The Nation Newspaper

Tag: trumpet

  • Messi’s trumpet

    Messi’s trumpet

    Lionel Messi is excited and it is showing in his utterances. Consider the dismissive manner in which he talked about Nigeria’s chances at the Mundial. But the Eagles must take to heart Messi’s observations and shut his trap with another resounding whiplash of Argentina. Dear Eagles, this is a task that must be done, with proper planning, when both teams meet in the last Group D game in Russia. It will be the most exciting photograph to see Messi on the cover pages of newspapers, his face buried in his jersey, after another humiliating defeat. Tough task though.

    Messi used to allow his feet do the talking than be indulged in verbal jibes, which translate to mind games. He is talking now and the world is taking note, so much so that many pundits don’t believe that Nigeria can beat Argentina by the same margin  (4-2) at the Mundial. They agree that the result would have been different if Messi played. No doubt about that, but the difference could have been more goals conceded because the Argentines were awful in the second half.

    I don’t intend to speak for the Eagles. I know the players will prove their mettle when the chips are down. Messi’s message should compel Manager Gernot Rohr and NFF chiefs to prepare well for the June competition. Need I waste space to enumerate Messi’s qualities or his feats as one of the greatest players in the world?

    Aside Messi’s jives at the Eagles, he has raised a fundamental question which should provide insights in doing a comparison of who the greatest player in the world is. The Argentine is thinking of winning the World Cup for his country again. If it happens, he would join the league of soccer greats who won the World Cup, a status Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pele) and Diego Maradona enjoy.

    Messi needs to win the World Cup for his country to first match his compatriot Maradona, a feat which will silence Cristiano Ronaldo, who is the real threat  to the Argentine’s stardom in the 21st Century. Where do we start from in highlighting Messi’s achievements? His records can only be matched by Ronaldo, but he wants to win the World Cup next year to join soccer greats and seal the difference between him and Ronaldo. It will be easier for Messi and Argentina to win the world Cup than Ronaldo and his mates from Portugal. The Argentines have better players than the Portuguese.

    ‘’I hope football will repay its debt. I heard what Jorge Sampaoli said, in fact, he told me himself. I don’t think the pain of the 2014 World Cup final defeat to Germany will ever heal. I think I’m just going to have to live with what happened, it will always be there. The World Cup provides nice memories, but also some very painful ones,’’ Messi told FIFA.com in an interview last week.

    One man who knows Messi’s qualities aside grooming him from youth to stardom is Manchester City FC of England’s manager Pep Guardiola. Pep nurtured Messi from his infancy to glory. He thinks Messi is matchless and shouldn’t be likened to anyone because of the things he does with the ball.

    “I feel sorry for those who want to compete for Messi’s throne – it’s impossible; this kid is unique,’’ Guardiola said, after Messi became Barcelona’s all-time top scorer at 24 in March 2012.

    Ronaldo will be facing Messi for the first time since he was declared the best player in the world by FIFA and France Football awards. But Ronaldo holds the ace in this evening’s encounter, largely because he gives his best when it comes to the big games especially Barcelona.

    “You will go and say that I have a big head, but when you’re at the top, it’s normal that you’re criticised,” Ronaldo told France Football. “I am the best player in history, in both good and bad times.”

    Ronaldo’s and Messi’s pre-match utterances have raised the game’s profile, with everyone expecting a thrilling 90 minutes.

    Messi said: “Titles are our goal. If individual statistics are there also, that’s even better, but they are not the objective.” Indeed, Messi.

    Messi and Ronaldo have four Champions League titles, with Messi’s eight league titles twice higher than Ronaldo’s. This is despite the fact that Ronaldo played for Manchester United FC of England and plays for Real Madrid. The usual head-to-head analysis for such big matches tilts towards Messi, having outscored the Portuguese 19-17, since Ronaldo joined Real Madrid in 2009.

    Tonight, soccer faithful will be glued to their seats around the globe to watch the El Clasico in Spain between Barcelona and Real Madrid. The two characters who make the game the most glamorous in Europe are Messi and his rival Ronaldo. Gamblers would have placed several bets on Messi and Ronaldo to do things such as scoring a goal or two each. Both men serve as the pivot of their teams’ style of play. The winner will be leaving the pitch on Sunday, with the bragging rights of being the better of the two until the return leg game next year. Real Madrid are 11 points adrift Barcelona, but have played a game less due to their participation at the Club World Cup. Barcelona sits on top of La Liga with 42 points. Real Madrid are fourth with 31 points.

    Ronaldo and Messi are talking about the 278th El Classico with interesting comments that have raised the stakes in previous matches. Indeed, words from Real Madrid’s camp suggested that Ronaldo could miss the game against Barcelona. ‘’Cristiano Ronaldo worked separately from the group. Luka [Modric] also trained alone out on the pitch as he continues his recovery process,’’ a club spokesperson said.

    Not many will believe this submission, especially after Rondalo said in subsequent reports on Wednesday: ‘’I felt an issue in my calf in the second half, but I kept playing. For sure on Saturday I will be fine.’’

    Ronaldo takes this game seriously as if his life depends on it. He sees the game as one which real Madrid must win, if it wants to close the gap between the two sides on the La Liga table before today’s game.

    So, who wins tonight’s game? Barcelona’s captain Iniesta’s submission tells the story of what to expect in the 278th El Clasico.

    “That is in the past, we’re in another competition and in a different moment. It’s a completely different game and nothing to do with how we were back then,” Iniesta told Marca.

    “I don’t look at the league table before a ‘Clasico’. They are unique games and form has no impact. We know what’s at stake and we’ll try to take an important step towards winning the league.”

    May the best side win. But it is looking like a draw, if Ronaldo is declared fit by the doctors this morning.

     

    Good luck, for Moses

    The Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) didn’t shock anyone when it dropped Nigeria international Victor Moses from the top three nominees for the African Footballer of the  Year Award. Since the story of the Nigerian’s exclusion broke on Monday, many readers of this column have called to ask if I knew that Moses would be dropped.

    Moses did well for Nigeria, no doubt, but there were other African players who played pivotal roles for their countries en route the Russia 2018 World Cup and at their European clubs.

    Mohammed Salah, Saido Mane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did well for Egypt, Senegal and Gabon in the Mundial. But Aubameyang was awesome for his German side, Borrussia Dortmund last season, scoring 31 goals. Mane and Salah did well in the World Cup qualifiers for Senegal and Egypt. They are both captains of their national teams. They play for the same European club, Liverpool FC of England and all three are strikers.

    Perhaps, being strikers put Mane, Salah and Aubameyang ahead of Moses, who plays from the right wing-back position. Will anyone blame CAF for their decision? After all, the essence of football is scoring goals. It is the reason the fans throng match venues and sit around the world to watch the games.

    The atmosphere is different when goals are scored. Goal scorers get all the attention, not defenders. This is not to say that defenders have not won such awards. Moses has done well. He needs to start scoring goals regularly and pray for an injury-free season. Good luck, Moses.

  • Fearful Trumpet

    U.S. President’s immigration ban portends a world that may fall apart

    French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre once said that “hell is other people.” The United States President, Donald J. Trump, has defined people who are not white, Christian and American as hell. Immigrants who are targets of his new immigration policy see him as hell, too. It is a case of antipodal but ironically intersecting hells, one hell calling the other by the same name.

    In line with his uproarious campaign promise, President Trump slammed a new immigration policy that banned citizens of seven countries for 120 days. The White House said the ban, which it also does not call a ban, was to allow America perform what it calls “extreme vetting” of citizens from those countries that include Somalia, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Yemen.

    Two African countries were singled out. But we know that since the September 11 tragedy characterised by planes burning humans and bringing down the iconic Twin Towers in New York in a photo-finish bloodbath, America has stepped up its security. Somalia and Sudan though have had zero incidents of violence on American soil. So are the other five countries.

    Yet, countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt headlined the major characters in the 911 inferno. Speculations are high that Trump shielded both countries because his investments prosper there. He has entered the crossfire for intermingling American interest with his pecuniary ambition. It is an act of conflict of interest that his biography has thrived on, not only during the campaigns but also since he won the elections.

    Since the policy was unearthed, some Nigerians have wondered what would happen to them. Nigeria is not yet affected, but because of Trump’s promise to swing his bigotry at undocumented aliens, many families are still fretting over their future. How that will unfold depends on the impulses of a man who has shown extreme intolerance for other people. The Clinton campaign showed a greater liberalism towards undocumented immigrants, but Trump is eyeing their criminal records. In the final analysis, it is hoped that he would not harm those who have lived above crime in their American sojourn.

    The chaos that attended the first few 24 hours of the policy shows the Trump administration is running its policies from the hip. The most powerful country with deep entanglements across the world, whether in culture and business, should ponder before action. Some top high-tech companies like Google say their staff are affected.

    It was bad enough that he touched off rage at the airports of international entry into the US from John F. Kennedy Airport to Dulles International Airport. Most of these people already had visas and had been vetted, in some cases for more than two years before they were granted open doors into the United States.

    It led to protests and emotional tumult at the airports in the country and sustained rallies calling the action racist and patently bigoted against Islam. But it shows that elections, as President Obama often said, have consequences. Candidate Trump had promised he would do it and he is. This makes nonsense of the claim that Trump’s supporters took him seriously but not literally and his opponents took him literally but not seriously. Clearly, if we look at what he is doing with Obamacare and his recent telephone tiff with the Mexican President in which he called off his state visit, he has left no doubt that he intends to keep his election promises.

    For a man who has been accused of playing loose with facts, he has shown remarkable integrity with his promises. This makes him all the more dangerous given the breadth and depth of his goals. The plan to build the wall against Mexican immigrants and his economic protectionist goals are resonating ominously as dangers to an interconnected world and prosperity.

    Some judges have played up the legal irrationality of Trump’s decision by stopping them and allowing the visa bearers entry in the country. It shows that, in spite of Mr. Trump’s tendency to authoritarian fiat, institutional checks abound in the system to hold him back.

     We must note that the American government gives room for presidential discretion and it can be exploited by a bully as Trump seems determined to do. But his supporters are emboldened by these hidebound decisions and they are cheering him on.

    His ultra-conservative Neil Gorsuch as replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia shows the direction of extreme right that the administration is pursuing. The Republican Congress, made of men who once resisted his brand of rabble-rousing demagoguery, has been browbeaten by his success in the polls with a cagy surrender to what it sees to a new politics that guarantees them their career survival.

    The first few weeks of Trump’s peremptory “reign” only betokens what many have predicted: an uncertain world. The great irony is that the United States has been for over a century the guarantor of world peace, virtue and harmony. Under Trump, it threatens to be the undertaker.

     

  • Trump and his trumpet!

    SIR: You do not need the services of a run-of-the-mill prophet or parapsychologist on this. Despite his surprise loss at the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump will fly the flag of the Republican Party in the November 4 presidential election in the United States. He will face Hilary Rodham Clinton, former first lady and former US secretary of state who will fly the Democratic Party flag. On November 5, newspapers will carry screaming headlines to tell the story of how Trump was trumped! It really does not matter how anyone feels about it.

    Trump must be a great American patriot! Aside this, he is rich, talks tough and cares no hoot that smiling could be therapeutic. His dour nature, the lack of mirth in his smile whenever he chooses to flash one and his gung-ho outlook makes him the spokesperson of the endangered American extreme far-right! Sadly, the man has proved to be a poor student of history. Like McCain before him, Trump does not even know that his compatriots are increasingly turning their back to stiff necked politicians.

    It is even more intriguing that Trump does not even seem to know that beyond the challenge of global terrorism, the world is getting safer and more Americans believe the world is capable of taking more steps away from the precipice. It is sheer modesty that made critics to classify Trump as an elephant in the room. He is worse than that: place Trump in the Oval Office and the world would be a heartbeat away from a major conflagration! The mere fact that the man aspires to the presidency of the United States of America has turned all of us into emergency prayer warriors.

    And, this is for good reason. Being the American patriot that he is, Trump has vowed to restore what he calls America’s lost glory if he gets elected in November. To that effect, he will, within hours of being inaugurated, throw Muslims out of America, banish Muslims from entering the United States of America and throw out African immigrants especially those from Nigeria because they have taken over jobs meant for Americans. For all Trump cares, it makes no difference that the African immigrants he accuse of taking jobs meant for Americans are products of the normally-high American spirit of competitiveness.

    Of course, Trump will promote a hawkish foreign policy. For instance, he believes the two-state solution to resolve the Arab-Israeli crisis, a major fuel that drives global terrorism, has to be reviewed since it does not guarantee the safety of Israel. If he feels Palestinians are unformed people, as Senator McCain once suggested, Trump was modest not to voice it!

    Trump has also served notice that he will put Iran where it rightly belongs. To do this, the Iran nuclear deal will be fed to the shredding machine because it treated Iran as an ally, instead of an implacable adversary, of the United States of America. He has also sent clear signals to the Russians and Iranians and their allies to the effect that their funny game of propping the shaky government of Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad, will come to grief if he wins the election. And, the man is dead serious!

    There is the temptation to dismiss Trump as a disgruntled, bigmouthed American who has seized the opportunity of the campaigns to vent his bottled-up anger. Otherwise, no serious politician in today’s supposedly civilised and liberal America will glamorise hate speech and display unrestrained love for impunity. Aside the famed American system that has a way of fencing controversial individuals from the White House, it is about time psychiatry tests became a major requirement for the US presidency.

    There is nothing to suggest that Trump is nutty. Just a controversial trumpeter, may be! Fear is, his carriage thus far heightens the prospect of a loaded escapee from a nuthouse getting to talk and, may be, buy his way to the White House.

     

    • Abdulrazaq Magaji,

    Abuja.

  • ‘The trumpet moves me spiritually’

    ‘The trumpet moves me spiritually’

    Biodun Adebiyi, otherwise known as Biodun Batik is not only a lecturer in Dramatic Arts at the Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, he is also one of the most outstanding jazz musicians in the country at the moment.  A prominent Saxophonist, Batik participated in the last Lagos International Jazz Festival, where he shared his experiences, high and low moments as an entertainer, teacher and music instructor and more with Edozie Udeze.  Excerpts

    With the stage name of Biodun Batik, the type characteristic of most jazz musicians, Biodun Adebiyi has indeed moved a bit higher in his career.  A thorough-bred saxophonist, he has been into this sort of entertainment for over fifteen years where he has somewhat carved a niche for himself.

    As a teacher and a molder of characters, he finds it easier to reach out to his people via the melodious rendition of music.  “Yes,” he began with an aplomb of gusto in his voice, “I teach music at the Lagos State University where I answer Biodun Adebiyi.  But while on stage, I am simply known as Biodun Batik.  I have been at the music department of LASU for about thirteen years during which I have encountered and groomed so many students.”

    When Biodun is not too engaged with his students, he runs his jazz band, “when you talk of jazz in this part of the world, or the type of music where you have so many instruments – horns and so on.  That is why Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Professor Laz Ekwueme in his days, all of whom played well.  All these people traveled round the world to play at world jazz festivals.  So, for me, I play African jazz,” he said.

    About his role at the 3rd Lagos Jazz Festival, Biodun was first of all grateful to the organizers for their interest in this genre of music.  “The first edition was in 2008 and I played there.  It was hosted by Ayo Sadare.  And believe me what the guy is doing is great.  Around here, the kind of music he is promoting is not appreciated by many.  Art music, simply put, is music that is not in anyway popular.  This includes Western classical music like jazz.  This also includes Apala music here in Nigeria.  Yet we have the popular ones that the people can always yearn for.  This is a high breed of African, a little bit Western, put together like hippo and all that…  But you see, popular music is popular in principle, theory and in practice.  Popular music attracts the most attention even in all climes of the world.”

    He gave examples with Whizzkid, Davido and the rest whom he described as the rev of the moment.  “The kind of crowd you see here today, if it is Davido or so, it will be more than this.  As a popular music, you only need to do a little advert and people would be here in thousands.  But our own brand of music is for the elite.  It is indeed enlist both in terms of composition and the pattern of presentation.  You must be a real art enthusiast and so to be in tune with jazz music.  It is a music that paints the picture of life through the usage of instruments.  It is to depict the mood and the inner feelings of people.  That is why I said I just feel for Sadare for having the time and the resources to organize this sort of show.”

    Although, to him, jazz music may not be totally Western in terms of origin, Biodun however believes it is a fusion of African percussion.  “Western, African and Afro-Cuban percussion give you the right source for jazz.  They all come together to produce that unique sound that sends people asking for more.  Western instruments and musical form those are the things that come together to give you jazz tunes.  In all you still have the African effect.”

    But must jazz always be made an elitist form of music in every sense?  “Ah, generally, there is no way you cannot make it elitist.  No way.  Let us even talk about some other media, like painting and all that.  Enter where they are doing art exhibition.  All you see are big people, rich men and women.  Hardly you ever see a poor man buying art works.  What will he do with it?  He doesn’t even know the value not to talk of entering an exhibition hall.  This is also the sort of euphoria surrounding jazz music.  So it cannot change, it cannot be made for everybody.

    “At times a jazz musician would be playing, someone like my grandmother in the village would ask; who is this one making noise?  But to the elite, to the informed person, that is good music.  That is why the orientation and appreciation of jazz cannot change.”

    Biodun also elaborated on the role of some traditional instruments that without them jazz ensemble or arrangement is not complete.  “Oh, let me explain this in two ways.  “Historically jazz actually started as an acoustic sort of music.  Acoustic because when jazz music started, some instruments were hard to come by.  So, then, you had double bass, then you have fido bass.  You have trumpet, you have drums, you have banjo.  So, you also have piano.  These are the basic ones that give the rendition its proper blend.  These are instruments you don’t electrical connect to play on stage.  And that was how jazz started.  People like Louis Amstrong, King Oliver, then gave new phase to jazz.  They are the masters of all times.”

    As a trumpet player, Biodun revealed that once he handles the instrument he is in another world.  “Trumpet appeals to me spiritually.  Of course I started from the church.  The oldest instruments, even when you check the Bible is the trumpet.  It was used to fall the wall of Jericho.  That shows you how powerful it is and that is what it does to me when I handle it.  It touches my heart; or moves me both physically and spiritually.”

     

  • Why I don’t blow my trumpet, by Orji

    Why I don’t blow my trumpet, by Orji

    Abia State Governor Theodore Orji said yesterday he has not been blowing his “trumpet of performance” because he believes in working quietly for the people.

    In a statement by his Special Adviser on Public Communication, Ben Onyechere, the governor explained that because of his efforts, Abia State has avoided devastating floods that hit have other states.

    The statement reads: “Abia State is known as major flood-prone area but we are thankful to God that we are not witnessing the kind of devastation in other states that are susceptible to aggressive flooding, given the fact that our roads are affected by the climatic change.

    “The governor has deployed many options at tackling infrastructure challenges, particularly the impending demolition of illegal structures.

    “The negligence, which was perpetrated by the former administration, held the state hostage through powerful media hypnosis without anything to show.

    “This can also be complementary to the senseless war of attrition waged by the previous administration against the Olusegun Obasanjo-led Federal Government for which the state is paying dearly now in more ways than one.

    “But despite the shortcoming resulting from a lack of foundation and vision by the previous government for development, Governor Orji is undaunted. He wants to make history as not only the man who rescued Abia State from bondage of sorts but also as the one who brought the state into limelight.

    “This is the reason he is adhering to a well articulated road map for the achievement of set goals, which can be verified and measured.”

    The statement noted that the governor is “building a new Government House, which is surrounded by infrastructure befitting of a state capital of many years”.