The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Violence against women and sanctity of electoral processes in Nigeria

    Violence against women and sanctity of electoral processes in Nigeria

    There is a great irony that trails the politics of a developing country like Nigeria. Partisan politics is presently dominated at all tiers of government by men. Since independence, there has been never been a female president, vice president or even a female governor. Dame Virgy Etiaba was a deputy governor to former governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi and only became a governor by default after Obi was impeached by the state house of assembly for an alleged misconduct. She handed over to Obi after the court nullified his impeachment.

    So in essence, there has been no elected female governor in Nigeria, the most populous black nation and the country with a high percentage of educated elite especially in the Southern part of the country.   There are very few women in both the elective and appointive positions but women form a huge part of the voting bloc

    Unfortunately though, due to many socio-cultural and religious factors, many women are discouraged from participating in politics. However, the few women that dare face extra hurdles.  They have to contend with a lack of the financial muscle like the men and the danger of violence perpetrated by men.

    Salomey Abuh, a 60 year old female politician who was a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) women leader of Ochadamu ward in Ofu local government area of Kogi state was burnt to death by some political party thugs during the 2019 governorship election in the state. Her family is still mourning and seeking answers. While her death is not an isolated case, other women like Natasha Apoti had her office burnt down in the same Kogi.  Mrs Abuh is merely one of many women whose foray into politics was met with violence and death.

    The use of violence by male politicians cuts across all the political processes. From intra-party congresses to general elections, women have been victims in different ways. Threats, arson and physical violence are often deployed by male politicians who sponsor thugs especially on women who are often more competent and popular than some men in many contests. However, the violence is not always a one on one issue. The use of political thugs is very common as most of the political violence on women and even on some men are often well planned and mob-executed.

    The Roundtable Conversation spoke to Veronica Ogbole, a veteran journalist, retired civil servant and a former Chairperson, National Association of Women journalist (NAWOJ) Nasarawa Chapter. She believes that violence against women is not even restricted to those who are contesting for elective positions. In a highly patriarchal society like Nigeria, there are even women whose fathers, brothers  and husbands determine who they should vote for. Sometimes women get the threats to their lives and positions as some men often threaten their wives with divorce if they do not vote for certain candidates.

    To her, any act of violence goes against the fundamental rights of those women. The essence of democracy is the freedom of any adult to exercise the right to vote whoever they want, when women are intimidated to vote, in most cases for the choice of the men in their lives either as parents or spouses, that violates their rights and infringes on the sanctity of the electoral process that is meant for adults to choose freely.

    No adult woman should be forced to take permission from parents, spouses, party leaders and any type of men in power at various levels to be able to make their choices or even participate as candidates. Already the men have the financial power to fully monopolize the political space so when we add the social control they exercise over women in politics at all levels, it imperils our democracy and impacts development.

    We must all be concerned about the peripheral roles women are somehow  forced to play in politics.  At the higher hierarchy of party leaderships, you have very few women as most of them are consigned to leading fellow women or minor roles like welfare officers, women leaders and the likes that do not truly impact on party administration and their capacity as natural leaders whose leadership skills can improve our democracy.  Democracy thrives better with an admixture of male and female competences. Leadership is not about gender.

    Veronica believes that almost all  the political party male leaderships are not sincere with their party constitutions. Sometimes there are decisions about 35% affirmative actions in the party constitutions but they never seem to stick to that in real terms. It is often for the optics of it. It is only when it is strictly implemented across party lines that the change that can aid development will begin to happen as positions are occupied by the most competent and those willing to serve.

    According to her, violence against women scare women out of politics but they  must  not give up though, they must strive to change the narrative. They must try to be more strategically creative, intentional and innovative. Women must be radical about it and insist on being at the leadership levels at least at the ward levels for a start.  The women must equally come together and refuse to vote for men if things do not change at political party levels. They must dare to contest for higher party leadership positions to change how things work.

    However, the awareness is more now and more women are showing interest even though there is still a long road to equity. Even in appointive positions, women must begin to reject tokenism. A situation  where a governor appoints about fifteen men and may be three or four women or even less into his cabinet is not good enough.  Women must take a decisive stand she insists.

    The Roundtable conversation sat down with a direct victim of violence in the political field, Hon. Juliana Esla Dauda, a former Community Health Officer, a former Councilor who was elected the Majority leader of Lafia local Government Legislative Council in 2014. She contested to represent the Lafia North Constituency in the party primary in 2018 but was persuaded to step down for  the incumbent member, Hon. Mohammed Alkali on the day of primary election.

    She is presently a Senior Special Assistant  to the governor of Nasarawa state Engr. Abdullahi  A. Sule on Inter-Party Affairs and attached to the office of the deputy governor, Dr. Emmanuel Akabe. Today, she is nursing a broken neck. She was a victim of political violence in her Development  Area in the last local government election on the 6th of October 2021. She was rescued by some soldiers  while she was being beaten up by political thugs who wrongly accused her of removing  a result sheet for one of the Wards in the local government.

    Even when she was asking them how she can be in possession of a document belonging to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the thugs still descended on her and continued beating her till help came from the soldiers. She was accused of being responsible for the missing document given where she hails from and the fact that she is the Senior Special Assistant  to the governor on Inter-Party Affairs. She said she could not understand why the opposition party thugs decided to be the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge in a case she knew nothing about as she was neither an INEC staff, returning officer nor even adhoc staff.

    She was thoroughly beaten up and almost stripped naked but for the fact that she wore trousers. Today she is carrying a POP around her neck and has been receiving treatment from an orthopedic Surgeon.  The Roundtable Conversation wanted to find out from Hon. Dauda if any arrests have been made and she said no arrests have been reported. She is distraught at the fact that she is in pains and seems left in the lurch.

    The Roundtable conversation wanted to find out whether she reported to the police after the incident, she said it was actually the police that come to her rescue by inviting the soldiers because the police was overwhelmed by the thugs.

    The Roundtable sought to know  whether any official action was taken to address the incident and she said there were promises that it would be investigated but nothing to her personal knowledge has been done even as she and her family struggle to get her the needed treatment.

    So in carrying out her official and civic duties in a democracy in her local government, Hon. Juliana was brutalized but her case seems not to be getting the needed attention from the right quarters at the time of writing. The Roundtable Conversation tried to contact the governor, deputy governor and the party leadership but was not successful.

    The case of Hon. Juliana is a metaphor of what many women go through in politics in Nigeria. Her experience is a double edged sword, it clubbers those women in politics and discourages those willing to join politics. This incident is a sign of dysfunctional system. The Roundtable expected at least the police to have made some arrests no matter how few, we expected her party leaderships or  the opposition to wade in, we expected the women wing of the party to step in and protect their own or to seek justice on her behalf, for now, that has not happened.

    Nigerian democracy cannot flourish on a single gender effort. There must be respect for the rule of law and women should not be scared off politics with violence or threats of violence. Women in politics must equally learn to protect their own and seek justice when assaulted. The political party leaderships in Nigeria must begin to take action by outlawing thuggery against anyone especially the women. The women too must re-strategize and resist the intimidation meant to exclude them from leadership and governance.

    The dialogue continues…

  • Waiting for the league to begin

    Waiting for the league to begin

    WHEN in 1990 some respected Nigerian soccer administrators conceptualised the Nigeria Professional League body, they were responding to the new trends in the beautiful game in other climes. These men couldn’t stomach the mediocrity associated with the Nigerian game. They wanted a departure from the tardy past to embrace the new dawn where very good players could earn a living outside the country. The wise men foresaw the future where with a new mentality to matches, the country could one day play at the senior World Cup.

    The pioneers’ dreams came to pass in 1994 with Nigeria’s Super Eagles qualifying for the USA’94 World Cup using players who had been exported to Europe to hone their skills which were still lethargic as a result of obsolete facilities across the country. The elite class was structured out of the old order. Indeed, there was something to fight for while those not listed fought gamely each season to qualify into the elite cadre.

    The quasi-professional league witnessed a lot of improvement except that the ownership structures didn’t quite change with most of the teams owned by the government. The few private clubs (Leventis United FC of Ibadan, Abiola Babes FC of Abeokuta, New Nigeria Bank FC of Benin City, Flash Flamingoes FC of Benin City, Julius Berger FC of Lagos, Iwuanyanwu Nationale FC of Owerri, etc) left their marks, although they were eventually emasculated by the government teams which had tremendous cash which their administrators used to corrupt the system. The thought of having four teams in Benin City didn’t excite the fans as much having only their darling team in the elite class. The private clubs’ owners soon dropped their sponsorship initiatives when they couldn’t cope with the malfeasances of the league.

    The conspiracy against the privately-owned teams brought back the sharp practices of the competition leading to the dearth of new talents. These private clubs couldn’t enjoy the support of the fans in those cities where the state’ owned team operated. Leventis had to manage its relationship with the Ibadan fans. Flash Flamingoes FC went through hell playing inside the Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin. The fans’ favourite was Bendel Insurance FC. The defunct New Nigeria Bank FC had a similar problem of acceptance. In fact, games involving these teams and their traditional local rivals threatened public peace as the security operatives had to be at their best to ensure peace before, during, and after matches. In one of such needless skirmishes, Bendel Insurance FC’s chairman, the late Major Ojo lost his life in a car crash very close to the stadium while trying to rescue the match referees from being lynched by irate fans. Gallant soldier, if you ask me. May his soul continue to rest in peace.

    The rot in the league was such that we had predictable victories for home teams ably aided by the dubious calls of matches referees who most times are cajoled into taking such decisions. Who would blame the referees when their entitlements were being paid by the home side. Not forgetting the overdoes of hospitality by anxious home clubs eager to win their matches at all cost to justify the huge resources splashed on them by their owners. The administrators further bastardised the league by introducing board room points in connivance with officials in the former NFA’s league department which then was just one scruffy room compared with the digitalised offices with different units of the league having functional offices. It was that bad.

    The league had difficulties in getting television sponsorships after the existing ones opted out because they were not getting commensurate returns on their investments. Urchins, beasts, hooligans, and hostile home supporters made life difficult for the fans, especially the visitors to watch matches of their choice. Unlike in Europe where fathers come to the stadium to watch matches with their families, it was risky doing so here and it affected pitching for sponsorships with the blue-chip companies.

    Such hazardous settings soon affected the players’ performance with many of them opting to seek greener pastures elsewhere. This star-trek of players out of the country soon affected the quality of the league. Television coverage which serves as the biggest money-spinner for teams in Europe among other marketing windows couldn’t gain ground in Nigeria. The few who dared to cover matches lost equipment anytime there was violence in the stadium. There were always chaotic settings during matches because the fans took the laws into their hands rather than allow the referees to do their jobs according to the dictates of the rulebook.

    During the trying periods of the Nigeria league, IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan (3SC) won the Cup Winners Cup in 1976. They were dethroned as champions in 1977, with the games between 3SC and eventual winners Enugu Rangers International very problematic. The second leg game had to be played on neutral ground in Kaduna, no thanks to the lunacy of the irate fans. NNB and Bendel Insurance at different years won the WAFU Cup for keeps with Bendel Insurance winning the defunct CAF Cup in1994 along with the WAFU for the third time in the same year. It must be said that 3SC won the CAF Cup in 1992, the trophy was donated by the late Chief MKO Abiola.

    Many have called those victories pyrrhic because it didn’t represent how badly the league was organised. In these years there wasn’t any deliberate plan to train the coaches, officials and even educate the players about new trends in the game which is dynamic. Even the simplest of tasks in getting the elite clubs to also run youth teams which could also play league games either a day before the main teams’ or at an earlier time on the same pitch their seniors’ uses. This is how it is done in Europe. It explains the ease with which these European clubs replace their aging stars or those burdened by injuries. These youth teams help the countries having them pick players for their age-grade teams just as it provides the country’s Football Associations (FAs) data to plan the new discoveries’ future.

    But in 2005, former sports minister Colonel Musa Mohammed (rtd) removed the league department from its dingy office at the Glasshouse in Abuja to stand on its own under a new nomenclature the Interim League Management Board under the leadership of the late Chief Oyuki Jackson-Obaseki. This body was taxed with the burden of creating a new template for the game to grow. Since some of the members of this body were running the clubs, they knew where the problems were and fixed them.

    ILMB removed the payment of the match officials from the clubs by paying their entitlements. ILMB sought a collaboration with AIT to beam the matches live. This singular move brought the fans back to the stadium. Clubs were made to pay their debts to players before the commencement of the new season. Away teams were encouraged to record matches whose footage can be tendered as evidence in the event of disputes. ILMB’s innovations brought back the spark in the league. But with everything Nigeria, we returned to the trenches after the late Obaseki was removed from office. Obaseki, the moving train’s new ideas were bastardised, leaving the league in its worst-ever condition where nothing works.

    Most of the leagues in the world have reached the tenth week, ours’ hasn’t started with the players and officials training without playing competitive games. Our continental representatives are no longer good enough to compete in the CAF Champions League, with our last hope, Rivers United dumped to the Confederations Cup which also has Enyimba FC of Aba. Two of them Akwa United of Uyo and Bayelsa United have been bundled out, no thanks to the fact that we have not commenced our league which others use to prepare their representatives.

    Nigeria league is in limbo. It is in a coma awaiting another ministerial directive for it to begin like it happened last year. The organisers who have been in charge are offering laughable reasons for the delay again.

  • Are political scientists too not to blame? (2)

    Are political scientists too not to blame? (2)

    IN terms of their intellectual depth, disciplinary authority and majesty of presentation and delivery, the three inaugural lectures delivered by professors of Political Science at the University of Ibadan are eternal legacies of insightful and delightful political analyses. The first, delivered in 1975 by the immortal Professor Billy Dudley, who along with Professor Claude Ake, stands at the apex of Nigerian Political Science scholarship, was titled ‘Scepticism and Political Virtue’. The second was delivered five years later by the no less eminent and esteemed Professor Peter Ekeh, whose inaugural titled ‘Colonialism and Social Structure’, elaborated on his enduring theory of the coexistence of ‘two publics’ in post-colonial Africa and its dysfunctional effects. The subject of this piece, Professor J. Bayo Adekanye, delivered the third inaugural lecture from the Department of Political Science titled ‘Military Occupation and Social Stratification’ on Thursday, November 25, 1993. In Professor Adekanye’s lecture, we get an insight into why he opted for the interrogation of the military as an organization and the interaction between the military and civil society as the core of his life-long vocation as a political scientist.

    As he put it, “For, simultaneous with the creation of any political order arises the question of how to organize and control an army. It is one of the major issues with which politics, whether defined as an activity or a field of study, is necessarily concerned. Of those core issues basic to politics, perhaps, the most central pertains to the military question, crucial as the latter is to the maintainance of political power or any revolt against it. Connected with this is the contribution of military power to the projection of a given country’s foreign policy objectives including war and peace. All this explains why a number of us in the Department have elected to make the subject of the military our field of research interests and specification within the broad area of defence and strategic studies”.

    Interestingly, Professor Adekanye chose the term “Military Occupation” rather than military profession as a conceptual category in the title of his inaugural lecture because, in his words, “the concept of “profession” and “professionalism”, especially in application to the military sphere, tends to undergo not just a decay but even replacement by that of “occupation”, when a given army organization, to which the former term once applied, begins to lose some of its earlier distinguishing attributes as a professional group and becomes motivated, for example, by careerists and mercenary traits, under the combined impact of military coups and unbridled materialism?”. Is the seeming incapacity of a once formidable and widely regarded Nigerian military to effectively and decisively deal with a ten-year old insurgency a function, directly or indirectly, of this new excessively materialistic orientation that has eroded much of its professional and ascetic martial ethos? But I digress.

    From the low prestige of the military career or occupation at the formative stages of the Nigerian military right from the pre-colonial era, Professor Adekanye traces the gradual material opulence and superior pay and status disparity between the military hierarchy and other professional categories in society. The Nigerian military utilized its prolonged occupancy of power between 1966 and 1979 as well as between 1983 and 1999 not only to boost its prestige and career status but also to enhance the pay prospects of its officers and men relative to other professions. According to Professor Adekanye in the lecture, “At independence in 1960 the salary of the Prime Minister of the Federation of Nigeria was only eight hundred pounds more than that of the Principal (that is, the future Vice-Chancellor) of the University College, Ibadan; while the latter earned more than the Nigerian Army Commander and General. The Prime Minister’s personal emolument was put at £4,500, while the Principal, University College, Ibadan, was paid £3,750 and the Army Major-General and Commissioner £3,380. We are, of course, talking here of basic salary, and do not include fringe benefits and perquisites of office as well as allowances”.

    He continued: Although there were to be some slight changes by January 1966, which saw the Prime Minister moving to £5,000 and the Vice-Chancellor to £4,250 these did not substantially alter the structure of parities and relativities inherited from Britain”. However, with the incursion of the military into politics and governance as from January 1966, Professor Adekanye avers, “Nigerian soldiers were able to elevate themselves above not just their peers in the Nigerian Police but other groups hitherto at the apex of the occupational prestige hierarchy”.

    In his extensive research and studies on military expenditures in Nigeria across time relative to overall revenues and expenditures, Professor Adekanye, if my memory serves me right, came up with the concept of Military Extractive Ratios (MER). This refers to the ratio of national resources allocated to or extracted by the military both as a proportion of the total budgetary outlay as well as extra-budgetary expenditures. Thus, the MER saw societal resources consumed by the military growing astronomically including increased pay and allowances, military budgetary allocations as well as military-related contracts among others. I presume this would also include both legitimate and illegitimate accumulations of wealth by military officers appointed to political office during military rule.

    This extensive accumulation of wealth by officers appointed to political offices who then retire to opulence in private life has enabled a not insubstantial number of the retired military elite to play dominant roles in both the economy and politics of post-military rule dispensations such as we have had for over two decades now in Nigeria since 1999. Unfortunately, the higher the MER, the lower the amount of resources available for critical sectors like education, health, power, water provision, shelter, critical infrastructure, agriculture and industrialization to create jobs thus deepening the poverty and inequality that worsens insecurity and violence in society. This is also the implication of the huge amount of public resources channeled to public office holders in the present dispensation through illegitimate and immoral humongous allowances, inflated contracts, phantom constituency projects, opaque security votes and outright looting of the treasury.

    But to go back to the title and theme of this piece. Are political scientists too not to blame for the socio-economic and political dead-end at which Nigeria finds herself today? At the time he delivered his inaugural lecture in 1993, Professor Adekanye and a number of other scholars were sufficiently worried “over the close identification of many of the country’s professors of Political Science with the major aspects and policies of the Babangida military presidency, raising the question “Have the Professors of Political Science Lost their Science and Gained the Political?”. He is of the ‘Dudleyan’ persuasion that “intellectuals betray their calling when they begin to hob-nob with government, shuttle along the corridors of power looking for some appointments or favors”. All through his long professional career, Professor Adekanye has kept his distance from successive governments and preserved his integrity even though his research interests enabled him to forge close links with some members of the rich retired military elite and he could easily have profited materially from such relationships.

    In my view, rather than focus on the decision of individual political scientists to participate in one government or the other, the concern should be more about the Nigerian Political Science Association regaining its disciplinary vibrancy, preserving its collective intellectual integrity and ensuring that it’s voice of reason rings loud and clearly always as part of the unceasing national conversation. Thus, for instance, due to the firm public stance of the NPSA against the advocacy in some influential quarters that the then Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, continue in office beyond his promised handover date of 1976, Professor Billy Dudley declared at the Association’s 1974 annual conference that “Even though we are only a year old and have not much to report as achievements or successes, there can be no doubt the role which our Association can play in this society. Already some members of this nation have found our Inaugural Conference sufficiently disturbing to clandestinely react through the medium of a tract they called Nigeria in Confidence. That is some achievement”.

    In the conclusion to his 2015 lecture in honour of the new Professors Emeritus, Bayo Adekanye and John Ayoade, Professor TUNJI Olaopa submitted with characteristic pungency: “Political Science scholarship, like the rest of the humanities and the social sciences, is significant to the realization of the goal of the Nigerian state, which is the protection of the lives of Nigerians and the pursuit of their welfare. In doing that, we require an urgent recalibration of what is to be done. The starting point, and urgent too, is the reconstitution of a serious and proactive community of political scientists mediated by a  newly branded Nigerian Political Science Association that is really alive to its responsibility of jumpstarting critical encounter with the Nigerian state. We cannot encounter such a state and its anomalies in our present fragmented coalition”. In aligning with this view, this column wishes Professor J. ‘Bayo Adekanye many more years of service to political science, scholarship, Nigeria and humanity.

  • Undertakers killing Nigeria league

    Undertakers killing Nigeria league

    DEAR reader, please forgive me if I keep using the European leagues to kick the bums of our inept domestic league organisers. I don’t suffer from any form of colonial mentality. All the leagues in the world have begun their seasons, ours is snoring in the forest with the noise from our unperturbed organisers’ snorts blaring to attract the evil forest’s spirits. This has been the practice since the inception of this NFF with its executive members moping and unable to bell the cat by calling for the league board’s sack or its disbandment.

    Must we continue to destroy the future of our kids in the 774 Local Government Areas in the country, simply because nobody is bold enough to stop the trend of watching Nigerian teams being eliminated by hitherto also-ran countries of yore in the competition? Who can stop these undertakers from killing our league which has produced several soccer greats? Need I mention names?

    Yearly, our representatives in the CAF inter-club competitions complain of the lack of matches to keep their players in competitive form as the reason for their early exits. Why the NFF executive board members have turned deaf ears to this disturbing trend beats one’s imagination. It doesn’t matter if the country’s representatives take turns in being eliminated from every round of the competitions. What insults our sensibilities is the yearly explanation after the teams must have crashed out that we would do something and nothing gets done about it.

    It should worry the current NFF executive committee members that no Nigerian club has won a continental trophy in their six years reign. Are the members waiting for the time when state governors would decline sponsoring their clubs because of their ill-preparedness? The way things are going, a year would come where there would be winners but no sponsors with our opponents coming to Nigeria to walk over our teams. It may seem unthinkable now, but it would happen if we continue to keep this set of inept organisers to run the game here.

    How can organisers of the league continue to repeat fatal mistakes that have kept the league in the doldrums, yet the parent body sits aloof as if its primary duty isn’t to develop the Nigerian game in all of its ramifications. It hurts watching talented players look mediocre because of the ineptitude of the organisers who bask in the tardy options of either running abridge league competitions or using bizarre formulas to pick winners and losers of the competition without recourse to the rules of the competition globally. It doesn’t prick the conscience of the organisers when our representatives are getting kicked out of tournaments which Nigeria had dominated in the past. No wonder Gernot Rohr keeps insulting Nigeria by picking 28 foreign-based players for games against the Central Africa Republic (CAR, Sierra Leone, etc with due respect to such sovereign nations.

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    They enjoy telling Nigerians that they haven’t gotten sponsors for the league as if it is common knowledge that the corporate bodies don’t wake up at night to plan their yearly budgets. Indeed, no firm would wait for an inept body to pitch for sponsorship when there are other serious contenders seeking such opportunities at the snap of the finger. These firms operate within the country and on a daily basis read about the ills of the league, including  threats to participants’ lives, especially referees. No credible firm would want to put its goods and services on the league on the altar of sponsorship of any kind.

    It is important to remind the organisers that the players in the domestic game are workers who are entitled to their wages which most times come from gate-takings and other marketing windows available to their clubs to generate revenue. Therefore, how do these clubs generate revenue when the league is in abeyance? Which firms, banks, sponsors, or state governors would listen to requests for cash when there are no matches? Is this not a gradual way of destroying clubs, especially those who must have taken bank loans to perfect their operations, not forgetting how the Covid-19 pandemic destroyed the economy globally?

    Would it be fair to ask these clubs to pay for match officials like they did last year given the long wait to get the organiser’s roadmap for the new season? Is this one of the reasons which give clubs the audacity to owe players, coaches, officials, and ancillary staff their wages running into several years? Which firm(s) would do business with the Nigeria league which doesn’t have a calendar that would state categorically when the competition would begin and end without man-made hitches? Without a calendar, you can’t plan any meaningful league. No wonder the Nigerian league is rudderless.

    Our league organisers chose to go to Russia to watch the 2018 World Cup games than to remain at home to supervise the domestic league like the other leagues in the world. This mistake portrayed the organisers as unserious people considering the fact that only one player, a reserve goalkeeper made the Nigerian squad from the domestic league.

    How would any business concern entertain any discussions with these organisers who would rather postpone the league games in Nigeria to watch the Mundial in Russia? Isn’t it a shame that under this management, nothing good has come out of the league worthy of commendation? Indeed, it took the instructions of the honourable sports minister Sunday Dare last season for the organisers to appreciate reasons the league should begin. We are at the same spot with the organisers confused, unwilling to tell the world when the Nigerian league would begin? What we hear from their lackeys are propositions not tied to a particular date. The reality is that they have no money in the body’s coffers.

    The bigger picture is that even if any company decides to sponsor the league, such an initiative should start on a clean slate, given the huge debts from previous seasons. Already, the champions of the league Akwa United are out of the CAF Champions League through no fault of theirs. Had the league season begun, they would have given their best. Bayelsa United and Rivers United have dicey return leg games in the CAF Confederations Cup. Both sides first leg tie ended in a score draw for Rivers United and a slim 1-0 for Bayelsa United. Only Enyimba can dream of a qualification ticket, having won the first game away from Aba. But, these fixtures are best left to be played on the pitch other than resort to any form of permutations based on the results of the first matches for the three squads.

    The organisers should be ashamed of themselves for organising a league without television coverage for live games. Asides, from the fact that live games bring the league to the people in their living rooms, it also helps in taking different talking points in matches and prevents urchins and beasts take the laws into their hands on the altar of being club fans or supporters. Participating teams make a lot of money from television rights. The organisers also use the platform to showcase their co-sponsors to ensure that all the facets of the competition are brought to the fore.

    I wish our administrators had any iota of shame to recognise how badly they have run our soccer competitions into the doldrums, such that for the third consecutive season, the domestic league has been fraught with needless controversies due to the management’s failure. A league where the ambulance meant to handle emergencies is being pushed around the playing pitch while a player dies slowly should be disbanded. A league where the organisers enforce existing laws only after a player has died shouldn’t be allowed to kill more people.

    Any stadium in Europe has medical equipment which could compete with what you have in first class hospitals, with staff of the same quality, not auxiliary medical attendants. The league organisers ought to have an official medical facility for those in the game, preferably one owned by the state or federal government.

    Simply put, our stadia lack the capacity to handle emergencies. The number of exits at these stadia are not enough and so narrow such that it takes close to 40 minutes to empty any stadium in the country. The way the exits are built gives room for stampede if an emergency occurs. The ease with which fans crowd the pitches after matches endanger the lives of players and referees.

  • Capitalism as structural genocide? (2)

    Capitalism as structural genocide? (2)

    In this book, ‘Capitalism: A Structural Genocide?’, Garry Leech demonstrates through empirical data and logical analysis that while at least 10 million people die annually as a direct or indirect result of capitalism’s relentless and ruthless pursuit of profit by all means at the expense of the vast majority of humanity, “hundreds of millions more suffer non-fatal forms of structural violence such as trying to survive on a non-living wage or no wage at all, a lack of basic housing, hunger, sickness and many other social injustices”. How come then that most of the earth’s inhabitants, including a large number of its victims, have come to accept this economic system as normal and the inevitable developmental path that humanity must chart? One answer the author proffers is a resort to the explanatory schema of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci’s, concept of ‘hegemony’. Quite apart from the state’s utilization of its monopoly of control of the capacity of violence to maintain the ‘rule of law’ and ensure compliance by recalcitrant elements with the status quo, hegemony in the ‘Gramscian’ sense, involves the process of socialization of the masses through education, media, religion and culture among others to accept society as it is as natural, eternal and unchanging.

    Even then, Leech contends that a sizable number of people in the global South continue to demand and desire a more just and equitable socio-economic global system as well as more humane living conditions. The large number of the ‘wretched of the earth’ daily daring the most savage obstacles including hazardous deserts and destructive seas to escape their hellish existence and migrate to the more affluent countries of the global North illustrate Leech’s point. This is an unavoidable consequence of an inequitable global system that generates immense wealth in one part through a process that, at the same time, produces abject poverty for billions of people in the other part.

    Citing the late Marxist economist, Samir Amin, the author argues that while in democratic politics at least, citizens are assumed to be equal before the law, “In social reality, dominant and dominated, exploiters and exploited, are no longer equal in their capacity to make use of their rights”. As capitalism pursues its logic of remorseless profit maximization, capital compulsorily exploits both labour and natural resources throughout the globe and this self-propelling drive to expand and promote uninhibited economic growth has resulted in inequality increasing dramatically “with the wealth gap between the global North and global South growing from a factor of 3:1 in 1820 to 35:1 in 1950 and 72:1 in 1990”.

    Garry Leech reinforces Samir Amin’s argument by reference to the Indian physicist and philosopher, Vandana Shiva, who, echoing Walter Rodney, contends that  ”The poor are not those who have been left behind; they are those who have been robbed. The riches accumulated by Europe are based on riches taken from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Without the destruction of India’s rich textile industry, without the takeover of the spice trade, without the genocide of the Native American tribes, without Africa’s slavery, the industrial revolution would not have led to new riches for Europe or the United States. It was this violent takeover of Third World resources and markets that created wealth in the North and poverty in the South”. This is at the core of Leech’s argument that the processes of the emergence, evolution and consolidation of capitalism have had genocidal consequences for huge segments of humanity.

    Read Also: Capitalism as structural genocide? (1)

    The author cites three concrete cases to demonstrate his thesis of capitalism as constituting a form of structural genocide. First, is the reported forced displacement of Mexican farmers from their lands under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which led to the destruction of a substantial number of lives and livelihoods. While NAFTA was purportedly designed to create a free market for many agricultural and manufactured goods to move freely across the borders of the three participating countries, the US, Canada and Mexico, free movement of Labour was not part of the agreement, which negated free trade dictates. Furthermore,  NAFTA permitted artificial free trade barriers that favored US agribusiness corporations, for instance, and although Mexico was also allowed to subsidize its agricultural sector, neoliberal austerity measures imposed on the country through loan agreements with International Financial Institutions made it difficult for the country to subsidize its agricultural sector to the same extent as the US and Canada. Consequently, for example, subsidized US corn came to dominate the Mexican market as unsubsidized Mexican farmers could not compete with the subsidized imported US product. Thus, large numbers of displaced and unemployed Mexican farmers became engaged in the illicit trade in cocaine and other drugs across the US border.

    The second case the author uses to illustrate his point of structural genocide under capitalism is the large scale of farmer suicides in India as a result of the devastating policies imposed on the country by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international financial institutions.   He talks of a suicide crisis among small farmers in India that is occurring on a genocidal scale. According to him, policies promoted by the WTO, IMF and World Bank had routinely required that countries in the global South unilaterally reduced their agricultural subsidies under Structural Adjustment Agreements attached to their loans while nations in the global North are allowed to subsidize their agricultural corporations. Consequently, according to the Indian government, about 216,500 Indian farmers committed suicide between 1997 and 2009 due to huge indebtedness. Indeed, the number of Indian households in debt reportedly doubled between 1991 and 2001 from 26% to 48.6%. While global attention has been focused on the hi-tech urban sector boom in India in the 1990s leading to the creation of 1 million new millionaires, less attention is paid to the fact that Indians living in poverty reportedly increased by 56 million during these boom years.

    Africa is the third example cited by the author to illustrate his thesis of capitalism as structural genocide. For example, he argues, African countries have been forced by the hegemony of neoliberal globalization to accord priority to the cultivation of cash crops for export over production of food for domestic consumption in order to generate sufficient resources to service their debt. The consequence has been food insecurity and widespread hunger with almost 3 million children in sub-Saharan Africa dying annually from hunger-related diseases. Again, he cites the example of the focus of global pharmaceutical companies on the maximization of profit, which prevents Africans from accessing life-saving medicines from diseases emanating from hunger and malnutrition for instance. He laments that the focus of research by multinational pharmaceutical companies is on the development of those drugs that generate the most profit rather than meeting the healthcare needs of the vast majority of humanity.

    Is there any alternative to the current dominant and crisis-ridden global socio-economic order? The author disagrees with progressives who advocate reform and humanization of the system within its “genocidal framework” rather than recognizing the capitalist system itself as the primary cause of the economic and ecological crisis and thus struggling to abolish it. The alternative, for him, is a socialist framework based on the simple idea that the resources of society be used to meet people’s needs as opposed to the capitalist logic that allows capital to maximize profit for the benefit of a small minority based on the exploitation of the majority and the destruction of nature.

    The argument for a socialist alternative seems far fetched and unconvincing now given the current global balance of ideological forces. Yet, as the global crisis of neoliberal capitalism worsens rendering liberal democracies vulnerable even in the most advanced countries, revolutionary pressures are mounting globally. If meaningful reforms are impossible to actualize within the extant socio-economic status-quo, advanced capitalist democracy as we know it today may indeed suffer an imminent implosion and what comes after can only be a matter of conjecture for now.

  • Diplomacy, coups and politics

    Diplomacy, coups and politics

    It  is almost  a taboo to mention the word’ coup’ amongst Nigerian politicians, who insist  that the worst  civilian  government is better than any military  government,  like the ones  that sprang up  defiantly in Mali  and Guinea recently  and the past ones  that have left  their indelible  marks on the Nigerian political  terrain and culture. But  when  a visiting head of state in the presence of the Nigerian president  insists  that those who planned a coup against him  in his  nation,  on July 15, my  birthday , in 2016 are  still residing in Nigeria,  then one  can feel  safe in discussing the issue of coup without the fear of being  accused of inviting an insurrection  or  being  branded a security  risk  by the security  forces of our nation. Incidentally  a treasonable felony trial  started  this week in Nigeria   on  an ongoing insurrection   in the East and the  accused  pleaded  not guilty and the case has  been postponed till November while  the  accused is to remain in the custody of the DSS.

    However,  our focus  today  is the allegation of the Turkish  president that his opponents,  those  he called terrorists  are in  Nigeria and that  he would  trade intelligence  with the Nigerian government so  that both nations  can  cooperate in effectively  in tackling terrorism  in the two  nations together. It is obvious  that he has seen that  the Nigerian leader would not play ball  with  his order after  the 2016  coup in Turkey,   that  Nigeria  should  close Turkish  schools  in Nigeria affiliated  or owned by Fethullah  Gulen, a former  ally  of the Turkish  president before they  parted company , who has  a global network of influential  schools and charities. Nigeria ignored Erdogan’s order to close the schools and there is no doubt that this is still uppermost in the Turkish leader’s mind. Nevertheless Nigeria signed agreements on 8  economic fronts with Turkey  which  the Nigerian leader promised to implement and the Turkish  president was treated to a lavish  reception at the Turkey  Cultural  center in Abuja.  The  Nigerian president applauded his  Turkish  counterpart as an example to the world  on how to treat refugees with kindness and respect given the fact that Turkey  is home,  in recent times,  to  thousands  of  refugees fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq  and the entire Middle  East and is the  only  nation that is preventing Europe  from being  flooded and submerged by an avalanche  of desperate  refugees.

    How the Turkish leader is handling the refugee crisis and his relations on this come under our scrutiny today. We  also  compare and contrast  Nigeria’s political  history  and culture with that  of Turkey and  see  what  we  can  learn  for better  leadership, diplomacy  and governance   for  the  benefit   of  both  nations and indeed the world at large .

    We  start  by saying that Turkey’s  president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is  a strong democrat  who  has  been able to rescue  his nation from the terror or dominance  of military  intervention . He started as a politician operating in secular Turkey founded by Kemal Atartuk in 1923   and in which the military was the guarantor Turkey’s democracy with the proviso that banned Islamic fundamentalism by Turkey’s politicians and leaders. Turkey’s history is replete with military coups against civilian governments that put religion above politics. Turkey was therefore a secular state like Nigeria even though Islam was the religion of the Turks and they dominated the Ottoman Empire that collapsed after the second world war. Erdogan  has won three back to back  democratic  elections and the military tried  to  put him out in the coup  of July  15,  2016  unsuccessfully, mainly  because Erdogan personally and bravely rallied protesters to flood the streets  of the capital to prevent the army from taking over. Since then he has tried thousands of military officers and jailed them for treasonable felony, while he has amended the constitution to make himself an executive president.

    On  diplomacy,  Erdogan  is largely at logger heads with the EU on the issue of Turkish  membership,  an application that  has not  been approved by the EU  for decades  as  well  as the refugees  crisis which  Erdogan  uses regularly  to threaten and blackmail  the EU nations even though Turkey  has been  paid handsomely  by EU to  look after  the  refugees. Also,   Erdogan  has  always  shown  that he could cooperate and buy arms  from Russia , the EU’s  main enemy  ,  even  though  Turkey is a member of NATO, a military  alliance and that simply  makes Turkey  a potent and real security risk to NATO in any war  with Russia.

    In a way, Nigeria’s political and democratic evolution is similar to that of Turkey since Nigeria’s first military coup in 1966. Military  intervention is unthinkable in Nigeria  now  as the failed July 15 2016  coup  made  sure in Turkey. But there  is  a point  of departure in that  while Erdogan  put the  military  out of work in Turkey’s  political  dispensation, perhaps forever,   the military in Nigeria simply dropped   their   braided military    hats and boots   and metamorphosed  to professional   politicians and  won elections as governors, and presidents in our subsequent post coup  political  dispensations. Our president   who hosted Erdogan was a military head of state and had contested three presidential elections and lost, before winning two terms as president. He   has a senior military colleague with the same political experience and achievement. The  military  in democratic evolution in Nigeria behaved like the tiny  plant that  bent in the direction of a strong political  wind   of   change  and  survived,  unlike  the oak  that stood against  it, and was uprooted .

    Aside  from the treasonable trial  going on now in Nigeria and  the one in Turkey,  Nigeria too had a famous  treasonable  trial  before  the civil  war after the military  intervention of 1966 . That was the trial  of Nigeria’s  Leader  of  Opposition in the Nigerian Parliament then,  the irrepressible  and charismatic  late   Chief Obafemi Awolowo  , popularly known as Awo.  He was jailed for treasonable felony but was released by the military government of General   Yakubu Gowon and became the Minister of Finance in the military   junta. Awo  played a crucial  role in the prosecution of the civil  war  that the Federal government won and brought Biafra , which  is now trying   dangerously   to rear its  ugly   head, back  into the fold of the Nigerian federation. It  is nice and beneficial  to  Nigeria that Turkey  and Nigeria  are poised to share intelligence on terrorism as  there is urgent need in Nigeria to curb the excesses of kidnappers, armed herdsmen, marauders, and especially  Boko  Haram,  as  Erdogan  has a good track  record  in Turkey  that has shown that those who attack  the Turkish state cannot sleep  well either in Turkey  or in Nigeria as he claimed,  and  has  indeed  come here  to  finish  them off,  albeit   unsuccessfully. Nigeria can  surely  borrow  a leaf  from the Turkish  book on  security  that  clearly shows   that  there  can only  be one sovereign state within a democratic  state  and it is the duty of that   state to protect its people,  their   lives and    property  –  just  as it protects its power in that same democracy. From the fury of this   pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

  • Are political scientists too not to blame? (1)

    Are political scientists too not to blame? (1)

    IS there not some peculiar way in which, not just the Political Science discipline, but also the academic political scientists as its practitioners in particular, are implicated and stand largely condemned by the grossly derelict and decrepit state of post-colonial Nigeria 61 years after what the late Professor Bade Onimode derisively described as the attainment of ‘flag’ or ‘nominal’ independence? For, no matter what our leaders may grandiloquently pronounce as her (perennial?) potential as the fabled ‘giant of Africa’, Nigeria, relative to her population and resource-endowment remains, in her abysmal failure, an embarrassment to Africa and the black race. But then, why single out Political Science and its scholarly devotees for especial indictment for the sorry state of a country which, one of its brightest minds, the late Professor Chinua Achebe, looking back in part nostalgia to its colonial past, bemoaned the disappearance of a country that once thrived at least to a relative degree of satisfaction before it’s much vaunted independence?

    The answer is simple. The discipline’s classical masterminds, Plato and Aristotle, perceived and described, directly or indirectly, Political Science as the ‘Master Science’. Its disciplinary focus is the study of the art and science of the principles of organizing a well ordered state and deploying its compulsory and over awing power to ensure that all other ‘partial’ associations and groups within its jurisdiction – the professions, economic entities, the arts, culture, academia, sports, culture etc – exist and flourish.

    In his immortal ‘Grammar of Politics’, one of my favorite political scientists, Professor Harold Laski, notes at least two senses in which politics, as the art and science of the organization and management of the state as well as deployment of power, constitutes the master, all encompassing and most critical vocation. First, in one aspect, to Laski, “it becomes an organization for enabling the mass of men to realize social good on the largest possible scale”. Secondly, Laski posits, the state “exists to enable men, at least potentially, to realize the best that is in themselves”. In other words, the justification for the state’s existence, its legitimate monopoly of the machinery of coercion and the willing submission of the society over which it superintends to its authority, is its ability to create and maintain the environmental conditions for the maximization of human potential individually and collectively. In neither of these senses has the Nigerian post-colonial state justified its existence and legitimacy either under dictatorial or, supposedly, democratic rule.

    The late Professor Billy Dudley, in his Presidential Address at the 1974 Annual Conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA), at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, also alluded to the ultimate responsibility of the political organization of the state, impliedly on a democratic basis, as inevitable for the attainment and promotion of the common good of society. In his words, “To return once more to Aristotle, politics is also civic education, an education in the way by which a people, in the words of Oakshott, attend to the arrangement of the society. To deny a people of politics is thus to deny them a civic education. It is, in brief, to deny that man can be human and conversely, to assert that we are but a herd of animals to be shepherded and guarded”. Does the visionless, inept, venal and democratically denuded character of our politics, a function, largely, of the moral bankruptcy of our political elite across the board, not shorn us as a people of our defining human essence by forcing us to exist vulnerably in an anarchic and amoral society in which life has become the Hobbesian ‘solitary, nasty, brutish and short’ metaphor?

    These were some of the central concerns of foremost political scientist and public sector reform advocate, Professor Tunji Olaopa, of the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), at a public lecture which he delivered at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, on Thursday, June 25, 2015, titled ‘The Legitimacy of Political Science as a Discipline in Nigeria”. Professor Olaopa’s point of departure was a column by the noted political scientist, Professor Ayo Olukotun, in the Punch newspaper titled “Elections: where are our political scientists?”. It was an article in which Professor Olukotun “lamented not only the glaring invisibility of the Political Scientists in Nigeria on the national conversation about national development and progress, but also about the role of public intellectuals in national discourse”.  Professor Olaopa cited the near moribundity of the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA) and the virtual comatose state of its once illustrious journal, ‘Studies in Politics and Society’ to support Olukotun’s contention.

    Incidentally, Professor Olaopa, easily the brightest and best mind of my political science class at the University of Ibadan both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, delivered his lecture in honour of Professors ‘Bayo Adekanye and John Ayoade, who had just been appointed as Emeritus Professors  by the Premier University. This piece is to commemorate the 80th birthday of one of these star scholars, Professor Adekanye, which is coming painfully and embarrassingly well after the date of the event on August 19, 2021. Even then, better late than never. The eminent political scientist, diligent researcher, meticulous analyst and rigorous methodologist has been deservedly widely celebrated by the political science and academic community in Nigeria and beyond on his attaining the 80-year landmark this side of eternity.

    But again, why celebrate such an accomplished, prolific and prodigiously productive scholar with a piece that, impliedly, laments the seeming failures of contemporary political science in Nigeria? The reason is that I partly agree with the submission of Professor Olaopa that the discipline of political science, while it remains solid and robust across institutions, is not living up to the standard set by the generation of Professor Adekanye at least in terms of contributions to public discourse on finding enduring solutions to the country’s protracted political problems.

    The distinguished professor has made indelible contributions particularly in his area of specialization, civil-military relations, conflict containment and resolution as well as peace remediation. I can still picture the young then Dr Adekanye as he taught us in an undergraduate course titled ‘Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency’ in the early 1980s. It was a course in which we studied, among others, the burgeoning anti-apartheid insurgency in South Africa, the insurgency in Algeria at the end of the Second World War and the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya. Who knew at the time that Nigeria would herself have to contend with an insurgent uprising that has lasted for more than a decade? His collection of selected essays published in 2007 and titled ‘Linking Conflict Diagnosis, Conflict Prevention and Conflict Management in Contemporary Africa’ is an invaluable legacy to students and an invaluable resource for policy  makers in conflict-ridden and post-conflict challenged societies.

    Earlier, in 1999, Professor Adekanye published   his seminal and prescient book, “The Retired Military as Emergent Power Factor in Nigeria”; a book in which he offered a scholarly and systematic analysis of the growing power and influence of retired military officers in contemporary Nigeria with specific focus on the second republic and the latter Babangida years. His central contention in this book was that the traditional concept of civil-military relations in Nigeria that portrays a rigid demarcation between the civil society and military realms has become outmoded with the retired military elite becoming a growing cohesive power bloc playing key roles in the economy and other commanding heights of civil society. Surely, the investigations and findings of this work have to be extended by further studies that encompass the last two decades of this dispensation.

     

    …more good news from FUOYE

    A circular issued on 29th March, 2021, by the National Universities Commission (NUC) on the programme of Doctor of Pharmacy (PHARM. D) in Nigerian universities has just come to the attention of this columnist. It is good news, once again, from the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, which is one out of only 11 universities accredited in Nigeria to run the Pharm.D programme. FUOYE got its accreditation in this regard in 2019, during the tenure of the immediate past Vice Chancellor, Professor Kayode Soremekun; another indication of the path-breaking accomplishments of the institution in that dispensation (2016-2021). Stressing that the B.Pharm and Pharm.D are two distinct programmes awarded in the Nigerian University system, the NUC warned that the degrees are not interchangeable explaining that the Pharm.D was introduced “in a bid to expand the Pharmacy profession to incorporate pharmaceutical care and accommodate clinical demand within the Nigerian educational system”. There is not unlikely to be even more good tidings from FUOYE as the current VC, Professor A.S. Fasina, is said to be building assiduously on the foundation laid by his predecessor.

  • These Super Eagles can’t fly

    These Super Eagles can’t fly

    SUPER EAGLES are the biggest brand in the country to market to the corporate world. They fall over themselves chasing one form of marketing each time the team is on the threshold of history. Will you blame them? Certainly not. Firms are in business to sell their goods and services. The window of exposure Eagles give to firms is unquantifiable, especially if the team ends up performing well in the designated competition. One of such football competitions which investors strive to place their monies on is the FIFA World Cup which holds after every four years.

    On Monday night, Germany on away soil beat North Macedonia 4-0 to become the first country to qualify for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. What it simply means is that Germany, under a new manager Flicks has a long period to prepare adequately for the competition through quality friendly matches which should help blend the players into one solid indivisible unit that would shock the world next year. The Germans won the trophy in 2014 and their antecedents at the Mundial are legendary.

    The Germans were winners of the Confederations Cup in 2017, winning the trophy with younger players which most pundits thought would make them stronger the following year in Russia. It didn’t happen as the Germans were beaten in the Group stages. It was obvious that a fiasco awaited Germany in Russia due to the personality issues the former manager Joachim Lowe had with the big boys in the team who felt the emergence of the new boys in the 2017 Confederations Cup squad meant their exit was nigh.

    It was easy for an embattled Lowe to throw up the aging stars in the build-up to the country being the first nation to qualify for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Lowe had quietly groomed their replacements such that even with his exit from the German side, his successor Flicks did the needful by continuing with the boys he met. Herein lies the difference between football nations and pretenders such as Nigeria. No country grooms her national teams using foreigners who don’t know here. Countries judge their growth in the beautiful game by the number of home-groomed players in their senior teams to the Mundial. Not the presence of Nigeria-born players like we have in the Super Eagles.

    Lessons from the German transition of being World Cup winners in 2014 and Confederations Cup champions in 2017, irrespective of the team’s shambolic outing in 2018, are such that Nigeria ought to learn from if our administrators know what they are doing. Germany’s former manager Lowe knew that some of his players were aging. Rather than parade the World Cup champions in 2014 filled with fulfilled and unmotivated players for newer heights in the game at the 2017 Confederations Cup, instead, he chose younger, fitter, and much hungrier players who had the fight in them to participate in the competition. It would never happen in Nigeria because of our fixation on how the Eagles should look, even if many of them are in the throes of their exit in the squad.

    In Nigeria, Lowe would have been sacked after the country’s shameful exit from the 2018 World Cup. The Germany FA left Lowe to finish his term, knowing that he had sown the seeds of growth with the new players he bloodied into the team in 2017. Since football in Germany is run on autopilot on credible and tested templates, it was easy for the German soccer chiefs to headhunt Flicks as Lowe’s replacement even though both managers’ contracts with Germany and Bayern Munich was still subsisting.

    Germany has a well-oiled soccer academy with standards that must be met and adhered to. The Bundesliga can compete with other renowned football leagues in the world. The league is structured in such a way that it continually produces new talents who play for the lower cadres of all the senior teams. The Germans know when their different leagues start and when they would end unlike in Nigeria where the game’s competitions have no calendars. Of course, the German players get paid as at when due, and teams are run as a business with every club knowing what its duties are to the players across all spheres of the game. Need I mention the number of times German sides have won the UEFA Champions League diadem, a measure of how formidable and organised teams which lift the trophy are?

    Besides, the German and other serious European leagues know those who should qualify to play for their different national teams unlike in Nigeria where anything goes. There should be a benchmark on which players are invited to the Super Eagles, including invitees from Europe. Any player not within the benchmark stays out, even if he is scoring in the moon in such novelty leagues. This idea of inviting 29 players from Europe for games against the Central Africa Republic (CAR) translates to a waste of funds, more so when the manager has spent almost four years on the job. What then are the manager’s technical inputs to the team if he needs such a motley crowd to beat CAR?

    Rather than imbibe the tradition of fielding competent young men into the Eagles, we like fielding older ones hinging our decision on their experience in the game. How would the younger ones acquire the needed experience when they are not given the chance to play for the country? Do they acquire this experience by sitting at home? How do you invite 29 players only to play 14 of them in the game? Does it make economic sense to invite the 15 who didn’t play the last game for the next match? A coach worth his onions would invite 18 barring injuries but also pick some home-based players he has seen before the game for training purposes. A coach who has spent close to five years on the job shouldn’t be allowed to invite 29 foreign-based players to camp.

    Nigeria should stop playing domestic football if we can play a two-legged competition with only one home-based player who the manager said has reached the expected level to command a first-team shirt. This is unacceptable. It is a shame that a country that won the FIFA U-17 World Cup cannot sustain a renowned football nursery. This lacuna speaks to the actual ages of players we paraded in our age grade teams in the past. If Nigeria truly had veritable nurseries to discover, nurture and expose the talents to the world, we would have been world beaters at the senior level.

    Football nations globally insist on clubs in their elite leagues having good youth teams where they can spot talents who would replace aging players or injured one in their teams at short notice. These youth teams are engaged in weekly competitions like their senior sides. It is from these youth teams that their countries fill their age grade outfits. The importance of nurseries is that it provides the data bases for kids discovered who are then monitored until they attain stardom.

    It translates to failure of leadership at all levels of our football if we keep relying on kids discovered in other climes to fortify the Super Eagles. It is the reason we haven’t been able to establish a playing style for all our national teams. If you watch any Cameroonian team, male or female, they play the same way. Their mentality is the same. You can say the same thing for the Senegalese and North Africans.

    We have had enough experiments with the Super Eagles since the manager arrived with the players unable to beat smaller football nations resoundingly. What we hear before games from the manager are complaints about the pitches as if the other team didn’t play on the turf. The Eagles blew away a 4-0 lead against Sierra Leone in Benin. Would the manager blame the pitch? If we don’t start vetting the manager’s list, Super Eagles won’t fly as high as we would have wished in competitions. What happened to the Eagles against the Central Africa Republic in Lagos is just a marker. Nigeria deserves a better team. We can do better with a more tactical manager. Not the docile one we have now.

  • Blackmail, culture and progress

    Blackmail, culture and progress

    Human progress is relative, just as culture   – as sociologists insist that no culture should be deemed as superior to another. You can say that is another way of saying one man’s food is another man’s poison. Actually ,  ethnocentricity sums up what I have in mind .Today , however,   I want to delve into what politicians and ideologists call  progress and I think by that I  am  about to examine what I will  label  political or cultural   progress in any political  culture. All the same I want to remind you that the name of this column is ‘New Cultures and Politics ‘and that is the background of this analysis.

    In Europe there is a blackmail afloat to either ditch the monarchy as a political institution or bend it to accommodate the LGBTQ culture and that is being portrayed as a sign of political progress or the new modernity and culture. Or, how do you appreciate the statement by the Dutch PM that parliament will not object if the successor to the Dutch throne   is involved in same sex marriage. The successor to that throne is a lady, about to be 18,   who has not shown any indication that she is disposed in any way to same sex tendencies. Or  the answer  given by a   potential  successor to the English  throne  that he would support any  of his children who  is gay . You can imagine the question that led to that answer. In both the Dutch and English examples,   royalty is being blackmailed and forced to a corner of existence and LGBTQ culture id being rammed down its throat in a manner similar to force feeding a baby in some cultures. That is a sign of progress in the EU nowadays.  However, the danger and blackmail inherent in that attitude and its potential to be marketed to former colonies now independent but still tied symbolically to the apron strings of their former colonial masters like   Nigeria or Ghana, is my business today. Especially with  the  historical  fact that both Holland and Great  Britain  were  the  greatest  colonial  nations  of their  time and they  have their  tentacles spread all over the world and that includes  Asia, Africa and  especially  Nigeria.

    Let me first of all decipher the blackmail I find  inherent in both the Dutch and English examples I gave  before In the Dutch hypothetical  case the PM and his Parliament were trying to prepare the public mind  for the emergence of a gay successor  to the throne even though the young lady  had shown her independence   of mind and character by  not accepting  the   high stipend  attached to her royal status,  because ,  according to her  , she    has done nothing   to earn it . She is nevertheless being assured or prepared by the PM and Dutch legislature   for the   fact   that she would have no problem is she turned gay in succeeding to the throne. In the case of the English Prince he would have been cancelled in terms of succession if he  gave a different  answer. This is a Britain in which the monarchy, in this case the Queen,  is the Head of the Anglican Church. Both  Holland and Britain   are  regarded as  progressive  nations in the EU – until   Brexit-  and  they are both regarded as champions  of European values which  are willy  nilly  supportive of LGBTQ  orientation  and way of life.

    In the same EU however nations like Poland and Hungary frown at LGBTQ values and sexual orientation and have been labelled   as illiberal, unprogressive and authoritarian. They have been branded as corrupt by the EU and their Pandemic financial entitlement delayed because of this. Indeed Poland went  further to do the unthinkable  when its Supreme Court ruled that when  the  laws of the EU   and    Poland  clash , that of  sovereign Poland  should  prevail. In  a way  therefore,  there   is a clash  of  cultures  or civilization going on in the EU with  either side claiming that it is championing human  progress. It  is the potential  or possibility  of that struggle  being transported abroad in a way similar to  globalization  and its now failed concepts of marketization, democratization , and laissez faire capitalism,  that  we address here today .

    Read Also: Cultural expansionism and Biden’s African policy

    Let  us  look at China, a communist nation, Russia, a  quasi democracy  not now totally  communist,   and Nigeria which  has a law in place against LGBTQ tendencies and orientation . We  shall   look at political  values  and  cultures in these  political  systems  and  see how  they  can be described  as progressive  or not .

    China has a mixed  economy but is totally ideologically  communist. It  has  a life  president and  is atheist  but  even  the Americans  now accept that in the field  of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Learning China  is  ahead  of the US  which   is  supposed to be the leading technology  nation of the world hitherto . China is a one party state and the Communist Party of China dictates the pace of economic progress through five year plans approved at a Congress of the party’s delegates. Even though it does not have a religion,   China is anti LGBTQ culture and anti Islam as  it has stopped the Urgurs  from practicing their  religion . Instead,   China   is giving them civic orientation that they should worship the Chinese state and its ideological communist values. But  China is the most progressive  economic nation in  the world today and its state companies are building bridges , high  ways , airports and ports  all over the world and  life has never been better for the Chinese  both at home  and abroad .China  has  shown its  diplomatic ,  technological , and economic  might in the way it resisted successfully  being branded as the source of the pandemic and forced even the WHO to  accept  its version of the source of the pandemic from a lab in Wuhan, China. To  me China is a progressive nation taking care of its people both at home and in diaspora ;  and in the   way  it is flexing  muscle  bravely  with the US  which  prides  itself as progressive because it champions  gay  values which  the Chinese nation and leadership abhors .

    Russia  is  not  a  democratic monarchy like Holland Brexit Britain but its president has positioned himself   like  one and will somehow  rule  for life in or out of office. Vladmir  Putin rules  like  a  Czar  of Russia even  though the Communist  Party  of  Russia  executed the last Czar when it took power  in 1917. Russians have no regard or respect for LGBTQ values and will   beat those  with such tendencies to death in their midst  or society. Since the US withdrew from the international scene first with Donald Trump’s America first  doctrine,  Russia has filled  the void in the Middle East  decisively   and powerfully too, and Russians are proud of that and see their nation  as   at par  with the US  in a bipolar world. That  alone makes Russians  see their nation as progressive and violation of human rights  really  does not matter for them as EU nations would have us believe.

    Let  us  now  look at Nigeria which  is also  legally anti LGBTQ and  has the support of its  people in that regard as nobody  questioned the legislature when it passed its anti gay law with a penalty of imprisonment  for 14  years .Indeed the only thing that unites Nigerians outside football  and the premiership are  the anti  gay posture of the Nigerian nation and culture. Nigeria also has a rich tradition and culture and people value traditional titles and honor. No tradition in Nigeria condones the gay culture and certainly  it will be a taboo   to  name a gay person to a traditional   throne  or a chieftainship title . This  is a field  on which  one can find even Boko  Haram on the  same  side with the  rest of Nigeria .On   that score Nigeria  can be deemed progressive on religion and traditional  values. That  may   be   difficult  for the EU nations  calling themselves progressive to accept. But  as I said  before,  one  man’s food  is another man’s  poison and  it will be most ethnocentric of Europeans in the EU  to think  our way  of life in being  ant gay is unprogressive. African culture frowns at gay habits and Nigeria is not an exception. In spite of the presence of Shell, UAC, BP in our midst Nigerians will resist any effort to transport the gay culture to   their nation. That  to  me is  cultural  progress not tied in any way to economic or political  progress which  are    issues to be viewed in a different  context and with different parameters. Once again From the fury of this pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

     

  • Empathy defines the productivity of each leader

    Empathy defines the productivity of each leader

    There is a funny narrative in the social space about most Nigerian politicians. Nigerians have observed that they only notice a display of ‘performed’ empathetic actions by most Nigerian politicians on the campaign trail. Then they are seen stopping by the roadside to buy roasted corn or the local bean pudding locally called akara from some indigent women. Some of them go to orphanages and take pictures with those living with disabilities. These acts seem to end with their inauguration into offices or so it seems.

    So these ‘assumed’ acts of kindness end and the elected people have security around them. Even local government chairpersons become very inaccessible. They have a overabundance of aides that determine who has access to them.  So the leadership is removed. They begin to live in a bubble.

    This sad reality of the behavior of most politicians points just to a few things;  first, most people that seek political offices do not understand what leadership means, most do not originally have the seeming empathy they fake when they seek offices.

    A political office does not imbue anyone with a sense of compassion. The office merely projects who the person is the more. Again, there is something fundamentally wrong with a society that keeps getting leadership at all levels that their empathetic quotient does not  guarantee a better welfare for the people.

    The Roundtable Conversation has over the years sought to understand why the nation seems to gravitate more to those without empathy for the people. But again, we realize that the leadership comes from the people and as the saying goes, each society get the leadership they deserve. Is there something that the Nigerian society can begin to do differently as we navigate towards a 2023 election that we seek to be different from the rest we have had? What are the people supposed to look out for?

    Leadership is about service and not about gender even though we know that women have a better capacity at the tedious task of tidy thinking. However, while we seek to change our electoral and leadership emergence processes that would guarantee fairness and equity in our politics, we must all in our corners begin to have introspection and bring better ideas to the table.

    We sat down for a conversation with Senator Khairat Abdurazaq-Gwadabe who represented the Abuja Federal Constituency between 1999 – 2003. We wanted to find out how in a patriarchal society like Nigeria and given the great odds against female participation in politics she was able to win a senatorial election in a federal capital territory given the issues of gender, state and experience in Nigerian political space. Did her past actions have any electoral value?

    Even though born in Ilorin the capital of Kwara state, she was able to contest and win an election as a senator in the federal capital territory. Her story is as intriguing as it inspirational. Having been raised in a politically active family, she had experienced leadership around her and grown to know the value of service to the people and she had lived it.

    To Senator Gwadabe, even though she was born with the proverbial silver spoon, she was raised to be as humane as she can afford to be. She had grown up, done her studies in Nigeria and abroad and had promised herself that if ever she had the opportunity, she would seek political office as a route that can enable her uplift the people especially the often forgotten in the rural areas especially of a federal capital that had a lot of issues concerning the indigenous people and a fast expanding government presence in the city.

    So the moment the government at the time encouraged women to get into the political space, she seized the moment and threw  her hat into the political space. She took the challenge and joined a political party and was lucky enough to win the nomination ultimately after skipping many the huddles. Interestingly, she had contested as a single lady in a country where society assumes that single ladies are not good enough to provide leadership. It is immaterial that single, divorced, separated or widowed men get elected or appointed to positions without reference to their marital status.

    So a Senator Khairat won the seat on her personal merit and based on her capacity and track record in the capital city. The first challenge she faced was the idea that some party members felt she must first go to the House of Representatives before ‘graduating’ to the senate. She refused. Interestingly, the reason the people gave then was so puerile it made no development sense.  They wanted the older men to go to the senate instead. And the question remains, what has old age got to do with leadership?

    Even though it was quite challenging but persistence and a connection with the people were very helpful. At the end of the day, she defeated the other candidates. At some point, one of her fellow candidates supported her and campaigned with her. She did get more support from the men surprisingly. That spoke in a special way to her. Most men would support any woman they believe has capacity and can serve especially when you already have a track record.

    Even though the thought of a woman contesting for a senatorial seat was tough, Senator Khairat was on a simple five-pronged mission at the time; would voters vote for a woman,  a young person,  a non-indigene, was religion an issue, or was language an issue.? They proved to her that all those didn’t matter.

    In fact being a woman was an advantage because to the locals, they had tried men, they could see that as anindividual she had always been with them and done things for them even before the elections started. They equally said they wanted a woman for a change because they had dealt with male representatives and decided to give a woman a chance to prove her sense of service.

    However, she combined the acceptance of her candidacy with very aggressive campaign to get to all the nooks and crannies of the Senatorial district. So she never took anything for granted.

    Her strategy had always been to leave a part of her with the voters prior to her seeking their votes. There was the connectivity that existed  prior to the election. She had always made some impact based on her sense of genuine empathy for their welfare given the challenges that existed with government expansionist tendencies in the new federal capital. The senator recounted a funny but instructive incident that happened after the election. Journalists had questioned the man who lost to her whether he intended to go challenge her victory in court and the man laughing said if he was not a candidate, he would have voted for her too.

    To Khairat, her experience has shown her that even though there are socio-cultural challenges for women in politics, determination, personal improvement,  education, sense of service and a big dose of consistent display of empathy for the people win votes. The problem often resides with the people and their values. Why do people not make certain demands from candidates? We must begin  to evaluate the character of those we support to access leadership because adults do not change. You take your personality to leadership. Leadership does not train you to be kind.

    She believes women must prioritize their personal development and get themselves ready for active political participation. For now, she feels women must stop feeling that leadership is served a la carte. To be more active in politics demands a paradigm shift from women. Mothers seem to have failed. We must return to our core values.

    Women must stop sexualizing themselves because when such is the case, the men naturally feel they only have their sexuality to offer which is not be true. Part of the fight for gender parity in politics must be about women stopping to flaunt  their femininity and showing more of cerebral capacity and the empathy to help more women who are always the victims of poverty and all other indexes of underdevelopment.

    As member of Senate committees on Environment, Health, Women Affairs (Chairperson), Federal Character, Tourism & culture and Federal Capital Territory, she put in efforts to continue the impactful actions that won her the seat.  When she had a voice through the senate, she fully utilized all the legislative tools of law making, lobbying and oversight duties to improve the lives of people she was representing as ba fulfillment of her campaign promises.

    One of the sore points that evoked her determination to go get a voice was some of her visits to the rural communities and the fact of seeing the number of maternal and child mortality due to lack of healthcare. Seeing women in labour being carried on bicycles on very bad roads was heartbreaking for her and she tried then as an individual  but felt getting to the senate would help her solve more of the problems of those whose lands had been taken, who were mere farmers being unable to pay tuition for their children because their lives depended on the harvests from lands they could not lay claims to anymore.

    The people she represented, some call them indigenes but she refers to them as early settlers loved her for being the one who remembered  they needed rights to a good habitat, to good schools and hospitals for at least the pregnant women and their babies. Maternal and child mortality had always been an issue she had worked on to improve.

    The senator advises that Nigerians must start thinking of leaders that can engender the national budget. How are women’s issues protected in our national budgets?  For now, women’s issues in health and education need more. Why is Nigeria one of the countries with the highest maternal and child mortality? We must go beyond partisanship and elect people who have the empathy to impact on lives because no one is free until the least amongst us is taken care of.

    • The dialogue continues…