THE  XXI Commonwealth Games ended  in Gold Coast, Australia exactly three weeks ago and Team Nigeria finished in 9th position with 9 gold, 9 silver and 6 bronze, a total of 24 medals. Compared with their outing four years ago in Glasgow, Scotland, it was a drop by one step from 8th to 9th.

It is with heavy heart that I summed up courage to put this down. I didn’t know how to start writing about a man, Dr. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, who did so much for Midwest region, which later became a state, as a military governor and then Bendel state, before it was split into Edo and Delta, as civilian governor, in past tense.

In the history of an election for the position of President of the Confederation of African Football, CAF, none has generated interest and or furore like the 2017 edition scheduled for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on March 16.

THE curtains for the 2017 Africa Nations Cup would be drawn in Gabon today with surprise finalist, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon squaring up against another team not given any chance by pundits when the competition began, the Pharaohs of Egypt.

IN three or four months time, it will be four years since the present Boards of the sports federations got a four year mandate to direct the affairs of the various sports. And the Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF is one of the federations.

The Confederation of African Football, CAF will on March 16, 2017 be going to the polls to elect new members of the Executive Committee to lead it for a four year term, from 2017 to 2021. One would expect that credible candidates from across the continent would want to jostle to become president of the body especially in this times when the game is undergoing changes not only to raise the standard but to rid it of seeming corruption that has eaten deep into the game at all levels.

We are now known as a nation that lacks maintenance culture. Almost all our edifices built at staggering sums, sometimes ten times the cost elsewhere, are left to rot, most times because those in charge want to be able to award contracts for its renovation.

The Nigeria Football Federation, NFF never ceases to amuse me. Like the proverbial tortoise, they are always in the news, for the wrong reasons also. A body that knows its financial predicament and should be prudent with its funds, turns a Father Christmas because it wants to please everyone.

It is natural that one must celebrate crossing over from an old year to a new one and thank God for making it possible. Not everybody who started the year with me, for example, made it to this brand new 2017, a year one hopes will have a silver lining after the crushing recession which left almost everything, including our dear sports, grounded.

Today being Christmas, a day set aside by the Christian world to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, one wouldn’t want to spoil your day with the ugly scenarios which our sports at all levels portray each passing day. All the same I wish you all Merry Christmas but appeal that we must not sweep the rot in our sports under the carpet even while we celebrate.

THE Super Falcons went to Cameroon as defending Champions of the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations. They camped for the competition and played the qualifiers without allowances and bonuses but were promised that once they get to Cameroon they will get all outstanding money due them.

To many a football administrator, the name Adokie Amiesimaka is one they love to hate. Not for anything but the fact that he never fails to tell them the truth about football which they don’t want to hear. To them, he is unpatriotic because he will never see black and call it white.

Penultimate Saturday, the baton of leadership in Edo State changed hands. Not from one party to another but the same party, the All Progressives Party whose sitting governor, Comrade (that title now causes bellyache for me) Adams Oshiomhole handed over the reins of power to his party’s flag-bearer, Mr. Godwin Obaseki.

MY people say that once a child has his finger burnt by fire, he runs away from ashes. This was what came to my mind the moment I read a new column in Saturday Vanguard by a friend and colleague, Osasu Obayiuwana on October 22, 2016 with the title ‘Nigeria, Dangote and Arsenal.’

The shortest serving Chairman of the Nigeria Football Association, NFA, Mr. Anthony Kojo Williams made some statements during his tenure which I still believe earned him the ire of the lords of our football at the time