THE IGBO GIANT STRIDES AGAINST ALL ODDS
9 years ago
And, as I'm sure I've left some good ones out, feel free to have a go at me in the comments.
Like many sports, football has had its fair share of crazy players through the years.
The difference between the beautiful game and other sports, however, is that people from nearly every country on earth can converge in a few regions, where they are allowed to play with abandon on a football pitch.
That is a recipe for craziness, and every league has seen enigmas whose actions defy explanation and who seem to belong in therapy, rather than on a club team.
Out of those many insane current and former individuals, here are 15 who embody the term, for one reason or another, more than the rest.
He has done countless things both on and off the pitch to enhance his image as an insane but immensely talented striker who just can’t get out of his own way.
Balotelli is the undisputed King of the Crazy in football right now; the Sultan of Silliness; the Ruler of the Ridiculous.
He has done countless things both on and off the pitch to enhance his image as an insane but immensely talented striker who just can’t get out of his own way.
Incidents include: driving onto a Manchester university’s campus unannounced to hang out and use the bathroom; throwing darts at reserve team players; crashing a press conference while at Inter Milan; setting his house on fire; trying to backheel an easy goal against the LA Galaxy; getting assorted oily fish placed in the plush interior of his Bugatti; and, ironically, revealing a t-shirt that asked “Why always me?” after scoring a goal.
I don’t know exactly why, Mario. Perhaps it’s just your odd nature. But, regardless, you are, without a doubt, the craziest player in football.
MARADONA was a man who never once shied away from the more dangerous parts of the regions in which he played, allegedly creating connections with the mafia in Italy, fathering an illegitimate son and using cocaine for years.
While he tried to curb his irascible demeanor later in his career, he still maintained a fierce rivalry with Patrick Vieira that occasionally turned violent.
The Ivorian utility player was such an enigma that a popular chant amongst Arsenal fans when he played for the Gunners was “You’ve only come to see Eboue.” And, on certain days, he was the most interesting act on the pitch.
In every country he has played, controversy has followed him. In France, he was convicted of driving without a license, and in England he developed the rather unsavory habit of spitting in the faces of fans, opposing players and even ball boys. He has also used racist slurs against those awful kids on the touchline and gotten into his fair share of brawls.
While playing for Lazio, he gave the controversial Roman salute to the clubs fans as a supposed sign of respect. When he was suspended and forced to pay a fine, he proclaimed that he will never stop making the gesture, which gives him "a sense of belonging."
He has also declared his admiration for Benito Mussolini, and has "Il Duce" tattooed on
his right bicep.
He doesn’t reconcile when he plays, either, as you’ll commonly see him diving in rashly and throwing himself at defenders to win balls and score goals.
CANTONA Always an outspoken and loud leader, Cantona was never content to do his talking with his play, and his short temper led to some memorable spurts of insanity.
One might think that Cantona would have been contrite following this incredible rush of blood to the head, but the Frenchman later said that attacking the man was "a great feeling" and one that he is happy for fans to remember.
JOEY BARTON Over the years, the irascible Englishman has been in and out of prison for assault, and that really tells you all you need to know about how this man's mind works.
While he's tried to mellow out somewhat in recent years, his efforts have been to no avail. You simply can't take the pure, unadulterated crazy out of a man who has had it his entire life.
By Chris Ihidero
Dear Friend,
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Greetings. I hear you have found a lovely woman you wish to spend the rest of your life with. I hear she is Igbo. Congratulations. Before you go ahead, however, please permit me to say a few things concerning marrying an Igbo woman. I know unsolicited advice is as unwanted as armpit boils, but do spare me a second or two; this is important. See, I know you think the bride price you’ve been told to pay and the long list of traditional marriage items are your biggest issues…trust me, they are nothing compared with what you will face after the ceremonies have been completed and every member of her village has gone home with his/her share of the booty for which you mortgaged your father’s properties.
Now, take note of the following, dear friend:
1. Forget Authority: If you were marrying a Yoruba woman, she would have come to your house with her mother’s voice ringing in her ears that a husband’s house is a place where life’s lessons are learnt. It’s a different story for the Igbo woman. She comes from a long line of ‘unruly’ people who traditionally have no concept of a central authority figure. Prepare to be stared down eyeball to eyeball in an argument. Prepare to be laughed at when you attempt to assert yourself as the ‘man of the house.’ When she’s done laughing, she’ll measure you, up and down with her left, and sneer: ‘Hian! See this one o; who do you think you’re talking to?’ She’ll clap and shake her head, then she’ll add something in Igbo and then saunter away, wriggling her backside. It isn’t for nothing that the legendary Aba Womens’ Riot happened in…ABA.
2. Prepare to be Called Names: No, I am not referring to endearing (more like puke-inducing, actually) names like Baby, Darling, or Nkem. I’m talking about names that qualify your lineage and ethnicity in terms that are not exactly complimentary. If you are Yoruba, you and your people will be Ndi ofe mmanu (something about too much oil in your soup and fried things in your life); If you are a Northerner, you and your people will be Ndi beribe (something about possessing a mumu gene). Find solace in the fact that if you are truly Yoruba, you ‘know’ that Igbo people use kick to wake their mothers up from the mat in the morning.
3. Say Goodbye to your Waistline: Your waistline will increase in proportion to the years you spend with an Igbo woman who knows the well-beaten path to her mother’s kitchen. Gone are your days of adding stew to ewedu and okro, or eating egusi soup that was blended with tomatoes. Tufiakwa! The introduction of Ofe Akwu, Nsala, Oha, Onugbu, Ofe Owerri and Oporoko will ensure that when you sit, you fill up the chair. That’s what is called a man, a DIMGBA! Not one that looks like something some hungry wind blew in. When the husband of an Igbo woman stands, people must see that a man is standing. Size matters. Don’t be deceived by the looks of people like Ebuka Obi-Uchendu and that six-pack nonsense; he’s not a proper Igbo man. Look more at people like his elder brother Ugo or imagine Noble Igwe a few years after marriage; now, those are real Igbo men! Size matters to an Igbo woman.
4. Be Aware of the Oriaku Syndrome: You have not heard of the Oriaku Syndrome? Don’t worry, I will tell you. You see, when you marry an Igbo woman, you work for her. Your glory comes from seeing her shine. When she steps out, people must SEE your money on her body. If your wife looks like the dried fish she uses in cooking your soup, you are not a man! If she’s dressed like something that was sent to Lagos along with discarded wares, you have failed in your duties! The Oriaku Syndrome posits that your wife is the chopper of your money, simple. Don’t take this to mean that you are her provider and therefore she isn’t independent. When the Igbo man was planting yam, the Igbo woman was planting and harvesting cocoyam, and as every Igbo household can testify, the cocoyam is more useful than yam. Yam is only the king crop because the Igbo society, like others, is phallocentric. Don’t get it twisted.
5. Beware of the Illuminati: Do not marry any Igbo woman that is the first daughter of her father. All first daughters in Igboland are members of the real Illuminati. They sometimes call it by another name: Umuada. They are the most powerful group in Igboland and can do and undo. No one uses small spoon to measure their food. If you marry one and misbehave and she reports you, you are doomed. Even when you don’t marry one, you are still doomed if your wife ever reports you to them. They may decide that all the first daughters from her village will come and live in your house for a month. You may wish to consider suicide if that ever happens to you. It is the Igbo woman who has forgotten the path to her father’s house that suffers in a man’s house when she has the Umuada waiting.
6. The Catholic Church Intervention: When an Igbo woman is tired of you and your nonsense, she’ll simply pack her bag and return to her father’s house. If you do not run after her and collect your bride price back from her father, whatever child she bears anywhere she goes will bear your name. Yes, I’m serious. This is why there are no bastards in Igboland. But thank God for the Catholic Church, this doesn’t happen often. The average Igbo woman is Catholic and the Catholic Church has issues with divorce. Be smart: if you’re going to marry an Igbo woman, marry one who is a Catholic; it reduces her chances of leaving you by about 50%.
You may wish to ask why none of the above is often the case when an Igbo woman marries an Igbo man… well, I don’t know. Perhaps the Igbo man knows how to be ‘oga’ over the Igbo woman and has refused to share the secret with aliens.
Anyways, is your couch free for the night? Surely there’s no way I’m going home to that woman tonight after all this…
SEGUN ADIO— 20 October 2012
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One man’s meat, it is said, is another’s poison. While many men would go berserk on sighting their wives’ lovers, there is a group of men in Lagos who actually welcome their wives’ sexual partners.
A woman having sexual relation with another man who is not her husband is generally frowned at in most, if not all, cultures of man. It is considered as infidelity and also frowned at by all known religions of man. This, however, is not to ignore the existence of infidelity which is usually engaged in by both parties discreetly.
But in a part of the megacity of Lagos, the above is not the norm. It is actually the other way round. In this part of the city, a new wave of commercial sex activity is fast gaining ground.
Husbands not only know that their wives are prostitutes; they also make available their apartments for their wives to service their clients. Consider this: A woman who does not look like the archetypal commercial sex worker and a man converse by the roadside, a make-shift shop or a kiosk, a bargain is struck, the two of them head towards the woman’s residence.
The woman’s husband observes their approach. He quickly rounds the kids together, makes the apartment look presentable, shoos the kids out of the room and he stays somewhere until his wife finishes servicing her client. Welcome to Majiyagbe Street, via Morocco Road in Shomolu area of Lagos where wives feed their husbands and children from the proceeds of prostitution with the full consent of the man.
Saturday Mirror observed that prostitution is not the only vice prevalent in Majiyagbe Street. Banned drugs are also hawked with novelty. However, it is also alleged that suspected stolen vehicles and motorcycles find their way into the area. It is also claimed that small arms are kept with some of the illicit drug hawkers plying their trade in the area.
Reports also have it that most of the customers of these prostitutes are men of questionable character who use the place as hideout after perpetrating their acts. Saturday Mirror investigations also revealed that most of the owners of the houses lining Majiyagbe had moved out of the vicinity, but only sed their agents to collect rent from the occupants of those buildings.
Majiyagbe is a fairly long street with dozens of makeshift houses and kiosks lining both sides. Entering Majiyagbe Street, a first time visitor would take the area for a normal living community. Banners, posters of various soft and hard drinks are conspicuously displayed on those shops, while GSM service providers’ stickers also adorn most of the shops. That is in the morning and early afternoon. In the late afternoon until the wee hours of the day, the street wears another look.
The rooms, shops, kiosks and containers on the street are short time accommodation to sex customers. However, investigations also revealed that not all residents of the beleaguered street are involved in this act.
Some of them still live on the street, apparently because of lack the wherewithal to relocate from the area. Saturday Mirror discovered that about the time the sex seeking customers start arriving, the husbands of the prostitutes would vacate the apartments. They would only return when the wives call them that the apartment is ready for the family again.
In such situations, the children too are made to seek alternative abodes while their mothers engage their ‘customers’ in their family apartments. A resident of the area, who identified himself simply as Olatunji, told Saturday Mirror that most of the commercial sex workers on Majiyagbe Street are from a certain part of the country and are not indigenes of the state or Yoruba, but they have been living in the place for decades.
Olatunji maintained that the prostitutes get the backing of their husbands while they carry out their trade to the full knowledge of their children. “Most of the women took to prostitution to survive and this is to the knowledge of their husbands. Over the years, their female children grew up to see their mothers do what they do and later continue the trade,” Olatunji added.
Another resident, who preferred anonymity, disclosed to Saturday Mirror that before now, stolen cars and commercial motorcycles were brought into the area for remodelling.
The source however said the new Divisional Police Officer in the area had carried out raids on the workshops of the panel beaters always working on the stolen automobiles which had drastically reduced that part of the anomalies on Majiyagbe Street. “All manner of hard drugs are sold on Majiyagbe Street, but the effort of the new police boss in the area has made the hawkers to device new means of selling their wares.
Now, the drug dealers are mobile. Instead of selling the drugs in shops, they carry them around in bags, and sometimes in their pockets,” the source said. Favour Ideh (not real names) is one of the prostitutes on Majiyagbe Street.
Ideh, 37, and mother of three boys, initially did not want to disclose her real job to Saturday Mirror. She told Saturday Mirror that she sells recharge cards on the streets. However, she later owned up to her prostitution business. Ideh, however, said that she had to send her kids to school when the company where their father used to work folded up at Apapa. “I have lived here with my husband and three boys in the last eight years. But in 2009, my husband lost his job when his office folded up at Apapa. Where there was no gratuity coming and he was sick at the time, I had to seek alternative ways of providing for the needs of the family,” Ideh justified her line of business.
Nigeria’s foremost novelist Chinua Achebe has claimed that Nigerians, especially of the Hausa/Fulani and the Yoruba stocks, do not like his Igbo ethnic group because of the southeast’s cultural advantage.
He made this claim in his new book, There was a Country, which has generated controversy for his onslaught on the role of Obafemi Awolowo as the federal commissioner of finance during the Nigeria civil war. He accused Awolowo of genocide and imposition of food blockade on Biafra, a claim that has drawn rebuttals and contradictions of emotional intensity from some southwest leaders and commentators.
“I have written in my small book entitled The Trouble with Nigeria that Nigerians will probably achieve consensus on no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo,” he wrote under the heading, A History of Ethnic Tension and Resentment. He traced the origin of “the national resentment of the Igbo” to its culture that “gave the Igbo man an unquestioned advantage over his compatriots in securing credentials for advancement in Nigerian colonial society.”
He observed that the Igbo culture’s emphasis on change, individualism and competitiveness gave his ethnic group an edge over the Hausa/Fulani man who was hindered by a “wary religion” and the Yoruba man who was hampered by” traditional hierarchies.”
He therefore described the Igbo, who are predominantly Catholic, as “fearing no god or man, was “custom-made to grasp the opportunities, such as they were, of the white man’s dispensations. And the Igbo did so with both hands.”
He delved into history with his claim, asserting that the Igbo overcame the earlier Yoruba advantage within two decades earlier in the twentieth century.
“Although the Yoruba had a huge historical and geographical head start, the Igbo wiped out their handicap in one fantastic burst of energy in the twenty years between 1930 and 1950.”
He narrated the earlier advantage of Yoruba as contingent on their location on the coastline, but once the missionaries crossed the Niger, the Igbo took advantage of the opportunity and overtook the Yoruba.
‘The increase was so exponential in such a short time that within three short decades the Igbos had closed the gap and quickly moved ahead as the group with the highest literacy rate, the highest standard of living, and the greatest of citizens with postsecondary education in Nigeria,” he contended.
He said Nigerian leadership should have taken advantage of the gbo talent and this failure was partly responsible for the failure of the Nigerian state, explaining further that competitive individualism and the adventurous spirit of the Igbo was a boon Nigerian leaders failed to recognize and harness for modernization.
“Nigeria’s pathetic attempt to crush these idiosyncrasies rather than celebrate them is one of the fundamental reasons the country has not developed as it should and has emerged as a laughingstock,” he claimed.
He noted that the ousting of prominent Igbos from top offices was a ploy to achieve a simple and crude goal. He said what the Nigerians wanted was to “get the achievers out and replace them with less qualified individuals from the desired ethnic background so as to gain access to the resources of the state.”
Achebe, however, saved some criticisms for his kinsmen. He criticised them for what he described as “hubris, overweening pride and thoughtlessness, which invite envy and hatred or even worse that can obsess the mind with material success and dispose it to all kinds of crude showiness.”
He added that “contemporary Igbo behavior(that) cab offend by its noisy exhibitionism and disregard for humility and quietness.
Culled: The Nation
Written by Pat Hagan
Daily slice could halve the build-up of ‘bad’ cholesterol It could also help prevent weight gain
A daily slice of watermelon could help prevent heart disease by halting the build-up of harmful cholesterol, new research shows.
Scientists who carried out studies on mice fed a high-fat diet found the fruit halved the rate at which ‘bad’ low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, accumulated.
LDL is a form of cholesterol that leads to clogged arteries and heart disease. Researchers from Purdue University in the US also found eating watermelon regularly helped to control weight gain and resulted in fewer fatty deposits inside blood vessels.
They believe the secret to watermelon’s health-boosting properties lies in citrulline, a chemical found in the juice.
Although the latest investigation showed no significant effects on blood pressure, it did reveal watermelons had a powerful impact on other heart risk factors.
Heart disease is Britain’s biggest killer. Around 270,000 people a year suffer a heart attack and nearly one in three die before they reach hospital.
Cholesterol is a type of fat produced by the liver that is essential to help the body produce hormones, absorb vitamin D and make bile to digest foods.
It is transported in the blood by tiny ‘couriers’, called lipoproteins.
LDL carries cholesterol away from the liver and dumps it in major blood vessels, where it can cause a life-threatening blockage.
High-density lipoprotein, or HDL, has the job of transporting cholesterol back to the liver to be safely disposed of.
Current guidelines in the UK recommend keeping total cholesterol below 5mmols per litre, a measurement of how much fat there is in each litre of blood in the body, with LDL accounting for no more than 3mmols/litre.
But an estimated 20 per cent of patients with excessive LDL levels are classed as resistant to statins - the drugs taken by around seven million people in the UK to control cholesterol.
Cholesterol causes the arteries to narrow, raising the risk of heart attack and stroke
The latest study, published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, suggests watermelon juice could help.
Researchers fed two groups of mice a high-fat diet but gave one water to drink and the other watermelon juice.
They tracked their health for several months and at the end of the experiment found the mice given watermelon juice had 50 per cent less LDL than those on water - despite eating the same diet.
They also weighed an average of 30 per cent less, but their blood pressure was no different.
Research leader Dr Shubin Saha said: ‘We didn’t see a lowering of blood pressure. But these other changes are promising.
‘We know that watermelon is good for health because it contains citrulline. We don’t know yet at what molecular level it’s working and that’s the next step.’
Some studies suggest the chemical is vital for the production of nitric oxide, a gas that widens blood vessels.
This research follows another recent study published in the Journal of Functional Foods which suggested eating apples each day could significantly improve the heart health of middle-aged adults in just one month.
Those who ate a daily apple over four weeks lowered ‘bad’ cholesterol in the blood by 40 per cent.
Taking capsules containing polyphenols, a type of antioxidant found in apples, had a similar, but not as large, effect.
Bad cholesterol can interact with free radicals to become oxidized, which can trigger inflammation and can cause tissue damage.
Culled from dailymail.co.uk
