Friday, June 8, 2018
Video - Healthworkers return to work in Nigeria as negotiations with government continue
A Union of Paramedics who led a one and half month long strike to force a pay rise have agreed to resume work while negotiations continue with government. The protest had crippled health care service delivery and escalated fatalities across government hospitals in Nigeria.
Nigeria FIFA ranking drops to 48th ahead of 2018 World Cup
The west African country also dropped to the seventh place in Africa.
Nigeria were on the 47th spot and sixth position respectively in the FIFA rankings and continental football in April and May.
An official statement on FIFA's website on Thursday said the recent flurry of pre-FIFA World Cup friendlies left its mark on the latest rankings.
Nigeria's Super Eagles were beaten 1-0 by the Czech Republic on Wednesday, during a last pre-World Cup friendly played in Austria.
Last Saturday, the team also saw a defeat by the Three Lions of England. The match, played at the Wembley Stadium, ended 2-1.
Nigeria had played a 1-1 draw on home soil against DR Congo on May 28.
Nigeria's World Cup opponents Argentina, Croatia, and Iceland are on fifth, 20th and 22nd positions respectively in the FIFA rankings.
Nigeria will face Croatia on June 16 at the football's greatest showcase.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
The story behind Nigeria's World Cup jersey craze
The kits are a genuine fashion item: there are a couple versions but the favorite features an unripe-lime green in the body with white-and-black sleeves and jagged vertical stripes that are meant to resemble the wings of the team’s mascot, the Super Eagles (but look a little bit like Mario Kart turbo pads). The jersey looks less like a traditional soccer kit than a hyped-up sneaker—particularly the coveted Nike design seen on Acronym’s version of the Vapormax. And the response has been fitting: the jersey has been near-unanimously considered the coolest of this year’s crop ever since it was unveiled in February, and it’s turned from a piece of athletic gear to rarest-provenance streetwear.
Since that February reveal, the jersey’s picked up an alleged three million pre-orders (more on that later), sold out at Supreme box logo speeds, and is now reselling like one of those BOGO tees on the secondary market. Every day ultra-limited sneakers and items from hyped up streetwear brands trade back and forth on secondary platforms like Grailed or StockX, but it’s unusual for a soccer jersey to find its way onto the secondary market. In a World Cup cycle that’s also seen themed releases from Virgil Abloh and Kim Jones, one of the coolest pieces of tournament gear is a regular-degular jersey. How did that happen?
Since that February reveal, the jersey’s picked up an alleged three million pre-orders (more on that later), sold out at Supreme box logo speeds, and is now reselling like one of those BOGO tees on the secondary market. Every day ultra-limited sneakers and items from hyped up streetwear brands trade back and forth on secondary platforms like Grailed or StockX, but it’s unusual for a soccer jersey to find its way onto the secondary market. In a World Cup cycle that’s also seen themed releases from Virgil Abloh and Kim Jones, one of the coolest pieces of tournament gear is a regular-degular jersey. How did that happen?
Great design, to start. But once everyone caught on to the jersey’s appeal—especially in comparison to something like England’s jersey, plain white with a badge on the breast, which was revealed alongside Nigeria’s kit—the shirt was sent through the hype machine. Twitter users were enamored with the jersey and started spreading images of it around, it got picked up on streetwear blogs, and was worn by grime star and stylish man Skepta months before going on sale to the general public.
Then Nike came out and announced that three million people had already bought the jerseys before they were even released. As Quartz notes, analysts were skeptical of those figures since there wasn’t any apparent way to even buy the kits when that was announced—and three million is more than what Manchester United, the most beloved football club in the world, sold in all of 2017. Still, this didn’t stop the internet from going after these jerseys with serious hypebeast passion.
The Nigeria jersey provides a case study in how the streetwear internet works in 2018: cool-looking object gets hyped up endlessly until its coolness is a fact carved into stone. We’ve seen this happen countless times, sure—just not usually with a soccer jersey. But it does feel about time for soccer to have a moment like this. Remember that just a couple years ago Drake Instagrammed himself in a pink jersey from the Italian club Juventus, bumping sales for that particular kit. And soccer has been the inspiration for other designers in the fashion world: Gosha Rubchinskiy collaborated with Adidas on several kits and labels like Versace and Burberry have taken inspiration from the sport in recent collections.
The Nigeria jersey provides a case study in how the streetwear internet works in 2018: cool-looking object gets hyped up endlessly until its coolness is a fact carved into stone. We’ve seen this happen countless times, sure—just not usually with a soccer jersey. But it does feel about time for soccer to have a moment like this. Remember that just a couple years ago Drake Instagrammed himself in a pink jersey from the Italian club Juventus, bumping sales for that particular kit. And soccer has been the inspiration for other designers in the fashion world: Gosha Rubchinskiy collaborated with Adidas on several kits and labels like Versace and Burberry have taken inspiration from the sport in recent collections.
When Abloh released his collection of soccer gear with Nike he noted how the sport had a defined visual identity. “The great thing about the vocabulary and history of football is that aesthetically it has its own look,” he said.
The Nigeria jerseys seem to tap into what designers already knew: soccer is fashion, or at least a sport worthy of being mined for fashion inspiration and turned into luxury soccer scarfs or streetwear-adjacent jerseys. And so why shouldn’t a team have jerseys befitting that status? When the Super Eagles line up against Croatia in Russia next week, they’ll certainly be the best-dressed dudes on the field. And if and when they make their exit from the tournament, they’ll be able to cushion the blow by flipping their jerseys on eBay.
The Nigeria jerseys seem to tap into what designers already knew: soccer is fashion, or at least a sport worthy of being mined for fashion inspiration and turned into luxury soccer scarfs or streetwear-adjacent jerseys. And so why shouldn’t a team have jerseys befitting that status? When the Super Eagles line up against Croatia in Russia next week, they’ll certainly be the best-dressed dudes on the field. And if and when they make their exit from the tournament, they’ll be able to cushion the blow by flipping their jerseys on eBay.
Related stories: Nigeria Super Eagles World Cup kit revealed
Nigeria ranked 16th least peaceful country in the world in Global Peace Index
Nigeria has been ranked the 16th least peaceful country in the world, according to the 2018 edition of Global Peace Index, GPI. The report, released yesterday, ranked Nigeria 148 out of the total 163 countries surveyed.
Iceland is the most peaceful country, closely followed by New Zealand and Austria while Syria is ranked least peaceful, coming after Afghanistan and South Sudan respectively.
Iceland is the most peaceful country, closely followed by New Zealand and Austria while Syria is ranked least peaceful, coming after Afghanistan and South Sudan respectively.
In Sub-Sahara Africa, Nigeria is ranked 40 out of 44 countries, with Mauritius topping the list, while South Sudan is ranked least. According to the report produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, IEP, global level of peace has deteriorated by 0.27 percent in the last year, marking the fourth successive year of deterioration.
It also said the world is “less peaceful today than at any time in the last decade.” It added that 92 countries deteriorated, while only 71 improved. Nigeria is one of such countries, up one place from its 2017 ranking of 149. In 2016, Nigeria was pegged at 149, while the figure was 151 for both 2015 and 2014.
The report said the global economic impact of violence was $14.76 trillion PPP in 2017, equivalent to 12.4 percent of global GDP, or $1,988 per person. The report covers 99.7 percent of the world’s population and uses 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from “highly respected sources” to compile the index.
These indicators are grouped into three key domains: ‘ongoing conflict’, ‘safety and security’, and ‘militarisation.’ All three domains deteriorated over the last year. “There’s been a gradual decline in peacefulness over the last decade,” said Steve Killelea, head of IEP. “The reason for this slow, gradual decline in peacefulness really comes back to the conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, and the spillover effects into other areas.”
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