It is almost impossible to avoid writing about him. The problem is how can one avoid writing about a man that has kept the sports scene very busy with innovative programs that observers are left in awe and admiration since he became governor slightly over two years ago? I have done so four times already on four different issues. Keeping pace with what Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola has been doing with sports in Lagos State (and indeed virtually all spheres of life) has now become a huge challenge and a game of ‘catch-up’!
So soon after Lagos State organised the most colourful and most attended FA Cup final since BCC Lions FC won the cup in Bauchi State and became the first Northern team to do so, last week the state also hosted the greatest assembly of African football legends in a friendly football match against Nigeria’s World Cup football legends of 1994. The city of Lagos has been centre for a feast of football. There is more on the way. The streets of Lagos this past week are again flooded with posters, banners and bill boards of yet another great innovation in the promotion and re-branding of the city through sports. The Lagos International Youth Cup, the first of its kind in Nigeria at grassroots level, is a 4-nation, under-17 football tournament that was originally designed to involve the junior teams of Valencia FC in Spain, Genoa FC of Italy, Supersports FC of South Africa and the Lagos State Under-17 team. Genoa FC’s withdrawal last week from the competition for the reason of insecurity due to the Niger/Delta crisis that was extended to Lagos in the past three or so weeks, necessitated a short postponement of the event. The tournament will now take place between September 1 and 5, 2009, at the Tesilimi Balogun Stadium, Lagos. Genoa FC is to be replaced by another youth team that is being arranged.
Meanwhile, I believe that as a result of my committed pursuit of grassroots sports development through the schools, plus my little effort to try to reduce or eradicate cheating and use of ‘mercenary’ players in school sports, Governor Fashola invited me to pilot the Lagos State Youth team with the mandate to look for and select only bona fide student players that are still in school with ages verified through evidence extracted from the data base of schools records. This computer data base was established by the Lagos State government some two years ago to keep an authentic bio-data of all students in primary and secondary schools in the State. From a ‘rag tag’ assembly of almost 60 players selected during the Principals’ Cup competition, and medically screened for fitness and age at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, a genuine under-17 team of 27 young, intelligent, skilful football stars is emerging. The team is under the technical supervision of well-tested coaches: Emmanuel Tetteh, Joseph Erico and Kenneth Olayombo, all former international players with good records of coaching! Seven weeks into this ‘experiment’ the players have improved beyond all expectations and a great new team to represent Lagos State with pride and integrity is in the making. I have been watching this progressive development with keen interest and I can attest that a football revolution has been kick-started in the State. All things being equal, when the team starts to play and do well the project will become a model for others to copy. The remark that everyone that has seen the players play make is that the players are truly young but gifted. Even if the team does not win everything in sight now (and no one says they can’t) the future holds nothing but great prospects for the players.
FIFA, Education, Football and Fashola!
As if by some spiritual design, at this time that Lagos State is taking its football project to a new moral dimension, FIFA is also endorsing an ambitious new project to support a global campaign called 1Goal – Education for All, with the objective of launching an unprecedented public advocacy campaign to call attention to the need for the universal access of children to quality, free and public education. FIFA has committed to leave this project as a legacy of education to Africa where over 50% of the world’s uneducated children reside! It is important to raise this vital issue in order to draw unprecedented global attention to the situation in the continent and align it with the United Nation’s 2015 education goals deadline. With the power of a competition transmitted in 214 territories, on 376 television channels, in over 73,072 hours of television coverage, with half of the world watching, and even more reading or listening on radio, the 1Goal campaign aims to collect the signatures of 30 million people worldwide in the run up and during the World Cup, establish a critical mass to call on political leaders to deliver on ‘Education for All by 2015’ and reach the UN education goals!
The campaign will call on support of footballers, football fans and the public. Does this remind you of our little effort at the revival of football (and sports) in Nigerian schools through the past few years? Or what Lagos State has just started to do with the Lagos International Youth Cup project? The campaign is about to start, and Nigeria (with its 140 million people and tens of millions of uneducated children) becomes a major take-off and signature collection point in Africa. On August 10 the campaign will start simultaneously in London and Johannesburg, and begin its journey round major cities in Africa before berthing during the World Cup in Jo’Burg. Guess who is being considered by the project organisers as a deserving ‘pilot’, champion and Ambassador of the campaign in Nigeria? Yes, none other than this young, dynamic, visionary leader who is leaving the rest of the field in Nigeria in a daze as he dribbles through the minefield of politics to establish new standards in governance and leadership - the governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola. Surely excellence has no hiding place!
It is almost impossible to avoid writing about him. The problem is how can one avoid writing about a man that has kept the sports scene very busy with innovative programs that observers are left in awe and admiration since he became governor slightly over two years ago? I have done so four times already on four different issues. Keeping pace with what Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola has been doing with sports in Lagos State (and indeed virtually all spheres of life) has now become a huge challenge and a game of ‘catch-up’!
So soon after Lagos State organised the most colourful and most attended FA Cup final since BCC Lions FC won the cup in Bauchi State and became the first Northern team to do so, last week the state also hosted the greatest assembly of African football legends in a friendly football match against Nigeria’s World Cup football legends of 1994. The city of Lagos has been centre for a feast of football. There is more on the way. The streets of Lagos this past week are again flooded with posters, banners and bill boards of yet another great innovation in the promotion and re-branding of the city through sports. The Lagos International Youth Cup, the first of its kind in Nigeria at grassroots level, is a 4-nation, under-17 football tournament that was originally designed to involve the junior teams of Valencia FC in Spain, Genoa FC of Italy, Supersports FC of South Africa and the Lagos State Under-17 team. Genoa FC’s withdrawal last week from the competition for the reason of insecurity due to the Niger/Delta crisis that was extended to Lagos in the past three or so weeks, necessitated a short postponement of the event. The tournament will now take place between September 1 and 5, 2009, at the Tesilimi Balogun Stadium, Lagos. Genoa FC is to be replaced by another youth team that is being arranged.
Meanwhile, I believe that as a result of my committed pursuit of grassroots sports development through the schools, plus my little effort to try to reduce or eradicate cheating and use of ‘mercenary’ players in school sports, Governor Fashola invited me to pilot the Lagos State Youth team with the mandate to look for and select only bona fide student players that are still in school with ages verified through evidence extracted from the data base of schools records. This computer data base was established by the Lagos State government some two years ago to keep an authentic bio-data of all students in primary and secondary schools in the State. From a ‘rag tag’ assembly of almost 60 players selected during the Principals’ Cup competition, and medically screened for fitness and age at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, a genuine under-17 team of 27 young, intelligent, skilful football stars is emerging. The team is under the technical supervision of well-tested coaches: Emmanuel Tetteh, Joseph Erico and Kenneth Olayombo, all former international players with good records of coaching! Seven weeks into this ‘experiment’ the players have improved beyond all expectations and a great new team to represent Lagos State with pride and integrity is in the making. I have been watching this progressive development with keen interest and I can attest that a football revolution has been kick-started in the State. All things being equal, when the team starts to play and do well the project will become a model for others to copy. The remark that everyone that has seen the players play make is that the players are truly young but gifted. Even if the team does not win everything in sight now (and no one says they can’t) the future holds nothing but great prospects for the players.
FIFA, Education, Football and Fashola!
As if by some spiritual design, at this time that Lagos State is taking its football project to a new moral dimension, FIFA is also endorsing an ambitious new project to support a global campaign called 1Goal – Education for All, with the objective of launching an unprecedented public advocacy campaign to call attention to the need for the universal access of children to quality, free and public education. FIFA has committed to leave this project as a legacy of education to Africa where over 50% of the world’s uneducated children reside! It is important to raise this vital issue in order to draw unprecedented global attention to the situation in the continent and align it with the United Nation’s 2015 education goals deadline. With the power of a competition transmitted in 214 territories, on 376 television channels, in over 73,072 hours of television coverage, with half of the world watching, and even more reading or listening on radio, the 1Goal campaign aims to collect the signatures of 30 million people worldwide in the run up and during the World Cup, establish a critical mass to call on political leaders to deliver on ‘Education for All by 2015’ and reach the UN education goals!
The campaign will call on support of footballers, football fans and the public. Does this remind you of our little effort at the revival of football (and sports) in Nigerian schools through the past few years? Or what Lagos State has just started to do with the Lagos International Youth Cup project? The campaign is about to start, and Nigeria (with its 140 million people and tens of millions of uneducated children) becomes a major take-off and signature collection point in Africa. On August 10 the campaign will start simultaneously in London and Johannesburg, and begin its journey round major cities in Africa before berthing during the World Cup in Jo’Burg. Guess who is being considered by the project organisers as a deserving ‘pilot’, champion and Ambassador of the campaign in Nigeria? Yes, none other than this young, dynamic, visionary leader who is leaving the rest of the field in Nigeria in a daze as he dribbles through the minefield of politics to establish new standards in governance and leadership - the governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola. Surely excellence has no hiding place!
