Conversations, Obasanjo, Lee Evans, Ojeagbase, Lanipekun – All In One ‘Crazy’ Week

Segun Odegbami

I could not write my column in the newspapers last weekend because the week was ‘crazy’.

The first in the series of ‘The Conversations’ at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, was held. It was a resounding success that took a great toll on my slowly but steadily ageing body.

Three of the four specially invited international speakers from Tanzania and the United States of America, made it to the event on Thursday, February 2022 – Professor Ikaweba Bunting, Idorenyin Uyoe and Ron Davis. The fourth, Ron Freeman, the legendary African American athlete, Olympic Gold and Bronze medallist, social activist and humanitarian, could not come as a result of complicated Covid-19 requirements.

Otherwise, the spirit of pan-Africanism was raised from the dead, the fire rekindled, and the combination of Sports with Diplomacy doing what the Arts and Culture ‘failed’ to achieve with FESTAC ’77 has become a real possibility.

The second in the series of strategic colloquiums shall take place on Thursday, June 24, 2022, in continuation of the Black and African renaissance through the instrumentality of Sports. Mark the date, as Africa embarks on in this new journey to awareness and liberation, through the NIIA.

Two days after that event, on Saturday, February 26, the international visitors were in Abeokuta for breakfast with former Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who, as Head of State between 1976 and 1979, played historic roles in shaping the foundations of Sports Diplomacy in the world, and has been credited since then with responsibility for accelerating the end of Apartheid in South Africa, installing late Nelson Mandela as the country’s First Black President, massively supporting the liberation