₦airaland Forum

Ishilove:
I've changed. Trust me

Ishilove:
You are very observant, my good sir.

Oh yes, darling, I need to put him back on my ignore list. I sometimes pity him and give him tiny rations of my attention so that he doesn't go completely off the deep end. Every ration sends him into paroxysms of ecstasy but he has exhausted his rations. It is back to trash for him!

Omololu001:
I don't know about number 10 from other countries o,but I do enjoy watching her play,she sabi dribble and hold ball.

Which club is she playing for sef?

Westaslave2:
may be in all dis france or somtin,

femi4:
Ghen ghen.... Equatorial Guinea is back, Nigeria will suffer to retain its title

Beremx:
I don't think he has been in power since 1986. That's a lie.
When was Idi Amin president of Uganda?

Olalekanbanky1:
24 teams won't make the knockout stage complete.

mysticgal:
happy birthday naptu2...although it is a belated wish bit I wish you long life,more wisdom and good things life has got to offer. happy birthday once again

Proudlyngwa:
How could I have missed this.



















3 "Pim pim Pim" and 3 Hurrays for The Boss Himself.




The One and Only Naptu2

Exclusive: Nigeria hero Odion Ighalo nearly quit after death threats

COLIN UDOH West Africa Editor, Kwesé ESPN

SFAX, Tunisia -- It was a long and nightmarish northern summer for Nigeria striker Odion Ighalo, who has rebounded to not only top of the scoring list in these Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, but worm his way back into the hearts of Super Eagles fans.

After a dire World Cup campaign, where he was roundly blamed for the defeat to Argentina that saw the Africans crash out of the tournament, he's gone on to score five goals in two qualifier games against Libya.

Scoring a hat-trick, he heard his name sung from the stands as he was subbed off after 75 minutes of the first game on the weekend. He was then serenaded by supporters in the second game on Tuesday, as he scored twice and provided one assist.

Beaming as he deflected personal praise in his first interview since the World Cup, the trademark Ighalo smile, which had been dimmed for months, flashed as he pointed to team effort instead.

"The team really worked hard, it is a good team performance and I am happy to score five goals in two games but it is an all-round performance and I am happy with the team performance.

"We are 99 per cent sealed the ticket to the Cup of Nations," he told KweséESPN in an exclusive interview in Sfax, Tunisia, where the second match was played.


But all of this nearly did not happen. Sitting down in the changing room of the Taieb Mhiri Stadium, Ighalo reflected on what has been a challenging last few months for him and his family.

For a fleeting moment, the ever-present smile turned wry, then retreated as Ighalo opened about on how he and his family -- including his children -- endured vitriolic abuse, and even received death threats on social media, after a World Cup performance where even he admitted he had not played up to his own high standards.

Things got so bad, Ighalo said, that he came this close to packing it all in.

"I know the fans want me to score goals. I understand them," the China-based striker said. "But some of them took it to another level.

"They said a lot of things. To my innocent kids, to my wife, even to the extent they threatened my life and the life of my family."

Despite trying to remain above it all and not respond to critics, he was deeply hurt by the attacks on his family, especially his children.

"I felt very bad [when they went after my family]. I had to talk to my wife because she could not take it. Some words they said about my kids, about me. Some words they said to her, threatening and all that. That is beyond football.

"You know women and how they react when you talk about their children. But I never said a word to nobody and I never replied anybody."

He did not have to take any action to protect his family, as they live in England while he plays in China for Changchun Yatai. But with all of that going on, it was only natural that the forward wanted to quit, especially when his wife advised him to.

"My wife said 'you don't have to go there [to Nigeria] any more' and it was because of all what they said to her and to our family."

It took national team coach Gernot Rohr's intervention to convince Ighalo to come back and suit up in green and white again.

Ighalo explained: "I want to thank Rohr because after the World Cup and all those things happened, he called me before the Seychelles game [in September] and I told him I was contemplating stopping because it is not easy.

"But the coach had belief in me. He said 'I know you are a good goalscorer and I know you can do it. Come and show them that you can score.'

"If a coach believes in me, then I will come. I told hm 'coach, if I am in your plans hundred percent then I will honour the invitation any time you call me.'

"He said 'yes, you you are in my plans for the games'. Then he said 'don't be under pressure, just go do your thing, I know you can do it.'

"That gave me the confidence which I believed that I needed. I want to thank him for defending me, and giving me the words like a father, encouraging me, talking to me. He gave me more belief and I thank God for repaying him with these goals."

Ighalo has since disabled comments on his Instagram account, where he is still active, and rarely appears in front of the media. And he has no intention of changing that decision anytime soon.

So does he feel like he has proven all those doubters wrong?

"I am not trying to prove anybody wrong," he said. "I am just trying to work hard for my country and I always give hundred percent.

"Unfortunately, it didn't happen the way I wanted it at the World Cup. But life did not end there. I went back to my club, and I continued my game.

"Now I am back here to play for my country. I just want to give hundred percent whenever I play, goal or no goal. As long as the team wins, I am satisfied."

Nigeria's next Afcon qualifier is against South Africa on 16 November.

JeanBoKassa:
Midwest rather not western Nigeria

The idea of the six geopolitical zones looks brilliant. Was it your idea alone?

The only other person who contributed to it was my friend, Bisi Onabanjo. Two of us discussed this in prison.

It was from there you now took it to the Constitutional Conference where it was adopted?

Well, it wasn’t. But Abacha adopted it. The conference itself didn’t adopt it; they wanted the status quo to remain because it was in the interest of some people to maintain the status quo.

Some have suggested the abolition of the states and for the six geopolitical zones to become the federating bodies. Do you concur?

The states don’t have to be abolished. It is a matter of nomenclature. When we had Eastern Region, we had 12 provinces which Michael Okpara created. Ogoja province, Calabar Province, Uyo Province, Annang Province, Enugu Province, Onitsha Province, Owerri Province, Umuahia Province and Port-Harcourt Province, Degema Province. There were six provinces in the minority areas and six in the Igbo areas, and all these provinces had their provincial commissioners, had their assemblies and had their provincial scholarship boards.

So, it is a matter of nomenclature. The states should be provinces of the regions. I am putting together a book called Nigeria: Thoughts on the provision of a stable polity, and in that book, there is an article by Shehu Shagari that states should become provinces of the regions.

Eventually, when I met with him when I was putting together these ideas, he said that he found that his suggestion was not very well accepted, so he wasn’t pursuing it anymore.

What kind of political structure do you think will make Nigeria politically and economically viable?

Going back to history we negotiated over a decade starting from Ibadan Conference in 1951 up to the conferences in Nigeria in London and so on until independence in 1960 –    a ten year period of negotiation and in the end what Nigerians agreed with the colonial masters on what would be the form of government on the basis of which they would be given independence was a federal form of government made up of three regions – North, East and West.

That was the form of government agreed with each region autonomous in many respects and with each region having its own Constitution and the Constitutions of the three regions annexed to the Federal Constitution in one document and with each region being able to develop at its own pace.

You will see for instance, Eastern Region that started as the poorest region, by 1966 the leadership had established agricultural plantations, rubber, cocoa plantations in Cross River State, palm in Anambra, Imo, Rivers and so on and they had industries, like Trans Amadi Industrial Estate in Port Harcourt, they were able to negotiate with foreign countries and were able to build the brewery in Umuahia, ceramic factory in Umuahia, the Calabar Cement Factory and there was development. They were able to build the University of Nigeria before the Federal Government took it over ten years after.

So, each region was given the freedom to exercise its initiative. It was Eastern Region that first started the Pay As You Earn tax in Nigeria. That was the creation of -21-  Bon Ejike— the first minister of finance of Eastern Region in 1952 – Pay As You Earn, automatic deduction from salary. It was first started in Eastern Nigeria because when the region was founded they had to find means of raising money. It was in the East that they first started Entertainment Tax, if you went to cinema if it was One and Six, you paid three pence tax to the government.

People used their initiative. If you went to the North you would find groundnut pyramids in Kano everywhere. In the West, cocoa was booming and they used it to invest property in Lagos, Western House, WEMABOD, Cocoa House in Ibadan all that was based on the initiative. Even free education in the West and so on.

I did my analysis while I was in Kirikiri Prison, the only problem with the form of government that we had with that structure was that it was lopsided. The structure of the regions at independence was such that one region, the North was said to have been bigger than the two other regions, East and West and when even Mid-West was created the North was still bigger than East, West and Midwest and in a parliamentary system based on population, the membership of the parliament allocated more seats to Northern Region than to all other regions put together.

If as they did in the North, they all decided to go into one party, a Northern party, and they elected all their legislators on that party, then they would continue to have the leadership of the country for ever which would not be palatable to the rest of the country. That was one fault in the disparity in the size of the regions.

The second problem I discovered was that within each region, you had majority group and a group of minorities. In the West, the Yoruba were the majority group, and the minority group was what grouped together in what became the Midwest. In the East, the Igbo were the majority and the minority group called themselves the COR State – Calabar, Ogoja, Rivers. In the North, Hausa Fulani were the majority group and the minority were mostly the Middle Belt and to some extent, the Kanuri.

So, you had a struggle within each region between the majority and the minority. So, I decided to cure these two problems that we must have parity of regions between the Old North and the Old South and that was why I decided to have parity of geopolitical zones between the North and the South.

The North was divided into Northwest, Northeast and North-Central and the South was divided into Southeast, Southwest, and South-South.

And it also helped to have parity between the majority regions and the minority regions; the majority regions being in the Northwest, mostly Hausa-Fulani, Southwest, mostly Yoruba and the Southeast , mostly Igbo; and the minority regions being Northeast where you have the Kanuri with a number of ethnic groups in Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba; and in the North Central you have Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kogi, Kwara, Niger; and in the South you have the minorities in the former Midwestern Region and the minority of the Southeast region who together formed the South-South.

So instead of three regions, you now have six regions; three majority, three minority; three in the North, three in the South – parity between North and South, parity between majority and minority and the apportionment of representation would be as we negotiated with our colonial masters on the basis of which we got our independence.