Fault!

I have always love football even though I played hockey in school up to state level. Then, I was an active fan of IICC ( 'soothing' as the Ibadan supporters called it back then)- later called 3SC and now called I don't even know again,  as they went through more name changes than goals scored! I followed "soothing" sorry, Shooting till they shot themselves into relegation. As a progressive, I switched allegiance and followed Kanu without his heart to Arsenal and has been there since providing epileptic support to an equally irregular performance.

So, rather than watching the Arsenal performed or under performed at the Emirate ground during my summer holidays at the UK in 2009, I opted to see Serena played third round at the All England Opens commonly known as Wimbledon. Serena won the match and so did Roger Federer who played earlier that day. And there began my fascination with Tennis and attraction to the men category in particular.

Roger Federer has won everything, well nearly everything in Tennis. Before his decline in the last three years occasioned more by his age and cut edge competition by Novak and Andy than by a decline in his Swiss perfected performance.

If anything, Federer, despite being the most decorated player of all time, had to work harder than anyone else in becoming the oldest man to win a major since a 37-year-old Ken Rosewall at the US Open 45 years ago. Despite winning everything there is to win, despite having two sets of twins to distract him at home, despite having the most dominant record of all, he was still hungry for more.

He is also a canny campaigner, not relying on his natural talent or binding prayers to see him through. Federer has evolved over the past few years in his bid to cling to the top of the game. He realises, at 35, he cannot compete with the younger athletes, so, he constantly adapt tactics both on and off court.

So, what you had on sunday was an epic between Roger and his most ferocious foe and friend. There will never be enough words to describe the level of tennis played by the greatest two in the sports today, as they rolled away the years and gave the 15,000 live spectators and millions glued to their television a scintillating performance.

Like golf, tennis is an elitist sport and it is not quite popular back home as we favour team sport like football over individual sport. The cold truth (it is winter here) is that the Australian Open showed so much not only about Nadal and Federer, but also about the rest of us. It exposes our frailties and constant mind battles with life. Nadal and Federer have set the example for the tennis world for a decade, and like parents, you hope to groom your kids to be ready to go off on their own.

The question is were we groomed to take off where the colonial masters left us? Don't bother, it is a rhetoric question and politics does not mix with sports anyway, except in FIFA headquarters!

The Williams Sisters

Serena Williams, at 35-24-gentlemen excuse me, that is not body statistics. At 35, she's the oldest to win her 24th grand slam! With Margaret Court's 25th record grand slam realistically within reach, Serena has already secured her place in history as a tennis living legend. And just yesterday, she and her sister cemented their place as the most successful siblings not only in tennis but sports generally.

And to assume this is not a big deal is to negate the phenomenon inspiration story of these black sisters. To have played and achieved this much in an open era of highly competitive tennis without recourse to drug, scandal and controversy is indeed commendable. When you add this to the fact that both sisters have to battle off court tragedies like injuries and sickness to be where they are today, history has no choice than to embrace them.

The longevity of their careers is a function of talent, skill, training, focus, perseverance, mental fortitude and a dose of luck or grace depending on your mindset. All these are attributes that are going extinct in sports tainted by drugs and scandals. And lastly, we must praise their parents for clearly identifying their talent early in life and mentoring them appropriately.

I could not have lost my bet yesterday because I always bet on Black!

The wall....

To Trump, Nigeria is not a nation. According to him, "a country without borders is not a nation". And Nigeria is practically borderless. We are not only guarded by custom officers without borderline mentality or training, we also have a litany of items on our banned importation list that are conspicuously displayed as wares in the open market! This is even made more complicated by the fact that we are not even aware of our vulnerability either as just a 'country' or a "nation".

Within one week in office, Trump has made enough enemies out of his neighbours to last him his entire tenure in office. Believe me, there is absolutely nothing wrong in fortifying your nation by building an expensive and affordable wall. But having your neighbour paid for such extremity smacks of intimidation and insensitivity-vices that the President has in reckless abundance. Americans should be more wary of the Russians who inspite of being thousand of miles away physically, are still able to conveniently meddle and influence their local affairs. Mexico is not an immediate threat. The president should look across the Middle East for a nation to bully.

In contrast, Nigeria is bordered by nations who their total sum in land mass and population still do not add up to Nigeria's. These nations stuck to us like leeches and have been able to benefit tremendously from our incompetent leadership and diplomatic visionlessnes.

Nigeria status as the largest economy in Africa, though now debatable is enough as an economic catalyst for an integrated socio-economic future of the region without us jeorpadizing our role as the hub. But our crippled infrastructure has reduced us to just exporting raw materials to the developed countries and importing finished products from them.

Similarly, our relatively weak official trade relations with our neighbors speak to broader issues that border on policy, politics and security. Our security has been seriously undermined by our neighbors and compromised by the ineptitude of our officials as evident in the terrorism at the Northern East of the country.

We must however not hasten to build a wall (we are not even in a financial position to build anything, anyway), rather we should make Nigeria great again by not loving our neighbors more than ourselves!

Augural address

Donald J. Trump, allegedly put in by Putin (no pun intended) was finally sworn in yesterday under a light drizzle and in the presence of prominently white crowd. The black crowd were somewhere outside the inaugural venue protesting about the legitimacy of the elections allegedly hacked by the Russians who incidentally do not have any known names in the field of information technology.

The president men claimed the inaugural speech was written by the president himself. Big deal.We didn't have to hack into his tweet account or wait on the CIA to know that; as the speech was replete with dour cliches and uninspiring sentences capable of further dividing an already alienated country. Typical Trump. While he may have been assisted by a Tele prompter to manage his off the line remarks, nothing could be done in form of assistance to his grotesquely gestures and combative body language that would have been obvious even to Stevie Wonder.

I thought it was more magnanimous to be humble in victory than in defeat, but it was the beaten Hilary Clinton that stole the show with her appearance at the inauguration. She simply decided to go high when they go low, even after the election. The 45th president in the delivery of his inaugural address must have thought he had an "apprentice" audience, rather than, the assemblage of the ruling class that came to witness a smooth transition of power that hardly happen in other parts of the globe. We all expected very little in terms of poignancy and we were not disappointed, as nothing was augural about the address.

Though the president mentioned the magnificence of the outgoing first family in ensuring a hitch free transition for him, more emphasis must be laid on this seemingly innocuous act for the benefit of uninvited foreign Presidents who watched it with generator powered devices around the world. Obama has always been a class act and that resonated in the early planning and eventually, the outcome of the occasion.

Going forward, the president again rambled about making America great again- without telling us how, to the somewhat decent applause of the crowd. Guess that will be the responsibility of his "balanced" cabinet to deal with.

As the President and his vice saw the outgoing president off in a waiting helicopter and his vice in an Amtrak public train, the world was left to wonder what benefits accrue to the people who are led by selfless and motivated leaders.

Since I did not get a formal invitation either from the inauguration planning committee or the protesters, I decided to sit on the fence (not the proposed Mexico wall, that is yet to be built) in order to witness this. The words 'blacks' and 'white' as it appear on this treatise have been used more as lexicon than demographic.

Retailing depression

Macy's, Sears are among American giant retail stores that will make shop rite look like stall, kissing the dust at the end of the seasonal sales in spite of the over $695 billion spent on holiday shopping this year. Though the stores are aesthetically designed to taste, the aisles loaded with eye catching merchandise and the walls paved with designers labels, dishearteningly, the make up does not make up a woman!

These retail outlets provide shopping release for the teeming compulsive average Americans with high propensity to individual disposable incomes to indulge themselves in. Thoughts are overly paid also to the teeming tourists who in their guile at window shopping are easily separated from their prized dollars. The shops open long hours with all amenities put in place for people to shop to death, well, literarily.

It however came as news when the obituary of these stores was announced to the public. What the unassuming shoppers do not have on their shopping list are listed below as the causes of this close down that is likely to melt over a hundred thousand jobs!

Compared to the “ goods once sold or bought cannot be returned” policy back home, these stores simply do not have a return policy! I mean, once you have a proof of purchase which can range from your receipts to your date of birth! You are ceaselessly encouraged by the system to return your goods; culminating into sizeable potential loss of earned revenue. Both are considerable extreme management policies, from varying perspectives.

Secondly, online orders have taken the sail off the troubled boat of the stores. Having to shop from the comfort of your home-or wherever you find yourself with a device,present an enthralling opportunity for the shopping generation next. Ridiculous discounts and bargains available online is also a major attraction to online shoppers compare to shopping at the stores

Human resources is a potential sore thumb for the major stores who in an attempt to save cost prefer seasonal staff over permanent employees. People are hired, given a DIY computerised training and released into the market at the lowest minimum wages.

The retail industry as a whole is largely dependent upon the economic well being of the nation. As the nation prospers and people have more money to spend, the retail industry generally flourishes. However, in more difficult economic times, that we have America involved in wars on foreign soils, the chicken may have come home to roost.

When you get to the top, there is only one road sign.

Dubious Relationship

Cynicism aside, Drake would have been at best a factory hand in Levi jeans factory and Jennifer Lopez, a waitress in a Mexican restaurant, had they both been born in ea'rly 50s. Fast forward to the 20th century-information age, where people are less informed, this couple are celebrities. And understandably so.

Both are popular more for their looks than any shred of entertainment talent they may think they possess. But that is not even the soul of this budding relationship. The reason the hot affair is making screaming headline is because of the age difference between the dates!

Anyway, in 1999 when Jennifer released her first album and was dating P. Diddy, Drake was just a 13-year-old boy. And the haters making mountain out this mole hill were probably not born or at best teenagers. Haters are people who will rather use their time, armchair and intellect to criticise others, thereby making subject of their criticism relevant, and them, useless.

They alleged that both Drake and J-lo are in the relationship for other reasons than love; Drake for money and Baby mama...sorry J-lo for revitalization of her less than illustrious career and active love life. Where they miss it however is that love and money are inseparable foes, whose destinies were forged before the creation of time. The truth is that no relationship is devoid of the element as represented by these misrepresented individuals.

Nigeria and US diplomatic relationship is  symbiotic in nature but exploitative in practice. This is not the handiwork of haters as there are statistical evidence lending credence to this fact. Our balance of trade payment reflects a $42.6b deficit in October 2016. While it is true that we may not be able to blame the United States for this, it is equally disheartening that we have abandoned other suitors that are our age.

For us to be relevant in the committee of nations, we may start by adopting J-lo strategy. There are younger nations out there in Asia and even African continent who like Drake will feel surreal having relationship with us on unyoked terms and conditions. We are presently the 38th largest exporting economy in the world, with crude oil representing 75% of our earnings, but the price of crude oil has continue to fall.

Consequently, Nigeria faces its worst economic crisis in years, since exports of oil also bring in the hard currency that pays for imports. And because of its limited manufacturing, Nigeria imports most of what it consumes from China and USA. If however we do not start monitoring our porous borders and control what enters(pun intended), we may soon end up like old J-lo sitting or dancing on the laps of young Drake.

Extinction

Deers and squirrels are animals that fall under the category of 'bush meat' in Nigeria, and they are special delicacies. With the fear of Ebola over, I understand the prices of these choice meat are beginning to defy laws of gravity again.

In U.S.,these animals enjoy the same privileges like cows in India-almost sacred. We are expected to be mindful of them when driving as there are road signs posted to warn drivers of their intellectual disability to look sideways before crossing highways. These animals have in all failures been unable to handle the freedom, as they have now thrown all survival instincts out of the wood.

My host has in all good nature warned me of the civil implications of checking what I consider embarrassing delibrate provocation of these animals who often stray too far from home without papers. But the folks here reason beyond the immediate, hence the conservation of animals.

Habitat destruction is responsible for most species extinction all around the world. It is difficult for the displaced species to adapt quickly to a new or unfamiliar habitat.(Refugees are likely to understand this better). Other reasons for species extinction include introduction of non-native organisms to the environment and intentional killing such as hunting or hit and run drivers.

Although,species extinction can occur naturally, it is important for humans to participate in animal conservation efforts to prevent extinction when possible. This is because a larger number of species helps promote biodiversity. When an ecosystem is sufficiently diverse, it creates economic and educational opportunities through ecotourism and research. Biologically diverse habitats also tend to reach an equilibrium that can help create balance and order as well as keep the local climate stable.

This would have sounded gibberish to me few months ago but once the three keys survival instincts of human namely food, shelter and clothing are met, man is left to pursue higher calling  that is beyond basic physiological needs and cravings.

Sadly, that is a condition our country is still grappling with after decades of existence as a sovereign nation. Even, as our shadows live in constant fear and intimidation from us.