Obasanjo Quietens as Buhari's Sword Dangles.

Ex head of state, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has suddenly gone quiet in his public spats with President Muhammadu Buhari. And for good reason. He knows Buhari is a no-nonsense army general and will not hesitate to move against him if only to show the whole world and his critics he does not believe in sacred cows and is not afraid of anybody. The sword of Damocles, read

Buhari

Obasanjo

Buhari, hangs low, ominously over him. Obasanjo was thrown off his strides by the sudden bringing up of the power projects quagmire by Buhari when the Buhari Support Organization paid him a courtesy call. The whole project and the sleaze that came to accompany it was the major black spot of his administration and there was no way he was going to wash his hands clean of it if it comes to judicial scrutiny. And the penalty could be severe. Two long-running cases of graft have of late ended in disaster for Rev Jolly Nyame, ex-governor of the north-eastern state of Taraba, who was sentenced by an Abuja court to 14 years in prison and Joshua Dariye, ex-governor of the nearby state of Plateau, who also bagged the same prison term. All to the glee of Nigerians, who want more big fishes nabbed by the hook of anti-corruption. Obasanjo is 80 and a single day in prison for him is going to be more than a disaster.  And recent history is not on his side. Lula, Brazil's former president has just been sent to prison to corruption and the sky has not split into two. Close aides have been advising him to pipe low as Buhari will just send him to prison for nothing and cronies now loud will not hesitate to abandon him and let him stew in his own juice.
Yet Buhari does not even need to arrest him or send him to jail. He only needs to set up a probe panel and that would be enough to finish Obasanjo. His enemies, who are legion will only be too glad to come to such a panel with sacks of indictments genuine or ludicrous. Many Nigerians will not be able to tell the difference, besides, having suffered terribly at the hands of corruption, they will not care to put accusations to much scrutiny. A probe will be a public, kangaroo trial for Obasanjo and he will hardly get any justice. $16b was wasted on the power projects, perhaps the largest single case of corruption ever in Africa, without a single wink of electricity to show for it and there is no way he is going to escape censure, even though no single instance of graft has been traced to him directly. The whole mess happened under his long watch of 8 years and the buck stopped on his table. It will be very difficult for him to handle the noise, the mayhem, the opprobrium such a probe will spew into the political space.
SAUDI ARABIA GETS A BLOODY NOSE.
The opening match of the current edition of the World Cup going on in Russia has seen Saudi Arabia ship in 5 goals against the host country, making an average Russian team play spectacularly. That is why the tournament is a World Cup and not a cup for the best gladiators. Otherwise a lot of folks will start querying the injustice of Italy staying behind at home and Saudi Arabia attending the tournament. In world football, Saudi Arabia is a midget and Russia is not itself oversized but the Saudis turned them into giants overnight.
Luis 'the snake' Suarez misbites.
The World Cup match between Uruguay and Egypt has just ended. The first half was cagey but the two teams came out in the 2nd half more adventurous and that section was more noteworthy for Luis Suarez's two glaring misses. He might have been more restrained in biting with his teeth but his biting feet seems to have been in remission with that disinclination. That is the stuff of which genius is made of at any rate and we expect him to be sharper in coming matches. In tight matches like this, a half chance might be all that is needed and Uruguay was grateful to seize it via a header by Athletico Madrid's Gimenez. Egypt will have to improve in the final third in subsequent matches.

Luis 'the snake' Suarez.

Why Zinade will not miss Real Madrid.

Few, very few, managers seem to be interested in the Real Madrid job, thrown wide open with the sudden, unsurprising surprise resignation of Zinedin Zidane. Sisyphean jobs, which the position has become, are hardly appealing. No sooner do you roll the huge, taxing stone of success to the top than it rolls down and you start all over again, heckled to heavens by a mean, taxing, vociferous crowd Charles Dickens himself would have found confounding. For a start, the manager is a workman whose tools and parts, horribly expensive tools and parts, had been assembled by the workstation and he is expected to perform miracles with what he has been provided. It might be that the parts may not fit in with the design and machine he has in mind, it may be that a part may turn out bigger than the whole, the disharmony does not really matter, he is expected to proceed pell-mell. After all only a lazy or uninventive workman complains about his tools. And if he sets about his task with zeal and determination and eventually wins a trophy, his situation even gets the more complicated. Another tournament, another competition is just around the corner and he must reprise the whole regimen of success again, as if he was in continual duel with competitors in eternal slumber or inertia: folks not facing the pressure of winning from their own supporters too. And if you think that is the end of the intricacy, you aint seen nothing yet.The definition of success itself, among the fan base, may turn out to be very maddening. For some, it may be Zidane winning the La Liga, or winning the Champions League three times in a row, or winning the World Club Cup. A combination of all that may still not assuage some sections of the crowd. Zidane won the eternal enmity of some fans who vowed never to forgive him for that chaffing 3-0 home defeat to Barcelona in the league. It does not really matter that Real Madrid loses to a team at the 19th position of the table, it may not matter that they have not won a trophy for three seasons, the cardinal sin might be losing to bitter rivals, read enemies, such as Barcelona or Athletico Madrid. At the Bernabeu, there are so many segments of the crowd to appease. The New York Giants, a team of comparative size in American or gridiron football have not been NFL champions since 2012 and no major upheaval have been recorded at the club as a result of this. Real Madrid have been champion of Spain and three times master of Europe in the same period and that is not appeasing many fans. It was just like appeasing Hitler: the more territories dignity you conceded, the more his appetite got whetted for greater capitulation. Heavens will not fall if the same New York Giants loses to city rivals, New York Jets, it will not fall too in Madrid if Real loses to Athletico, but the coach will certainly feel something very heinous falling on his head.
Zidane might have felt it was not possible for him to go beyond his unprecedented success at the club and so decided: not to throw in the towel, or quit when the ovation was loudest, but to simply shock the shockers. Many other great managers: Mourinho, Ancelotti, Benitez have left under less propitious circumstances and one could conveniently argue the club is getting its just desserts. More so that many big names being bandied about such as Pochettino and Loew do seem to be all that eager to be associated with the job. The logic is very simple. Many of them may just feel that replicating Zidane's  achievements at the club may be tasks too tough for health. And after that? Still being put against the ropes by an insatiable fan base.
The latest is ex-legend, Raul Gonzalez. Why not?  Doing another Zidane might be the only option left for the club? But even then many are already thinking Gonzalez might be too fragile for the job. Every manager, in any sporting club, works under one pressure or the other. The urge to win is what drives sports, especially football. Hence he is virtually working in a cauldron, the fire continually stoked by fans. In Real Madrid, it is an inferno that they stoke.
  

New York Giants

Raul Gonzalez

Zinedin Zidane