Ivorian football star Emmanuel Ebue berates Nigeria on twitter ahead of Nations Cup draw

Galatasary of Turkey and Elephants of Cote d'Ivoire defender, Emmanuel Eboue, has boasted that his country will eat the Super Eagles of Nigeria like 'super fried chicken' when they meet on Sunday in one of the quarter finals matches in the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations holding in South Africa.

Eboue, who through his twitter handle @TheRealEboue, congratulated Nigeria shortly after the Super Eagles defeated Ethiopia to reach the knock-out stages but was quick to caution Nigeria not to celebrate to much as the Elephants are coming for them.

The former Arsenal player maintained that Eagles were no match to his side. His first tweet read: "Congrat to Nigeria. Don't celebrate too much cuz we are coming for you. We are going to eat you like fufu".

Minutes later, the Ivorian defender tweeted again: "Sorry guys, point of correction. We are going to eat Nigeria like #SuperFriedChickens."

From then on, it has been an unending tweet tirade on not just the Eagles as a team but Nigeria in its entirety, a situation that has seen some twitter users arguing that Eboue was being impersonated.

Some of the tweets read:

"@TheRealEboue I see ppl saying I hv pride by saying we wud eat Nigeria like fried chickens, it's not pride guys, it's hardwork & passion 4 my country"

"@TheRealEboue: In Nigeria team, some of your best strikers like martins, yakubu & odewinge are not in the team. Why? No peace, passion, & humility"

"@TheRealEboue: Ivory has some of the top players in d world, and when our country calls. We go. We go back home and play. Nobody is a big boy. So shut it"

"@TheRealEboue: A country where mikel obi is your best player & captain . Out of 150million people. You sure have a problem super chickens"

"@TheRealEboue: With all due respect 2 mikel, he is a good player but not Okocha, Samson,yekini,Oliseh, adepoju. Your football association is a joke"

"@TheRealEboue: When keshi was in Togo, he dropped adebayor. He is in Nigeria and drops the best player. He is a manger he should be able to work on their ego"

@TheRealEboue: I have said enough on this matter. I was so angry. Speak to me when your national television can broadcast the game. Have a good day

@TheRealEboue: Keep fooling yourself and calling yourselfs the giant of africa. You are nothing but the soil of Africa we all work on now.

@TheRealEboue: You guys are jokers. Your institutions are comedy clubs. You have so many resources & man power yet you are always falling short.

@TheRealEboue:Oh sorry Nigeria, I even heard your country owns the first African television and you cannot even televise the game to the masses

@TheRealEboue: Drogba, Yaya,kolo, Zakora, gervinho,KaLou, and myself and all other players. We are all the same. One unity and family. Country comes 1st

@TheRealEboue: I have said enough on this matter. I was so angry. Speak to me when your national television can broadcast the game. Have a good day

@TheRealEboue: If we don't beat you in the game, it means you are lucky. But trust me, we are going to deal with you so much , you would be eating grass

@TheRealEboue: Why don't you speak to your NFA that cant grow a good soccer academy & produce players to last for a decade instead of new faces every week

@TheRealEboue: Blame me, i don't care. I would say my mind. You can even blame me Ghana can show the game to the masses and NTA cannot . Cover your face

TheRealEboue: My last word for Nigerians . Do not cry for me , cry for yourselves. In the true spirit of sport , I love you all . Don't get too emotional."

Vanguard

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First successful kidney transplant done in Nigeria

Gabriel Onogwu, 20, from Benue, has become a symbol of hope for patients with failing kidneys across the country, after successfully undergoing a transplant.

His surgery in December is the first recorded in Abuja, done by a team of surgeons at View Point Hospital, a private clinic in the suburb of Gwarimpa.

Gabriel's transplant was funded by Nafs Kidney Foundation, a philanthropic group run by Suleiman Sulu-Gambari.

For days after the surgery, he walked around with a mask across his nose to ward off germs that could compromise his immune system and force his body to reject the kidney donated by his elder brother.

Weeks later, the SS3 student of GSS, Karu is out of hospital and attempting to return to what his life was before his surgery.

"I feel great, normal, just the way I used to feel before my kidney failed" he says. This time, his mask is off as he speaks to Daily Trust. But the reporter who met him had a nose mask on. "I am very, very happy to have my life back."

Millions of Nigerians are not so lucky. Many are as young as 18 years, and are coming down with chronic kidney disease (CKD) -- the gradual loss of kidney functions. Leading figures from the National Association of Nephrology indicate up to 32 million kidneys in Nigeria are failing.

When a kidney is compromised, the body loses it greatest natural filter--and with that the ability to remove toxins from the body. Prompt treatment is dialysis--a procedure that imitates the function of the kidney to remove toxins and waste from the blood. It is effective, but it also expensive.

"They deserted us"

Experts worry that the age of Nigerians facing failing kidneys is falling. Gabriel's age at 20 makes him a poster child for the poster. His situation worsened in 2011 when "he started complaining of sever headache," recalls his mother Comfort Onogwu.

"He was healthier and fatter than we knew him. We could not look at him like that. We took him to hospital, did twenty something tests before they realized it was kidney failure."

It took nearly a year, but Gabriel was finally placed on dialysis in June 2012. Each dialysis session cost N20,000 and required up to three pints of blood (blood is the medium used in dialysis). Gabriel estimates the weekly cost of his kidney management at around N150,000--money his family couldn't afford.

"It affected my family more, because getting that amount of money every week was not easy. We couldn't continue with [three dialyses] weekly, so we had to reduce to twice weekly." Experts recommend three dialyses a week as optimum, but Gabriel's sessions dropped to just once a week eventually.

"Our relations couldn't help again. They deserted us. Help was coming from people we had never met, neighbours--helping with lots of test."

Gabriel started treatment at Asokoro General Hospital, then was moved to National Hospital. A transplant was the only option left when he came onto Nafs' radar at View Point "in a very, very pathetic situation and in severe pains," says Nafs founder Sulu-Gambari.

"When they were told the options of treatment and the financial implications, which obviously the family was nowhere capable of financing; I asked the management how we could assist."

The option was a transplant, and the choice was between the US at N16 million and India at N8.5 million. View Point, which has been doing minimal-invasion surgeries since it started, agreed it could do the transplant for N5 million but it didn't have every equipment needed.

"The foundation took it upon itself to acquire some equipment from London to enable them perform the surgery," says Sulu-Gambari. The acquisition was outside the N5m agreed upon, but the extra spending is being considered down payment for future surgeries for indigent patients.

Nafs has opened an account at the hospital through which anyone can directly fund future transplants. A second kidney transplant for a 50-year-old patient is scheduled for some time in March.

"The whole idea is not to assist only one person. We want it to be a continuous thing whereby other indigents that cannot afford it, the foundation will be able to step in to help. For us to have good result and sustainability, we have to be able to part with money."



Nearly 16 surgeons hovered over Gabriel in the theatre, headed by Dr Nadey Hakim, director of kidney and pancreatic transplant, Imperial College, University of London, with some 2,000 successful transplants under his belt.

The foundation has defended using a top brain in kidney transplant as a means of teaching local doctors to carry out future transplants on their own. It also plans to invite surgeons from as far as Maiduguri, Kano and Abuja to sit in on the next transplant.

Giving hope

The emphasis on chronic kidney disease is for a reason, says Sulu-Gambari.

CKD is not only a painful but expensive condition for patients and their families. "The cost of haemodialysis in government hospital is about N2 million in one year; in private hospitals, it is N4 million."

"If you have a successful kidney transplant, the patient becomes 100 percent, cured, he goes back to his normal life. That is the joy in it, as against diseases such as cancer whereby you spend so much money and the outcome is not pleasant.

"This one, if the transplant is done successfully then you are 100 percent sure the patient will enjoy a happy life and that happiness gives me great pleasure."

It has also immense publicity "and a lot of interest in the hospital," says View Point chief medical director, Dr Hauwa'u Bello-Gambari. "More people are coming in, trying to find out what else we can do, and patients with kidney problems have been coming too."

But Bello-Gambari says View Point "wouldn't be limited by kidney problems alone."

There have been few recorded successful transplants in other major hospitals, but that it is also possible in smaller, lesser known hospitals is a lesson for larger teaching hospitals--a lesson the foundation wants noted. It is also one score in favour of Nigeria in the rush to stem trips abroad for medical procedures.

Comfort Onogwu insists her family could never afford medical bills for any treatment abroad, and a transplant back in Nigeria still isn't cheap either.

"I never dreamt I could one day go for this transplant," says Gabriel. "My family cannot even raise half a million naira." But he's back home with a new kidney to show for it.

Daily Trust

Victor Moses takes Super Eagles to Nations Cup quarter finals

Chelsea star, Victor Moses was instrumental to Nigeria's two nil victory over Ethiopia Tuesday to qualify for the quarter final match of the on-going 29th Africa Cup of Nations here in Rustenburg, South Africa.

Twice, goal-bound Moses was viciously hacked down in the box for the Super Eagles to earn deserved penalty kicks that ensured that cup holders, Zambia who played a goalless draw with Burkina Faso in the other game of the Group C at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit, were eliminated.

It took 80 minutes of the tension soaked encounter before respite came the way of Nigerians who were already on the edge as the scoreless result was a clear signal of elimination of the Super Eagles from the contest.

But Moses, who until Tuesday has not been able to reproduce his Chelsea form for Nigeria stole the show, earning two spot kicks and scoring both to set up a quarter final pairing with the Elephants of Cote d'Ivoire on Sunday.

The first of the infringement on Moses happened in the 79th minute as he collected a pass from the left flank. He waltzed into the box and headed for a one-on-one with Basa Sisay Bancha in goal for the Walya Antelopes of Ethiopia. One of the defenders tripped the Chelsea forward for Moroccan centre referee, Al Ahrach Bouchaib to point to the centre of the box for a penalty kick. Moses sent the ball to the wrong side of the keeper for the first goal on the 80th minute.

On the dot of 90 minutes, rampaging Moses was again tripped, this time, by the goalkeeper. Bancha was given a second yellow card and a second penalty awarded to Nigeria to seal Eagles qualification for the quarter final stage of the 29th edition they played the first two games with shared honours.

Speaking at the post match conference Tuesday night, Coach Stephen Keshi whose job has been on the line following the two draw results said that he needed the victory for Nigerians who have prayed and stayed with the team despite the sluggish start to the campaign.

"The victory is for all Nigerians who have stayed and prayed for us to win a game here. I know the quarter final game on Sunday is going to be a different ball game, we don't want to talk about that now," observed the coach who two players, John Mikel Obi and Ambrose Efe were selected as Fair Play award and Most Valuable Player award winners.

Keshi admitted that the Ethiopians were a difficult team to play, as they refused to come out from their half of the field.

"They choked the middle and made every effort to ensure that one or two players were always on any Nigerian player with the ball. They relied on counter-attack but were read the game right and ensure that we put pressure on them that resulted in the two penalty award," said the Super Eagles gaffer who savoured the victory long into the night with his players.

For the victory and qualification to the quarter final, each Super Eagles player is to pocket $30,000 for their efforts.

This Day

Nollywood movies to debut on American cable networks

A welcomed innovation in the entertainment industry is here, as Nollywood movies will now be available on major cable television networks in the U.S. courtesy of Brandcast Media, Inc. Nollywood, the leader in the African movie industry, is currently the third-largest producer of feature films in the world, ranking only behind Hollywood in the United States and India's Bollywood as number two.

Viewers of Time Warner, Cox, partners and affiliate cable television networks will now be able to watch Nollywood movies On-Demand starting February 1st, 2013. This will be a boon to millions of cable subscribers of various cultural orientations in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean.

Nollywood cable films

With the addition of Nollywood movies to Cable TV content, Brandcast Media, Inc. aims to generate crossover appeal through the exposure of this unique content to over 40 million North American homes. The movies are carefully selected high quality titles that will end the usual buyer's remorse viewers experience with some Nollywood movies they purchase without preview.

There will be no endless parts, just one complete uninterrupted movie viewing experience. With Cable, Nollywood fans that usually watch the movies online will have no concerns about Internet speed or buffering, just when the viewer is being captivated by the movie. About 80% of the movies to be shown on 'Nollywood Hits' have never been seen.

Some of the high quality productions to be featured on Nollywood Hits On Demand include 'Somewhere in Africa', 'Mind Games', 'Unwanted Guest', 'Married But Living Single,' etc., and will feature notable actors in the Nollywood Industry such as Genevieve Nnaji, Van Vicker, Funke Akindele, Majid Michel, Joke Silva, Omotola Jalade Ekehinde, Yvonne Nelson, and so many more.

"The distribution of Nollywood movies on major Cable networks in the U.S. is the next logical stage in the growth of the Nollywood Movie Industry. It's a dream come true for the many talents in the industry and the vindication of a culture often marginalized in the western market; a real chance for bilateral acculturation and the consequent achievement of crossover appeal for the movies as a cultural export from Africa. Now the world will see the real life and style of Africa in the comfort of their homes". - Perry Umoh, President & CEO, Brandcast Media Inc.

As a legitimate global distribution channel, Nollywood on major cable television networks will be an emergent answer to Nollywood's rampant piracy and lack of investment and theatrical release interest. Nollywood's presence on U.S. cable network giants will impact positively the industry's revenue growth and address existing piracy issues. These select Nollywood movies will be available On Demand at $3.95 each.

Vanguard

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