The Bible in Isaiah 43:19 tells us that God is the ul- timate Game Changer because He tells us that He is the game changer in our life. “For I am about to do something new”..

Apart from Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the Bible also mentioned certain biblical figures, who God used significantly to alter the course of events or people’s lives.

Some of the Biblical figures include Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, Jonah, Hosea, Esther, among others.

Bringing it nearer home, to the refreshingly different newspaper in Nigeria, Vanguard Media Limited, published by a respected name in the Nigerian media industry, Sam Amuka-Pemu, popularly known as Uncle Sam, now have two Game Changers who God is using to alter the course of the company and its staff.

They are Mr. Eze Anaba and Mr Patrick Oduone, the Editor of Vanguard Media and the Technical Consultant respectively.

Vanguard was a force to reckon with but started losing spark at some point. However, when Mr. Anaba took over as Editor, he started thinking out of the box and with the backing of Uncle Sam, he went to work, promising to revive the brand.

But he wasn’t a production man and felt that even if he got it right Editorially, the production and general management was still not going fine.

Like the famous Chinese film, Enter the dragon, Mr Oduone joined in the mission of repositioning Vanguard. Barely a year after, the combo of Anaba and Oduone, with Uncle Sam’s scion, Mrs Omasan Dudu, nee Amuka-Pemu, the AGM Legal/Admin supervising, Vanguard is breathing fresh air and is now reinvigorated.

Last Friday in Lagos, Vanguard newspaper produced a 352-page newspaper, the first by any newspaper in the history of Nigeria to celebrate Nigerians who have made impact in politics and on the economy at its an- nual Personality of the Year Awards.

The ceremony, the 13th edition, turned out the best ever organized by the quality of dignitaries who at- tended as well as the overall turnout of people.

Kudos must go to the Publisher for believing in the new management team as well as the Organizing Committee and the entire staff for the success of the event.

I decided to use the Vanguard example to illustrate how square pegs in square holes could serve as Game Changers.

That is the story of Bayelsa State in sports administration. The State has made steady progress in sports since 2019 because of a Game Changer.

Their Game Changer, Dr. Daniel Igali, a friend and a man I have respected from the very day he won a wrestling gold medal at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

Igali, nicknamed ‘Dynamite’ for the ‘explosive’ style with which he defeats opponents in wrestling bouts, has brought that same style into sports administration, both as president of the wrestling federation and as Bayelsa State sports commissioner.

He was first appointed as commissioner by Governor Seriaki Dickson in 2019 and was reappointed by the incumbent, Duouye Diri. He has seen Bayelsa State’s athletes making progress at the national level since then.

Before he came on board, Bayelsa placed 5th at the National Sports Festival hosted by the FCT in 2018 with 32 gold medals behind Lagos with 36, Edo with 47, Rivers in third with 69 and Delta State as winners with 163 gold medals.

Igali went to work to prepare for the 19th edition which Edo State hosted in 2021 instead of 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic that year.

He knew Bayelsa has comparative advantage in wrestling and swimming and ensured that he put quality technical officials in both sports as well as the others.

Because he is not an office man, he was always in the field with the athletes and their coaches, motivating them.

As a cycling commissaire during the Edo Sports Festival, he invited me to join him at the swimming event during one of cycling’s free days where I noticed that one of his female swimmers, Ifiezegbe Gagbe was harvesting medals from the pool with ease. She alone won

15 medals, eight gold, two silver and five bronze, including creating new records in five events.

At the end of the festival, Bayelsa State moved up two steps to third with 56 gold medals, behind Edo with 129 and Delta with 158, surprisingly beating their sister State, Rivers.

When Delta hosted the Sports Festival for the first time in 2022, Bayelsa again improved, this time pushing Edo State further down to third. It placed second to the chagrin of the big sporting states with 132 gold medals, giving Delta, who won with 320 gold medals, a run for their money.

That achievement didn’t give Delta a warning sign that there is something they are not doing that Igali is doing in Bayelsa and therefore, they should restrategize.

They rested on their oars, so to speak, that when the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC introduced the Niger Delta Sports Festival, Delta was caught napping and the works of the Bayelsa people showed as they won the inaugural edition with just one gold ahead of Delta. A painful gold indeed.

With the 22nd edition of the National Sports Festival coming up next month in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Bayelsa has definitely set confusion in the big States like Delta, Edo and Lagos because they don’t know what the Igali team would be coming with again.

All his achievements, he said, was made possible because Governor Diri knows what is needed to make hay, adding, “the governor is an avid sports fan himself which makes it easier for me”.