"For more than an hour [they] tried to persuade her to stay. "But she said that she decided to get a divorce, and she had to get out."
Ex- Super Eagles goalkeeper, Willy Okpara, on Friday urged the National U-17 team, the Golden Eaglets, to improve on their game during the FIFA U-17 World Cup, holding in Chile.
The competition holds from October 17 to November 8 in Chile.
Okpara told the News Agency of Nigeria in Soweto, South Africa, that as the defending champions, every team’s ambition would be to defeat them.
He said with adequate preparation, the Eaglets had the potential to perform well in the tournament.
“Being the defending champions, the Eaglets’ pride is at stake. They have to prove to the world that they are good and deserve to win the trophy.
“I urge the team to put in more than 100 per cent effort in all their games and I believe they will do well. They should keep to their coaches’ instructions and avoid underrating their opponents. Every game should be taken with all the seriousness it deserves,’’ he said.
Okpara, who is also the Team Manager of Orlando Pirates of Soweto, urged the Eaglets to strive to retain the trophy as it would improve on the country’s rating in international football.
“The players should realise that previous U-17 teams did the nation proud by winning the trophy. Such accomplishments can be repeated through determination and hard work.
“I am optimistic of a good outing for the team, given their level of preparation. The handlers of the team are equal to the task and have done a good job,” he said
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday said military action alone could never be enough to end the menace of terrorism and extremism currently eating deep into global polity.
He said adherence to good governance, transparency, accountability and rule of law, were some of the best ways to start the process of ridding the world of terrorism.
Buhari made his position known in a statement he delivered at a Global Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism organised by President Barack Obama on the sideline of the 70th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
He said while military action was not enough, it was however capable of stemming the tide and reversing the process of recruitment, movement and effective operation of foreign terrorists’ fighters and their associated radical elements.
He said while Nigeria noted the efforts being made by the UN and the international community to tackle ISIL, a lot more needed to be done.
Buhari said, “Nigeria notes with satisfaction the efforts of the United Nations and the rest of the international community to contain ISIL. We certainly need to do more.
“We need to take military action combined with effective border security, intelligence collection and sharing, and vigorous policing action.
“These alone may not suffice, but they can certainly stem the tide and reverse the process of recruitment, movement and effective operation of foreign terrorist fighters and their associated radical extremists.
“In order to put in place the critical components of an effective approach to countering ISIL and eventually defeating it, we must address the threat from the source.
“We must find a way to prevent young people from turning to terror in the first place. And the young people that turn to violent extremism do not exist in a vacuum – they are often part of communities and families and are lured into the fold of barbaric and nihilistic organisations, somehow, through a misguided appeal to their worst fears, expectations and apparent frustrations.
“While addressing the causes of this attraction and how to deal with them, we should pay close attention to other manifest factors that may not be tangible but can be crucial.
“Good governance, which entails transparency, accountability and the rule of law, remains the basis on which we should kick-start the process of ridding the world of the menace of terrorism and violent extremism.
“The international community will be required to work together to deter and disrupt illicit financial flows from nations with weak anti-theft structures to other parts of the world.”
The President said where such funds were identified, the victim state should be assisted to recover them expeditiously.
He said member states needed to address local socio-economic grievances by formulating policies that would ensure broad-based transformation through job creation, equalisation of opportunities and expanding access to social services.
He added that African leaders also needed to rededicate themselves to uphold the mandate of the African Union’s Peer Review Mechanism and other good governance initiatives that they had adopted in the region, to encourage conformity with political, economic and corporate governance values
President Barack Obama met his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro on Tuesday at the United Nations — all smiles after both renewed their calls for an end to the US trade embargo against Havana.
The leaders of the former Cold War rivals shook hands at the start of what was their second meeting, after an historic encounter in April at the Summit of the Americas in Panama.
Close neighbors but long-time foes, the United States and Cuba restored diplomatic ties in July after a five-decade stand-off, and now must turn their attention to economic relations.
The two countries have reopened their embassies in each other’s capitals and are engaged in a dialogue to resolve their remaining political differences, but US trade sanctions remain.
Obama’s White House wants to lift the embargo, which prevents almost all trade across the Florida Straits, but conservatives in the US Congress are not ready to forgive the communist island.
After the meeting, the White House said the leaders had discussed the visit last week of Pope Francis, who helped mediate closer US-Cuba ties, to both countries.
And Obama highlighted that, even if the embargo remains, recent US regulatory changes that did not need Congressional approval would allow more Americans to travel and do business in Cuba.
The White House said these reforms would help Cuba more if they were accompanied by measures from Havana to open its economy.
“The president also highlighted steps the United States intends to take to improve ties between the American and Cuban peoples, and reiterated our support for human rights in Cuba,” it said.
On Monday, during a speech to the UN General Assembly, Obama said he was confident Congress would “inevitably lift an embargo that should not be in place anymore.”
“For 50 years, the United States pursued a Cuba policy that failed to improve the lives of the Cuban people,” he admitted, to applause, in his address to fellow world leaders.
“We changed that. We continue to have differences with the Cuban government. We will continue to stand up for human rights.
“But we address these issues through diplomatic relations, and increased commerce, and people-to-people ties.”
Castro, the 84-year-old veteran revolutionary who succeeded his brother Fidel in 2006, made his first address to the Assembly on Monday, a few hours after Obama took the podium.
“Now, a long and complex process begins towards the normalization of relations, but this will only be achieved with the end of the economic, commercial and financial blockade,” he said


