SportsNigeria3

Do you know that we have a national emergency situation in Nigerian football? Do you know that the situation is so precarious that the security of the entire country could be jeopardized? Can’t people see what I see from my little observatory about what’s been going on? Do you know that domestic football has stopped in the country and that for the past three months, since the start of the World Cup in Russia, clubs have not been able to play any matches as a result of the crisis in the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF? Do you know that millions of the country’s citizens, particularly the youths in major football cities such as Enugu, Kano, Maiduguri, Jos, Ibadan, Akure and so on, have to find other ways to occupy the times they spent every weekend watching their local football clubs play matches? This social activity effectively dissipates their frustration with the harsh social, political and economic situation most of them have been going through in recent times in the coun...

It is the little things that matter the most in life. Attention to the small details changes lives and makes the biggest difference. Two of late Nelson Mandela’s greatest quotes come to mind. The first is: ‘Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world’. The second is: ‘Sport has the power to change the world’. If both statements, from a man considered one of great sages of the 21st Century with wisdom and humanity flowing freely through his veins, are true, imagine what combining the best of Education and Sports would produce. In 2004, even the United Nations recognized the potency of the combination when it set up a special unit with the mandate to use sport as a major tool to drive aspects of the Millennium Development Goals Agenda to eradicate poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease and HIV/AIDS in the world by 2015. The absence of the political will to drive the process of achieving the set goals in some parts of the world, including Nigeria, led to the...

He is 27 years old. Under normal circumstances no player voluntarily retires from international football at an age that he is at his very best – experienced, mature, exposed, comfortable and at the peak of his physical fitness. So, to retire at 27 means something is not right somewhere. This is the case of Victor Moses. It may take a psychoanalysis of his situation to understand his motivation for announcing his retirement from the national team this week. In the line of hierarchical succession Victor Moses should naturally become the  Super Eagles ’next captain and the heart of a new assembly of players that shall emerge from the debris of the 2018 World Cup campaign. So, with his premature retirement some things do not add up. For the first time since he started representing Nigeria many years ago I saw him from close up in Russia during the last World Cup. I actually shared a sentence or two with him, and took a picture with him for the first time in a relat...

This past week, Nigeria was in the news all over Africa. In the capital city of Delta State, a continental sports event was held – the 21st Senior Athletics African Championship tagged Asaba 2018. The event was organized by the Nigeria Athletics Federation, AFN, in conjunction with a Local Organising Committee, LOC, headed by Solomon Ogba. His signature was all over it. Solomon has always dreamt big. He was a politician that became Commissioner of Sports in Delta State many years ago. Then he became president of the Nigerian Athletics Federation. Then he wanted to become President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee, but failed. Then he became President of a federation with a sport that did not even exist in Nigeria, yet he groomed and presented 4 Nigerian athletes at the 2017 Winter Olympics, and created history. The girls became the toast of winter sports, the first African girls to compete in the winter games. They went on to become global celebrities even without even com...

Once upon a time, Sport bared its fangs. It clearly demonstrated that it has the power to change the world’s dynamics. I was there. In fact, I was a participant – a sacrificial lamb. Let me tell you the story. In 1976 I was a young impressionist football player, the most unlikely person to be heading to the Olympic games. Freshly minted by the Polytechnic Ibadan, and waiting for my call up to the National Youth Service Corp scheme, I received an invitation summoning me to join the Green Eagles, the national football team, on tour in Europe. The entire contingent in several sports including track and field, boxing, table tennis and wrestling were already on tours to different parts of Europe in a final preparation for the summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada. I was in a trance. It was like dream. Through some incredible circumstances akin to a miracle, at the very last ‘minute’ I replaced another player whose name had already been sent and registered for the games. T...