa. It is just a pity, that it is the North that knows this man’s worth more than the South and more than his own people.
But in an attempt to make them appreciate the blessing that God gave them, let me just talk a little about Obasanjo.
Before Olusegun Obasanjo became Nigeria’s military head of state in 1976, Nigeria had had four previous leaders. They were Prime Minister Abubakar Tarawa Balewa, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, General Yakubu Gowon and General Murtala Mohammed.
Of the four, three were murdered. The one who was not murdered (Yakubu Gowon), was overthrown.
Olusegun Obasanjo is the first Nigerian leader to have had a natural tenure uninterrupted by coups, death or tragedy. Think about that.
And then between 1979, when he handed power to President Shehu Shagari, and 1999, when he returned as a democratically elected President, Nigeria had six leaders.
They are the late President Shehu Shagari, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Ernest Shonekan, General Sani Abacha and General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Of these six leaders, four of them were removed either by a coup, civil unrest or with a gun pointed to their head. One of them died as a victim of a conspiracy whose plotters we still do not know. And the last one, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, hurriedly hashed over before the fate of his predecessors befell him.
Olusegun Obasanjo, who returned as a democratically elected President on May 29, 1999, is the second Nigerian leader to have a natural tenure, uninterrupted by coups, death or tragedy. Think about that again.
He is the author of six books. Is an intellectual. Is able to speak truth to power and go to prison for doing so.
This man was so courageous that when he was informed in Copenhagen by then US ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, that General Sani Abacha would arrest him if he returned home, he chose to return home. This is even where he had been offered asylum by the West.
But let us come back to reality. Let us face the present. All over Nigeria, and also in the Southwest, herdsmen of Fulani heritage have been killing Nigerians without the Buhari administration doing anything tangible to stop them or bring them to justice.
Almost everyone has been afraid to speak up and hold the Buhari government to account. That is until Obasanjo spoke on the matter on May 19, 2019 when he slammed the Buhari administration and said that the herdsmen and Boko Haram killings are “no longer an issue of lack of education and lack of employment for our youths in Nigeria which it began as, it is now West African fulanization, African Islamization”.
Four days later, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, put aside his well-known animus for former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to agree with him on his comments on herdsmen and Boko Haram and their Islamisation agenda, and condemned the Buhari government.
That took courage! The type of courage that Bola Tinubu, sadly, does not have. What is Tinubu doing as herdsmen kill his people? He is licking the boots of the Grand Patron. Igbo man say tufiakwa!
Source: https://www.thisdaylive.com
Liverpool midfielder Naby Keita has been included in Guinea’s 25-man provisional squad for next month’s Africa Cup of Nations, despite it not being clear whether he will be fit for the tournament.
It comes two days after the Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp revealed Keita was ahead of schedule in his recovery from the thigh injury he picked up at Barcelona in the Champions League on 1 May.
Klopp had initially said Keita would be out for two months.
Guinea’s coach Paul Put had said they would seek a second medical opinion on Keita’s injury.
Keita, 24, is part of Liverpool’s 26-man squad currently in Spain ahead of next weekend’s Uefa Champions League final against Tottenham, although Klopp told the Liverpool FC website that the midfielder will only return to action if he is “100 per cent fit”.
Other key players included in Guinea’s squad are in-form Bordeaux striker Francois Kamano, Napoli midfielder Amadou Diawara and the Syli National skipper Ibrahima Traore who plays for Borussia Monchengladbach.
Three players with dual nationality are called up for the first time. They are France-born Brentford defender Julian Jeanvier, former French youth international Fode Koita and Mikael Dyrestam who has featured in two friendly internationals for Sweden’s national team.
Two players who committed their international future to Guinea during the 2019 Nations Cup qualifiers, Simon Falette and Ernest Boka Seka, are also included in the squad.
Defender Mohamed Aly Camara, who recently won the Swiss League with Young Boys, is left out due to injury.
Lass Bangoura who plays for MLS club Vancouver Whitecaps and the Pogba brothers Mathias and Florentin continued to be overlooked by coach Put who will unveil his final 23-man squad on 14 June.
A further list of six players have been put on standby by the Syli National coach.
Guinea will begin their Nations Cup preparations on 28 May in Conakry and will then head to Marrakech for a two-week training camp when they will play warm-up matches against The Gambia on 7 June and Benin four days later.
Their third and final preparation match will be against Nations Cup hosts Egypt in Alexandria on 16 June.
Guinea have been drawn in Group B with three times African champions Nigeria and debutants Madagascar and Burundi.
They will face Madagascar in their opening match on 22 June before facing Nigeria four days later.
Guinea will wrap up their group campaign with a match against Burundi on 30 June.
BBC News Africa
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