Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi, would on Wednesday release the list of invited players for the much-anticipated international friendly between Nigeria and South Africa slated for August 14 in Durban.
Several players that featured for Nigeria at the African Cup of Nations and the Confederations Cup in Brazil would be included the list for the match tagged: “Mandela Challenge Cup.”
New faces such as Obinna Nsofor and Shola Ameobi would also be considered for the match, futaa.com reports.
•Calls on all to love and not hate
As the world prepares to observe Nelson Mandela’s International Day and birthday tomorrow, former Super Eagles Captain Nwankwo Kanu has emphasised the need for all and sundry to jettison the spirit of hate and embrace love, so that the world can be a better place for all to live.
Kanu who over the years has touched the lives of many through his Heart Foundation, equally encouraged whoever cares to listen not to ignore an opportunity to extend hand of assistance to those in need.
The former Arsenal, West Brom and Portsmouth striker in what could pass for a timely tweet Tuesday said “Remember 18th july is Mandela day pls make sure you do something good in someone’s life. Help one another. Love not hate”
Mandela Day is an annual international day in honour of Nelson Mandela, celebrated each 18th July.
The day was officially declared by the United Nations in November 2009, with the first UN Mandela Day held on 18 July 2010. However, other groups began celebrating Mandela Day on 18 July 2009.
On 27 April 2009, the 46664 concerts and the Nelson Mandela Foundation invited the global community to join them in support of an official Mandela Day. It is not meant as a public holiday, but as a day to honour the legacy of the former South African President, and his values, through volunteering and community service.
One of the emphases of the day is a global recognition that each individual has the power to transform the world and the ability to make an impact.
he whole wide world is stark awake, day and night, waiting for the Mandela hour. But there’s no escaping the fact that even in life or death Mandela trumps all. It is indeed with bated breath that the global village looks ahead to the great one’s 95th birthday on July 18. Of course that date has been universally fixed as Nelson Mandela International Day, or Mandela Day for short. The epochal day was officially declared by the United Nations in November 2009, and the first UN Mandela Day held on July 18, 2010. The Mandela Day celebrating the icon’s 95th birthday on July 18 will be marked specially in Asaba, Delta State with the World Press Conference proclaiming the establishment of a garden of 95 trees to be known as “The Mandela Garden of 95 Trees.” The celebrated environmentalist and conqueror of the Sahara Desert, Dr. Newton Jibunoh, as the Chief Executive of Fight Against Desert Encroachment (FADE) will partner with Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan and the Delta State Government to make broadcast the well over 134,000 square metres of prime land within the Asaba International Airport complex, designed to build “The Nelson Mandela Garden of 95 Trees.”
The conceptual design of the Mandela Garden is in the shape of the map of Africa, featuring a life-sized bronze statue of Nelson Mandela, 95 trees symbolically planted as the Robben memorial, freedom mini-gardens, well-landscaped terraced fences made of hedge plants, concrete walkways, state-of-the-art restrooms, adequate parking, Nelson Mandela playground and park for children. The Mandela Garden is due for commissioning in August with members of the Nelson Mandela family, led by Ndaba Mandela, flagging-off the planting of the 95 trees.
Dr. Jibunoh in his drive toward greening the environment through FADE always had the abiding dream of planting the trees. It has been a life-long passion, culminating in the FADE Wall of Trees planted in Makoda Kano in the spirited bid to arrest desert encroachment. He then followed up on January 1, this year when he was accompanied by Governor Fashola of Lagos and other dignitaries to plant 75 trees in Lagos to celebrate his own 75th birthday. The 95 trees Jibunoh is partnering with the Delta State Government to plant in Asaba to mark Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday is the climax of his lifework. He plans to retire to the Mandela Gardens to manage it by himself.
“I will run the park for the rest of my life as the keeper,” Jibunoh says in his Lagos Island Didi Museum office, adding, “My family will have to come and visit me there. They know my passion. It helps that the project is situated at the airport. They can always fly in and fly out. I believe Asaba provides a conducive atmosphere batter than Lagos, London or New York!” He then adds this info: “I’ll build myself a small hut where I will live to keep it.”
Governor Uduaghan will lay the foundation stone of the keeper’s lodge while the enquiry office will also be in the initial works.
The lack of maintenance that almost always bedevils most Nigerian projects would not be the lot of the Mandela Gardens, Jibunoh avers, stressing, “Not only will I manage it fulltime, I will put a succession plan in place devoid of governmental bureaucracy. They will run the place better after my time. Governor Uduaghan gave me 100 percent control over the place.”
Jibunoh revels in the drive of Ndaba Mandela “to mobilize over a billion people all over the world to key in to the Nelson Mandela inspiration.” The Nelson Mandela mystique is seen as an eternal legacy that is forever compelling even if Madiba dies.
“We have to use Mandela to inspire people,” Jibunoh says, pointing at the legend’s picture on the wall of his office. “We used to have Kwame Nkrumah. There is no other Mandela anywhere. He gave the world all he had. He went to prison for 27 years and came out with nothing. He ruled South Africa for only one term of presidency and came out with nothing. That’s the legacy!”
It is therefore incumbent on Dr Jibunoh to mobilize people of the world to think like Mandela. “What did this man not go through in the fight for freedom?” Jibunoh rhetorically asks, shifting on his chair.
Jibunoh feels quite fulfilled that he has a green-loving governor in Dr Uduaghan who supports wholeheartedly the placing of the Mandela Gardens in Asaba. “We are looking for a global institution, and the site of the gardens at the international airport in Asaba gives it the strategic global appeal,” Dr Jibunoh informs.
For Jibunoh, the term “Charity begins at home” was done in reverse order. He was heavily involved in improving other places, notably the Sahara Desert and places like Kano and Lagos before returning to his home locale of Delta State. He mentions the Igbo term and name “Nkeiruka”, stating that what is ahead is greater than the things done earlier. An irrepressible optimist, Jibunoh believes that security challenges such as kidnapping can be solved to make Nigeria a tourist haven, starting with the Mandela Gardens in Asaba.
“There are so many things to challenge the world in Nigeria,” he affirms, nodding. He argues that he had seen it all, from the days of colonialism through the Apartheid years and the Nigerina Civil War. He believes that Nigeria deserves celebration for leading the charge for the freedom of Nelson Mandela and South Africa.
“We lost Barclays Bank and British Petroleum in the Mandela fight,” he says. “Nigeria was a Frontline State. We cannot now be a minor player. This project will re-establish Nigeria as a Frontline State. Our fight was not in vain. Through the Mandela Gardens Mandela will live forever! It will put Nigeria in a different platform.”
Jibunoh points at the irony that people thought that Mandela was only fighting for black Africans, only for it to be discovered at the end that the whites benefited more! According to Jibunoh, “The whites who saw him as a terrorist are now the ones benefitting from Mandela the most!”
To mark the first global celebration of Mandela Day on July 18, 2009, to wit, Mandela’s 91st birthday, a series of educational, art exhibits, fund-raising and volunteer events leading up to a concert at Radio City Music Hall on July 18, were organized by the 46664 Concerts and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Then in November 2009, the United Nations General Assembly formally declared July 18 to be “Nelson Mandela International Day”.
Born Nelson Rolihlahla Dalibunga Mandela in Mvezo, a village near Mthatha in the Transkei, on July 18, 1918, to Nonqaphi Nosekeni and Henry Mgadla Mandela, the man popularly celebrated all over the world as Madiba spent all of 27 years in jail for fighting Apartheid South Africa to a standstill. His head was never unbowed until he was released from prison and won election as the first President of a free South Africa. On the historic day of May 10, 1994 that Mandela was inaugurated as the democratic President of South Africa, the great man said, “We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free. Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward. We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist government. We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world. Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfil themselves. Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world. Let freedom reign.”
He gave the perfect example to sit-tight leaders in Africa and other parts of the world by serving only as a one-tenure President when he had enough goodwill to rule South Africa for life. He handed over voluntarily to his vice-president Thabo Mbeki in 1999, thus laying a solid succession plan for building the South African project. Mandela gave solid support to another stalwart of his party, the African National Congress (ANC), Mr. Jacob Zuma who succeeded Mbeki after winning the South African presidential election.
Mandela lost his father early in life, in 1927, and this made him to take stand to fight like his forebears for the liberation of his homeland. Mandela wrote in his acclaimed autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, that his teacher gave him the name Nelson in his first day in school.
Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 12, 1964. He would spend some 27 years in prison. In March 1982, after 18 years, he was without any explanation whatsoever transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. In December 1988 he was moved to the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl. It was from this prison that he was eventually released on February 11, 1990.
Mandela refused to compromise with the offers of the apartheid regime while in prison, believing that only free men can enter into contracts. After his historic release, in 1991, the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa. Mandela was elected its President while his lifelong friend and comrade, Oliver Tambo, became the ANC’s National Chairperson.
Mandela was awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize together with FW de Klerk. The end of apartheid happened on April 27, 1994, when Mandela “voted for the first time in his life – along with my people.”
Of course Mandela was inaugurated as the first President of a free South Africa on May 10, 1994. He set an example for other leaders by stepping down after one term in 1999. In retirement, he is still the toast of all across the globe. He has set up three foundations: The Nelson Mandela Foundation, The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and The Mandela-Rhodes Foundation. Until very recently his schedule has been relentless.
Mandela married Graça Machel, the widow of ex-Mozambican President Samora Machel, on his 80th birthday in 1998. Mandela can hold his head high for turning South Africa from an erstwhile pariah state to a destination of choice for all humankind. During his tenure the unheralded South African football team, just emerging from a worldwide ban, won the esteemed Africa Cup of Nations on home soil in 1996. The country also won the World Rugby Cup. It is a testament to Mandela’s reach that South Africa successfully staged the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The legend of Mandela can hardly ever be exhausted.
The global icon Nelson Mandela richly deserves the “Mandela Garden of Trees in Asaba” initiated by Dr Newton Jibunoh and supported by the Governor Uduaghan-led Delta State Government.
• Uzoatu writes in from Lagos
United States President, Barack Obama, has praised Nelson Mandela as “an inspiration to the world,” during his visit to South Africa.
BBC says he was speaking in the executive capital, Pretoria, after talks with President Jacob Zuma.
Mr. Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, has been critically ill for nearly a week.
Mr.Obama said he would not visit the 94-year-old in hospital, but would meet his family in private.
The White House said the decision had been made “out of deference to Mandela’s peace and comfort and the family’s wishes”, but that Mr. Obama and his wife would offer the Mandela family “their thoughts and prayers at this difficult time.”
Mr .Zuma said the former leader remained “stable but critical”, but said he had “every hope that he will be out of hospital soon.”
Meanwhile, riot police have clashed with protesters outside a university in the Johannesburg township of Soweto, where Mr. Obama is due to speak to students.
The crowd of well-wishers outside former President Nelson Mandela’s Pretoria hospital continues to grow as the health condition of the global statesman is said to be improving but still in “critical condition.”
On Thursday, 15 buses filled with supporters arrived at the Mediclinic Heart Hospital, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.
Throughout the night, crowds of people from all over the country were singing and praying in spite of the bitterly cold winter weather.
They were given a glimmer of hope on Thursday when President Jacob Zuma who cancelled a trip to Mozambique to remain close, said there had been an improvement in his condition and that he remains in critical but stable condition.
Relatives concurred with this, saying he was “responding to touch and attempting to open his eyes.”
In spite of all the goodwill, Mandela’s eldest daughter Makaziwe Mandela on Thursday expressed her outrage at the media frenzy around her father, describing journalists reporting on her father’s deteriorating health conditions as “vultures.”
“It’s like vultures waiting when a lion has devoured a buffalo, waiting there you know for the last carcasses, that’s the image that we have as a family,’’ she said in an interview with the state broadcaster.
She added that journalists who were camped outside her father’s Pretoria hospital and childhood village in the Eastern Cape “violate all boundaries.”
President Barack Obama, whose tour of Africa this week includes a stop in South Africa, yesterday said his thoughts were with the nation’s citizens as anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela remains critically ill.
“He is a personal hero, but I’m not unique in that regard,” Obama told CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin in Dakar, Senegal, the first stop of his African tour.
“I think he’s a hero for the world and if/when he passes, we know his legacy will linger on throughout the ages,” the president said.
Obama’s visit to South Africa on Saturday will include a visit to Robben Island, where Mandela spent a majority of his prison term. The White House schedule does not include a visit with the anti-apartheid icon.
After South Africa, Obama heads to Tanzania, his last stop before he heads back to Washington.
South Africans lit candles outside the hospital where anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela lay last night as an official who had been briefed in detail on his condition reported the former president was on life support.
Considered the founding father of South Africa’s multiracial democracy, the 94-year-old Mandela has been hospitalised since June 8 for a recurring lung infection.
Authorities have described his condition as critical since Sunday. President Jacob Zuma said earlier Wednesday that Mandela’s condition remained unchanged, South Africa’s national news agency reported.
After visiting Mandela late last night, Zuma canceled his visit today to Mozambique where he was supposed to attend a summit on infrastructure investment, the presidency’s website said.
South African government spokesman Mac Maharaj told CNN that officials are unable to comment on reports that Mandela was on life support, citing doctor-patient confidentiality rules. In a statement issued late Tuesday, the government said Mandela’s doctors “continue to do their best to ensure his recovery, well-being and comfort.”
President Barack Obama yesterday set out on an eight-day trip to Africa aimed at reviving U.S. engagement with the continent but that will be overshadowed by the uncertain health of South African hero Nelson Mandela.
Obama’s trip, his second to the continent as president, will take him to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. While the president hopes to spotlight trade and economic development themes, his visit would be dwarfed if Mandela’s condition takes a turn for the worse.
The 94-year-old former South African president remained hospitalised in critical condition after being admitted more than two weeks ago with a lung infection, the government said on Tuesday.
Air Force One carried Obama, his wife Michelle, their daughters Sasha and Malia, as well as the first lady’s mother, Marian Robinson, and an Obama niece, Leslie Robinson.
Africans feel a special bond with Obama, the first African American U.S. president, and have been impatient for him to make an extended visit to the continent. Africans are also disappointed that the Obama administration has not engaged with the continent as much as the administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Administration officials say the trip is an opportunity to jump-start the relationship. Obama’s first stop will be Senegal, where he will visit Goree Island, the site of a monument to Africans who were sent to slavery in the Americas.
His next stop will be in South Africa, where aides say he will be available to visit Mandela but will defer to the wishes of the Mandela family to determine whether the former South African leader is up to such an encounter.
In South Africa, Obama is due to make a speech outlining his Africa policy at the University of Cape Town, where Robert F. Kennedy gave his famous 1966 address comparing the struggle against apartheid in South Africa with the struggle for civil rights in the United States.
The president will also visit Robben Island, where Mandela and other political prisoners were held, and visit a health clinic.
Obama’s last stop will be in the East African nation of Tanzania, where he will take part in events with business leaders and visit a power plant.
President Barack Obama’s imminent visit to South Africa excited ailing former President Nelson Mandela, his daughter said yesterday.
Zindzi Mandela said she said to her father: “Obama is coming. He opened his eyes and gave me a smile.”
She was speaking after relatives and chief members of Mandela’s clan gathered for a meeting at his rural home in Qunu, Eastern Cape province, yesterday morning.
Among those who arrived at the homestead were his grandson Mandla Mandela and other family members, Thanduxolo Mandela, Ndaba Mandela, and Ndileka Mandela.
A South Africa Press Association correspondent said the meeting followed an “urgent call” reportedly made by the former president’s children and quoted Napilisi Mandela, an elder in the Mandela family, as saying the meeting was being called “to discuss delicate matters.”
The 94-year-old remains in a critical condition, South Africa’s government said Tuesday as relatives gathered at his home for a family meeting that local media reports described as “urgent.”
The anti-apartheid campaigner and democracy icon has been in hospital with a lung infection since June 8. His condition was downgraded over the weekend from “serious but stable” to “critical.”
Obama is due to arrive Senegal this night, his first stop in a tour of Africa, before heading to South Africa on Friday.
Officials have said it is up to Mandela’s family to decide if the former leader is well enough to meet the president, and no meeting is scheduled.
United States Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said: “On the Mandela question, I should have added, we, of course, while we’re in South Africa, are going to be very deferential to the Mandela family in terms of any interaction that the President may have with the Mandela family or with Nelson Mandela. Ultimately, we want whatever is in the best interest of his health and the peace of mind of the Mandela family. And so we’ll be driven by their own determinations in that regard.
“We’ll be in touch with them. The President wants to support them in any way. He’s supporting them with his thoughts and prayers as it is. And if he has an opportunity to see the family in some capacity, that’s certainly something that we may do. And he’ll be going to Robben Island as well, which I think will be an important and powerful symbol at this time when the world has Nelson Mandela in their prayers.
“I would just add that the President has always seen Nelson Mandela as one of his personal heroes. And he was honored — well, first of all, his first political activism, when he was in college, was driven by the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the inspiration of Nelson Mandela. And carrying that forward, he was honored to meet him in Washington in 2005. He was very moved that Nelson Mandela called him after the 2008 election and spoke to him several times in the years.
“The First Family… will visit Robben Island and have the opportunity to take in the remarkable history there and pay tribute to the extraordinary sacrifices made by Nelson Mandela in his pursuit of freedom for the people of South Africa as well as so many other figures in the anti-apartheid movement.”
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Mandela’s other daughter, Makaziwe, said she believed her father was “at peace with himself.”
Asked if the family should “let him go,” she said they wouldn’t because he had not asked them to.
Tuesday’s news of Mandela’s unchanged condition deepened the sense of gloom among a 50-strong crowd of well-wishers gathered outside the Pretoria hospital where Mandela is being treated.
Mingling with television reporters, they strained to hear the details of reports on the health of a man they knows as “Tata Mandala” – Father Mandela.
The perimeter wall of the hospital is now plastered with goodwill messages. Early Tuesday, more than 100 white doves were released – a symbol of peace for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
“It’s a mix of emotion, because he’s feeling pain. But on the other side we want him to survive”, said Nhlanhla Mhlong. “If he cannot survive then we want him to be released from the pain.”
It is a deeply painful time for those closest to Nelson Mandela.
Mac Maharaj was jailed alongside Mandela at Robben Island. Now, as one of the former leader’s official press spokesmen, he must field calls about his friend’s frail health.
“I have to make a conscious effort in this job to put aside my feelings,” Maharaj said.
Makaziwe Mandela, eldest daughter of former South Africa President, Nelson Mandela on Tuesday called for an urgent and important family meeting in Qunu (Mandela’s village), Eastern Cape province, the News Agency Of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
Makaziwe, was accompanied to the family meeting by her sister Zenani and Mandela’s grandson Ndaba as well as Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, the daughter of Walter Sisulu, Mandela’s long standing family friend.
Also at the meeting which is ongoing at the time of filing this report is chief Bhovulengwe, of the Abathembu royal council.
Napilisi Mandela, an elder in the Mandela family, said the meeting is being called to discuss delicate matters pertaining to the anti-apartheid icon, sources close to the meeting told reporters.
Napilisi Mandela usually presides over the family’s meetings and rituals.
According to the sources, such meeting takes place in the Xhosa culture when a family member is critically ill and is at point of death.
It would be recalled that on Sunday, the South Africa Presidency in a statement said that Madiba’s health had deteriorated seriously and that his condition was critical.
There’s been no update on Mandela’s health condition since then.
Meanwhile, a South Africa national newspaper, “City Press” reported that Mandela’s grandson, Ndaba, was seen at what is believed to be his grandfather’s grave site in Qunu on Tuesday.
Some members of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), were seen at the gate of Mediclinic Heart Hospital where Mandela has been on admission since June 8 “releasing white doves into the air.”
ANC sources told reporters that by releasing the white doves, the party members were praying for Mandela’s spirit and wishing him a speedy recovery.
Other South Africans said releasing white doves in African tradition signifies praying for peace in either in the nation or family in whatever situation the country or nation finds itself.