He was celebrating Kenya's achievements at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing, where they topped the overall medals table for the first time in history.
Kenya's feat is even more remarkable when you look at the nations below them on that table: the United States, Jamaica and Great Britain, in that order.
No less impressive in Beijing was second-placed Jamaica. Once a nation whose coaches came to Nigeria to learn of our athletic prowess, Jamaica is now rewriting the world's sprints story.
While Kenya's athletes were arriving in Nairobi with seven gold, six silver and three bronze medals, their Nigerian counterparts returned empty-handed. Beyond not being good enough at anything, we were not good, period.
This is what comes of decades of mismanagement and neglect of Nigerian sport outside of soccer and, perhaps, table tennis. Soccer has some success in Nigeria because it is everyone's favourite sport. Table tennis has some success because of its stronghold in the southwest, not because it has a federal identity."
"That is why I consider the profile of Buhari's appointments so far to be an insult of his mandate. Anyone who claims that his persistent and overwhelming appointment of Northerners to critical positions is justifiable as long as they are merely "qualified" gives the president a mandate he neither requested nor earned on March 28.
Mr. Buhari promised to be the president of all Nigerians. His appointments so far do no justice to this. He reminds me of our history of public officials who, when they arrive in a privileged position, convert it into a personal buffet. And they tell the starving and the malnourished, day after day, "Wait, just you wait…you will see how much I will feed you!"
The truth about right and wrong is that the right thing cannot wait. If Buhari must appoint, he must appoint with a conscious, consistent effort to reflect the nation he took charge of on May 29. There ought to be no ifs and buts. He cannot sow doubt and fear, yet tell those who gasp that they are over-reacting."
- Sonala Olumhense
The Internet is suddenly awash with the moaning and groaning of public intellectuals and talking heads who foisted the lead balloon in agbada on us. Oya, read, if you have the time for the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I call it the failure of leadership, a rank failure to help lead the nation out of its morass by insisting on structural reforms of our country and her institutions, of ignoring processes of accountability and preferring the inarticulate promises of a mummified sole administrator. It is barely 100 days and the chickens are in Aso Rock; they have come home to roost. And no, Sonala, Buhari did not declare his assets, he simply lied by ignoring the truth of his stupendous wealth. Oya, mek una kontinuuu! Nonsense.
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