4 Nigerians In Chelsea, Arsenal, Others Among Top 20 Talents At Premier League Clubs
Faustino AnjorinFour players of Nigerian descent have been named to the prestigious Guardian Uk’s Next Generation 2018: 20 of the best talents at Premier League clubs.
Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka, Chelsea’s Faustino Anjorin, Huddersfield Town’s Mustapha Olagunju and West Ham’s Daniel Jinadu have been included on the list of top 20 footballers born between 1 September 2001 and 31 August 2002, otherwise known as first-year scholars.
Of the aforementioned players, only defender Olagunju, who agreed a scholarship deal with the Terriers in April 2018, has not represented England’s youth teams.
On Saka, the newspaper wrote, ”Saka is a left winger who can also play at left-back, who trades on his power, directness, ability to beat his man and final ball. The London-born England under-17 international has a physical solidity that belies his years. With Reiss Nelson on loan at Hoffenheim for the season, he senses sustained opportunity at under-23 level. ”
”Anjorin has been with Chelsea since the age of six, a powerful, box-to-box midfielder who scored eight goals in 24 games for the youth team last season including the last in the 4-0 Youth Cup final second-leg rout of Arsenal at the Emirates,” London football correspondent Dominic Fifield said on Anjorin.
”His athletic qualities are obvious – he is 6ft 2in, strong and fast – but his attitude, understanding of the game and his deftness on the ball are the traits that coaches find especially encouraging. He is eligible to play for both England and Nigeria,” Paul Doyle said on Mustapha Olagunju.
”Jinadu, who is of Nigerian descent, has represented England at youth level and Manuel Pellegrini included him in the first team’s pre-season training camp. It was a big vote of confidence in the youngster’s ability from West Ham’s manager, who will expect him to progress at youth level this season,” Jacob Steinberg praised Jinadu.
Liverpool’s Dominic Solanke, Man City’s Tosin Adarabioyo, Sunderland’s Josh Maja and Crystal Palace’s Joseph Hungbo were named among the best prospects at Premier League clubs in the past.
Nigeria will put her strongest foot forward right from kick off against Libya’s Mediterranean Knights in Saturday evening’s
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has assured his former deputy, Atiku Abubakar that he has forgiven him for all the wrongs he committed against him as a person, and hoped that Nigerians will also forgive him by voting for him as President on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2019 elections.
A playwright and award winning author of “Everything Good Will Come,” Sefi Atta, is scheduled to launch her first children’s book “Drama Queen” this week Sunday, October 14, at the Simi Johnson Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Can Atiku Fight Corruption? By Abbas Datti
The political space has now been centred on a single debate, which is, President Muhammadu Buhari, with his score card filled with numerous impacts to people’s lives, in addition to his indisputable and incontestable integrity, can Atiku Abubakar defeat him in a free and fair election? Everyone is now at liberty to choose between President Buhari and Atiku. In view of the above, as the 2019 election is under way, and for us to save ourselves from aftermath of election, we are at liberty to carefully evaluate and appraise both Buhari and Atiku.
Even though from the initial stage, I decided not to utter even a spew from these developments, but as I sat ruminating about Atiku’s past as Vice President under Olusegun Obasanjo, I failed to resist the urge to echo my position. Although, I will do everything possible to maintain objectivity to both the two contending aspirants, but despite this, as a major stakeholder in Nigerian project, and an anti-corruption protagonist, my objectivity must rate President Buhari higher than Atiku.
Before expressing myself further, let me clearly say, my main motive is not to coerce or induce anybody into voting for Buhari, but to freely exercise my inalienable right as non-partisan Nigerian, I must at this juncture unequivocally canvass in support of President Muhammadu Buhari. Sincerely speaking, if Atiku needs to woo me and my fellow anti-corruption proponents, I advise him to convince us beyond any shadow of doubt about his readiness in fighting corruption. I have every reason to say so, because what appalled me most was, without taking us too far, just recently, Atiku Abubakar granted an interview to some journalists, and he expressed utmost displeasure to Buhari’s anti-corruption fight, saying corruption is not Nigeria’s number one problem. By making this expression, Atiku has explicitly casted doubt in his commitment in fighting the vicious circles of corrupt elements. And again, by this assertion, one might assume that if Atiku becomes president, he will probably abandon all defense mechanisms used by Buhari in fighting corruption, and resets us back to the days of blemished ruling.
Our fear is, if Atiku finds his way to presidency, Treasury Single Account (T.S.A) might not be a driving mechanism that will govern the affairs of the state. While it’s interesting to note that, adoption of Treasury Single Account produced positive results, and as such contributed greatly in subjecting government affairs to probity. Furthermore, if we can recall, with the immediate inception of Buhari’s government, we have witnessed how T.S.A exposed a considerable number of double-dealings in numerous ministries, financial agencies and parastatals. For this reason, people need to know the type of magic wand Atiku will apply to consolidate Buhari’s anti-corruption achievements. Still, under this regard, most people’s concern is, since fighting corruption might not be Atiku’s number one concern, all leakages blocked by President Buhari might eventually be opened for corrupt people.
Because, as an astute observer of public affairs, I closely watched all proceedings of PDP’s primary election, to sum up all the events for you, none of all presidential aspirants present a clear-cut technique in fighting corruption, thus, fighting corruption is not in P.D.P’s book. One must wonder, despite all hardships we endured courtesy of corrupt government officials, why all the PDP’s presidential hopefuls chose to ignore this when soliciting for votes from delegates during their presidential primary election?