11
Fri, Sep

Sports

LeBron James has made what he says will be the final decision of his NBA career, signing a two-year, $8 million contract with the Philadelphia 76ers after giving serious thought to retirement.

The 41-year-old announced Friday that he still has the passion to compete and believes he has one more championship run left. The deal, which includes a player option, marks a significant pay cut from the nearly $53 million he earned with the Los Angeles Lakers last season.

In a series of posts on X, James reflected on the uncertainty surrounding his future following the 2025-26 season.

"I was honest at that last press conference when I said I needed to look at myself and decide if I still love this game," he wrote.

After taking time to evaluate his future, James said he realized he wasn't ready to walk away.

"I still truly love this game, and I have more to give."

James said his decision to join Philadelphia was driven by one goal: competing for another NBA championship. The 76ers become the fourth franchise of his career as he pursues a fifth title while hoping to help end the team's 43-year championship drought.

Calling it the last free-agency decision of his career, James made it clear that his motivation extends far beyond money.

"This is my last decision. I'm not going for money. I'm not going for family. What am I really playing for at this point?" James wrote. "I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind. I still want to compete, to win and to have a chance at the feeling of winning another championship."

James added that he believes he can help make the 76ers a championship contender and is excited to begin one final chapter with a new team and fan base as he enters a record-breaking 24th NBA season.

The wealth of a nation is determined by the collective wealth of all its citizens, but what if the citizens got no wealth and this writer says, the nation is bankrupt and must start afresh as it was after the World Wars decades past. Sports in Nigeria is bankrupt and virtually non-existent except perhaps football. Athletics is comatose where university graduates and aged men and women are paraded as youth while the seniors are recruited aged-foreign mediocre druggists that has no semblance of connection to Nigeria. The stadiums are in deplorable conditions (National Stadium Surulere, Lagos and Obafemi Awolowo Stadium Ibadan insults common sense considering yearly recurring expenditures budgeted for them - at least over N20Billion in the past 4years). This is absurd, moral bankruptcy and insult to the citizens of Nigeria and MUST STOP. General Muhammadu Buhari are you listening?

 Current Events

Football

Power tussle in the football federation and lame-duck de facto Sports Minister Danagogo has settled down. To remind those who didn’t follow such issue, Mr. Danagogo ordered the football federation to hire Stephen Keshi or any top UEFA Coach. Although, Mr. Keshi enjoys President Jonathan support, but this event is simply outrageous and that has nothing to do with Mr. Keshi or Mr. President personally, but professionally speaking, the football federation appears to be full of ‘yes sir’ individuals that lacks courage. Although, this submission is contrary to highly esteemed credentials earned by those federation scribes and one can only conclude that unknown reasons exist that prevented these individuals from courageous act like its secretary general did by walking-off the job recently.

Quite frankly, Mr. Keshi should bow out quietly now (contract or no-contract) and that is based on observation of the team when he handled it and even now because quality expected are those being showcased by Siasia U-23 team. This writer doubts if any team presented by Keshi can defeat Siasia’s current team. Furthermore, the open door policy enjoyed by Keshi with President Jonathan is now a thing of the past and the scrutiny he is going to face will be severe from Nigerians.

 Athletics

On the athletics front, that federation is still wallowing in misery and the National Sports Commission (NSC) never at any time show interest on any development concerning that sport. Mr. Danagogo did a good thing by supervising the football federation whereas he simply ignored Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) even when Nigeria’s passports were fraudulently issued to non-Nigerians who failed woefully at the Commonwealth Games. Some Nigerians claimed he discriminated against the North with his action in respect of football and aided AFN atrocities, wherever the truth lies Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi did the same thing even changing the National Sports Festival format because of Governor Uduaghan (Delta governor) request. The fact, is both Sports Ministers (current or former) were wrong not to have universal rule.

Nigeria is presenting a team for the African Youth competition in Mauritius soon before the All African Games and age falsification is on the agenda for the youth games and for the senior’s team, Solomon Ogba vowed to present aged-illegal-bought-druggists as Nigeria’s team and the question the incoming regime is ARE YOU GOING TO ALLOW THIS OR JAIL THESE PEOPLE?

A cow is said to regurgitate its meal (contaminated or not) and human beings will show signs of discomfort whenever a contaminated meal is ingested and can either vomit or purging such meal. By analogy to Nigeria sports, the country had gone through over 16years of regurgitating or rather recycling of people of no-good intention towards the country and it is time to vomit or purge every individual that were part of the system of sports mediocrity or nuisance. Recovery of all funds meant for stadium upgrade must commence and athletes’ development cannot no longer be exclusively contracted out to sport federations. The culture of epileptic sports policy must be purged, now. Change, the country demand.

 I rest for now.                                                                                      

Dr. Rashid A. Balogun, CPA, LLB(Hons.), LLM(London)

After the exit of all the English Premiere League representatives -- Chelsea FC,  Manchester City and Arsenal FC -- from the UEFA Champions League at the round of 16 on Wednesday, the stage is now set for the remaining teams to move on to the quarter finals.

The draws for the quarter final fixtures took place  in Nyon, Switzerland on Friday, ahead of actions in the game which will commence on 14th April.

Spanish league, La Liga is dominating with representatives at the moment, with three of its strongest teams -- Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid -- still in the run.

Others remaining in the run are, Saint-Germain, Juventus, Monaco and Bayern Munich.

Below is the draw for actions to commence on 14th April:

 Paris Saint-Germain vs. Barcelona

  • Atlético Madrid vs. Real Madrid
  • FC Porto vs. Bayern Munich
  • Juventus vs. AS Monaco

 

This writer resisted being drawn into a public political discussion recently, but can clearly state his minds on unbecoming events by some officials of a political party based on allegations that that would wake-up a dead soul. This writer woke up at exactly 2:58AM singing an old tune by Ebenezer Obey that says, “Oja Oyingbo ko mo pe enikan o wa o” meaning, Oyingbo market doesn’t know if someone didn’t come and it took a long time to go back to sleep because of certain reality in applying the song to the current spate of events in Nigeria. From allegation of dollars everywhere being thrown away by a certain contestant of a party in the upcoming election to reckless security damnation by some citizens. Of course that song has become relevant to some political party, not just the ruling party because the suffering of the people, the austere environment, the dollar rising prices and the tagging of being corrupt mean absolutely nothing to some of these election contestants.

Allegation in respect of doling out dollars was that the contestant were providing incentives to the voters to compromise their voting power and of course, legally speaking both the offeror and the offeree of the incentive will be determined to have acted contrary to law of the land. This writer was never approached nor would he entertain such corrupt practice, but going by the actions of his colleagues in sports environment, it is very easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. Some of these people admitted openly to this bribery for vote agenda without any reservation and this is abnormal actions which must CHANGE.

Ideally, the penalty for these actions is jail time to both receiver and the payer and of course there may not be enough space in prisons to accommodate all of them, but as a deterrent to some of these people must serve jail terms or public flogging. At this juncture, it must be asked, where does the scarce dollars come from? Postulation exists that the monies were from federal purse or ill-gotten gains but is that source anything for a debate or rather the reasoning behind why such wasteful spending occurred without the political party base of such individuals calling such persons to order. The image this writer sees from such actions can be framed metaphorically, as an individual being accused of being a thief and during such accusation the individual was observed pickpocketing one of the accusers wallet while standing. This cannot be good for the spirit of democracy or the nation’s interest.

 Another issue of concern is the potential explosive situation where certain militants from the south-south to the southwest who appeared to be brandishing dangerous weapons at some individuals while protesting against the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and outright calling for his sack. Unfortunately, there is no proof of a link to any political party as their sponsor, but they admittedly announced their support for the ruling party. This writer would have expected the ruling party leaders to renounce the actions of these groups, but the party has yet to do so and until then the voters’ insinuation and allegation that those groups were sponsored remained valid. The fear is the action of these groups when the election takes place or decision is announced for the March 28 election.

Certainly these events cannot be regarded as usual electioneering rather they are despicable criminal acts in motion and the key question is where the Attorney General is? Or why the security agencies failed to respond? Either way, no one can say with all honesty, they condoned the actions of the groups not because of right of protest, but brandishing of weapons without police authority, this writer imagines. Strange things, strange happenings, strange people and all these MUST CHANGE.

I rest for now.                                                                                      

Dr. Rashid A. Balogun, CPA, LLB(Hons.), LLM(London)

A cat’s sense of intelligence cannot be compared with that a dog (trained or untrained) but once a soldier always a soldier. It will take a high sense of intellect to connect the dots on the above sentence, but it is not insulting, but a statement of fact as this writer sees it. This writing is simply a discussion on the positive effect of March 28, 2015 Presidential election in respect of sports.

Preliminary Commentaries

Few former athletes drew their lines in the sand supporting the country’s beloved President Goodluck Jonathan while current athletes are scared silly to utter a word publicly, but they made statements on social media in support of the opposition party federal candidates, but those statements cannot be positively linked to them and then came Blessing Okagbare shouting at the incumbent President’s media campaign people for using her image despite unprecedented accolades beyond counts (money or otherwise) that President Jonathan bestowed on her. Of course, she is entitled to speak freely, but wrongly advised by her handlers even after her attempted damage control and this writer appeals to the citizens of Nigeria to simply understand that she is young and growing.  And to J.J. Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Henry Amike and a few others, this writer truly wish you well between now and 2019 but the hope is that you would have learnt a strong lesson about politics. It must be noted that, an appearance of certain individuals on behalf of the political gladiators might be the game changer in a certain socialistic economic environment and to zero-in on such phenomenon is worth more than a pat on the back. Of course, this is the view of this writer on the emergence of Rtd. General Muhammadu Buhari as the President-Elect of Nigeria. It is highly doubtful to think the game changer sought at the helm of power in Nigeria is that of expired athletes that were remembered only in athletic historian circles.

Positive Effect on Sports

Current athletes by consensus view wants change to everything concerning sports and of course the President-Elect ran his political campaign on change in respect of governance in the country. He noted that high priority will be placed on Procurement Act of the federation. And course the readers of this writer can recall the acrimony by his brother named Bolaji Abdullahi, the former Sports Minister, that he (this writer) should produce the law (he referred to) in one of his writings concerning the misstep in the hiring of an American firm after disgraceful outings during the London Olympics Games. In fact, Mr. Abdullahi later hired two Saudi Arabia’s dumped American Coaches without any semblance of compliance with due process or Procurement Act. In addition, the former Sports Minister jettisoned the country’s heavily invested drug laboratory for the so-called high performance center ran by the two individuals hired without due process. Those individuals never produce a single athlete till date and for these events Mr. Abdullahi must not be considered to head sports again.

Recently, Mr. Abdullahi, said that the President-Elect has no business in meddling with sports and this writer can say clearly that his beloved brother (Mr. Abdullahi) was never appointed by All Progressive Congress (APC) or Rtd. General Muhammadu Buhari to speak on his behalf nor his comments should be acted upon. It is hypocritical to Nigerians that Mr. Abdullahi that ignored the Federal Procurement Act while a Minister under President Jonathan should be seen with the President-Elect that announced that his number one priority is compliance with the Procurement Act and zero-tolerance on corruption.

One thing is clear and that is the incoming administration will conduct super-background checks on any political appointee because to do otherwise is tantamount to the return to status quo and will likely result in voter backlash come 2019. Furthermore, the benefit of a doubt goes to the incoming federal government executive branch, in the sense that current sport’s administrators are fearful of bad and corrupt behaviors knowing fully well that crime does not have an expiration date. Essentially, whether or not the accused committed the act during Rtd. General Obasanjo regime or the current President regime, it matters not and for that reason, the athletes and non-athletes must rejoice that past intimidation and corrupt practices will be dealt with and the fear of such penalty means, those few offending individuals (among NSC staff or federations) will shape up quickly. Hopefully, the goodness in the majority of them will become the norm and that is the positive impact of Rtd. General Muhammadu Buhari even before taking the helm of power.

Status of Sports

Nothing really, to cry or rejoice about at the present time in respect of sports in Nigeria, but it is worthy of note that the era of violating the constitution of Nigeria by certain sports federations like athletics will meet serious challenges with the incoming Attorney General and Minister of Interior as well as the National security adviser. As regards to the Olympics, other than Mr. Siasia Eagles team and Blessing Okagbare, the country’s chances are very slim and that has everything to do with the reliance on useless agenda of poaching expired aged druggists from USA to represent Nigeria. Athletics Federation of Nigeria must be probed for illicit acts of facilitating issuance of Nigeria’s passports to non-Nigerians and for all monies received from the National Sports Commission (NSC) for the purposes of procuring such foreign athletes.

All in all, the incoming administration must embark on sanitizing the NSC, including its directors and all those hired without due process.

I rest for now.                                                                                      

Dr. Rashid A. Balogun, CPA, LLB(Hons.), LLM(London)

The Cranes of Uganda have opted to play against the Super Eagles of Nigeria in the friendly match ealier scheduled to be against the El Verde of Bolivia.

Bolivia withdrew from the friendly set for 26th March in Uyo, because of the fear of armed conflict and the tense political situation in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Nigerian officials said they they were shocked with the withdrawal because they had put everything in place to ensure a hitch-free game.

The friendly against the Cranes is scheduled for 25th March at the same Uyo, Akwa Ibom stadium.

With the latest development, Super Eagles captain and goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama will now be able to win his 100th cap.

The 32-year-old had been named in the 28-man squad selected by Super Eagles assistant coach, Daniel Amokachi.

The withdrawal of the El Verde means that Enyeama would have to wait until Nigeria's friendly against South Africa on 29th March before earning his landmark 100th cap.

Other players named in the squad against Bolivia include, Brown Ideye, Anthony Ujah, Aalesund defender, Akeem Latifu; Watford striker, Odion Ighalo and Belgian club Gent Moses Simon.  

 

For fear of being attacked by Boko Haram, El Verde,  the national team of Bolivia have cancelled their friendly match with Nigeria, previously scheduled for 26th March in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

"Armed conflict and the tense political situation in Nigeria forced our withdrawal," said President of the Bolivian Football Federation, Carlos Chavez.

Commenting on the cancellation, the authorities in Nigeria  said they were shocked  by the decision, because they had already put everything in place to ensure a hitch-free game.

The game had been publicised as one in which Nigeria's Captain and goalkeeper Vinent Enyeama would have earned his 100th cap for the country.

The 32-year-old had been named in the 28-man squad selected by Super Eagles assistant coach, Daniel Amokachi.

The withdrawal of the El Verde means that Enyeama would have to wait until Nigeria's friendly against South Africa on 29th March before earning his landmark 100th cap.

Other players named in the squad against Bolivia include, Brown Ideye, Anthony Ujah, Aalesund defender, Akeem Latifu; Watford striker, Odion Ighalo and Belgian club Gent Moses Simon.  

More Articles ...

  1. Green Eagles Resume Camp for January Tour
  2. NSC – The ABCs and 123s of Sports Governance in Nigeria
  3. Nigeria 2 – 0 Congo
Page 3 of 9
+1 (617) 501-0681 Contact US
Today15
Yesterday0
This week20
This month39
Total1190412

Visitor Info

  • IP: 216.73.216.180
  • Browser: Unknown
  • Browser Version:
  • Operating System: Unknown

Who Is Online

1
Online
2026-09-11

Joomla! Debug Console

Session

Profile Information

Memory Usage

Database Queries