The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Attacks: Where is Monguno?

    Attacks: Where is Monguno?

    Last Thursday, members of the House of Representatives, while vehemently proposing that the National Assembly be shut down to force President Muhammadu Buhari to wake up to his responsibility of ensuring the protection of life and property in Nigeria, asked a question that has been on the lips of millions of Nigerians for months now.

    Many of the legislators who spoke on what they described as the terrible state of security across the country, demanded to know the whereabouts of National Security Adviser (NSA), Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd). Some even rhetorically wondered whether he had resigned his position.

    Eventually, a lawmaker called for the resignation or sacking of Monguno, saying he should have been fired along with the last set of service chiefs. Emotions ran high in the chamber during the extended debate on growing insecurity in the country.

    Sentry gathered that other items on the Order Paper for the day, which contains the agenda for each plenary, were stepped down while the lawmakers, mostly members of the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC), spent over one hour criticising the NSA and security agencies, while asking Monguno to ‘go home and rest.”

    A member described his tenure as the worst in the history of security crisis in the country and asked his colleagues to ensure something is done urgently.

    “Where is the NSA? Where exactly is Monguno? I believe that the security chiefs are, overwhelmed in this situation. Something drastic has to be done. Let us not wait until we are completely overwhelmed,” he said.

  • APC, PDP and Nigeria’s free fall

    APC, PDP and Nigeria’s free fall

    EXCEPT for anyone living in a veritable fool’s paradise, the stark truth is that Nigeria today is in free fall. The existential conditions of millions of Nigerians are horrendous. The country stands at the very precipice of disaster threatening to implode at any time with an amazingly distracted political class inexplicably incapacitated to do anything about it. This is certainly not being alarmist. In a recent report, for instance, the World Bank states that poverty reduction has stagnated over the last decade with more and more Nigerians continuously falling below the poverty line. The number of poor Nigerians is projected to hit 95.1 million in 2022.

    Beyond the coldly informal figures offered up by economists and statisticians, the reality and pervasiveness of poverty stare Nigerians in the face on a daily basis. Inflation spirals and urban food prices in particular spike relentlessly. In the face of what has become the latest incident in a repeated cycle of national grid collapses, the entire nation has in recent weeks been plunged into virtual darkness. Following the inexcusable paralysis of the governing class since 1999 to ensure an efficiently and transparently run local petroleum sector predicated on functioning domestic refineries, the prodigal importation of refined petroleum products has hit the country with a recurrent petroleum scarcity crisis; a situation worsened by the importation of contaminated fuel for which there is obviously no intention by the authorities to sanction those responsible.

    The irresponsibility of the governing elite and the resultant import-dependent petroleum sector has made the country ill-prepared for the implications of the unforeseen Russian-Ukraine war with the consequent skyrocketing of diesel prices. This is in turn having ripple negative effects on critical sectors of the economy particularly manufacturing with further deleterious consequences for already astronomical unemployment figures. Even as the political class, governors, and ministers, for instance, are decidedly focused on the pursuit of power and political offices come 2023 to the marginalization of meaningful governance, the bandits, terrorists, and assorted criminal elements are decidedly focused on their dastardly mission of killing, stealing and destroying; an objective towards which they are continuously varying their modus operandi. Ekiti State governor and Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), Dr. Kayode Fayemi, hit the nail on the head in his response to the terrorist attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train when he said, “First, as leaders, we owe the victims and their relations an apology as these unwarranted acts of violence are becoming too regular and they basically question our collective capacity to govern.”

    True, the flames of the Boko Haram- insurgency in the North-East have been considerably doused while the hitherto fiercely marauding killer-herdsmen appear to have been checkmated to a reasonable degree. But this week’s terrorist attack on the Abuja-Kaduna rail and the attendant deaths, injuries, and kidnappings; the earlier breach of the Kaduna Airport by terrorists who even prevented an aircraft from taking off indicates that the criminals are extending their tentacles beyond roads to make other avenues of transportation as unsafe and hazardous as the roads. Beyond this, as those in power adamantly and obtusely keep the country’s security architecture unitary and inflexible for a complex, plural polity, considerable swathes of space succumb to the sovereignty of the denizens of the underworld as pervasive armed robbery, kidnapping, banditry, rape, endemic ritual killing, communal upheaval, and cybercrime among others become the norm.

    The gross devaluation of human life and fragility of property across the land make nonsense of the otherwise impressive strides of the APC administration in the modernization and expansion of infrastructure.

    When he appeared on a Channels Television programme a few weeks ago, the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir ‘el -Rufai, was asked if, given current socio-economic and political indices, the APC had not disappointed most Nigerians as regards its promised change in 2015. He admitted that the party had indeed not largely lived up to the expectations of Nigerians but expressed optimism that a majority of the people would still prefer the APC when its performance is compared to the failings of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the preceding 16 years when the seeds of the current malaise were sown. On his part, the tempestuous Rivers State governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike, when he featured on the same programme this week, wondered why, if the PDP was as bad, incompetent, and corrupt as portrayed by the APC in 2015, the latter has filled its critical party and elective offices with PDP decampees. What, he asked, has the APC done to remedy the alleged wrongs of the PDP after almost eight years in power, reasoning rather that conditions in the country have worsened under the current ruling party.

    It is an ultimately sterile debate, an unproductive journeying in cycles. As the fluidity with which their members move from one to the other in a ceaseless game of musical chairs shows, it is obvious that both parties are two sides of the same coin. Apart from astonishingly cloning the PDP structurally, stylistically, and philosophically, the APC has scandalously squandered the opportunities to impact positively on governance and the well-being of Nigerians in the last seven years just as recklessly as the PDP did in the preceding 16. That is why I have argued in this space that rescuing Nigeria from her current free fall cannot be accomplished by either party as currently constituted. But since there is no other party reasonably within sight with the organizational spread and structural reach capable of effectively competing with the two in national elections, for now, the only hope of salvation for Nigeria is the emergence in the 2023 polls of a candidate on the platform of either with the vision, competence, demonstrated network, courage and proven track record of capacity to run an inclusive government, think creatively, strategically and out of the box as well as do things differently. It will be a contest between candidates, not parties.

    In the alternative, the APC and PDP will continue with their game of unproductive musical chairs, succeeding each other after a number of electoral cycles, with the country pushed closer and closer to the brink due to incompetent and venal governance until there is an implosion and final blackout. Or the impotence and imperviousness to change of the two behemoths may worsen to the extent that progressive social forces including labour, activist civil society groups, the impoverished peasantry, and radical academia are compelled to coalesce and organize politically for power through the ballot box. Their last National Conventions confirm that the two parties are essentially vast election fighting machines which special interests perennially struggle to capture in a bid to assume state power at different levels with little or no detailed policy plans on how to utilize such power to achieve radical socio-economic and structural transformation of the country.

    The PDP was formed essentially to displace and replace the military in 1999. It had no notion of what to do differently with power. The party for 16 years thus implemented the same neo-liberal structural adjustment economic policies pursued by preceding military regimes. The APC was cobbled together as a coalition to dislodge the PDP at the center in 2015. Once it achieved its objective, there was little it did differently from the PDP in terms of fundamental policy change. The APC has even been largely served by the same economic technocrats and advisers that the PDP relied on.

    Efforts by the executive and legislature of various governments at the national level since 1999 to find solutions to the country’s multi-dimensional crises have hardly made any meaningful headway. This is because their actions and policy initiatives hardly sprang from well-defined party platforms and manifestos embodying a clear ideology and philosophical framework. The input of the party as the most critical factor in policy conceptualization to which governments elected on its platform must be bound was the secret of the Action Group (AG) and Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN)’s phenomenal successes in the first and second republics as we will see next week. Organizing and running a political party is no tea party. A party organized to win political power without a distinct and well thought out plan of what to do with it in terms of rigorously articulated policies and programmes is no party but a rally.

  • NFF: It is finished (1)

    NFF: It is finished (1)

    It is finished. A pattern has unwittingly followed Nigeria’s path towards seeking a World Cup qualification ticket since our debut in 1994, but we have been blinded by our emotions and refusal to evaluate the reasons for the downward trends. That way we can proffer enduring solutions and not resort to finding scapegoats for cancer that is endemic. I hope we don’t tow that undesirable path again with the country’s failure to qualify for the 2022 World Cup slated for Qatar in November. We can’t change the narrative of our football problems when we continue to allow a warp system to produce those who run the country’s football.

    And it starts with – who is in charge of the game? What are his antecedents in the game? What kind of work has such a candidate been doing in the last decade? Modern-day football is business-oriented. Therefore, whosoever wants to be an NFF member or president should be a trusted and tested business-minded, proficient and successful entrepreneur who understands the intricacies of running a business for profits.

    We should change the way we conduct elections into offices in the federation such that we have enlightened people as members. That way, discussions at meetings are robust and no person runs the rule over others. In Nigeria, it is the same cycle of people who ‘fight’ to be elected every four years including those who had served at the NFA or NFF in the past. Don’t you think we should ask what did they forget in the place? For those habitual contestants, the question would be what they have done for the game in their states of origin or Local Government Areas (LGAs)  to necessitate their quest to administer the game at the centre?

    You can’t go to the well and expect to fetch clean water. Nor does anyone expect to bring back water using the basket. The problem with our football is systemic such that the cabal ruining the game here has made it impossible for anyone outside the system to vote or be voted for. Such a system that disfranchises eminent Nigerians from administering the game is heading for doom – which is where we are again. And not for the first time. We should find a Nigerian way of getting people into the federation without flouting FIFA’s rules which are working in the other 208 federations. For the records, there are 209 nations in FIFA.

    If it means asking those eager to run for the offices in NFF to face painstaking examinations to be conducted by firms versed in such an exercise, so be it. This process should help filter out ineligible people. This setting where half-bakes constitute the NFF rubs off on the quality of ideas being churned out to administer the game. The corporate world would be willing to identify their goods and service with the beautiful game in Nigeria if the faces they see on the NFF board are men and women of proven integrity. Firms’ cash belongs to the public. They must, therefore, be careful how they deploy their resources such that the shareholders can smile at the end of each fiscal year.

    In 1994, Nigeria debuted at the World Cup in the United States of America (USA). Nigeria attended the next World Cup in 1998 in France and then the Japan/Korea World Cup in 2002. The twists and turns from undertakers of the game as we are seeing now ensured that Nigeria’s flag wasn’t hoisted among the comity of nations in Germany in 2006. Nigeria returned to the World Cup in 2010 at the aptly tagged Africa Mundial hosted in South Africa with all the undertakers going after the men who ruin (sorry) the men who ran the game then. Nigeria was at the 2014 World Cup riddled with crises in the Super Eagles with the top four members taken before the court, although the four men were discharged acquitted of the allegations levied against them and then the Russia 2018 World Cup.

    For Nigeria to compete with the other 208 nations, we must resolve the issue of membership in the federation. We should set targets for them with timelines which we should evaluate in order to make the right decisions to avert what happened inside the MKO Abiola Stadium in Abuja on March 29. The new NFF should have qualified members in their working committees such that there would be the right synergy to articulate their ideas brought forward to be implemented by the board. The new NFF should routinely make wise and simple decisions based on recommendations from their different sub-committees.

    The Senegalese are number one in Africa. The West African country has a population of about five million people but is ranked 18th in the world, with its dominance in world football cutting across age groups and cadre – male and female soccer. The Senegalese who exited the Korea/Japan World Cup in 2002 as quarter-finalists in their debut appearance,  have some of the best youth soccer facilities in the continent and have religiously churned out talents who have held their own against the Europeans as Nigerian stars do weekly in Europe. A Mundial appearance for the Senegalese would be the third time in their history and the first time they would be qualifying for the senior World Cup consecutively (back-to-back).

    Sadly, Nigeria with a population of over 200 million people and the largest exporter of footballers in the world to Europe, the Americas and the Diaspora is ranked third in Africa and 30th in the world. The domestic league is in chains. Talks of a Supreme Court judgment about the change in the narrative of how the league should be run looms large with undertakers unperturbed as they drift down into the abyss.

    Every World Cup year, NFF is always at the centre of the storm with those angling for positions in the next board spoiling for a needless fight. The spiral effect of this war without end from the stake breakers puts the country’s World Cup qualification in a quandary. It is part of the reasons no board, no matter how successful their tenure was returned to office after their first service lapsed. Only Amaju Pinnick-led board broke the jinx and since then the members have known no peace.

    Indeed, every new board becomes worse than its predecessors. The promises made on election day became a mirage and those in the past who were complaining about their business being ruined as a result of their NFF membership conspired with their ilk to pull the roof down – including resorting to endless court cases but few judgments. The country’s soccer nose-dived with our teams across gender losing matches. Nigeria lost the fear factor in which others regarded us. Not much attention was paid to these markers for as long as the Super Eagles won their matches. A little thought was given to the Super Falcons, easily the country’s best soccer team in ranking and winning titles. Age grade teams fell like a pack of cards at continental levels with reason for the decline attributed to the federation’s insistence that the coaches fielded the kids with the correct ages.

    Many clapped at the new dawn but refused to urge the federation to look inwards from the 774 Local Government Areas instead of storming Europe in search of Nigeria-born kids. Such short cuts in strengthening the national teams literarily crippled the domestic game. And with Super Eagles manager being Europeans, visiting league venues looked like going to the beach to relax. With Nigeria’s exit from Qatar, it is important to appeal to the federation to use the next four years to develop the game at the grassroots where specialised coaches are sent to the 774 LGAs to teach the youth  how to play the game correctly.

    It won’t be out of place to use funds earmarked for the botched Qatar World Cup participation to inject life into the domestic league such that in the next two years, at least three world class goalkeepers would have emerged to plug the lapse of poor goalkeeping noticed in the Super Eagles.

  • Consensus on APC convention podium

    Consensus on APC convention podium

    Consensus now has different connotations.

    To the old breed, it is the selection of candidates through mutual agreement; a collective decision ratified by all and sundry without a dissenting voice. To that extent, it could be described as the cult of agreement and amity.

    However, to the younger generation, particularly the emerging and impatient political class, consensus is imposition. It is misunderstood as systematic exclusion, dictatorship and violation of internal democracy.

    Since election is not involved, they believe it is a disservice to competitive electoral process.

    But, either in the past or currently, consensus is acknowledged as a mode, which makes its alternative, the direct primary, more compelling, if it is rejected.

    It is more or less a product of convention and hitherto time-tested procedure that cannot be trusted in all circumstances.

    The debate on its suitability is on the front burner, following the recent All Progressives Congress (APC) national convention in Abuja. The brand of consensus by coercion or compulsion adopted by the ruling party upset many aspirants for party positions. To observers, it was akin to consensus under duress.

    Consensus is not new in contemporary Nigerian politics. It worked perfectly in the past and the process was devoid of acrimony and tension.  Even, in pre-colonial traditional settings, princes were picked as successors to the throne in the days of yore through mutual agreement among the contenders. The goal was to avoid strife and rancour.

    Old political warhorses still around would attest to the pre-eminence of consensus as a mode of selection that fostered unity in the past. In the pre-independence era, it was in vogue in the three, and much later after independence, four regions. Consensus is perceived as a better process for selecting candidates for party offices and general elections, where possible and practicable.

    The only limitation is that, once there is a dissenting voice, the alternative, which is election, either direct or indirect, is adopted.

    The main element of consensus is mutual agreement. Before the demise of first generation parties – the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), Action Group (AG) and National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) – the agreement was not necessarily between or among aspirants for parliamentary tickets, but agreement among the  wise men; dependable and respected party leaders who, as moral voices, made the right and patriotic decisions for the platforms.

    The pattern of leadership recruitment and followership enlistment was dictated by the party. In the defunct AG, led by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, only well known, reputable and loyal members were qualified to seek the ticket.

    Criteria for selection through consensus included age, education, job qualification or what was referred to as second address, party membership, good character, involvement in community and intra-party activities, belief in the party’s ideology, hierarchy or seniority, sacrifice and loyalty to the platform. Curiously, money was not a criterion, because the tickets were not for sale to the highest bidder.

    Once these criteria were set, the best were picked for the regional or parliamentary elections. Other aspirants, while bidding for their time, would return to the party to work harder. Few aspirants, who were not picked, could rebel by standing for election as independent candidates. Poll results in those days could be predicted with accuracy. The rebellious aspirants who opted for independent candidacy often lost their deposit at the poll.

    The First Republic was terminated by the military coup of 1966. Thirteen years later, although AG had metamorphosised into the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), consensus became somehow outdated and unpopular. Many dismissed it as preferential treatment or tacit imposition by the gerontocrats. Therefore, Awolowo and other party leaders reluctantly adjusted to the intense intra-party agitations for further democratisation of primaries. Indirect primary or delegate mode was adopted. Their subsisting fear was the likely invasion of some moneybags with an intention to buy or hijack the tickets. But, it never happened in the UPN. It also never happened in the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and Great Nigerian Peoples Party (GNPP).

    In the Third Republic, the new breed perceived consensus as old fashioned. Under the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC), there were stiff competitions for party offices and tickets for elections. The contests drew the SDP on edge at the party convention when Mohammed Arzika and Baba Gana Kingibe clashed. The race for party chairman was hot. But, unlike consensus, where few party leaders would meet to decide the fate of contenders and the entire party, party representatives or delegates chose candidates on behalf of the vast party membership.

    During governorship, state and federal parliamentary and presidential primaries, indirect primaries were adopted. The process was acknowledged to be more open and transparent than consensus. There were two parties. Party members queued behind their preferred candidates at shadow polls. However, the Third Republic was aborted.

    In 1998/99, the Afenifere/NADECO/Alliance for Democracy (AD) leaders were disposed to consensus in the Southwest. Primaries were held, but the push towards consensus was stronger.

    More of consensus by party elders, and less of direct primary, produced Olusegun Osoba who triumphed over Femi Okurounmu in Ogun State;  Bisi Akande, who was preferred to Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa and Iyiola Omisore in Osun; Lam Adesina in Oyo; Ade Adefarati in Ondo and Niyi Adebayo, who was preferred to Samuel Kolawole in Ekiti.

    In Osun, Akande never vied for governor. But, in a dramatic manner, the AD leader, Chief Bola Ige, anointed and pronounced him as an aspirant.

    Why consensus by illustrious founding fathers could not be faulted was that there was no deviation from their set rules. The political leaders were in one accord. Aspirants were assessed based on the set criteria.

    Besides, the criteria or the standard they gladly set had predictive values. Those selected by consensus usually ended up in parliaments and State Houses as high performers. They lived to expectation in public offices.

    In those previous dispensations, after victory, elected public officers regarded themselves as products of the party. They subscribed to the doctrines of party supremacy and discipline.

    Why the fuss about consensus, when APC’s constitution actually makes provisions for it?

    It is because of the way and manner they went about the process.

    Many aspirants complained about consensus at gunpoint. It was a special case of ambush. Some complained to reporters that they were not aware of any consensus before and after they bought and submitted their forms. There was no wider consultation after leaders had made up their minds on some candidates.

    Many aspirants begun their campaigns, traversing their regions. They were targeting votes from delegates, not knowing that they have been excluded.

    The ruling party had postponed the convention, which it never really prepared for. Therefore, to meet the provisions of the Electoral Act, it was conducted hurriedly.

    Six national chairmanship aspirants, including Tanko Almakura, Abdulaziz Yari, George Akume, Saliu Mustapha, and Sani Musa, campaigned round the country. Governors who now own the party never adopted or endorsed any of them. Instead, they went to President Muhammadu Buhari to endorse a consensus chairman.

    The President requested for the list of aspirants. Then, he rejected the six and suggested Abdullahi Adamu. Initially, the governors packaged a feeble resistance. The Commander-in-Chief insisted on his choice. Later, the six aspirants embraced reality. Who are they to dare the President?

    Two things were clear. One, consensus was proposed. But, the agreement required to drive the idea was absent. The aspirants could not agree among themselves to support a candidate. The governors who wanted to reassure the President of their collective loyalty could not agree on a candidate. The President proposed a beneficiary of consensus. Although other aspirants and the governors grumbled, Buhari had his way.

    It was after the President insisted on Adamu that many governors started struggling to have the phone numbers of someone who would be their chairman for the next years.

    Two, taking a cue from the President, governors too insisted on nominating ‘consensus’ candidates for other party offices zoned to their regions and micro-zoned to their states. The Unity List was elusive.

    The battle shifted to the regions. There was commotion. Time was too short to iron out issues at that level. Old cleavages resurfaced. It was CPC versus ACN, or CPC versus PDP or CPC versus ANPP.

    Unable to resolve the logjam at the regional level, the antagonistic gladiators carried their battles to the convention. Tension engulfed the party. Although all the chairmanship aspirants agreed to step down for Adamu, many aspirants for other party positions refused. A few of them went to the podium to deny stepping down for rivals.

    To evade a grand elective convention, which it was not adequately prepared for, APC attempted to whip recalcitrant aspirants into line. The Election Committee resorted to blackmail, telling aspirants who refused to step down that they risked losing the election and forfeiting a refund of their nomination fees.

    The threat underscored the display of immaturity by the Election Committee. Thus, tempers rose. While some young aspirants panicked, older and experienced gladiators were unperturbed.

    In the Southwest, reason later prevailed over emotion. Elderstatesman Aremo Olusegun Osoba, former governor of Ogun State, saved the region from embarrassment. He was able to pacify aspirants for national secretary-Bayo Shittu and Aberdeen Olaiya- to step down for Iyiola Omisore.

    The Electoral Act has tied the hands of political parties and their leaders. Consensus implies an agreement among contenders who are expected to write a letter of withdrawal from the race. If this is not done or an aggrieved contestant goes to court due to exclusion or marginalisation, the exercise may be declared null and void by the temple of justice.

    The scenarios cast doubt on the efficacy of consensus in APC. Although the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) succeeded in selecting former Senate President Iyorchia Ayu as consensus chairman, the ruling party failed to put its house in order.

    During party conventions and primaries, political parties must brace up for the challenge of political participation. The slots, relative to the number of aspirants, are usually few. Screening is important. But, it should be fair and credible.

    It is not proper to tell aspirants to ‘go and sit down’ after paying millions for forms and preparing for election, only to be told that the party has opted for consensus. It is worse when they are not consulted or carried along, their opinions are not sought and the elements or circumstances warranting the option are not properly explained to them. If there is no involvement in the discussions or decisions on consensus, collective commitment may be difficult.

    There is nothing wrong about consensus. But, the process should be followed. It is often difficult for many party leaders to respect the procedure. Instead, they may resort to blackmail, intimidation, oppression and suppression. This is the crux of the matter.

    The implication is that APC needs to have a rethink about consensus in the future. If it failed at the convention during the election of party officers, can it be successfully adopted during the party’s presidential primary?

  • Leadership, security and apologies

    Leadership, security and apologies

    Apologies  are a form of regret at what happened  or should not have happened . It is an acceptable  courtesy and quite civilized  behavior . But  context comes into play when we talk of acceptable and unacceptable apologies . Imagine Russian President Vladmir Putin  waking up one day and apologizing for his invasion of  Russia .  I am sure the world would erupt  in  a   bombshell of indignation and anger and call instead   for his head on a platter of gold .   Yet   the  American   President   refused  to  apologise  for asking for a regime change  in Russia   when that was indeed  what he meant when he said Putin should  not remain  in  power   and the world    was amused some what    with   the verbal   mix up   .A    famous actor at the stage for him to  claim an Oscar Award slapped  the MC who  made a joke about the actor’s   wife  bald head and apologized after the award  presentation  but the jury is still  out on if he can keep the award  thereafter . Today  I  give examples  of various apologies  in various  situations  and  cultures .

    After  the Kaduna train  attack  in  Nigeria , a group  of governors  apologized  for failure of capacity to govern . Immediately after Nigeria  lost the World Cup Qualifier  to Ghana in Abuja ,the Nigerian Football authorities apologized  to Nigerians .  Personally  I too apologized to a young friend of mine Joshua who  said  the match  should not  have been played in  Abuja    because of the Kaduna train  attack ,   and I told him  off  .  I  intend    to  look at all these  apologies in their  various  contexts  and leave it  to you  to  decide which  is acceptable or  not  in terms  of leadership  and the provision  of security  in the   various settings .

    On  the Kaduna train attack the Governor  was most  vocal  in asking that the bandits should  have been bombed  earlier in their locations  ,  known through intelligence to the security  forces  , because  the Attorney  General of the Federation  had secured a court  ruling classifying banditry as terrorism . The Governor wailed he was helpless  and I empathise  with him because  he was not shedding crocodile  years and his emotion  is that of a powerful  leader made helpless by circumstances  beyond  his control.Similarly    I sympathise  with the Minister of Transport who  is doing good job  in reviving our railways but is being sabotaged by terrorists and bandits  . He  too has  promised to  repair  the rail  routes destroyed  and  asked  for renewal  of air cover  by the Nigerian Airforce ,    which  was stopped before the attack  . The  Governor  has said  his state  is at war and the security  forces should rally  round to secure the state  . He  is not exaggerating given the number of deaths in his state and the North in general and the security  forces should rise  to the occasion and rescue  the state . As  for  the governors accepting collective responsibility  for failure of governance  this is a real  apology but should have been followed by their resignations .But    in the Nigerian context   leaders  don’t  resign  even after publicly accepting that their leadership has failed and they have put the security of those who elected them into office in jeorpady .

    Let  me go back  to the issue of my young friend who said   the  Nigeria / Ghana  match  should not have been played because of the proximity of Kaduna to Abuja , the venue of the match . Initially  I explained to him that being a World Cup  match FIFA would have disqualified Nigeria if the match  had been postponed because of the attack  . On  second thought however,   it  seemed possible that the train attack could  have affected the morale of the Green Eagles who played as if their minds were elsewhere and  not with the  same zeal and agility  with which  they played  the earlier match in Ghana . My  mind went back to a  similar World Cup elimination against Tunisia in Lagos when  an  own goal by Odiye  did  the damage .The  story then was that the NFA had  raised the gate fees which enraged fans and they  stoned  the  Green  Eagles bus on arrival and that petrified the players  who  could not play at their best and feared for their security in their own National Stadium in Lagos . Could the Green Eagles players have been in a similar  insecure state of mind when they faced Ghana a day  after the  Kaduna Train attack    in  Abuja ,  so close to Kaduna ?That  is a  plausible question  begging for an answer  and that  informed  my apologies to my young friend who  said the match  should  not  have been played  because  of the Kaduna train attack a  day before .

    On the issue  of the regime  change by the US  president  and  the   verbal  gaffe on Russia’s  Putin ,  the  excuses given by the both the White House and the US Secretary  of State were just  pure diplomatic window dressing  . The  truth  is that  the US  president was being very  undiplomatic  and    such  language  is not acceptable in International  Relations .  How  can  he now face Putin in any meeting on the Russian Invasion ?  This   explains  why the French President Emmanuel Macron  has called for caution in language so as not to escalate the   consequences of the Russian invasion  OF Ukraine  .Critics  of the US president  have blamed his senility  and recent absent  mindedness for  the gaffe  but there is no denying that the US president  is past  his prime  in controlling  his utterances  and more of such  diplomatic inexactitudes are bound to occur during his tenure .

    Let  us end with  the American actor  who slapped the MC  who  mocked his wife  hair style  at the Oscar Award  Ceremony  in US recently  . My  initial  reaction was to applaud  the gallantry and indignation of the actor/  husband  whose  wife indeed has  a disease that made her lose her hair and affected her hair style   and    was  indeed   present at the ceremony  . The  MC was cracking a flat  joke that was personal and in public ,  but two wrongs do not a make a right and the actor  should  not have slapped anybody  in public on account of such insult  . He later apologized but  it was like closing the stable   gate after the horses have bolted . He has degraded the Oscar and should be penalized  one way or the other  for  bringing the  prestige and honour attached to the award  into disrepute  in such a violent  manner . That  was  not acting and he should know when and where acting starts  ,  and when it ends .   As  the saying goes –  an actor  quits   the stage when  the ovation  is loudest  . He  did  not  and must  be ready for the consequences of  his action .

  • Old visions, new issues in Nigeria’s foreign policy

    Old visions, new issues in Nigeria’s foreign policy

    It was with a considerable degree of excitement that I received a copy of a brand new, landmark book on Nigeria’s foreign policy titled ‘Six Decades of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy: Old Visions, New Issues’, published in 2021 by the University of Lagos Press and Bookshop Ltd. With the downturn in the country’s economy following the dissipation of the famed oil boom of the mid 1970s and early 1980s that funded an activist and exuberant Nigerian foreign policy, the role of the management of external relations in the attainment of Nigeria’s stipulated national goals and objectives has been significantly downplayed. The confidence with which Nigeria bestrode Africa and the globe, deploying her ample resources to pursue Afrocentric and Pan African interests substantially waned as the potency of oil, her economic mainstay, declined in the global economy.

    Did this mean that a significant chunk of the humongous resources committed to pursuing at the time what was seen as a vibrant and dynamic foreign policy would have been better invested in creating a genuinely resilient, self-reliant and sustainably prosperous economy which would then later serve as a basis for a vigorous foreign policy articulation and implementation? It is easy with the benefit of hindsight to answer that question affirmatively but those charged with the responsibility of studying and designing the country’s foreign policy as scholars or technocrats or executing such as administrators at the time did not have the benefit of such luxury.

    It is my view that, despite the regression in Nigeria’s economic fortunes, it should still have been possible to maintain a dynamic foreign policy as well as still more astutely manage the country’s external relations to achieve strategic national objectives. This is, of course, just the perfunctory musing of a layman in a field that requires considerable specialist knowledge and high level analytical skills. And that is exactly where this new book comes in as a most valuable companion not just to the scholar in foreign policy but equally to the general reader seeking a reliable guide in an expansive sphere of knowledge. Edited by two accomplished foreign policy experts, Professor Solomon Oladele Akinboye of the University of Lagos and Dr Adeniyi Semiu Basiru, an independent researcher, consultant and policy analyst, the book runs into 414 pages subdivided into eighteen chapters.

    Referring to the rich assortment of experts that contributed the various chapters in his characteristically insightful foreword, former External Affairs Minister, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi,  noted that “This is a book which has achieved several objectives whether or not these are the intentions. First, there is a list of some of the existing scholars in the field of international and strategic affairs in Nigeria. This is pure knowledge to fellow scholars all over the world. This is also utilitarian knowledge to producers of news and commentaries on world mass media who need informed analysts and who are prepared to use them. Unfortunately, commentaries and analyses on low-and-medium income countries still suffer from parachute or mid-stream syndrome where analysts are ignorant of the beginning of a crisis. Invariably, perpetrators are turned into victims and vice versa. Here is a ready-made list and reference point of Nigerian scholars”.

    The book is divided into three broad parts. Providing the theoretical framework that underpins the analyses in the various chapters, Part 1 features Godwin S. Mmadubuchi Okeke who examines ‘The Domestic and External Contexts of Nigeria’s Foreign Policy’ and Idowu Johnson’s appraisal of ‘Leadership Role Conception and Nigeria’s Foreign Policy at the Regional Level’. While Okeke points out that Nigeria’s ability to play an active role in the comity of nations will be a function of her developing a stable political and economic system in line with the developments in the international system, he notes that “It has long been argued by many foreign policy experts that Nigeria’s long-standing ‘big brother’ posture and ‘father figure’ role towards most African countries is no longer tenable because it has proved continuously ineffectual”. He continues: “Hence, the calls for reciprocity or a quid pro quo approach in the country’s relationship with other African countries”. While noting Nigeria’s contribution to the elimination of colonialism, apartheid and racism, which led to her categorization as a “Frontline state”, Idowu Johnson stresses on his part that “However, with the recent economic and political crisis confronting Nigeria, there is a need for Nigeria to re-strategize her leadership role at the continental level” and that “Finally, the leadership role of Nigeria in the 21st century can be discerned through the need for Nigeria to overcome her domestic problems without necessarily over-stretching herself to attain African unity. In this context, Nigeria can use her position as a non-permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations to influence Africa in global politics”.

    In Part 2, which examines what the Editors describe as ‘Old Visions’, in Nigeria’s foreign policy, some of the issues x-rayed include Nigeria and Liberation Diplomacy in Africa from the 1969s to the 1990s; A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Nigeria’s Afro-centric Policy since Independence; Nigeria’s Role in the Expulsion/ Withdrawal of apartheid South Africa from the Commonwealth; Issues, Gains and Pains in Nigeria’s Good Neighbourliness Policy as well as Economic alignment and Political non-alignment in the context of Nigeria and the Politics of the Cold War. Other topical areas on which analytic searchlight is beamed in this section are Nigeria’s efforts in the search for African integration in the 21st Century; Assessing fifty years of Nigeria’s Participation in International Peacekeeping; economic diplomacy under the General Ibrahim Babangida regime and diplomatic diversification of the General Sani Abacha regime as well as the Progress and Pitfalls of Nigeria’s pursuit of national interest in Peace Support Operations.

    The ‘New Issues’ in Nigeria’s Foreign Policy analyzed in Part 3 include Issues, Challenges and Prospects in the Pax Nigeriana Project; Transnational Terrorism and National Security in Contemporary Nigeria; Thoughts on Nigerian Foreign Missions; Globalization, Infectious Diseases and Nigerian Foreign Policy: A reflection on the Ebola Epidemics; The New Scramble for Africa and Nigeria’s African Policy and Nigeria-BRICS Relations and the Next-11 Projections: The Dynamics of Economic Power. It would appear to me that Nigeria’s foreign policy has not effectively reflected and responded to these critical ‘New Issues’ in the last eight years. However, in future editions, the Editors may consider including a chapter on the increasing significance of the role of the Diaspora in Nigeria’s foreign policy since 2915.

    In their enlightening introductory chapter, which navigated the Visions, Context, Issues and Challenges in six decades of Nigeria’s foreign policy, the Editors, in proffering the necessity for the book, submit that “Judging from happenings within the national space, in the last four decades, clearly, Nigeria has not built a strong national architecture for her foreign policy and external engagements. It is, therefore, imperative to bring Nigeria’s foreign policy and external engagements into the discursive radar scene”.

  • Neither APC nor PDP

    Neither APC nor PDP

    FOLLOWING on the reasonably successful conduct of its last National Convention in Abuja at which the new Professor Iyorchia Ayu-led National Executive Committee of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) emerged, the party, last week, held a two-day ‘PDP National Retreat  2021’ with the theme ‘It’s Time to Rescue and Build Nigeria’. This initiative is indicative of the seriousness of mind and sense of purpose with which political parties must be run in serious and viable democracies. Speaker after speaker at the event exhibited infectious optimism as regards the perceived bright possibility of the party bouncing back to power at the centre come 2023. Some of the papers delivered at the retreat were introspective, reflecting on the internal administrative processes of the party, the management of its finances since inception, its future goal and orientation as well as its past mistakes and shortcomings, which it must overcome so as to regain its lost verve and stature a sell as guarantee its future glory.

    In what is perhaps the most pungent and brilliant rationalization of the performance of the PDP in its 16 years in power as well as its legacy, the National Chairman-designate, Professor Ayu, pointed out that the party inherited a debt-ridden, unstable, crisis-ridden country from the military in 1999, a country that was a pariah in the international community and shunned by the civilized world. He argued that within a few short years, the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, among others, “reversed the economic collapse, stabilized the exchange and interest rates, made strides in the provision of infrastructure, secured us relief from foreign creditors and restored faith in our country both by its citizens and foreign investors”. Stressing that under the PDP, the country’s economy grew to become the largest in Africa, Ayu waxed rhetorical and polemical, noting that under the ruling All Progressives Congress, Nigeria had degenerated badly to become the poverty capital of the world.

    Indeed, the APC, I can recall, organized a one-day seminar at which the leading lights of the party presented detailed policy papers dwelling on the transformational Magic the party would perform in the spheres of power supply, agriculture, industrialization, security, modernization of infrastructure and the provision of qualitative, affordable social services among others. The party ascended to power at the centre in 2015 largely on the wings of its promise of change. The more things appear to have changed in the current dispensation under the APC, however, the more they remain the same or are even worse in some areas. Professor Ayu contends with some plausibility that the PDP improved on the parlous state of the country it inherited from the military. But after its 16 years in power, Nigerians under the PDP were much poorer and worse off than under the military. APC strategists and publicists argue that the foundations of the current challenges plaguing the country were laid under the PDP and that the country is in much finer fettle today compared to the former opposition party’s perceived years of the locusts.

    Yes, long abandoned infrastructure under the PDP are being tackled and completed at a frenetic pace by the APC from the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to the 2nd Niger bridge and modern railway tracks and wagons across the country. If the humongous funds appropriated by the APC government and channeled to the poor and underprivileged through its various Social Intervention Programmes actually get to the targeted vulnerable citizens, then the party has committed much more resources to alleviate poverty in its over six years in power than the PDP did in a decade and a half and with substantially less revenue at its disposal no thanks to dwindling oil revenues and the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. The rampant, open corruption under the PDP has become a more subtle, surreptitious affair under the APC as Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, is reported to have admitted with the monster remaining largely untamed.

    Even then, are a lot of Nigerians better today than it was six years ago under the PDP? It is difficult to answer in the affirmative. Inflation soars. The debt burden escalates by the day. Insecurity heightens. Unemployment blooms. Hunger ravages. It would appear that neither the PDP nor the APC have been able to summon the intellectual depth, ideological orientation, and vision as well as organizational discipline to address the root causes of Nigeria’s underdevelopment. Much energy is expended and wasted on addressing the symptoms of underdevelopment. Thus, as the radical political scientist, Professor Okwudiba Nnoli noted, both during the period of military rule and now in this civilian dispensation under both the PDP and APC, efforts are expended on the acquisition of the modern artifacts of development with borrowed funds, dependence on foreign expertise, ideas and technology rather than any meaningful attempt to domesticate and localize production or to relate prevalent consumption habits and patterns to local resources. The consequence is a debilitating foreign exchange dependency that makes concrete, autochthonous development a mirage.

    At the PDP retreat, various speakers including governors Samuel Ortom of Benue State and the Chairman of the PDP Governors forum, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, governor of Sokoto state, stressed the imperative of the PDP dislodging the APC and returning to power at the centre in 2023 in order to save Nigeria from impending doom under the current ruling party and to rebuild the country. According to Tambuwal, “Nigeria must embrace restructuring to survive. It must restructure its polity, economy, security and ways of doing things. It must embrace relative autonomy and decentralization of power. This will unleash the energies of our people, especially the young…PDP is now once again a well-oiled, serviced vehicle that will midwife the Nigeria of our dreams”. The PDP’S rising confidence in its ability to bounce back as the ruling party must have been buoyed by the postponement, once again, of the APC’s National Convention until February next year partly due to continuing intra-party squabbles and lack of cohesion. This contrasts with the PDP’S seeming  new found intra-party harmony and stability.

    But Tambuwal’s pro-restructuring advocacy is a familiar story. The APC sang the same seductive  song as part of its pathway to power in 2015 only to consign the federalist components of its manifesto to the dustbin once it achieved its goal of attaining power. There seems to be an iron law of power in Nigerian politics from which political actors no matter their political affiliation are not immune. This is the acquisition and retention of power at all costs and by all means. Central to this logic is the centralization of power at the centre and its concentration particularly in an all-powerful presidency and imperial governors in the states that subsume the party under their control, emasculate its organizational autonomy and impede its capacity to be a check on the government that emerges under its platform.

    Neither the PDP nor the APC is free from this tendency. Yet, given their entrenched nationwide structures and financial muscle, there is no viable alternative to either of the two dominant parties winning power at the centre in 2023. Nigeria’s saving grace in that critical year will be the emergence as president of a candidate with strong antecedents and pedigree of solid democratic commitment, federalist ethos, capacity to spot and maximally utilize the country’s best and brightest minds to achieve rapid development, love for vigorous policy debate and the humility to bow to superior argument including party supremacy irrespective of party affiliation. Candidates and not the parties will be key.

     

    • First published Nov 27, 2021
  • Not a laughing matter

    Not a laughing matter

    I’M an unhappy man. I smell danger though I’m not an alarmist. I’m writing this column on Tuesday night which presupposes that I won’t be addressing the trends of the March 25 clash between Nigeria and Ghana holding in Kumasi for the Group F sole qualification ticket to the Qatar 2022 World Cup holding from November until the middle of December this year. Whatever happened on Friday (yesterday) in Kumasi would have a greater impact on which of the two countries would pick the ticket when the final game would be played inside the MKO Abiola Stadium in Abuja on March 29.

    I have followed the off field reports leading to the first game between the Black Stars of Ghana and Nigeria’s Super Eagles in the media and they can be categorised into the two sections – reality and the bizarre, although the one which touches this writer is the sudden illness by goalkeeper Okoye. Yes, nobody can determine if Okoye is ill or not. But the circumstances surrounding how he opted out of the March 25 game require a second look to see if there aren’t underlying issues that could have informed his decision.

    Okoye’s report had two folds – one in which the NFF stated that he was ill without telling us the nature of his illness. The other was an account by a journalist stressing that Okoye had travelling issues out of Holland. This was off the line . But Okoye tweeted that he was ready to fly out to Nigeria only to be told that he had tested positive for Covid-19 in his second test, having failed the first test a day before he was to travel. The Covid-19 accounts have come from Okoye not his club. Possible but I feel strongly that he wanted to fulfil all righteousness because he was in goal for his Dutch side over the weekend. Well, this writer hasn’t been struck by Covid-19 but feels that there is more to these stories.

    And it is not too difficult to identify if one follows the events after Nigeria was eliminated from the Cameroon 2021 Africa Cup of Nations by Tunisia 1-0, with many a Nigerian fan blaming Okoye for the cheeky goal conceded.

    Okoye is a small boy and clearly doesn’t have the experience to take on his ‘glass’ chins as they say in boxing some of the mind-boggling criticisms from some recalcitrant  fanatics of the game here. Indeed, some of these imbeciles took their sour words on Okoye to social media which isn’t fair since no sportsman or woman goes into a competition venue to lose games. The senseless messages got so personal that some even threatened his life. Okoye didn’t react then but this ‘illness theory’ is a subtle way of expressing his fears knowing that he still needs the platform to pursue his career in Europe, especially as the market for goalkeepers is as far and as wide apart as the dentition of an aging adult.

    A goalkeeper is as good as his defenders. The long-range shot taken by the Tunisian could have been avoided had the defender closed him rather than escorting the Tunisian to a vintage position to strike at the goalpost.  We are all prone to mistakes after all the goals Nigeria scored against her first three opponents at the group stages arose from errors on the part of our opponents at the Cameroon 2021 Africa Cup of Nations. No player goes to the pitch to lose. The objective is to win such matches since it improves such athletes’ ranking in that event or sport. Sadly, such uninformed fanatics forget that the world is a global village – meaning that such injurious talks on social media get to those concerned.

    In fact, the way people respond to such talks are diverse depending on their exposure. It also doesn’t make it right because it is always a privilege to be invited to represent a country with a population of over 400 million. Social media’s views mould the mindset of most people either positively or otherwise and such mass movement could be counterproductive because of the people’s perceptions of the subject matter.

    This isn’t the first time players are opting out of our national soccer teams based on threats to their lives and family. In fact, Odion Ighalo resigned from playing for Nigeria after the 2018 World Cup held in Russia after fans threatened his life on social media for missing a sitter against Argentina. Who doesn’t miss goal-scoring opportunities including penalty kicks? Those are some of the hazards of the game which shouldn’t be used as the reason to threaten players’ lives let alone their families. It is unfair and crude. Show me a striker that doesn’t miss goal-scoring chances, then I will show a virgin in the maternity ward. It took the generosity of spirit of NFF President Amaju Pinnick to persuade Ighalo out of retirement. Yes, credit should go to Pinnick and this writer is sure that the NFF President would head for Holland to speak with Okoye.

    Okoye and Ighalo may have taken their decisions after fans’ threat on the social media as precautionary measures. But experienced Yakubu Aiyegbeni wasn’t cowed by such utterances and played for the country until after the problem he had with NFF chiefs during one of the Africa Cup of Nations. Interestingly, this writer asked Yakubu during one of The Nation’s online television shows last year if he would use the platform to apologise for the missed goal scoring chance at the South Africa 2010 World Cup.

    Aiyegbeni didn’t allow this writer to complete the sentence on television when he roared back, saying that he would never apologise to anyone, insisting that Obafemi Martins lost a worse opportunity than he did in that same game, yet nobody taunted Obagoal as they did to him, which he felt was unfair.  Yakubu prided himself on the fact that he was among the top scorers in the English League with 95 goals playing for average sides without blemish.

    With a domestic league that is slowly crawling out of the doldrums, it is only fair to appeal to these fanatics to see those errors as not being deliberate since they regret such misses in their quiet times. These fanatics shouldn’t give Nigeria the reputation of being sour losers who resort to threats to the life of our sports ambassadors. How do we expect some of the players we are wooing to play for Nigeria because of their parental background to accept such offer when they are fed with such sad tales which put the country in public ridicule? No doubt there is a freedom of speech enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution which also frowns at threat to lives of the citizenry which is sacrosanct. It is soul lifting that Eguavoen has reassured Okoye of his place in the March 25, only if he shows up in Abuja to fight for a shirt. Eguavoen revealed that the goalkeeper has flu, which is understandable. The story about being struck by Covid-19 isn’t only sinister but a lie from the pit of hell. Eguavoen won’t ask him to report in Abuja if he is infected by Covid-19. Okoye definitely spoke with his coach. Only hopes too that the fans don’t react negatively towards the Ghanaians based on how they received us in Kumasi. All those social media stuffs amounted to mind games which compelled the reluctant fans to watch the match live instead of sitting at home or at viewing centres.

    The Sports Ministry and the NFF should conduct road shows starting from tomorrow educating the fans about the penalty for seeking revenge. Tuesday’s fixture is just a game. They should cheer the Super Eagles to victory and ignore the tantrums thrown at us in Kumasi. Nigeria should beat Ghana fair and squarely on Tuesday. That way we would have shown our superiority over them. The federation and the sports ministry can sign agreements with the owners of buses at the bus parks in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to provide buses to run shuttles around the city to pick up fans to the stadium and back.  These buses should be marked to avoid infiltration from dubious people to seize the opportunity to rob innocent Nigerians and visitors who would throng the stadium to watch the March 29 game.

    The buses should be close to 800 if the federation hopes to quell any form of violence. Some fans may decide to take the laws into their hands in victory and in defeat (God forbid).

    Motorbikes, if allowed in Abuja could suffice. It is important to state that the gates should be opened within the last 15 minutes of the end of the game to allow for easy exits for those who have seen enough. We need to ensure that only 40 percent of the stadium’s capacity is sold as tickets for the March 29 tie. Viewing centres fitted with big screens should be established in pilot areas for fans to watch too.

  • NASS-rejected gender equity bills: APC convention and the male ambush

    NASS-rejected gender equity bills: APC convention and the male ambush

    Those who fashioned the democratic system of government had a lot of foresight but nothing in their vision painted any clear picture close to the macabre dance that is Nigerian politics. When they created the three arms of government, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, they had in mind the idea of each arm being independent but also acting in unison for the benefit of the people.

    The different arms are meant to act as a check on each other because the political philosophers like Baron Montesquieu realized that the tendency of the human being  to exercise absolute power might be dangerous because the human proclivity to be corrupted by absolute power was very evident in instances of unchecked power-wielding.  Each arm therefore had its roles mapped out in mutually dependent ways for a balance that can guarantee the people good governance.

    Nigerian democracy since independence has had so many challenges often stemming from possibly a wrong understanding of the real tenets of democracy, mischief or both by the three arms of government. We have seen instances of executive recklessness and legislative indolence and judicial ineffectiveness that often blur the lines between the three and consequently powers are abused and the real essence of separation of powers often defeated.

    As the Nigerian brand of democracy goes from nascence to seeming maturity, we must be ready to practice by the rules or jettison the system for a more culturally functional system that can be beneficial for the people. The three arms of any democratic government must be optimally functional while maintaining their independence and optimum functionality. They must fulfill their individual purpose to engender progress and aid development.

    There must be no dubious claim of executive-legislative loyalty in ways that is not altruistically in favour of the people.  Every action of those at the leadership level must be in favour of the people who are the mandate givers in every democracy.

    The Roundtable Conversation therefore sees the recent rejection of five gender-equity bills at the National Assembly for which Nigerian women have been protesting and picketing the National Assembly as very retrogressive and myopic. In a world that is steadily gravitating towards inclusiveness, that legislative rascality is condemnable.

    Even though the House of Representatives had promised to revisit three of the five bills, the result will come after most major political parties have finished their conventions on the run up to the 2023 general elections. Again, the political parties have been surreptitiously aided by the legislature to sideline women in the leadership of political parties as there is no law forcing the political parties to cede certain leadership positions in the parties to women as requested in one of the bills.

    As the All Progressive Congress (APC), the ruling political party in the country holds its convention today, the women in the party seem handicapped and may have to hold the National Assembly members responsible for the seeming motion with no movement of women in the leadership of political parties in Nigeria. It might just end up being a leadership of predominantly men and invariably issues concerning women and their needs would be left to men to decide.

    A picture of a man vying for the position of woman leader in one states in the North of the country  had gone viral months back and the question remains, what does an average man know about what the needs of women are and how well can he perform that role? Again, a significant number of houses of assembly have no single woman. So who will be the voice of women in such assemblies?

    As the APC members attend their National convention today, one would have expected that they would do much better than the opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) that just had 9% position for women with the tokenism of just the National Women Leader and her deputy being women. The Roundtable Conversation had challenged the APC to do better than the PDP by making it possible for more women to access certain political leadership positions that had hitherto been an exclusive of the men. Would the women have more seats at the highest decision making body of the political party? Can the APC show the PDP that they can #breakthebias?

    The Roundtable Conversation spoke to Dr. Rachel Akpabio,  an experienced politician and the APC Zonal Woman leader, South South. We asked her the chances that more women would make it to the National leadership of the APC beyond the traditional and token but subtly manipulative ‘Woman Leader’ even when there is no position for ‘Men Leader’? Dr. Rachel puts a huge part of the blame for a possible back to status quo on the National Assembly for the rejection of the affirmative action for political parties to cede certain national positions to women.

    There is no consideration for women being fully included in running the affairs of political parties. Some men still do not understand that women are a great part of humanity and must be allowed to take part by providing a level playing field so women have a fair chance to provide leadership at the political party level, that way, more gender friendly decisions can be made and invariably the country would benefit from the input of the women.  There ought to be complimentary leadership.

    What the National Assembly succeeded in doing with the rejection of the bills is to return women to the vulnerable positions of struggling, often in vain with men who have all the advantages and edges. They truly do not understand the value of women and their contributions to national development. By rejecting the bills, the National Assembly is throwing women under the political bus knowing the herculean tasks the women encounter with the male dominated systems.

    However, she believes the APC women are ready to try their best. Some women have already bought forms for some top positions in the party, a woman is vying for a regional deputy chairperson, another is vying for the post of National Welfare Officer, others have picked nomination forms for some other positions and the women are hoping they would be supported by the party members so that they can contribute their quota too. The National Assembly has virtually told the women to go swim through the turbulent waters with their lean resources in comparative terms with the men.

    Even though women are trying to push for inclusiveness, it would have been better if the National Assembly had passed the bill that would make it statutory for certain posts to be reserved for women. That might not solve all the inequities but it would have been a step in the right direction.

    The Roundtable Conversation spoke to one of the candidates for National women Leader, Barr. Mary Ekpere the former Director General of National  Center for Women Development from Cross River state where incidentally the party had micro-zoned the position for easier coordination. We wanted to know how prepared she is for the position assuming she gets elected. We wanted to find out why as an experienced party woman who has put in a lot for the advancement of women in her political career she did not go for some other leadership positions in the party.

    She believes that the post of Women Leader being micro-zoned to her state demanded that she brings her experiences to that position which to her wields a lot of power. To her, women constitute a greater voting bloc and as such, her experience would be handy in mobilizing women on a national level for the victory of the APC. She insists that having represented South-South Women on the party’s Board of Trustees, she is in a good stead to lead women on a National level.

    The Roundtable Conversation wanted to know how Barr. Ekpere intends to navigate the women leadership given that the Peoples Democratic Party Woman Leader, Prof. Stella Effa Attoe is also from Cross River state. She maintains that their dreams are one and the same. Women want a better country where their voices matter and their contributions are valued. There is a general consensus amongst all women to support each other irrespective of party affiliations because the goal for all women is good and inclusive governance. Political parties are required for democratic processes to be orderly and not for unhealthy rivalries.

    To her, women are the soul of any nation and as such their nurturing spirit always comes to the fore in leadership. As a lawyer, she believes that the National assembly ought to realize the role of legislature in any democracy and would have been happier that the bills they rejected were passed soon enough instead of the back and forth that the legislators are subjecting them to. Progress of any nation in her view depends on how empowered the women are. She hopes members of the APC would support every competent, diligent and experienced candidate for all positions without gender biases.

    Nigerian democracy will progress better when there is more emphasis on merit and less on other political nuances that are often very retrogressive. Hopefully with more women emerging at the party leadership level at the convention, the country would begin to join the global movement that is steadily recognizing the innate capacity of women as nation builders. The goal of the APC women is to join the men to strategize better for development. If women can do it for homes as managers of families that multi-task, they sure can stir the leadership ship to the development destination that would  make all citizens happy and productively so. She hopes the legislature can play a more decisive role in the quest for gender equity.

     

    The dialogue continues…

  • Imo: Betty Akeredolu spices up Senate race

    Imo: Betty Akeredolu spices up Senate race

    Wife of Ondo State Governor, Mrs. Betty Akeredolu, nee Anyanwu, who is from Owerri West but married in Ondo State, has severally been linked with the race for the senatorial seat of Owerri Zone in Imo State.

    While the Ondo First Lady is yet to publicly declare her interest in the race, sources within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in both Imo and Ondo have been telling Sentry not to take the news as mere rumours.

    It is noteworthy that the Akeredolu name has been spicing up almost all discussions about the Owerri Zone senatorial seat. Some sources even told Sentry about a recent visit by the Ondo First Lady to her Owerri West L.G.A constituency during which she put up some political structures as part of plans towards the 2023 senatorial race.

    Sentry also heard that she is now very visible within the political circle in her native Imo just as events around her since last year when she allegedly commenced subtle political moves are clear signals of her desire to run. Some party leaders in the zone are said to be solidly behind her ambition.

    With the APC eager to produce the senator of the zone for the first time since its formation in 2014, and with prominent chieftains like Alex Mbata, Mike Nwachukwu and very likely, former Deputy Governor, Eze Madumere, expected to line up for the race, it is obvious Mrs. Akeredolu will have a tough battle on her hands if she finally succumbs to the call to serve.

     

    Osun 2022: Where is Lasun Yusuf headed?

    That former Deputy Speaker, Lasun Yusuf, has ended his membership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is no longer news. What is now being debated is the next political party of the Ilobu, Osun State born politician.

    Reports claim he submitted his resignation letter at the Osun State party secretariat in Osogbo yesterday morning. Though details of the letter are yet to be made public, the former Deputy Speaker is said to have confirmed his exit from the APC to newsmen who asked him.

    Yusuf was a former governorship aspirant of APC in 2018. He also aspired to be the gubernatorial candidate at the party’s recently concluded primary election, but came a distant third position behind incumbent Governor Gboyega Oyetola and Moshood Adeoti.

    Uncertainty currently shrouds the political future of the politician. While some of his associates are saying he is poised to stage a comeback in his governorship ambition by picking the ticket of another political party, others say he is done with the gubernatorial race.

    Some other birds even squealed to Sentry that he may be on his way to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to work against the re-election bid of Oyetola.

    As it is, nobody can confidently say where Yusuf is headed; at least, not until he comes out with his next political plan. Until then, all we can do is wait.