₦airaland Forum

komekn:
Everything must be understood in context.

The context of Nigeria is different from the UK.

What motivates most players today is not patriotism but economic hardship and desperation to leave Nigeria and find better opportunities abroad.The U17 has been historically a spring board for many career in football for Nigerian born and resident players. Such desperate Dans are prepared to do almost anything. Sign off thier allowances to the coach, sign up with his preferred agent or proxy agent, etc, etc.

THAT IS NOT PATRIOTISM so before we proceed get clarity on what national patriotism is and whom the true Nigerian is and should be.

A Nigerian origin player in England playing for an EPL club could easily be on £20k a week. Such players are not hungry and or desperate. They are uncompromising on the subjects of probity, integrity and professional etiquette. Something that may be alien to most Nigerian residents players, essentially they can not afford to have integrity. And the coaches all take advantage.

Fortunately and unfortunately l have first hand information on a number of these situations.

Ademola Lookman and Ovie were invited to U17 selection when they were relatively anonymous. They were not selected WHY and the entire exercise was marred with sharp practices and blatant corruption. It would leave a bitter taste in many a persons mouth.

Nigeria had the chance to sign Ovie and Ademola but rejected them, they did not reject Nigeria. Now that have blown and we are now looking for Ademola.

Jordan Ibe was bought up by his Jamaican step Father very nice guy. His Nigerian Father was NEVER AROUND that creates issues in itself. He has never shown any affinity for anything Nigerian.

Last week l spoke with Ovie he is waiting for the call up NUTTIN so far.

Chuks Aneke is now in the championship with Charlton arguably the best AM in league one and two. When he was at Arsenal the NFF flirted with him but didn't carry matters much further again.

He waited for call up NUTTIN.

I agree that Onouha and Agbonlahor didn't honour invitations but that's more to do with inability of the NFF to have strategy to ensure long-term engagement and relationships with Nigerian origin players in England. You don't wait for them to blow first.

In conclusion l ask what makes you Nigerian ❓ That ability to give and take bribe the absence if truth, honour, integrity and righteousness❓ ❓

I say this because I was born in the UK although made in Warri. I speak my language as well as Ibo and a smattering of other Nigerian languages. However, it is much easier for me to win an election as an MP in the UK than it is for me to contest basic state house of assembly in my state Delta. Unless I am prepared to reject truth, honour, integrity and righteousness, join cult and swear oath of allegiance to some high flying god Fathers.

However, I am not prepared to do this, so by your proposition, can l ask you, am l not a PATRIOTIC NIGERIAN ❓ ❓

We need to know if truly those England based boys have the quality to improve our team, we can't just bring in every Tom, Dick and Harry into the fold only on the basis that he could be the next Dele Alli, if we can't do same for those here at home.

When are we closing this thread please?

Yes, the better team won, but when was the last time we convincingly dominated any team we've played throughout the tourney?

Rohr sets up his team to play in a way that brings out the best in the opposing team, this happens after he has run around telling everyone how not up there we are.

He should go and had we proceeded to the finals, I'd still not compromise on my earlier stand. He doesn't read games, he's only blessed us with tepid display which is totally disturbing considering the amount of talents at his disposal, he can't improve.

Sometimes, you just need someone who would realize there's nothing much to lose, so let's just take the risk anyway, Rohr isn't that man.

ChrisKels:
This is what the man said;

''I am not really sure that
this is the place to talk about this. If you
try to put pressure on us, it is not the right
way. Try to win in another way, not this
way.
''There is a referee for that, there is VAR
for that, it is not your job to talk about
these things.''


I dont think there is anything wrong with that. Any coach would have given such response, u don't expect him to slam his player before the press, no sane coach does that. Chisom knew what she was up to before asking him that question, she wanted to suppress the man by putting him under pressure and drawing the attention of CAF in case it happens against Nigeria. She succeeded, yes buh the man did what he had to do as a professional. Nothing like sexism here

When a woman it's involved, you'd see them throwing around words like : misogyny, sexism, oppression, chauvinism. She's a woman with a Vee-Jay, we should give her preferential treatment and be cautious of what we say to her. Rubishh!!

Nevertheless, it was shameful, what the other journalists did by clapping...

mujtahida, please I'd like to get in touch with you outside of here, how possible can that be?

Goke7:
You dey mind them? Waste of space.

But guys let us think of this, the quality of play by west african sides is beginning to dip seriously. Looks like west africa do not produce quality players anymore.

Teams like ivory coast, Nigeria, senegal and Ghana are no longer impressive in afcon. Something is wrong somewhere. Looks like they cannot produce the toures, drogbas, kanoute, papa diop, kanu, finidi, oliseh, yeboah, abedi pele anymore. Even a Guinea produced a titi camara.

West African football is dying.

To buttress my point further, asamoah gyan still plays for Ghana, what?

This was what exactly you were disagreeing with me on the other day.

TheCongo2:
Can't Nigeria develop its own league? Why do Africans have to rely on western countries. What was the point of getting independence?
Sorry for my venting.

One can't wait for the other.

The ideal thing to do is depend on the foreign alternatives while we build our leagues, in fact, that's the only way.

tbaba1234:
Cameroon has caused Nigeria some deep pain. The younger folks will not understand the satisfaction, every time we beat them..

The days of Isa hayattou. Hmmmm!!

Joebie:

What's making this one shine teeth now?
lol!

My observations

1. We started the game pretty well by pressing them which was why we could see their defense making errors, but we just couldn't capitalize and make them pay for it.

2. At a point in the game, it almost seemed like we were playing against a Brazilian team and before you could say anything we were 2 goals down.

3. Akpeyi is a standard of measurement already, other goalkeepers call use him as a reference point to measure their ineptitudes. He'd always remind us at least once in every 90 minute period why he's Akpeyi.

4. Our fullbacks faced superior wingers today and were found wanting on few occasions, nevertheless, they had an impressive outing.

5. Chukwueze's a gem, his introduction saw that we had 3 clear chances at goal and even a shot for himself that could have went in. he's been an impressive addition to the team so far. I don't miss Victor Moses.

6. Our match against Madagascar where musa had to control the ball then try rounding up the GK before he scores and yesterday when he controlled a pass before attempting a shot that was blocked, I've been watching Onyekuru for a while now and these are the kind of goals he scores, he picks his angle and bang!!

7. Ighalo proved me wrong, yesterday was his day.
8. I still want Rohr out, except the NFF would see reasons to appoint a better tactician to support him.

Icon4s:
See what the Southies went through

Reminds me of that other guy you were solving calculus with.. Lol

Things I observed about today's game:

1. This better has to be a one off for Balogun, else he'd be the error prone omuero who even awaziem was rated higher than.

2. This Aina was the Aina I celebrated when we stole him from the jaws of the Lions.

3. Awaziem has got eye for passes, that's his midfielder instinct kicking in right there.

4. We are not killers.

5. African football is scrappy!!

TheSuperNerd:
Isi gini? Aigbo.... what? Bia Nwokem... Oya back to your room

Nerdiest!! You sha wicked oo.

Goke7:
what upset have we seen so far in this afcon? so what's your point? abi algeria beating senegal is now upset?

What's upsetting me is that we can't seem to differentiate between the big boys and those just coming up.

And the game involving Algeria, Senegal could have gone anywhere.

Goke7:
i disagree, is not eleven players on both sides? some of those minnows you call them now have Europe based players

You still haven't presented a valid enough fact to dispute my earlier position.

Can you expect countries like Honduras, Panama and the likes causing a team like Brazil upsets? The gulf in class is evident.

I can see that many people here are running off with the opinion: there are no longer minnows in African football. They're saying this as though it's a good thing, what's happening.

I strongly disagree, there's nothing to celebrate! This is a an indication of how stagnated the growth of African football is presently and that's me being fair, as in reality, there has been a major regression on the part of footballing nations who were towering above others in the not so distant past.

Look at the Egypt, CIV, Nigeria of those years struggling to get wins over teams like Zimbabwe, Burundi, Madagascar and the likes.

I can't join in the party celebrating complacency.

safarigirl:
This is just another example that Karma is a farce.

Considering all the people this man has killed, maimed, made homeless, orphaned, widowed, and yet, good things are happening to him and his family, yet, una go talk say e get one karma wey go visit am.

Nothing like that, this world is not for good people o, no siddon dey form good person, e no dey pay. The ruthless run the world, while good people pray for better lots.

Gbamsolutely!!

with this in mind, you'd travel far beyond destinations dreamt by your contemporaries.

Please, who's currently watching "Deep state"? I'd like to know if it's worth it.

Now that the elections are over, I think the time is now to turn our attention to the many instances that characterized the process and are deserving of nothing, if not our outmost dissatisfaction.

The civilization available to this generation ought to have provided us with an opportunity to make progress in leaps and bounds not moving at snail's pace and expect that everything falls into place with time.

One of the ridiculous provision of an election in this century is that, it's expected that one is only eligible to vote at their various Wards of registration. For real? So, for every election period, I should save up to travel all the way to wherever I had registered to be able to vote. It doesn't matter if I got transferred, or, I had to handle an emergency outside my state of residence an eve to the election, I have to stay put, else, I'm disenfranchised. It just doesn't make any bit of sense to me.

For God's sake, with just a punch or two on a keyboard, one should be able to change his polling unit to wherever he's residing rather than apply for a location change thats not likely to remain same in the next 4 years.

This isnt even me advocating for electronic voting; for, I know thats rocket science considering the present state of things in the nation.


Let's beam our lights on certain scenarios that colored the just concluded elections. Elections were postponed hours just before the polling time, and those who travelled just for the purpose of the elections appeared to have engaged on a futile expedition


Some political parties were providing buses to convey people to their respective polling units that were located far away from their present residence. This is a clear case of voter inducement. And if truth is to be told, one political party or the other must have benefited from this.

I remember watching the press conference involving the INEC chairman and his officials also present were the party chairmen of all political parties participating in the elections. A question was thrown to the INEC chairman about how much the election postponement is costing the commission and his response was: we are not complaining and that was all there is to it; end of discussion.

What this means is that, if he's not complaining, no one else has the right to, not even the taxpayers.

If I agree not to complain about the commissions financial adventures, I definitely have the right to complain about how my vote won't be counted even after expending money and resources just for the purpose of exercising my rightful franchise. My votes can still get cancelled, after all, citing violence, incomplete supply of election materials by INEC officials to the polling units or any other reasons, my vote and that of others can be counted for nothing.

Most of these things like ballot snatching have always been related to election conducts in Nigeria, and to nip this in the bud, threatening potential offenders, providing judicial punishments for the crime might not be enough as they are only but a reactive measure rather than a preventive one.

With every recurring problem is an opportunity to plan ahead of time before you're eventually encountered by it. Can't there be permanent structures put in place to ensure that the issue of ballot snatching is tackled once and for all?


Now that my votes have failed to count, you're spending extra to rerun the elections, I have to go back to work, transport myself back to vote and hope that this time, my vote is counted.

Why should election cost us this much? What is it adding to the country's GDP, should it be something we should be done with in as little time as possible? There are different issues in need of our funds than elections that's comes up once in 4 years that only promises to gulp up a significant amount of the nations resources and by the end of the day, the majority of the populace are left dissatisfied with the entire process.




Source: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2293114467415710&id=100001515370047

lalasticlala, this could look good on the front page.

dgitrader:
I don't bother to read the long post. Who degree help? Is it in this same country where we have PHD holders who can't tabulate or read out simple result sheets?

Don't bother much about the headline, you'd be glad you got the full story, trust me.

Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as: Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Amongst other definitions, this seems to be, by far, the most popular. But with the realities we face today, I'm forced to believe that the people-centric proposition of democracy is illusory at best. Would I be willing to expand on this? Yes, I would, but not today.

Moving on, in Nigeria, we see democracy to be a blessing to the state, well if you've lived through the military era, you'd probably feel same way. The feeling that comes with having the opportunity to express yourself freely, participating in activities of the states are some of the genuine reason we are enamored with democracy. So, we tend to guard that feeling of freedom with all that we have.

But here is where we begin to get it wrong, because no matter how well thought out a process is, regulations are needed to limit its abuse.

The just concluded Nigerian elections furnishes us with more reasons why regulations are needed to instill order, to strengthen the process and get the best out of the system.

For a nation like Nigeria to reach the height we all want it to, there's a lot that needs changing, we are currently ranking high on all negative indices of human existence and if drastic steps are not taken to set us on the path of redemption, we might as well be requesting loans from Zimbabwe in the nearest future. Did I hear you say God forbid? All the more reason, we need to get our acts together and soon.

One of the areas that needs looking at is the minimum educational requirement for the office of the Presidency, which presently is a WAEC certificate. So, by extension, a secondary school graduate can lead this country, he just has to wait till he's 50, making no attempt to improve himself educationally, then he's qualified to run for President. And I ask, at that level, how much does an individual know about the Economy, International Relations, National Security and all other governmental duties on the exclusive list? This is the 21st century; we are in the knowledge based age, without at least a university degree you shouldn't be talking about running for the local government chairmanship in your locality let alone the presidency of a country.

Just because we want to carry as much people as we can along, we lower our standards, so low to accommodate unqualified, incapable people in positions of power, and at the end of the day, the state takes a severe hit, and this inadvertently affects the life of the entire citizenry. Now, that's abuse.

I hear you say something about having more qualified personnel around whod help you out. Well, that isnt the worst idea as far as this discussion is concerned, but lets look at things this way; If you're without basic knowledge of the intricate workings of the system, how do you direct people on what to do? When your employees are more advanced than you are, and they know this, they run circles around you, you cant inspire them to be at their best.

Before we get ahead of ourselves here lets agree that everything begins with you having the ability to assemble a formidable team, and to be able to pull this off, you need to know exactly what you are looking for, if you fail at this, you consequently fail at everything else. And again, its absolutely normal for the human nature to demand that you shop for people who are at pretty much same level as you or even lower, so you don't feel insecure. This now becomes similar to the case of just how useless a toy is in the hands of a kid who has no clue on how to use it.

Let's move on to the voters. Franchise is a very expensive commodity; not everyone should afford it. The affordability of a commodity is directly proportional to its value and its propensity to abuse.

There were reasons why women were denied the opportunity to vote, why people of a particular color are not allowed to vote, and till today only adults and citizens of a particular state are afforded suffrage, why were all these regulations put in place? It's to curb abuse of any sort. You want people with a particular level of understanding of the system make decisions on leaders that would lead them, people who understand the ideals upon which the nation is built on.

But, today, in Nigeria, we afford everyone the opportunity to vote, even illiterates who can't provide concrete reasons for voting in a candidate other than, the others are also voting that person, they are popular or someone else has done the thinking on their behalf and have told them who to vote. That's not what we need today, we need people who think for themselves, people with an above average understanding of what it means to serve and lead. People who know what to demand of their leaders.

The era of politicians bragging about the support they can garner from the uninformed and the unintelligent should be on its way out, it's almost looking like a deliberate attempt to keep them that way in order to exploit them for political benefits, and tis must stop, if you want franchise, get yourself educated, if you want support from your clan, do all you can, in your power to provide them a certifiable education at least. Let's see, if that doesn't inadvertently raise our literacy level. Im looking forward to that time when youre denied the opportunity to vote because you are without a university degree, is that harsh? Ok, I suggest a National Diploma Certificate as minimum requirement.

To the final point, we have over 90 political parties in Nigeria, I don't know what their ideologies are, what sets each one apart from the rest. Parties are just set up for the sake of it and because there are no strong regulations in place, anybody can wake up one morning and decide; he wants to own a party, he becomes the chairman, spokesperson and also run for office on the same platform. That's abuse of the privilege our understanding of democracy has afforded us and its making the whole system a joke.

What's very more annoying is that INEC has allowed for pretty much everyone the opportunity to run for President, why else would you see 73 different individuals under different parties running for the Presidency? just take a look at the length of the ballot paper, how long it took for the compiling and announcement of election results. Things would continue to be out of their control if they cant find their way curb these excesses.

Here is a solution to nip this abuse in its bud: Restrict political parties to have at least 2 governors, 3 senators, 6 house of Reps members before they are allowed to present candidates for the Presidential elections. We can't allow for people to come waste our time and emotions. With just 4 - 5 presidential candidates satisfying this requirement, were good to go.

Likewise, for the governorship, a party should get a minimum number of lawmakers in the state house of assembly, chairman, councilors before they allowed to field candidates for governorship elections.

If they are not ready to work their fingers to the bone, then it's obvious they are not ready to dirt their hands to lead us out from the abyss of existence, they are just there for the pecuniary benefits. They should go face their respective businesses. This is no child's play. That's the only way they can win an election, there's no magic there.

Conclusion: we cant continue to accept absurdities as norms all in the name of democracy. To apply for a job at a particular level, youre required to present your BSc certificate; how more for the job as the president of a nation?

In same vein, not every employee is allowed to make decisions that affects the entire organization, the Board Of Directors are those with that responsibility and as delicate and serious as the decision of who leads us is, not every 18 year old should be granted the opportunity to make this decision.





Source: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2279005568826600&id=100001515370047

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