Sports
Nigerians love sports. All kinds of sports. Soccer. Track and field. Basketball. You name it; they love it. Nigerians are also good at playing sports. There is no greater proof of this than the number of Nigerians playing each sport at the international professional leagues. I do not mean Diaspora born Nigerians, but the home grown kind. Christian Okoye, Olajuwon etc of the 80's and 90's were all born and bred in Nigeria before finding fortune in football (American variety) and basketball (American invention). Neither of these men learned the rudiments of his sport seriously in Nigeria but each had…
Monday, 27 August 2012 08:25
Olympic, Secession Or Electricity--all Na Wash
Written by Prince Charles Dickson
"A good fortune may forbode a bad luck, which may in turn disguise a good fortune..." anonymous. In local parlance there is a word called 'wash'. It actually has a relationship with some of its original dictionary meaning especially in informal terms. However in Nigeria, it is used in local parlance as a slang. Its earliest use, came with the era of 'money doublers'. Mischievous characters that deceived unsuspecting but greedy persons that for a certain amount of money they would buy a chemical which they would use in 'washing' papers which inevitably turn to currencies. Somehow the examples they…
Wednesday, 15 August 2012 20:17
The Olympic Games And Nigeria’s Greatness
Written by Ozodi Osuji Ph.D
Nigeria likes to tell the world that it has 150 million people, the most populous nation in Africa and the wealthiest country in Africa. The idea is to say that Nigeria is a very important country, a country to be reckoned with by other countries. Nigeria is the giant of Africa and any one who wants to talk about Africa must talk about Nigeria. But here comes the Olympic Games and the giant of Africa did not even win one single medal, not even a little bronze medal (South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Botswana won medals). Why didn't it win…
Thursday, 02 August 2012 03:08
The Olympics And China’s Rise To World Power
Written by Ozodi Osuji Ph.D
Take a look at the medals count at the 2012 London Olympics. What do you see? You see China with the largest number of medals. Now take a look at the Olympics of yesteryears, say, in the 1990s. What do you see? You see the USA with the largest medals. Now go back further and what do you see? You see the USSR and USA battling it out for the largest medals. Today the USA is second to China. Russia is nowhere to be seen. Germany, France and Britain, yesteryears world powers, are way back. So what do you think…
Tuesday, 10 July 2012 00:21
COMMENTARY: The Spanish National Football Team’s Place in History
Written by Adeyinka Makinde
The defeat of Italy by Spain in the finals of the recently concluded European Championships tournament in Kiev has, if any doubts existed, confirmed the current Spanish national football team of one of the greatest football squads in history. They are the first team in the modern history of the sport to win consecutively, three major tournaments; namely the 2008 Euros, the 2010 World Cup and now the 2012 Euros. No team before, not even the formidable West German machine of the early to middle 1970s, had ever accomplished the stunning feat of securing back-to-back European Championship trophies, or were…
Friday, 18 May 2012 13:10
Yekini's death ushers in another season of sycophancy
Written by Dele Edobor
Since the sad news of the untimely passing of the former Nigerian Super Eagles player, Rashidi Yekini, hit the airwaves some few weeks ago, a familiar pattern of reactions seemed to have emerged once again in the manner of tributes being paid to the late footballer. While some people have gushed at his wonderful personality; that is, how he was always full of smile and jovial at all times; others have on the other hand, simply chosen to extol his football qualities which unarguably made him the best striker the country has ever produced to date – a point simply…
The question of sport and national identity and achievement is one which should not be underestimated. Certainly at various junctures in history, there have been events and policies linked to the perpetuation and consolidation of national spirit as well as a grandiose means of national expression in order to advertise a nation's ascent to presumptions of grandeur. Consider for instance the resurgent German nation under the banner of Hitlerian Fascism and its use of the 1936 Olympics as the means not only of granting a certain legitimacy to the Nazi regime among the community of nations but also as the…
Monday, 26 December 2011 02:45
Wladimir Klitschko versus David Haye: A Heavyweight Battle of the Age: Review by Adeyinka Makinde
Written by Adeyinka Makinde
It was the case up to a period in the not too distant past that a fight for the heavyweight championship of the world was indisputably the 'Richest Prize in Sports', and the heavyweight boxing champion was acknowledged as the 'Emperor of Masculinity'. Not so anymore. The ebb and flow in the fortunes of the heavyweight division, the barometer of the overall health of the sport, has been on a downward trend. Indeed, it is the case that many pundits are likely to say that never in the sport's history has the prestige and popularity of its premier division spiralled…
Monday, 26 December 2011 02:42
Dick Tiger: The Life and Times of a Boxing Immortal
Written by Adeyinka Makinde
Chapter Five/"Reborn" -- Mickey Duff, an ex-fighter and now the rising matchmaker for Harry Levene promotions, had seen Tiger lose by a decision. To him, Tiger's six-wins-to-five-losses record spelt "journeyman fighter" convenient fodder for Terry Downes, the great hope of British boxing. "I thought I had done my homework," Duff recalled in his autobiography. "I had seen Tiger lose to a nobody in Liverpool and thought he was a perfect opponent –- one who would make a show but wouldn't be good enough to win." A lot was expected of Downes. He had taken up boxing during a brief sojourn…
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