There are several things on my mind drawn from my piece last week. Reluctantly, but very importantly, I return to the issue of State Sports Associations and their place in the structure of Nigerian sports administration. I use the State...
Good tidings from FIFA for Nigerian football!
Last Thursday, purely out of curiosity and the unusual invitation I received from Augustine Eguavoen, former captain as well as former Manager of the Super Eagles, for whom I have a lot of respect, I attended a Nigeria Football Federation...
Nigeria shall win AFCON 2024, and the World Cup in 2034!
It is clear that Africans have been victims of an established post-colonial World Order that has kept the continent shackled in a mental siege of an unworkable ‘democratic’ formula that breeds corrupt leaders and governments, and weak institutions. It is...
Welcome to new Minister of Sports!
I am writing this on Friday morning. A new Minister of Sports for Nigeria has been in office for one week. The sports fraternity welcomes him to the beleaguered sector. Senator John Owan Enoh does not even have time to...
Salute to Great Nigerian Patriots in Sport!
Life is, generally, not easy for most Nigerians now. It has not been for several years. It is worse if you are a retired athlete. To be an ageing retired athlete is the worst condition imaginable in Nigeria. The country...
July 28th 2023 – the day Sport and Diplomacy meet!
On July 28th, 2023, Filbert Bayi, OLY, former Tanzanian middle-distance runner, one of Africa’s greatest athletes in history will be in Lagos. African American legendary former sprinter, Olympic Gold and Bronze medalist, Ron Freeman, OLY, will be in town. The...
Celebrating an exiting Minister of Sports!
As far as I can recall, it has never happened quite like this in Nigeria’s sports history. I mean, for stakeholders (not all of them though, admittedly) to come together at the end of the tenure of a Sports minister...
Kashim Shettima, Sports, and Boko Haram, an unscripted encounter!
I know Kashim Shettima, the Vice-President elect of Nigeria, but not well enough to say much about him beyond my single physical encounter with the man, and a few telephone calls later, in the course of a story that must...
Allen Onyema – Sports and Diplomacy Hero of the Century!
I wake up to pen my weekly contribution to national sports discourse, and I am confronted with very unpleasant reports of an event that took place in Owerri the day before, far from any sports field or sports event, but...
Qatar 2022, the week after, and the next World Cup!
It has been one week since the end of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. World Cup finals have usually been drab. The fear of losing the final match makes coaches to be too tactical, and the players under the pressure...
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