LEGENDARY MESSI

LEGENDARY MESSI.

He busted onto the scene in 2005m at the Fifa youth soccer championship held in Netherlands where he won the golden shoe and golden ball for the highest goal scorer and most valuable player of the tournament. Then, people saw an innocent and probably docile young boy but now call Messi and defenders the world over will cringe.

He plies his trade with Barcelona fc in Spain and at only 22, he has won all there is to win at club level, sweeping individual accolades in his wake. The world of football had in the past seen the emergence and departures of great players like Marco van Basten, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo de Lima, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Bergkamp, Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo mentioning just a few but I make bold to say that none has been like Messi.

Fleet-footed, creative, entertaining and fantastic in front of goal. He is not a striker but plays as a right winger in the triumvirate attack of the all conquering Barcelona but yet scores more than the arrow head of the attack.

After scoring 34 goals last season and emerging the top scorer in the Uefa champions league, he was voted the Ballon d’or and Fifa world player of the year winner. In this ongoing season, Messi has scored 40 goals with 10 still left. He has also made hatrick a mince meat. I do not think any player has mustered as many hatricks and ‘foursomes’ in a season as Messi had mustered so far this season. Also, he is the first player to net a foursome in a quarter-final match of the Uefa champions league when his man of the match heroics put paid to Arsenal’s champions league ambition. He is the strength of Barcelona , take Messi out and it will be like every other good team around but add Messi and Barcelona will be a huge distance ahead of other teams.

Messi might be a toddler going by football age standard at only 22 but besides his footballing heroics, he has displayed the wisdom of a sage. When Manchester city bankrolled by the Abu Dhabi dynasty dangled a massive financial carrot before Messi by asking him to name his price all in a bid to lure him from Camp Nou to Eastlands, he simply shook his head politely saying NO. by this, he has proven that football is not all about money unlike Nigerian footballers that make money their first and major priority when jumping club ships and switching allegiance. Mikel moved over to Chelsea in 2006 instead of Manchester united. Well people would argue that he is playing. Truly, he is playing but not at his optimum, he has lost his panache, long-range passing and vision and had taken on the role of a hatchet-man just to satisfy his erstwhile boss. Because of financial greed, Nigeria has lost the heir apparent to Okocha’s midfield throne.

Emmanuel Adebayor, though plays his international football for Togo, he has Nigeria’s undiluted blood flowing in his veins. He left the London emirates to join the Manchester eastlands just because of money in the summer. Is he happy? His recent statement in an interview sums it all up ‘I am frustrated’. Why won’t he be, no title to chase, no champions league football, no exquisite passes to waste and above all, no tolerant manager to stand by him.

Back to Messi, football managers say that a player reaches his peak when he is between 28 and 30 but how do we explain Messi’s performance at just 22? We can say he has not reached peak, so to defenders cowering now, I say the worst is yet to come and to Messi, I say keep on the ‘good’ work.

Some detractors would say that Messi only plays well for Barcelona but I ask with which team did he win the Fifa world youth championship and Olympic gold? Your guess is as good as mine. If there are still some doubting Thomases of his ingenious ability, wait until the 2010 Fifa world cup when Messi will be unleashed on the world especially the lazy, slow and lackluster defenders.

JOS: HOME OF PEACE AND TOURISM OR VIOLENCE AND MASSACRE

JOS: HOME OF PEACE AND TOURISM OR VIOLENCE AND MASSACRE?

For every Nigerian state, there is a sobriquet attached to it. There is the ‘centre of excellence’, .pacesetter state’ and even ‘food basket of the nation’. Have they lived up to their names? That is a discourse for another day.

The crux of my writing is on Jos. This is a city that has become more popular than the state housing it. There are many towns in Plateau state but Jos has been grabbing the headlines and refusing to let go for a while now because of the prevalent violence for which there seems to be no end in sight.

Plateau state has the nickname ‘home of peace and tourism’ but that has been substituted of recent for ‘home of violence and massacre’ or how else will you describe the huge volumes of lives and properties that have been lost to the unending spate of senseless fighting ( ethno-religious).

Jos had been peaceful until some people ignited a sizeable chunk of gun-powder that sent the whole peace into a huge inferno in 2001. The violence of this year led to the brutal killing of Christians and Jos indigenes not dwellers on infamous roads like Bauchi road and Angwa –Rogo. Only an irresponsible head is not around when the house is on fire, unfortunately, that was the tale of the political head of government in Plateau state, he was out of town and didn’t return until many lives had been lost and properties ruined.

I was an ‘ear witness’ of the 2001 crisis but in 2008 , I became an eyewitness and it was God and mother luck that prevented me from being a victim. In August 2008, I was posted to Plateau state for the compulsory national servitude. After the orientation, I was posted to the Jos north axis of the state for my place of primary assignment. Initially, I struggled to get a peaceful accommodation but after a while owing to God’s favor, I was able to get a place to share with a big brother friend. The only ‘but’ in the place was that it was a predominantly Hausa and by implication Islamic environment. I did not see this as a fuss until after the crisis. What crisis? You might want to ask, I will be telling you about it shortly.

In November of the same year, the state Government organized local government elections into Jos north and the day after huge crisis erupted. I awoke not to the usual hustle and bustle that should characterize a new day but to pandemonium, people running helter skelter for their lives. I owe mine to God and a big brother friend that persuaded me to run away fast since I thought it was just a harmless riot that would soon be put out. How wrong I was, that so-called harmless riot cost people their properties, took lives including three from the NYSC.

After the crisis, the government of the sate vowed to prevent any future occurrence and even the federal government said it would never happen again. In 2010, when every other person was saying happy New Year, residents of Jos metropolis had to scamper away from their homes to places of safety. This time around, the crisis was not limited to Jos north but it got to Jos south and neighboring villages. The loss of lives and properties was colossal.

The whole of Nigeria is still grappling with that when just some few days back, we heard that some Fulani herdsmen went to a village murdering innocent people in their sleep, women and children. I did not know the full import until I saw some gory pictures of some slaughtered women and children. A child’s head was slashed into two equal halves. Having given you a compressed download of events in that state, I will like to ask some pertinent questions.

1. Are Jos residents vampires ( I mean blood thirsty)?
2. Are security operatives in the state paid for doing nothing or how else do we explain recurring bloody crises occurring in the same location three times in a space of 10 years.
3. Is the federal government happy seeing blood on the television screens and pages of newspaper, if the state government is negligent and the state governor inefficient should the federal government and the presidency follow suit?

I would really appreciate it if someone can give answers to my questions. They are not so tough, are they? If things continue like this in Jos, tourist might only remember and visit the place when they want to watch Nigeria’s version of horror movie.

ELECTION PETITION ONE TOO MANY

ELECTION PETITION ONE TOO MANY.

Mimiko, Oshiomole, Obi and some many others make the list of politicians that recovered their stolen mandate from the usurpers that had stolen them. It is no longer a tell-tale that there are some politicians who are currently occupying positions that do not belong to them.

The most shameful thing is that these bandits turned politicians know that they did not win the election but yet they keep appealing the judgments until they can appeal no more. The ready question is why do they do this? As complicated as the question seems, the answer is very simple and not far fetched. They do this to buy time, steal money and consolidate on their ill-gotten wealth.

This idea of reclaiming snatched mandate had and is still giving Nigeria a bad name, disrupting the political calendar of the nation and making the electoral commission very inefficient.

Elections are conducted every 4 years but this is disrupted by someone reclaiming a stolen mandate after 3 years and the new winner is sworn in to spend another 4 years which is his own tenure. This was a problem that showed up in Anambra during the 2007 general elections. Chief Andy Uba ran under the platform of the PDP and won the election but the incumbent Peter Obi went to the Supreme Court for succour, the apex court upheld the fact that Peter Obi had not yet expended his own 4 years and thus it was sheer stupidity on the part of INEC to have conducted a gubernatorial election in the state. This simply means that the Anambra gubernatorial election will never align with the timing of the Nigerian general election. This also goes for the other states that have the same political pattern.

This unholy political pattern will continue until some severe deterrent is put in place to check the vote robbers we call politicians. I will suggest a few punishments, they may seem too harsh but what else do you think can stop an armed robber if not the fear of being sent to face the firing squad.

My suggested punishments go thus:

That every politician that steals the electoral mandate should be sent to jail for twice the number of years spent occupying the stolen office.

A life sentence for every politician convicted of stealing the votes of the electorate to occupy an office.

In addition to either of the above sentences, they should refund all the salaries and emoluments received while occupying the office they never won.

I do not have the power to enforce this things but I hope someone that does will read this helpful article. Thank you.