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Nigerian Premier League: Can We Ever Have The Same Passion For Our Local Teams?

 

It’s a culture nowadays to support Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, AC Milan or Juventus and I’ve been pondering if we could ever have the same passion for our local club sides. 

Our poor domestic league is a drawback to the Nigerian Football team. I’m not clamouring for all our Nigerian top players to ply their trade in Nigeria but the league should be good enough to retain players rather than see them rushing to countries with no football pedigree for money.

I have been involved in heated arguments with people who believe the NPL will never be good enough for us to attend their matches and cheer our local teams but I think we can do this.

The Egyptian, South African, Moroccan, Tunisian, Mexican and Japanese leagues are leagues we should use as stereotypes. Let’s use the Egyptian league for example, it is so organized and exciting that their top players leave Europe and return home. For instance, Amir Zaki was an instant hit at Wigan Athletic when he was on loan at the club (2008/2009 English premier league season) and had the opportunity to make the deal permanent but he declined the offer and opted to return back to Egypt where he’s been representing Zamalek. The Egyptian league is so exciting to watch because of their style of play and the atmosphere in the stadia. The fans come out in mass, wearing the colours of their favourite teams and singing at the top of their voices.

In Nigeria, the reverse is the case; the pitches are nothing to write home about, terrible officiating, poor crowd turn out and indiscipline on the part of players and club officials.

These are ways I believe we can transform our league:

With all due respect, a lot of credible men have held the top position at The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) Glass House without achieving anything and I think it’s time for them to move aside and allow a capable ex-footballer, who has seen it all and knows what the league needs, to lead us to El Dorado.  Kalusha Bwalya, an ex-footballer has turned the fortunes of Zambian football since he took reigns of their Football Administration a few years ago and I believe that’s our first step to redemption.

Co-operation and Unity: NFF and The Sports Ministry led by Bolaji Abdullahi have to work in sync to make this dream a reality. This is sine qua non. The days of in-house fighting that have rocked the NFF over the years should be left in the past and NFF should also try and act as a bridge between the clubs and their players, working towards settling the problem of unpaid royalties and salaries by these clubs. We need to be able to pay these local players enough to keep them comfortable and happy to stay rather than see them leave for obscure footballing countries like Cyprus, Malta, India, Thailand etc. Moving to one of the top European leagues is understandable.

Non-Governmental Interference: The State Governments need to relinquish the management of these clubs thus enabling corporate bodies or individuals to purchase these clubs out rightly; providing them with start up funds to be able to sign players and manage the wage bill.

Media and Promotion: Supersports have been televising our league for some years now but that can be improved upon. The fact that it is shown on TV does not mean people will watch it.  The Public Relations and Marketing committees should be inaugurated to make some buzz about these games. Ex footballers like the Okochas, Finidis, Olisehs, Kanus should also be carried along. We can pick a leaf from Supersports, I love the way they hype their league (Super Diski). Also capable hands for match day analysis and commentary should also be employed. The stadium quality also has to be enhanced and the refereeing situation sorted out cos we sabi fix match gaan.

All these minor issues affect the way the game is perceived. You can’t promote a game the commentator knows nothing about the history of the clubs nor the names of the players.

The NFF and Prospective club owners should try and make the match tickets available at an affordable price to ensure the stadia are always filled with fans; with gate proceedings going to the club hosting the match.

The “home” advantage issue is something that has to be dealt with. The home team is always favoured one way or the other and the referees are often bribed to swing matches in their favour. Referee’s salaries should be reviewed and security officials employed on match days to avert any crowd trouble.

Generally, the Government would gain a great deal from an efficient and exciting football league. Look at England, the EPL rakes in more revenue than most of the sectors over there and the same success can be recorded here in Nigeria if we all support it.

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Love

 

Valentine’s Day (Lovers’ day) is a day set aside all over the world to celebrate the gift of love.

For me, Valentine’s Day is just another day on the calendar. You don’t have to wait till it’s valentine to show love. This brings me to the question, what is love? Love is the feeling of tender & passionate affection for another person.

From infancy to adulthood, we have had strong but transient romantic attraction for the opposite sex starting from our teachers to our fellow classmates. We often refer to these individuals as mere crush & that is what I feel love is. People have labelled me a love critic because I often say love is overrated. Don’t get it twisted, love is a beautiful thing but these are my reasons for saying love is overrated:

We as Christians are implored everyday to love our neighbours as ourselves, yet most of us are self centred & care less about others. I believe if you don’t care about your neighbours, you can’t fall in love.

Love is patient & kind: Most people nowadays are impatient & I don’t blame them. Recently, there’s this girl I was so patient with, took all her bullshit, in the end, I was “lovelorn”. People always feel superior to you when you stoop so low to take their bullshit rather they brag in front of their folks saying “that guy/girl is head over heels for me”.

Love is not jealous, boastful or proud: Our people normally say “otu onye anaghi alu nwanyi” which means a woman is married by many not just one man alone. Jealousy/over protection is one of the reasons why people break up, a friend once accused me of trying to snatch his girlfriend from him. The guy is so jealous that any chat with his girl means you are trying to woo her. That you are dating a guy/girl doesn’t mean you are supposed to be monitoring his/her every move or glued to each other. In the end, you will get tired of each other & the rest is history.

Love does not demand on its own way: Demand is another inglorious chapter of a relationship. Nobody wants a demanding/nagging fellow as a partner. In the book of proverbs of the Holy Bible, a verse says “A leech has two daughters, both named give me.” Girls are of the idea that once they are dating, it is the responsibility of the guy to take care of her needs. Don’t get me wrong, you can do anything for the one you love but the person mustn’t demand or nag for it. I know a student who gives his nagging girlfriend a monthly allowance of 5,000 from his own monthly allowance of 15,000 & he tells me, its love. “It is better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a nagging/quarrelsome wife”

Love is not irritable & it keeps no record of when it has been wronged: Misunderstandings are acid tests of a relationship, they are inevitable. They help build a “covalent” bond between couples. People often claim to be in love but when a problem ensues, you often see the guy/girl saying all sorts of ‘unbelievable’ things about their boo & this makes me irascible. When the going was good & smooth, you didn’t see all these faults but because the end is lurking, you’d tell your story to every ear that is willing to listen. The truth is that we all have flaws & it is our ability to stay together despite our respective flaws that makes us say we are in love.

Love never gives up & endures every circumstance: People love due to so many reasons such as beauty, affluence, talent, intelligence, voice, height, size, dressing as the case may be but the one million pound question remains “would you still love him/her if all these change?” Abraham Lincoln once said “Everything is in a process of change, nothing endures, and we do not seek permanence.”  Let me paint a picture, assuming you are dating your dream girl/guy & one day he or she has an accident & loses a limb or any part of his/her body, would you still love him/her? If your answer is yes, then you are in love but if you answered no, you are definitely not in love.

Love is faithful: King Solomon said it all in Proverbs 20 verse 6 “Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?”  Wise words from a decent man.

Love grows: Loving the opposite sex is like loving a song; the more you hear the song, the faster you learn the lyrics & fall in love with the song. The more we stay with each other, the more we cultivate love towards ourselves. For instance, from primary school to tertiary institution, I’ve found out that there must be somebody in my class that makes me trip…This is because I see & stay with the person everyday but this ‘love’ usually fades away once I move to the next class. During the time of our fathers, most of our parents didn’t know each other from Adam yet they are living in peace & harmony.

Love signs: The butterfly thingy, touching of hair & other things that have been attributed to love are all fallacy. If you doubt me, check this out…They often say butterflies in the stomach is normal when you are thinking or speaking to the “one” but this feeling is normal because we do get cold feet once in a while. I don’t believe anybody is the one and this feeling occurs almost every day when we’re nervous or eagerly anticipating something or somebody.

Love is the advanced form of infatuation: Infatuation is the act of being foolishly or irrationally in love. The above statement is so true because people do stupid & foolish things when they are in love…If you have never been foolish before, then you know not what love is.

Love doesn’t pretend: Pretence is an act of giving appearance of truth or reality to that which is false or imaginary. People especially girls get in on the act…Ah!!! Who dey broda?!!! They show false “good girl” behaviour at the conception of the relationship but when the chips are down, they show their true colours. Guys also pretend to be rich, gentle and nice, anything for the cookie. My advice, never judge a book by its cover because looks can be deceptive.

Love doesn’t listen to gossips: A line from the song “so what” by Field Mob featuring Ciara keeps going through my head. “They said that I’m this, they said that I’m that…” We often listen to our friends when they tell us things about our partners. Some of these friends of ours may have ulterior motives behind their ‘kind’ gesture. A girl’s worst enemy is her friend. A wise man once told me a story of how the best friend of his fiancée lied to him, the friend had told him that his fiancée had epilepsy so he ended his relationship with the girl and married the friend instead only for him to find out years later that the girl lied.

Love doesn’t compare: my female folks are the culprits here. Here is a dialogue between two friends:

Lisa: What did Mark buy for you on Valentine’s Day?

Jane: Mark, my knight in shining armour, bought me a new phone (Blackberry bold 5), took me to Marina Resort where we rode the speed bike and speedboat after which we retired to a romantic dinner for two at our hotel. It was so romantic. You nko, how your own dey?

Lisa: Emeka that stingy fellow, he just bought me a card, flower and a necklace…Jane your own better oh!

Girls/women often compare their boyfriends/husbands and this makes me laugh all the time. They forget that all fingers are not equal and even brothers from the same womb have different destinies. Andy Murray of Scotland said after losing to Roger Federer in the Australian tennis (grand slam) open final, “I can cry like Roger, it’s a shame I can’t play like him“. If you really love your man, quit comparing and be contented with what you have alright?

Love is a bird; she needs to fly so enjoy it while it lasts.

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Men And Boobs

You can move the boobs out of a guy’s face but you can’t make the guy take his eyes off it. Ever heard of it? 

Have you ever wondered why men are so crazy about boobs? What is it with men and boobs anyways? What a question; it is right up there with; what is the meaning of life and why does one shoe fit better than the other.

If you see a straight man who claims he’s not enchanted by boobs, you know a lying man. A very few guys will pass a large-bossomed woman without taking at least a look at the covered boobs and if the boobs aren’t covered well then, the man will be taking a much longer look.

Men stare and fantasize about a woman’s breasts when she’s partying, walking, talking even sleeping sef.

A man told me when he was younger; he noticed the very first place his eyes go to when he sees a beautiful girl is her face, then her boobs. He believed he had a problem and prayed fervently (lol) against this obscene behaviour but as he grew older, he realized it was a norm for men and he was only metamorphosing into a man.

It is too pure and rather indecent to blame evolution. I know all women reading this want to know why men like boobs and what they think when they see a great pair.

Breasts are velvety, round, slick and soft to play with and make good pillows, and they have these wonderful little knobs you can fondle and they feel real nice when you squeeze them.

Men have this magnetic feeling abi gravity for boobs; the force is so much that I can’t comprehend it. I’ve been trying to fathom why men can’t take their eyes off a woman’s cleavage but I’ve not been able to solve the mystery. Men suck breast from birth till they collapse yet e no de do them. If they had the opportunity to suck breasts in their graves, they would.

The question I keep asking myself is wetin dey dis bobi sef, sugar dey am?  Yes, boobs are one of the body hotspots in sex play. Men get turned on when they play with the boobs thus they squeeze them, rub them, and suck them. Women have varying degrees of sensitivity and derive varying degrees of pleasure from getting their nipples/breasts sucked. Some women get really turned on – this is not a wives tale.

A good pair of boobs stimulates a man’s mind and makes him visualize how good the breast might actually look alike. It’s mysterious and men are born explorers and this plays a mind game on him and this gets him into a mini game of 21 questions. How do these boobs really look like? Could she be great in bed? Can I see her nipples through the shirt? Is that a push-up bra? Man, how many inches is that cleavage?

Covered boobs create mystery, mystery creates a game of 21 questions and the man gets the answer in the end. She’s hot. And it ends with an answer. Choiiii! Who dey broda! She would be great in bed.

Please what do you think is the reason for men’s quenchable thirst for boobs?

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Corrupt State of Nigeria: We all have benefitted from it

Corruption, as we all know is the destruction, ruining and spoiling of a society or nation. Corruption is an age-old phenomenon. Selfishness and greed are the two main causes. 

A corrupt nation loses its value for integrity, virtue or moral principles. It changes for the worse. Such a society begins to decay and sets itself on the road to destruction.

Corruption has always been the bane of our country’s development and we have seen a steep of upward trend of existing corruption. Nigeria has been engulfed by corruption that we have reached the position of one of the top ten or so of the corrupt countries in the world.

How can we develop when even our parents (elderly) who ought to lead by example are corrupt? At a very tender age, parents inculcate this bad trait in their children. For instance, when I wrote my National Common Entrance exam, so many parents (family friends) bought me with gifts to help their kids with answers. I, being an innocent kid didn’t know I was already employed as a mercenary. Imagine a child having that kind of notion that you can bribe your way to success and that he doesn’t need to read to pass.

Corruption is rampant everywhere, this malady has spread through like the length and breadth of our social fabric metastatically like a malignant cancer.

Corrupt practices have eaten have into our lifestyles to such an extent that we don’t see anything wrong in what we do anymore and that things should be the way they are. We are inclined to justify all the wrongs. 

Corruption has gone viral in our society and we have reached a point of no return; it’s the beginning of the end.

These days we all are well informed of the malpractices that thrive nowadays and we have expressed revulsion, disgust and frowned at the way things are going in the country but I’ve always maintained, we all have gained and profited from corruption in one way or the other. After all, my Igbo people say “Na Obodo adigi mma bu uru ndi nze” meaning the crisis state of a society/nation is to the merit and benefit of the rich and mighty. If you say you have not benefitted from corruption, you are only playing the game of deceit with your head.

One way or the other, I don’t think there’s any man out there that will say he has been fair all his life and never broken any rule/law.

Let’s play a game of 21 questions; have you ever sorted to pass an exam? Have you ever asked someone to write attendance for you in school or at your workplace in your absence? Did you write your jamb in a special centre? Did you have to pay a concessional fee to get admission into secondary or tertiary institution? Have you ever rogered the police? Have you ever given bribe to wriggle your way out of a difficult situation? Have you ever been given preferential treatment in a bank or any other place? Have you ever bribed anybody to get a job even though you are the least qualified? Have you ever smoked weed? Did you drink before you were 21? Have you ever driven a car under the influence of alcohol? Have you ever indulged in child trafficking? Have you ever abused a child either physically or sexually? Did you have sex before you were 18? Have you ever slept with an underage girl or guy? Have you as a priest not stood your ground against corruption publicly? Have you ever killed a family member just to make money? Have you ever indulged in rituals for political reasons or because of mere jealousy? Have you even been part of a cyber crime? Have you ever embezzled public fund?  Have you ever kidnapped anybody or acted as an informant for kidnappers/robbers? Have you ever run a traffic red light before?

If you are guilty of any of these crimes, your guess is as good as mine, you are corrupt.

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NYSC And The Enclosure Syndrome

You could always feel people’s (intending corps members) excitement, joy and expectation whenever it’s that time of the year for the NYSC Orientation Camp. People are always impatiently anxious and ready to get on with the programme.

I must admit I’m not a fan of the programme. I see it as a charade. I mean the main aim of the scheme is to promote national unity among Nigerian youths, develop the rural areas and prepare the nouveau graduate for the challenges ahead.

Yes, it does promote national unity but I believe it has contributed to the growing unemployment problem we are facing. These institutions and organizations see corps members as cheap labour and prefer employing them every year and discard them at the end of their one year programme, to employing capable hands on a permanent basis.

Let me ask these questions: Are we only allowed to serve Nigeria for a year after which we can do whatever we like? How many times have you seen a child of a top government official or member of the ruling class sent on assignment to any of the rural areas?

Anyways, let’s leave that topic for another day and concentrate on the topic at hand.

The Enclosure Syndrome, according to Zinga’s theory, is a condition that develops when adults are enclosed or confined in a place, which makes them foster transient feelings for each other to the extent of believing they have found love.

The enclosure syndrome is synonymous with the NYSC Camp. Just a week or two after the opening of the camp, you’d see people holding hands, frolicking, kissing, cuddling and doing things that lovers do.

If you have served or still serving, you will testify that it is difficult or almost impossible for one not to develop false feelings for the opposite sex in a place like that.

The saying ‘nobody wants to be lonely’ greatly applies here. The quest for companionship, sex and love is very high under these conditions. That’s why year in, year out; you hear stories of people falling heads over heels for each other in camp only to separate immediately or few weeks after the closure of the camp.

This condition is transmittable and contagious just like the common cold/flu. The married women/men aren’t immune to this syndrome either; they catch up with the bug. 

As a matter of fact, a married lady was recently caught pants down with a fellow corps member and was sent packing, along with her fellow culprit after the NYSC officials had informed the husband about her misdemeanour.  

Have you ever been diagnosed with this malady? Or are you still suffering from this condition?

This syndrome is only treatable and curable by distance; out of sight is definitely out of mind.