If as the preceding post indicates, the Glo Premier League has worked for Ghana, why has the Glo Premier League not worked for Nigeria?
Answers to this question and a lot more questions would help in cleaning our football Augean stable.
Those who know say that an inquistion of a man called Amos Adamu would unlock some of the failings of our football, and sports development in Nigeria.

[b]LESSONS FROM GHANA FOOTBALL[/b]Adapted from "What England can learn from the Ghanaian model of football"

http://equaliserfootball.com/2010/07/02/ghana-youth-model/

As fingers continue to be pointed and blame assigned over England’s poor performances in South Africa, Ghana, the host continent’s sole remaining representative in the tournament, are giving many of the more established powers of world football a lesson in how to successfully promote and manage talented young footballers at the highest level.

The youngest team in the tournament, Ghana’s squad contains eight players aged 21 or under and has an average age fully four years below that of England. Milovan Rajevac, the Black Stars’ Serbian coach, has exceeded all expectations since his appointment in August 2008 and balanced the natural ability and enthusiasm of his players to create a coherent, disciplined and yet fluent team more than capable of succeeding on the world stage.

Already having won the U20 World Cup in 2009, reached the final of the Africa Cup of Nations back in January and now in the quarter-finals of what is only the country’s second appearance at a World Cup, the Ghanaians have clearly struck upon what is both a workable and fertile formula for youth production, but what is it that they are doing right?

Arguably the major reason behind the flourishing of Ghana’s young players has been that the top level of football in the country, the GLO Premier League, has become an arena for the finest Ghanaian youth players to hone their talents. This commitment to introducing young prospects to professional football has been engendered through a combination of both willingness and necessity. The conscious cultivation of talent for the national team has been reinforced by players being poached by European teams and the Ghanaian clubs’ inability to pay competitive wages, factors which make any model other than youth development all but unworkable.

This faith in young players is borne out by Aduana Stars, the 2009/10 GLO Premier League champions, who claimed their title with an average age of just 22.4, beating Ashanti Gold – average age 21.7 – into second place. Indeed, the player voted the division’s best player this year, Mahatma Otoo, is himself just 18 and yet is already the captain of Hearts of Oak, traditionally one of the league’s traditional powerhouses, a clear illustration of the high regard with which youth players are held in Ghana.

However, this commitment to youth football is nothing new. The country won the World U17 Championships in 1991 and ’95 and was honoured by FIFA for its work with young players in 2002. A year later the Goal committee approved plans and agreed to provide half of the funds for a technical centre based in Accra which has, since its completion, trained specialists in all areas of the game, carried out significant development work in both youth and women’s football and provided the country with a national academy.

The English FA’s proposed equivalent to such a centre, the much-maligned St George’s Park complex in Burton-upon-Trent, was only approved earlier this year after eight years of delays and is still little more than a building site
Andy Farrant, manager of the Right to Dream football academy in Accra believes that the key to Ghana’s success with youth football is a continuity of personnel and system at all levels within the national set-up:

“Many of the players currently at the World Cup played at U17 and U20 level, gaining valuable experience of international and, more specifically, tournament football. Players in the junior national teams are generally in camp for months on end and become used to playing together in the same system and style which is used by the senior side. This consistency really helps the players to thrive at international level.”

Farrant also sees a regional mentality that places far more importance on youth international football as vital to the process:

“The commitment from the Ghana Football Association to promote young players through the ranks of the junior national team regardless of their club commitments has also made an impact. The emphasis on junior internationals in Ghana and throughout West Africa is huge, similar to representing the team at the senior level”.

With these overriding policies and attitudes in place, the Black Stars have provided a sound template for youth development programmes around the world and the shining example that Ghana has given surely deserves far greater recognition than it currently receives. The country’s FA has demonstrated that careful planning and intelligent forward-thinking can bring about positive results in the long-term, something that their English counterparts have repeatedly disregarded in their rash attempts to throw money at deep-rooted problems in the hope of finding short-term solutions.

In light of the dismal recent performances of Capello’s team, the administrative bodies of Soho Square could do far worse than imitate elements of the Ghanaian mentality and model of football organisation at all levels as they re-assess their priorities in the coming months.

When you express "Thank You" in the English Language,  you are told "Welcome." In the Yoruba language/culture, when you are greeted "E se" (to someone older than you) or "O se" (for your contemporary), in an expresssion of gratitude for a good deed or gift, the giver says "Ko to pe" (more or less, "it's nothing" or "A ki ndupe ara eni" (we don't say thank you to "one's 'person'". But then, if that beneficiary fails to express gratitude, it will be said that the person is "alaimore" (someone who does not know how to show gratitude). Do you have the equivalent of "Welcome" in your language? Or, does anyone know what the equivalent of "Welcome" is in Yoruba language? And, why shouldn't a good deed be appreciated with a simple "Welcome." Could it be said that the "Ko to pe" or "A ki ndupe ara eni" is hypocritical or it is just good enough? It will be nice to know your views.

I currently use Starcomms Izap.
My only problem is that I can only receive, not send mails from my webmail account through Micorosoft Oultook. When it comes to gmail which I also added to my Outlook, I can send and receive.
I complained to their engineers at Surulere, but they couldn't fix it. I was asked to send a comprehensive email on the problem, which I did. This email was sent to another person who replied that I should uncheck uncheck “encrypt data between Microsoft office outlook and Microsoft Exchange.” But where I would find this I was not told. I had sent another email to them to ask where I could find it, but I am yet to get a response. I am wondering if there is anyone in the house who has this same problem and has a solution. I shall appreciate.

It has been reported that President Goodluck Jonathan has banned Nigeria from International Football for the next two years. He has also mandated the dissoultion of the Nigerian Football Federation.
I think this is high-handed.
I think Government has no business with association football.
I think this will boomerang.
I think if Government needs to intervene it is to ensure that the Ministry of Sports encourages football development at the youth and grassroots level.
It is roobish

http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/world-cup/news/nigerias-president-suspends-soccer-team--fbintl_ap-wcup-nigeria-teamsuspended.html

http://www.worldcup.cbssports.com/page/NewsDetail/0,,13041~2081685,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/8777118.stm

Why don't you get your own website?
But, hey, 800k?

So, what eventually happened to the fellow?

In Ile-Ife or Osun State, or anywhere else in Nigeria and can act, dance, sing, write scripts or songs, play an instrument or model or usher. No waka pass!
Then come and show what you can do between 25th and 26th June at the Conference Centre Obafemi Awolowo University. It is Audition Time. For a fantastic new play.
A modest audition fee of N2,000 applies.
You can request for the account numbers to pay into or bring it along to the Audition Venue.
If you need further clarifications, please call LOLA on 08073739960 and 08094144818 or
SEGUN on 07032549693 or JUMOKE on 07042269447
ONLY FRESH TALENTS WILL BE CONSIDERED.
It's your show time!

Go online and fill the form. Wising you all the best.

The new wave-making television station, NN24, is currently recruiting. Details are available on www.nn24.tv. Applications online only, closes shortly.

There must be avenues to report such. I think SEC is the one to help out anyone who had been conned to part with his or her money.

Sometimes, I think I am on www.todayinstupid.com.

But on a serious note, the CBN has also come up with initiatives to get credit to SMEs, at least.
The ad was in a paper yesterday, of the CBN-Guarantee Loan Schemes for SMEs. Two-year moratorium and seven-year max tenor.
I run an SME, and I know what that window can do. I had gone through the more familiar window before and I won't want to go through that again. Never again.

@ KX: Only if you just open your mind and read.
The man didn't ADVERTISE - he was interviewed by a magazine called Africa Confidential. This magazine is edited by Patrick Smith who was in Nigeria as a correspondent of Financial Times. Patrick is not a journalist that anyone can ride roughshod over. So, the interview was very engaging. Little wonder the BusinessDay ran it in full.
The following may answer some of the questions that you or anyone may have raised either before I posted the extract or thereafter. If you are going to contest anything there, feel free; we can only get wiser with collective reasoning.

[b]Q: Although the reform progress may have been impressive in the past nine months, the banks have become extremely risk averse, so lending to the private sector has gone down while lending to the public sector has gone up. Is that going to create a problem in the real economy?[/b]Yes there are a number of issues, but it is a question of the chicken and the egg. The bank can only lend if they have capital and if the banks have had bad loans and the capital has been eroded they are not going to increase their lending. Looking at South Africa, credit growth was negative year on year and they haven’t even had a banking crisis. In the United States and Europe, you find negative growth in credit. The US, for example, has had a reversal of the credit crunch but if you look at the numbers there is still a decline in lending for business, the increase is still coming on lending to mortgages, so when you compose the numbers you still don’t have money going into the real economy and production; it is still going into the area that caused problems.
The first thing is to have some perspective on that. The banking system lost 66 percent of its capital in Nigeria; it’s a miracle that it is still standing and lending. Most of the lending is coming from the banks that have not been so badly affected. You must also look at the overall macro picture. Prior to our intervention the banks were not lending to the real sector anyway. Agriculture is 40 percent of GDP, in 2008 lending to agriculture was one percent and lending to SMEs was less than 5 percent of total loans.
All the growth in credit has been to the capital market and to the importation of petroleum products, so some of the criticisms are misplaced as it is assumed that the banks were lending to the real sector before and they were not. You then need to look at why the banks were not lending to those sectors; there are the technical issues of the bank not being able to assess the risk in SMEs, but looking at the wider economy, there is no power.
Most of the manufacturers are not viable, they don’t have power, there is no infrastructure. So, it is always easier to lend to the capital market, the federal government continues to borrow domestically and issue bonds. Until recently, the government was paying crazy rates of interest. If you have bonds out there in the market and the federal government is borrowing at 12 or 13 percent that is sovereign debt in the sovereign currency: risk free and tax free, you create a system-perverting incentive.

None of the people that have been criticising the Central Bank has come up with what they would do if they were governor. That's the way I see it, I have to make sure that I don't get myself into confrontation with critics. Criicism is very good and I'm willing to engage anyone who has a criticism on an intellectual basis and I think it is a good thing thatn people should criticise, and I think it is a good thing for us because when people aren't doing anything, there's nothing to criticise.
So, I'm not troubled at all, I am worried that some of the insinuations the suggestion that there is selective justice, basically case aspersions on many bankers who have run their banks very well and have been honest. So for him to say that al banks did that and a few are being selected is avery unfair comment. I have said in an earlier interview with the Nigerian press that I have read the story in the newspapers, I have not spoken to the National Security Advisor. I do not know exactly what he said. But the point is as far as he economy is concerned our reformes have been very good for the country and its image, and our managment of the economy has been very good.
[b]When I became Governor of the CentralBank, the rate of inflation was 15 percent; as of March it was 11.8 percent. The differenial between the official rate and the parallel market rate was about 25 percent, the naira was trading at 189/190 i the black market. t's been down to about 150/152 for a year now. the gap between official and parallel market rate is less than 2 percent. Interbank rates were a 22 percent and have now been down to about 2 percent for a long time; the stock market has gone up 30 percent since January 2010 so all the indicators of market confidence have gone up.
If you look at the lending of foreign banks to Nigeian banks that had been disappearing before we intervened, this has now come back up. We've got US EXIM giving credit lines, the European Investment Bank has come to give credit lines to Nigerian banks, the AFC which used to restrict itself to trade finance is now giving long term loans to Nigerian banks; the IFC, USEXIM, EIB, everybody is coming into Nigeria, how this hurts the economy I don’t understand, but everyone is free, obviously, to criticise and we will respond.
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor Central Bank of Nigeria, talking with Africa Correspondent magazine. Reproduced in BusinessDay, Monday, 18 May 2010.[/b]

This thread is a disservice to reasoning.

@ flyuche, go and read the story. The man drove the what-did-you-call-it-please-gimme-a break from Zaki Biam (in Benue State) to Abuja. May be that does not prove how safe it is, but he did drive it; on a stretch of some awful roads.

My mistake: about the chief of design. And, I apologise for the misinformation. It was inadvertent.
I even got his name wrong.
He is Jelani Aliyu, not Jema.
To think that I had written about him in an article before, published in The Guardian. Extract from the article:

Sokoto here we come. It was here, precisely at the Federal Government College, Sokoto, that Jelani Aliyu, General Motors design whiz, passed out, in 1983, as the best in Technical Drawing. It would be nice to know if that subject is still being taught there and what the standard is. Albeit, we are here to urge State Governor Wammako to explore the possibility of having Aliyu return, solely (he could go back thereafter) to establish a replica of the Centre for Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan, USA. No expense should be spared. There is a lot that Aliyu would offer beyond car design. While at Birni Kebbi Polytechnic – he passed out in 1988 as the Best All-Round Student – he was said to have carried out “in-depth research into home design and construction, looking into materials and structures that would be most compatible with our environment and climate; buildings that would stay cool in a hot environment with little or no artificial electrical air conditioning.” That is not the kind of fellow you should not do everything to woo to come home –at least for a short while, if not permanently. For all you know, Aliyu would be glad to make that contribution in return for the Sokoto State Government scholarship which took him to the College for Creative Studies. In news reports, particularly by the Nigerian media, Aliyu, who is married to Hadiza Dogondaji, also from Sokoto, is said to be “making Nigeria proud.” What is that? He should do something for Nigeria.

What this tells us again is that there are talents in every part of Nigeria, North, South, East and West. They just need to be found and harnessed. That is where our media have a lot of work to do. A young man in Imo State recently won a Rolex award. And, to hink that he had been doing great exploits for long. We shouldn't wait until outsiders discover our good talents.

@ Acidosis: I support your motion.
Great people, these Nigerians.
Just needing the boost. And, oil will be so down in the contention for our exports
A Sokoto boy, Jema Aliyu, is the chief of design at GM Motors.
TO

@ Acidosis: I support your motion.
Great people, these Nigerians.
Just needing the boost. And, oil will be so down in the contention for our exports
A Sokoto boy, Jema Aliyu, is the chief of design at GM Motors.
TO

In Yoruba, celebration is AYEYE. What is it in your native tongue?

What next?
The Acting President automatically transmutes to the President.
Then he will nominate his VP, to be confirmed by a simple majority of the National Assembly at a joint session.
Then the duo should work, work, work, as if there is no tomorrow. And SHOW results.
Perhaps Nigerians will be happy enough to say in ONE VOICE that they should continue.

Need I say more?

How this can be an interesting and stimulating thread if it is devoid of abuse and name-calling.

Eryca Freemantle now contributes a column, Skin Deep, in The Guardian Life Magazine in The Guardian on Sunday. Yesterday's was the second in the series. I think it is a welcome addition to the literature on skin care in Nigeria.

@naijaking1:
No, the CBN deputy director has retired - after 31 years of being an "obedient servant."
I think we should read between the lines, with an open mind.
The banks are releasing their results now. I have just read about the full results of Access and Diamond. Both posted huge losses after tax. Before Sanusi they would not only have posted huge profits before tax but also dividends.
I don't know about macro-economy or banking supervision, I know that my banks don't work to make my money grow.
This is my 15th year of running a mid-sized firm, and my grouse with the banks we have relationships with is that they don't make our money work for us.
Perhaps we should look at the bright sides of Sanusi's intervention. Just perhaps.

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20100501541442
This is an interesting in Punch of Saturday (yesterday). It is crucial reading for anyone to understand the role of CBN Governors.
It probalby would answer some of the questions that have been raised on this thread.

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art20100501541442
This is an interesting in Punch of Saturday (yesterday). It is crucial reading for anyone to understand the role of CBN Governors.
It probalby would answer some of the questions that have been raised on this thread.