With the emergence of Alhaji Aminu Maigari as the new helmsman of Nigerian football coupled with the quality of board members the process has tossed up, moreso, given the processes and issues that led to the election I am hastily concluding that the setting is ironic, laughable, comical and pitiable. The saddest footnote is the way the Nigerian judiciary is treated like a virgin that was raped in the open glare of the sun right inside the crowded African market.
In functional climes and saner politics, President Goodluck Jonathan and his men would have used the developments in our football to convince the Nigerian people that she is fit to rationally give hope to a better future. However, the portends are clear, this is a government of CASH AND CARRY. Like the street sobriquet in Lagos, ‘carry go’.
BABATUNDE AREMU:
Their thinking, action and consequent decision fuelled the “rumours” (they remain so since its not provable) that the “Godfather of the Godfathers” of Nigerian football (Babatunde Aremu) had penetrated the healthy pores of government and ravaged it beyond care with his magic wand of being able to buy the personages. In his world, everyman has a price.
It is obvious that Goodluck Jonathan’s government unlike the Umar Musa Yar’Adua government does not, did not and may not be a true continuum as they make us believe. The Rule of Law mantra which Umar Musa Yar’Adua government respected, ensured was respected, was sacrosanct, and protected jealously (more than he did Turai, his wife) is defiled and left in the pool of her blood after the rape.
Three courts in the land heard aggrieved members of the Nigerian football family who feel frustration about how a cabal had used FIFA to make a private property. The courts gave out injunctions that the election should not hold. A lawyer and chairman of the Electoral Committee, Hakeem Mustapha, in the rape process held the leg of the virgin wide enough for the rapist to conduct his wicked act. He not only aided and abetted the rape and midwived Nigeria’s worst election.
For the NFA and the Electoral Committee set up by Sani Lulu to have delivered all of Lulu’s candidates successfully in the election, then it was a ‘success’. How else can you describe same? The NFA and the Electoral Committee submitted their jurisdictions and had representations in the Lagos Court. The court ruled and gave injunctions. They chose to disobey that court. They held the elections. They sent coded message to the judge: ‘you are a toothless bulldog. Do your worst.’
I will refuse to make comments on the issues Harrison Jalla took to the Lagos court nor on the matters Segun Odegbami in a brilliant manner took to the Court of Arbitration in Sports (CAS) in Lousanne-Switzerland. I do not want to be subjudice.
MORAL DEFICIT:
It is a moral deficit that Taiwo Ogunjobi who was impeached alongside Sani Lulu and Amanze Uchegbulam by the NFF less than 60 days ago could find a very shameless way back to Nigerian footbrawl (or how else do I describe it?). he organised a forced exit of the Ogun State FA chairman, Architect Bolu to “voluntarily” resign as the zonal coordinator and the lot to lead was mounted on Ogunjobi “unanimously”. He participated as a delegate in the election!
This same Ogunjobi had been tipped to take the place of Davidson Owumi as the chairman of the Nigerian Premier League (NPL). He denied it when I exposed the plot. There is a fresh campaign launched since two days after the sham election of Maigari to unseat Owumi. Ironically, Owumi’s election is saner and cleaner. It was popular like June 12. It was within the rules but Lulu’s men are not safe with Owumi thus, the manufactured new processes to unseat him. A less intellectually endowed deficit will most likely be programmed to go and preside the NPL.
This same Ogunjobi who was dismissed in the Oyo State civil service vide a letter personally signed by the military administrator, Colonel Ahmed Usman, on the strength of financial misappropriation and fraud was smuggled by Babatunde Aremu to become the Secretary General of the NFA for four years and made to enjoy another four years as a board member of the NFA. We wait. We will ask how Colonel Dogo Joro Yabilsu died in the circumstances he died. Yabilsu died mysteriously for being chairman of a committee that investigated and found the same Ogunjobi guilty. His death came before the report will become public and ever since, the report lives in the ledges courtesy a cover up from the Godfather of the Godfathers and Sani Lulu.
Another dimension to the assault on our national integrity is that the House of Representatives, like the Senate, were emphatic that the election be delayed to permit a total reform. For once, these institutions stood on the side of honour and the people, just as the courts have done in support of logic and reason. The cabal, protected by the “Godfather of the Godfathers” brought the weight of CAF and FIFA, to supervise the rape of our football and our judiciary.
THE VICTIMS:
All those who participated in the impeachment of Sani Abdullahi Lulu, the erstwhile President of the NFF and his ‘brothers’ in Taiwo Ogunjobi and Amanze Uchegbulam, were programmed out of the “election”. The only present survivor, Princess Bola Jegede, is according to a pro-Lulu friend who I eavesdropped at the venue of the election said: “will be forced out through the same window that Davidson Owumi (chairman of the Nigeria Premier League) will be thrown out.”
Ask please. Mutiu “Headmaster” Adepoju, Austin “Jay-Jay” Okocha, Christian “Chairman” Chukwu, Segun “Mathematical” Odegbami, incumbent Dominic “The Gazelle” Iorfa, all lost out in the election that has to do with football. What a global record?
In the same election, an Aminu Maigari who does not know the number of teams playing the Nigerian league and who probably, by extension, does not know the teams playing in the 2010 African Champions League was helped to dust the likes of Lumumbah Dah Adeh, Sani Ahmed Toro, Shehu Dikko the three brightest stars in the election) with widest imaginable margins.
CRITICAL THINKING:
This is the tenth wonder of the world! These are only feasible and possible in the Nigeria presided over by Goodluck Ebere Jonathan. One thought that a government presided over by Nigeria’s second graduate after Umar Musa Yar’Adua by two graduates (in tow is a Vice President who is an Architect, Namadi Sambo) and by a head, Jonathan, who has a Ph.D (not the honorary causa many people who have it today that my granny, madam Alice Bolajoko Alasi will call “inastrate” a euphemism for illiterates). The point I am driving out here is, critical thinking is not a function of government or and our governance structure.
“Nigerians are idiots.” That is the import of the final result of that election. The illogical passage of the Federal Government through the Presidency gave the cabal underlined the insult. The President’s advisory staff having been fingered must have led him to show us how those that lead us think.
Gathered that sports minister, Ibrahim Isa Bio, from Kwara State, was meant to spited. He was allegedly linked to the governor of his state, Dr. Bukola Saraki who is not on the same page with Goodluck Jonathan. Saraki is touted to be eyeing Jonathan’s seat. Thus, the propaganda was Bio was trying to use the NFF election to drum strategic gains for Saraki at the expense of Jonathan. When Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, tried to see the President on the matter, the advisory staff made sure he died on the anvil before he would be welcomed.
SUMMARY:
Welcome Aminu Maigari. I wish you and your team four loooooooong years of remote control from Sani Lulu’s room. Hope his sons, wives, concubines, cronies and recharge card sellers who will people the NFA will successfully take our football to the nadir. Congratulations. May Allah guide you.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
THE VALUE OF COUNTERFEIT MERCHANDISE IN NIGERIA
The green Nigerian jerseys hanging outside a little sewing shop in downtown Lagos Island look just like the real thing, complete with the national team crest, the embroidered Adidas logo, and even the popular NFF logo over the right shoulder.
The N500 price tag betrays the shirt for what it is—a very convincing fake. Femi Olatunbosun, a tailor, makes the jerseys by hand on his Singer brand sewing machine, copying the patterns from an original jersey he got somewhere. He’s not the only tailor in Lagos or other parts of vast Nigeria making counterfeit jerseys for the World Cup, but he’s earned a strong following for the quality of his work, the texture of the jerseys he designs and his prices. He will sell a jersey for as little as N500, if it’s ordered in bulk. Nigerian club officials patronize him yearly for the ‘construction’ of their jerseys whilst they inflate the cost as if imported.
“They are almost indistinguishable from the real jerseys,” the 38-year-old Olatunbosun said, “though a trained eye will be able to tell the difference.”
In the lead up to the 2010 World Cup, the counterfeit merchandise business boomed. He sold no less than 5,000 copies of the Nigerian national team jersey.
South African police said they seized more than $13 million worth of fake merchandise since the beginning of the year in the build-up to the recently concluded world cup. FIFA says more than 100 cases involving counterfeit World Cup goods were taken to court.
Puma spent millions of dollars and three years developing World Cup jerseys which feature special fabrics to keep sweat away from players’ bodies, as well as a construction based on sprinters’ outfits that reduces wind resistance.
The Germany-based company kitted four of the six African teams that participated in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and saw the first World Cup in Africa as a major opportunity to cement their brand’s association with football on the continent, Puma soccer marketing manager Filip Trulsson said.
While official team shirts can retail for $88 in Europe, Trulsson said the company has adopted a regional system that will tailor the price of merchandise to income levels and purchasing power in different parts of Africa.
At a sports apparel store in Abidjan recently, official Ivory Coast jerseys were being sold for 39,900 francs ($75), which is more than what the average Ivorian makes in a month. With a wildly popular national team, the demand for cheaper jerseys in Ivory Coast has spurred the counterfeit industry.
The fake jersey business isn’t limited to World Cup teams.
An array of European club jerseys cover the walls ofOlatunbosun’s tiny shop, where five sewing machines are run by five apprentices and four tailors for 12 hours per day. Many times, they sleep over night working on the jerseys. Arsenal, Barcelona, Manchester United, Olympic Marseille and Chelsea are the most popular jerseys.
After buying his fabrics at a nearby wholesaler many times on credit, Olatunbosun, a graduate of Sociology from the University of Ilorin, cuts the patterns and has all the embroidery done by a set of two apprentices before the shirt is sewn together by another set of apprentices. Then comes the final step of ironing on falsified Puma labels on the inside of the shirt.
“There’s one other guy who makes Super Eagles jerseys in the neighborhood, but he can’t do the complicated embroidery or the iron-on decals that we design on the computer,” Olatunbosun said. Asked how he came into tailoring, he said, I am Ijesha. My father is a tailor. We grew up working with him. When I graduated in 2000 and for years I cannot get white collar job, I went back to my childhood job, took over my dad’s equipment and here I am today.
It was in 2002, Olatunbosun bought a sport jersey fabric and made a shirt for himself. He explained, “I actually bought it in innocence and later a friend, Suraj Bakinde, now in the United Kingdom wanted one for himself. I did it. That was it, friends who saw it on us started making demands and since then, it became a trade.
Asked if he has ever run into trouble for his counterfeiting, Olatunbosun said, “It is not as if I do not know this practice is illegal. No one has ever come near me on that. Two, is this not better than stealing or being an armed robber? At least, I have a string of businesses whose turnover are based on the activities I am involved in. we created employment and add value to the local economy.”
While my interview was still on, a group of teenagers, as well as, some well-to-do guys flooded into the shop, talking loudly and disturbing the tailors hard at work. They were there to pick up a batch of shirts they ordered a previous week. Olatunbosun pulled out their neatly packed shirts covered in sealed transparent nylon. Monies changed hands and all parties happy.
How much does he make on a monthly basis, he quipped, “initially, it was a seasonal market but in the last three years, the pressure has mounted so much that many times I have to get some of the apprentices who had gotten freedom from here to give me lending hands. In short, I make a net profit in the region of N53,000 per month after removing all invested costs.”
The N500 price tag betrays the shirt for what it is—a very convincing fake. Femi Olatunbosun, a tailor, makes the jerseys by hand on his Singer brand sewing machine, copying the patterns from an original jersey he got somewhere. He’s not the only tailor in Lagos or other parts of vast Nigeria making counterfeit jerseys for the World Cup, but he’s earned a strong following for the quality of his work, the texture of the jerseys he designs and his prices. He will sell a jersey for as little as N500, if it’s ordered in bulk. Nigerian club officials patronize him yearly for the ‘construction’ of their jerseys whilst they inflate the cost as if imported.
“They are almost indistinguishable from the real jerseys,” the 38-year-old Olatunbosun said, “though a trained eye will be able to tell the difference.”
In the lead up to the 2010 World Cup, the counterfeit merchandise business boomed. He sold no less than 5,000 copies of the Nigerian national team jersey.
South African police said they seized more than $13 million worth of fake merchandise since the beginning of the year in the build-up to the recently concluded world cup. FIFA says more than 100 cases involving counterfeit World Cup goods were taken to court.
Puma spent millions of dollars and three years developing World Cup jerseys which feature special fabrics to keep sweat away from players’ bodies, as well as a construction based on sprinters’ outfits that reduces wind resistance.
The Germany-based company kitted four of the six African teams that participated in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and saw the first World Cup in Africa as a major opportunity to cement their brand’s association with football on the continent, Puma soccer marketing manager Filip Trulsson said.
While official team shirts can retail for $88 in Europe, Trulsson said the company has adopted a regional system that will tailor the price of merchandise to income levels and purchasing power in different parts of Africa.
At a sports apparel store in Abidjan recently, official Ivory Coast jerseys were being sold for 39,900 francs ($75), which is more than what the average Ivorian makes in a month. With a wildly popular national team, the demand for cheaper jerseys in Ivory Coast has spurred the counterfeit industry.
The fake jersey business isn’t limited to World Cup teams.
An array of European club jerseys cover the walls ofOlatunbosun’s tiny shop, where five sewing machines are run by five apprentices and four tailors for 12 hours per day. Many times, they sleep over night working on the jerseys. Arsenal, Barcelona, Manchester United, Olympic Marseille and Chelsea are the most popular jerseys.
After buying his fabrics at a nearby wholesaler many times on credit, Olatunbosun, a graduate of Sociology from the University of Ilorin, cuts the patterns and has all the embroidery done by a set of two apprentices before the shirt is sewn together by another set of apprentices. Then comes the final step of ironing on falsified Puma labels on the inside of the shirt.
“There’s one other guy who makes Super Eagles jerseys in the neighborhood, but he can’t do the complicated embroidery or the iron-on decals that we design on the computer,” Olatunbosun said. Asked how he came into tailoring, he said, I am Ijesha. My father is a tailor. We grew up working with him. When I graduated in 2000 and for years I cannot get white collar job, I went back to my childhood job, took over my dad’s equipment and here I am today.
It was in 2002, Olatunbosun bought a sport jersey fabric and made a shirt for himself. He explained, “I actually bought it in innocence and later a friend, Suraj Bakinde, now in the United Kingdom wanted one for himself. I did it. That was it, friends who saw it on us started making demands and since then, it became a trade.
Asked if he has ever run into trouble for his counterfeiting, Olatunbosun said, “It is not as if I do not know this practice is illegal. No one has ever come near me on that. Two, is this not better than stealing or being an armed robber? At least, I have a string of businesses whose turnover are based on the activities I am involved in. we created employment and add value to the local economy.”
While my interview was still on, a group of teenagers, as well as, some well-to-do guys flooded into the shop, talking loudly and disturbing the tailors hard at work. They were there to pick up a batch of shirts they ordered a previous week. Olatunbosun pulled out their neatly packed shirts covered in sealed transparent nylon. Monies changed hands and all parties happy.
How much does he make on a monthly basis, he quipped, “initially, it was a seasonal market but in the last three years, the pressure has mounted so much that many times I have to get some of the apprentices who had gotten freedom from here to give me lending hands. In short, I make a net profit in the region of N53,000 per month after removing all invested costs.”
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