THE GOOD,THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Wow ! It's been quite a while isn't it ? I'm so sorry,but really I couldn't help it.I thank God nevertheless that I'm back blogging and enjoying it.The last two months or so have been full of interesting events on the Naija side,and I'll simply proceed to serve you with the good,the bad and (oooh !) the ugly bits.

THE GOOD

The obvious tickler has to be the emergence, at long last, of an acting President for our country after two months or so of an uncomfortable vacuum at the topmost position of government.The big heroes at this period,for me, have to be our military people who resisted the very juicy temptation of another 'fellow Nigerians...'(and I hope our brothers up there in Niger Rep. can a learn a useful lesson from us in this regard).With all due respect and personal sympathies to our President,Umaru Yar'Adua,it was clear that we were faced with a situation that the authors of our constitution did not foresee,and after what seemed like an eternity the National Assembly finally took the bull by the horns to create a solution from a no-solution.

After two years of 'meltdown' the Nigerian Stock Market opened the year on a blistering positive note,notching up a 10% gain in one month.At this rate,the losses of the deression may be recouped in less than one year ! Congratulations Ndi Okereke-Onyuike,Daisy Ekineh and Lamido Sanusi who's banking reforms is now yielding fruit from the foreign investors' side.Hopefully,everybody - regulators,operators,and investors alike have learnt their lessons from the meltdown.

THE BAD

I feel so sad at the loss of super athlete and super athetics administrator,Abdul Karim Ohimai Amu,former Nigerian athletics captain and best African athlete of his time.At King's College,Lagos we were ever inspired by the rich folklore of Amu's achievements during his time as a pupil.He went on to represent and win laurels for Nigeria at African,Commonwealth and Olympics events.His period as the head of the Nigerian athletics federation was unarguably Nigeria's golden period as the country produced several world class athletes (Onyali,Egbunike,Alli,Ogunkoya..an endless list really) and thoroughly dominated the sport in Africa.I was blessed to have a personal interaction with Amu in the mid 1990s when as a fledging investment analyst I assisted him in preparing fund-raising documents for his factory (I mean real industrial factory) located in a remote area of Lagos.I always looked forward to every meeting because there was always something new to learn from the man.Floreat,great A.K. ! Rest in Peace.

The other sad event has to be the sustained campaign to tarnish the image of BRF ,i.e Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola from agents seemingly from within his own party.Now this is one politician that has succeeded in winning over the love and confidence of his citizens - irrespective of origin or political stance - with practical and meaningful programmes.These detractors have also tried to drag the respected name of BRF's mentor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu into their game,but that definitely cannot work,because for obvious reasons,BRF's achievements are clearly also Asiwaju's achievements.Please let Fashola be oh !

THE UGLY

What else ? Ever since the Super Eagles qualified for the 2010 World Cup,our football authorities have,for reasons that only ecclesiastical powers can explain, been trying to rewrite all known sporting, nationalistic and moral conventions with their extremely desperate resolve to remove the Head Coach Amodu Shaibu and replace him with a 'foreign coach' at the mundial.The third place finish at the last African Nations Cup (which in actual fact represented a significant improvement from our previous second round exit under a 'foriegn coach') , the fact that we finished ahead of all but one of the other African World Cup qualifiers,and Nigeria's rise,in two years to the no. 2 postion in Africa,were all deemed a failure by the same football federation that had resolved before the Nations Cup that a semi-final finish would be good enough.Rather than sit with Amodu to properly analyse and find solutions to the team's loopholes,the name and image of the country is being battered as one 'foreign coach' after the other continue to distance themselves from the Nigerian National Team in response to the NFA's careless namedropping.And for the records,the World Cup starts early June,while the only free day allowed by FIFA for friendly matches is two weeks away,precisely March 3 2010.Can someone please explain to me what this new 'foreign coach' will do before the mundial ?
(photo courtesy thesourceng.com)