The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Civic integrity, disagreements and misinformation

    Civic integrity, disagreements and misinformation

    It  has taken a former Facebook   worker,  doubling as a recognized whistle blower to tell  the world in the  US, the  global  leading  technology   nation, that it has been caught pants  down  on the regulation of   Information Technology and the Internet,   and  the sooner it makes laws to regulate big  technology  companies  like Facebook , Google and Instagram,  the better for  the sanity and moral  values of the world  we live in today. That  lady is Frances Haugen, a 37 year  old American lady called a whistle  blower but  for whom  I  doff  my hat   today   for  her bravery and integrity,  which are in tune with her specialty  called civic  integrity,  and  for which I expect  her to be nominated  for the Nobel Prize  sooner than  later.   This   is for saving the world from its folly while going about blind folded and lapping up the goodies of technologies that   it   cannot   discovered     that   it    cannot live without.  Frances  Haugen’s  – FH  for  short  –  story   was very  simple and is a clear  case  of compunction in  the public interest  for which she has acknowledged  that her life is in danger for the information she released  to the world on research conducted in Facebook  while she was working there,  which showed  the adverse effect  of misinformation on society at large but  which her employers did not implement,  because Facebook  management and leadership believed more in profit  than  people or the public interest at  large . You  may  call me a male chauvinist, but  I am  definitely  not  a misogynist , but the revelations of this woman, FH, is  an excellent  example  of  the notion occasionally  floated around, that what a  man  can  do, a woman  can do better. You  can imagine how US  legislators in  both  Houses,  especially  the old men of the senate  she faced, would  be feeling now because they are highly paid to make laws that protect society and this woman has shown that they have been sleeping on duty and have shirked their  moral  responsibilities in protecting society laws  to regulate  technology companies.

    Read Also: UN, agencies advise countries to fight misinformation

    The information disseminated and presented to the US senate is not an American issue alone, but a global one since technology has made the world a global village. Indeed I read somewhere that big tech companies cannot be regulated because they are so big, important and popular.  Which   really is an understatement  but should  be a wakeup call, and   an  urgent one  too   for clipping the wings and monopolies  of these  hydra  headed  technology  monsters  for now. Facebook internal research had    showen that some information were divisive,   promote and provoke anger and that when people are angry they spend more time on the internet and that makes more money for the company and such information were deliberately promoted instead of being put down by Facebook. FH narrated that civic integrity was maintained and implemented during the 2020 US presidential election   but dissolved after the election. That, she said,   led to the Jan 6   2021 insurrection that was instigated by Donald Trump because the insurrectionists organized and got connected through Facebook. That has serious political and legal implications that FH may not be aware of regardless of her political leanings or even if she is apolitical. This  is because from this information alone,  one can deduce correctly that since Big Tech companies and Big Media teamed up  with   the  opposition   then   to offload Trump  from the White House,  they  didn’t  need any civic  integrity thereafter because they  had achieved  their objective. The  uprising arising   therefore   from the absence of civic responsibility and integrity as FH claimed innocuously, was an unintended consequence and that showed FH is not politically  savvy,  because   again, that has serious  political  implications for  the division and polarization    now   permeating   the US society and political system ,   arising  from the results  of the US 2020 presidential  elections  which  the Jan 6  insurrection attempted  to preempt  and overturn , albeit  unsuccessfully . Another reason for my fascination with this story   is the background of FH, the brave whistleblower. It has changed my pejorative perception of whistleblowing as a betrayal   which is the general notion. FH  was described as an expert on civic integrity with a background in consumer protection , product  safety and  data integrity,  which  to me is a fusion of a career in  marketing and  technology and  she  has  topped that now with a public  conscience that has revealed  the evil  genius of  her  former  employers. She even pleaded for the legislators to make laws to regulate technology because it is the duty of government and governance. She cited the   history of the dangers of tobacco and the powers of tobacco companies before regulation on the health hazards of smoking as well as the introduction of safety belts in driving as the work and duty of governments. If  these  could be done in the past she  pleaded, it could  be done with these technology giants whose  powers,   wealth   and  immoral  sources  of revenue,  are  now  a clear  danger to global  democracy  and peace.

    Ironically, the Nigerian government sensed what FH is revealing now and banned Twitter sometime ago and there was a lot of fury attacking the perceived lack of government   respect for free speech. I wrote against that then on the logic that free speech  should  not be at the expense of security and decent language  which  is lacking  on the Nigerian social  media   scene where profanity and foul  language are the vogue,  instead  of constructive criticism  based on crosschecked facts before publication or comment. Now that it has been shown that big tech promote anger to make profit Nigerians should be wary before they make attacks on people they disagree with. Governments too should not criminalise or weaponise disagreements with views of dissent, especially from the opposition .The    reported   threat to declare state of emergency in the East because of agitation for a better deal, which is prevalent in the other parts of the nation   except the North, is a clear sign of weaponisation and criminalization of disagreements and is undemocratic. Again anger was   rife in the East and led to the civil war and lessons should be learnt on that as well as the clamour for Oduduwa   nation in the South west. Who  knows how much  disinformation or misinformation that  people  have been  fed with especially  now that we know big  tech  companies  use anger  to maximize profit .

    Even in the US   where FH made her revelations I  have  my fears that  there will be a bipartisan will  to make laws to regulate the big tech companies because there is no doubt that they had a hand in the election of the Biden Administration. There is clear  objective  and    danger  now in criminalizing dissent by  using the US  Justice Department  to ask the department – DOJ –  TO   direct  the FBI  to  go after parents who  object to  Critical Race Theory  being  taught in schools or those who  ask  that children   should not wear  masks in schools. Such parents reportedly have been branded as domestic terrorists on the same scale as ISIS or Al Quada to be investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by DOJ.  That clearly is undemocratic and is a far lesser evil than the revelations of the whistleblower on the manipulative role of big tech in not only promoting and marketing anger for profit but in also setting up governments on anger proceeds. As it did in undoing Trump  and setting up  his  successor,  who must  now  clean up the acts of  big tech  companies, if  he   has the nerve to do good,  like the God sent whistle blower and conscience of  the global   society-  FH. From the fury of this pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

  • Going, going, Ole?

    Going, going, Ole?

    HE was always going to be a pain in the neck for the Red Devils, except the manager was changed. His football has developed beyond the abilities of I can do it which is Manchester United. Strikingly, the celebrations surrounding his shocking return to Old Trafford Stadium blinded the eyes of the team’s faithful. All that the fans thought would give them victory was for any Manchester United squad to line up with Cristiano Ronaldo. They have found out it is always so. The team must play well to leverage Ronaldo’s presence up front.

    For a team that has been troubled by naughty stunts of a player whose only credentials was that he won the World Cup for France, the return of Ronaldo was surely the best antidote for the Red Devils to keep Paul Pogba where he rightly deserved – an average player when placed against CR7. The Red Devils are no longer talking about Pogba’s exit.

    But Pogba was asked about the Juventus links after France set up the Nations League final clash with France in Turin Thursday night and he said: ”I like Torino [laughs]! ”I always speak with former Juve team-mates like [Paulo] Dybala. I’m in Manchester now, I’m under contract until June. Then let’s see. I want to complete this season at my best level, then we will see.”

    The French were at the Juventus Stadium on Wednesday to train ahead of the UEFA Nations League semi-finals against Belgium and Juve fans seized the opportunity to hearken into Pogba’s ears the need for him to return to Turin. It prompted a series of messages from Juventus fans urging him to return to the club, including one which said: “Pogba constantly teases us Juventus fans, if he doesn’t arrive in the summer, I might actually cry.”

    In fact, Pogba and his shylock manager have eaten the humble pie by accepting the fact that Ronaldo, the enigma was at Old Trafford. Pogba’s reluctance in staying at Old Trafford ruined the manager’s plans to fortify the squad’s midfield. The Dutch he bought from Ajax ought to have held the central midfield but Ole’s mind is stuck on Pogba with no plan B. A flexible midfield arrangement is what would free Ronaldo from his tight-marking opponents to rock the net with goals for Manchester United. Ronaldo is gifted in latching onto good passes to score goals. It didn’t start today.

    One begins to wonder what goes on in the mind of Ole every time he refuses to play Donny Van de Beek or Jadon Sancho and yet goes ahead to lose a match. The thought of Sancho’s 85 million Euro signing and Van de Beek’s 35 million pound signing is not even to be discussed because both players are no ruse and far better than the arrogant Frenchman, who should have become a regular face on the bench.

    I might not be wrong to assume that Ole seems to be the only individual or coach who doesn’t understand that with Van de Beek and Sancho’s dexterity and brilliance in the midfield, Ronaldo would not only repeat his glorious football feats but surpass them in flying colours. Or who else will play Ronaldo as a replacement in an important game yet feels comfortable losing to the detriment of the fans who are yearning for his sack?

    Ever since Ronaldo emerged from his first stint with Manchester United as the world’s best player, he has played and distinguished himself for teams loaded to the hilt with exceptionally good players. Such teams complimented their star-loaded squad lists with renowned coaches who know their onions. The synergy between the coaches and the players was mouth-watering with the world’s expectant of the kind of feats such teams Ronaldo played for each new season. Need I waste space with Ronaldo’s career trajectory under super managers beginning with his godfather Sir Alex Ferguson, take a bow, Sir Alex.

    The exit of Sir Alex brought two sides towards replacing him, with many Red Devils fans opting for a coach with the club’s DNA – preferably a former legend of the team. The other side of the coin wanted established coaches such as Van Gaal with both men quitting with ignominy despite winning laurels for the Red Devils.

    Ronaldo’s resentment after the home loss to Aston Villa has raised the flag for a new manager given the calibre of players in the club, including Ronaldo. Should CR7’s body language after matches be the basis for asking Ole to go?

    Now that Ronaldo is feeling out of sort with the uninspiring displays of the Red Devils, the pertinent question to ask is, who recruited him for the team? Was is it the current manager’s decision or he had to join the queue to welcome CR7’s return or walk out through the exit door?  England great Gary Linker exposed how Ronaldo rejoined the team.

    “I’ll put my cards on the table,” Lineker told BBC Sport: “Ed Woodward’s a good friend of mine and he’s my neighbour. He signed Ronaldo when he was in my garden!

    “It was awesome. I knew when he walked in and he was on the phone to [Ronaldo’s agent Jorge] Mendes or someone. I hope I’m not giving too much away here, but he did sign him, so… yeah!

    “I’ve got a fantastic picture of him on the phone with him in the back garden, which I might share one day with his permission.”

    “When you’ve got Cristiano Ronaldo, you have to build a team and structure around him, so it can work for him,” former England and Arsenal striker Ian Wright said on Match of the Day.

    “If you’ve got him in your team, a match-winner, and you can’t set it up for him to be playing in there, to do what he does, he’s going to walk off the pitch like that.”

    New recruit from Real Madrid Raphael Varane has gotten applause for his manager’s defensive tactics.

    According to L’Equipe,  Varane said: ”I’m very happy with the start of this adventure. The Premier League is a league known for its intensity. There’s a different atmosphere, a different general mentality regarding football. It’s a different approach and a different experience for me.

    ”I’m taking pleasure in playing, going out of my comfort zone, finding new bearing with my teammates. It’s a different way of defending and it’s super interesting for me.”

    Manchester United great Peter Schmeichel is miffed at the diabolical suggestions calling for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s sack insisting that celebrated football managers such as Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho ‘don’t care’ for the club’s DNA. Schmeichel wants the incumbent manager to remain and be supported than being given the boot.

    ”I think it’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous,” the Dane told ITV Sport when asked about the calls from Manchester United fans to sack Solskjaer. ”Do they want another [Louis] Van Gaal or another [Jose] Mourinho? What do they want?

    ”It’s been tried, bringing in the so-called big-name managers and they don’t have the same care and attention to detail in the youth and development and DNA of the club as Ole has.

    ”That period before him [Solskjaer], a lot of players came in and a lot of coaches left, so everything needs to be rebuilt. I hope people understand that it takes time. Remember, we finished runners-up last season, if we can do that again it will still be very good.

    Barcelona’s manager Ronald Koeman is literarily a walking corpse burdened by the problems of a team deep in debts accumulated over the years. The ripple effects of such a precarious financial situation are affecting his productivity at the Nou Camp. Koeman isn’t just any coach having grown into a legend of the club based on his previous contributions as a player and once upon a time as a coach.

    Koeman has matched Joan Laporta in the buck-passing game and he isn’t ready to lie on the floor for Laporta to ride on. Barcelona is stuck with Koeman knowing they would have to cough out $12 million to dispense with his services. They are resolved to staying with him until the end of the season when things would have improved a bit financially.

  • The 1979 constitution and the path not taken (2)

    The 1979 constitution and the path not taken (2)

    READERS will please permit and grant me the indulgence to quote at some length from the writings of the late Dr Bala Usman and Dr Olusegun Osoba, both renowned radical historians, who opposed the the majority draft 1979 Constitution and not just submitted a minority report that vehemently critiqued the report produced by the other 47 members of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), but also wrote their own minority draft constitution. All too many contemporary commentators create the utterly misleading impression that the 1979 Constitution was just an authoritarian hand down from the extant military regime with no input from civil society. Nothing could be further from the truth. The CDC was comprised of leading legal minds, distinguished administrators and bureaucrats as well as eminent scholars from disciplines with relevance to constitution making and the political history of Nigeria.

    It is all too fashionable now for an assortment of persons with the benefit of hindsight to demonstrate superficially impressive wisdom after the fact to denigrate, chastise and flagellate the 1999 Constitution as the source of all our woes as if, were the constitutions of the most successful constitutions in the world to be imported into the country, our perverse moral values and institutional incoherence would not make a mess of it all. After all, the decision to adopt the American-type presidential system in 1979 was informed, largely, by the glaring abuses and crass misdeeds associated with the British-style parliamentary system of the first republic. But then the perverse value system and dysfunctional behavioral traits that ruined the first republic, ran the second republic aground and are even now eroding the very foundations on which this fourth republic stands, gets worse by the day. In my view, Drs Bala Usman and Segun Osoba stand shoulder high above the contemporary critics of the extant 1999 Constitution, which has its roots in the 1979 document, because they were profound prophets, veritable futurologists who saw tomorrow.

    For instance, in a paper titled “National Cohesion, National Planning and the Constitution”, which he presented at the ‘National Conference on Issues in the Draft Constitution”, at the Institute of Administration, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, on 21st to 24th March, 1977, Bala Usman demonstrated why many of the lofty aspirations and well meaning provisions of the majority draft of the 1979 Constitution would be difficult to actualize. With amazing acuity, he declared “It seems quite clear that, if their constitution is adopted, far from moving towards national cohesion, Nigeria will become torn with ethnic and religious disunity and sectionalism. Far from providing a basis and framework for the development of national cohesion and democracy, there will be an intensification of the present grossly uneven pattern of underdevelopment, greater capitalist and bureaucratic greed, individualism and chaos. When that happens, the Nigerian people will be accused of being too immature and irresponsible for democracy and preparations will be made for consolidating the status quo and ensuring ‘law and order’ through repression and terror. From the individualism, greed, chaos and thuggery of capitalist bureaucrats and politicians we shall move to the indiscipline, chaos, individualism, greed and repression of capitalist bureaucrats and soldiers”.

    These prophetic words were written before the monumental corruption, gross indiscipline and crass democratic violations that led to the collapse of the second republic; before the advent of the Babangida and Abacha years of the locusts; before the ongoing merry-go-round, game of musical chairs of gross avarice and inept governance between an APC government at the centre that is all too difficult to differentiate, morally and ideologically, from the preceding PDP administrations. Dr Bala Usman noted, for instance, that the majority draft made the office of the executive president so powerful so as to enable him provide effective government and become a focus of national loyalty.

    He argued however that without constitutional provisions to ensure the democratic nomination of candidates, the democratic formulation of the party programme and collective decision-making at the party and all other levels, the provision for a powerful chief executive at the centre and states would be ultimately counterproductive. As Dr Usman put it in his inimitable manner, “Without provisions to ensure this, the president and governors will, far from being a focus of loyalty and effective leaders,  be merely megalomaniac political operators whose personality and ego will be the most prominent aspects of their governments”. Pray, is this not what exactly we are witnessing across the country today?

    It is unfortunate today that all too many people believe they are in a position to pronounce magisterially on a suitable constitution for Nigeria even without sitting down to do the serious studying and thinking that this aspiration demands. Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s ‘Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution’ was the product of several hours of studying and burning the midnight oil in the solitude of prison during which he studied the constitutions of virtually every democracy of the world at the time to arrive at an appropriate proposition for Nigeria. Drs Usman and Osoba arrived at their minority draft after a painstaking study of the majority draft and a rigorous interrogation of the premises on which its proposals rested. For instance, they were of the view that the majority draft concentrated excessive powers on the President and Governors including the powers to appoint and fire ministers and commissioners, which, they argued, would allow “for the emergence of the chief executive as a monstrously powerful and authoritarian political figure.”

    Their own proposition was thus that (i) “The President at the Federal level shall appoint from the House of Representatives somebody who shall be Prime Minister and will have the responsibility to appoint his ministers from among members of the Houses of the National Assembly together with whom he shall form a government and exercise executive authority in the day-to-day running of the affairs of state; and (ii) the Governor shall appoint from the State Assembly somebody who shall be Premier and will have the responsibility to appoint state commissioners from among the members of the State Assembly together with whom he shall form a state government and exercise executive authority in the day-to-day running of the affairs of the state”. It is difficult to fault their contention that “Apart from resulting in a satisfactory measure of diffusion of executive powers, with the President and Governor still having substantial executive powers including the general direction of the conduct of their respective governments, this arrangement will ensure that all those who participate in exercising the executive authority of the Federal or State government have at least the formal mandate of the electorate”.

    There can be no better experience than getting a copy of the Minority Report & Draft Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria produced in 1976 and studying it carefully as the country still strives to grope her way out of the miasma of constitutional darkness. One distinguishing feature between the majority and minority documents is the simplicity of language and clarity of thought of the minority document. As the authors wrote, “The pompous verbosity, the obscurity of the technical legal terms and the innumerable cross references characterizing the majority draft seem to have been deliberately engineered to make it impossible for anybody with a moderate general education to read and understand it. We suspect that these features of the majority draft might create, even for members of the legal confraternity, almost insurmountable difficulties of comprehension and interpretation is.

    Most of those who advocate constitutional change or diverse forms of restructuring for Nigeria today locate their analysis at the level of ethnocultural as well as regional divergences and conflicts. Nothing could be more misleading. In conclusion, I will simply adopt some of the submissions of Dr Bala Usman in another lecture he delivered to the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Kaduna on 14th October, 1976 on the central causes of instability and crisis in post-colonial Nigeria. These he identified as including:

    1. “The existence of an economic system which permanently generates instability and gross inequalities of (a) standards of living between the majority of the people and those who control public institutions and business; (b) economic development between various villages, districts, provinces, states and sections of the country and sectors of the economy.
    2. “The great amount of material benefit which accrues to those holding public offices due to the very high level of official and unofficial remuneration, arising out of the failure to clearly and sharply separate the holding of public office from the private accumulation of wealth in all the major public institutions.
    3. “The conduct of public affairs on the basis of the belief widely propagated that political activity is about the competition for material resources and public status between areas, tribes, clans, families and individuals.
    4. “The absence of any systematic and effective means by which the common people can on a regular basis understand, guide and discipline those who are supposed to represent and serve them…The key institutions of political representation and public service – the political parties and the civil service, overawed and confused the common people and refused to be genuinely subjected to a coherent and permanent system of public accountability”.

    I am of the view that only constitutional reforms and initiatives that address these fundamental challenges can set Nigeria on the path out of the current cesspit of debilitating poverty, pervasive corruption and humiliating underdevelopment. Is this possible at all without transforming current glaring revolutionary pressures into far reaching socio-economic, political and cultural revolutionary change and how feasible is this? Your guess is as good as mine.

  • The 1979 constitution and the path not taken

    By

    It is all too common now for sundry political actors and commentators to blame the perceived and real problems, challenges and shortcomings of the extant 1999 Constitution on the structural, institutional and processual failings of the constitution itself rather than on the political actors whose responsibility it is to run the affairs of the polity in accordance with the dictates of the constitution. Seek ye first the kingdom of a new constitution crafted to near perfection and all other things shall be added unto you is the loud and constant refrain from diverse quarters. But then, this is a road we had traversed before only to end up in the debilitating ditch of regime failure and collapse in the ill-fated first, second and now aborted third republics. This dispensation has, since 1999, mercifully lasted for over two decades of unbroken elected civilian administrations even though the most optimistic among us will be loath to aver that we have meaningfully transited from mere civilian rule to genuine democratic governance.

    I have heard many eminent senior lawyers, distinguished academics and influential public commentators vehemently contend that the extant 1999 Constitution is no more than a handout from the departing military regime and that it, in fact, lies against itself when it’s preamble describes it as a product of “we the people”. It is difficult to decipher how accurate this perception is. To the best of my knowledge, the 1999 constitution is a wholesale adoption of the 1979 constitution with minuscule amendments. The General Abdusalam regime, which midwifed the transition to this dispensation back in 1999 could easily have opted for the draft constitutions drawn up under the Babangida and Abacha regimes, constitutional exercises that lacked credibility and meaningful legitimacy. Rather, Abubakar opted to return to the 1979 constitution, which was drawn up with relatively high degree of popular participation and involvement of elements of the intellectual, political, business and bureaucratic elite. Those who harbor the idealistic belief that a constitutional document for a complex, plural society like Nigeria can be drawn by the masses of the hoi polloi are living in an imaginary world. Constitution making is essentially and intrinsically an elitist affair.

    Of course, the generality of the people must, in the final analysis, have their imprimatur of approval on the final document as debated and produced by the elite, but they have limited ability to make any meaningful input into its making. The collapse of the first republic in January, 1966, was blamed largely on the demerits of the parliamentary constitution and the existence of excessively powerful regions that wagged the federal tail and the practice of a federal system difficult to distinguish from con-federalism. The perceived antidote to this was the reversion to the presidential model of democracy with an all powerful executive presidency with powers approaching the all pervasive suzerainty of a military monarch. Of course, the utter failure and ignominious collapse of the second republic in December, 1983, after just four years of the military’s retreat to the barracks, demonstrated that the fundamental problem was not with the constitution after all, but with both the leaders and the led who followed its precepts and provisions more often in the breach.

    In the wake of the deepening crisis of state, society and economy in post-colonial Nigeria, particularly in this fourth republic, when non-state actors and religiously motivated armed groups are engaged in a duel unto death battle with a much chastened Nigerian state, many analysts have fallen back on the ethnic mantra as the be-all and end-all solution to the current Nigerian predicament. Seek ye first and return to your ethno-regional camps o ye people and all shall, once again, be well with our land. Nothing could be more delusional. The utter venality, moral depravity and indescribable elite greed responsible for the depressing depiction of Nigeria as a ‘Crippled Giant’ is not the function of any single elite faction of the Nigerian polity. Let all the component geo-political and ethno-regional units of the country today retreat into their separate cocoons of self-rule and you will see the present maladies plagung Nigeria on an even more brazen scale in the new, smaller micro entities. No faction or fraction of the Nigerian political elite is morally fit to cast the first stone when it comes to blaming others for the pathetic state of an otherwise immensely endowed country.

    Read Also: Nigeria needs new constitution before 2023, says NADECO

    This is why I continually doff my hat to two radical, progressive, patriotic and conscientious members of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), set up by the Murtala/Obasanjo regime to draw up a new constitution for the country, who disagreed vehemently with the majority draft produced by their colleagues and produced a minority report, which was studiously ignored by the ruling military regime. The two committed and radical dissenters were the eminent historians, the late Dr Bala Usman and Dr Olusegun Osoba. I was lucky to get a copy of the minority draft document titled  ‘Minority Report and Draft Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1976’ with a new introduction by Dr Olusegun Osoba, courtesy Mr Femi Falana (SAN). This is a book, which I believe should be widely circulated and read in Nigeria because it dispels many of the ethno-regional myths and mystifications surrounding much of the debate on the national question and the future possibilities of Nigeria.

    For instance, one of the key submissions of the duo of radical, progressive and patriotic dissenters to the majority draft of the 1979 Constitution is that “We are of the opinion that, on the basis of the substantive provisions contained in the majority draft constitution, the quantum of power residing in the various levels of government is likely to move progressively in the direction of infinity while that residing in the people will tend to zero. This is because the only symbol of power vested in the people is that exercised every four years in the act of voting in different categories of political officers at general, presidential, gubernatorial and local government levels. Our experience in the recent past would seem to us to have demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that this formal periodic and often ritualistic act alone is not sufficient for safeguarding genuine democracy in practice”.

    In a lecture delivered to the Kaduna State branch of the Nigeria Union of Journalists ( NUJ) in Kaduna on 14th October, 1976, for instance, Dr Bala Usman, examining the majority provision of a strong executive presidency as an antidote to regime weakness and political instability averred that “To assert, as one newspaper has already done, that an executive presidency with full powers (whatever that means) shall provide us with strong leadership and strong government without weaknesses, power struggles or military intervention is a mere assertion of faith in a fetish, which only obscures the issues. Leaving aside the crucial question of ‘strong government’ for whose interests – a person, a clique, a sectional group, imperialism- it is surely obvious that presidency, even an executive one with full powers, is just one office in a political system. Its capacity depends on the economic and social structures and the nature of the political system”.

    Continuing Dr Bala Usman contended that “The question of the type of leadership an executive presidency or any type of executive can provide can only be answered by examining the social and political forces that are likely to emerge dominant within the framework of a constitution and then the effectiveness of the institutions (those touched on in the constitution and those which are not) established for these forces. In the context of Nigeria, the type of political parties which emerge, and the nature and orientation of the public services, are far more important in determining the capacity and effectiveness of any government than the form of the top executive office”.

    In the introduction to their minority draft constitution, Drs Usman and Osoba, contended that “As long as the huge disparities in economic power existing among individual Nigerians and social groups within the dominant free enterprise capitalist system operating in our country remain, so long will there be staggering inequalities among Nigerians in social status and political power. While such inequalities persist, the democratic principles of equality before the law, equity and social justice can only operate slogans for mystification and confusion. Consequently, to obviate such a possibility which is bound to have for our country the grim consequences of violent social conflict and political instability, we suggest that that those who aspire to leadership positions in this country must at least be motivated by considerations of enlightened self-interest. These considerations should guide them, as we have done in our minority draft, to provide in our fundamental law (i.e the Constitution of the Federal Republic Nigeria) principles and Constitutional instruments that could commit our political decision makers of the future to a progressive dismantlement of the current economic system of grasping individualism”.

    The language in which the draft minority constitution is simple, jargon free and of exceptional clarity. It can easily be translated into multiple languages for the easy grasp of the vast majority of Nigerians. It removes the deliberate obfuscations and abstractions on which brilliant lawyers thrive and smile all too often to the banks with smug satisfaction.

  • Unity, integration and politics

    By Dayo Sobowale 

    The politics of unity is all about integrating obviously strange bedfellows. That is the rationale for Nigeria’s motto that proclaims ‘unity in diversity ‘. How diverse nationalities and cultures fuse into an harmonious national identity or entity is the aim or goal of cultural integration. It is at once achievable, elusive at times and when very difficult   to   achieve can lead to conflicts and violent discord.  That is the theme of our discussion today as we look at Nigeria and its structural problems as well as the EU as a bigger integration fish; and the recent problems of both amalgam or pot pourri of diverse cultures and nationalities.

    Nigeria’s Southern governors recently called for a power shift from the North to the south in the 2023 presidential elections while their Northern colleagues called their call unconstitutional. The  submarine deal quietly  forged between  the US, UK and  Australia after Australia cancelled another weapons deal with France  led to France crying foul and proceeding to carry  out another deal with Greece  while shouting that Europe should  not be naïve in relying on the US for its security and protection. In the same vein  Turkey  a member of the EU’S defence  alliance NATO is proceeding  to sign another weapons deal  with the well-known ideological  and military  foe  of the EU, Russia  and  Turkey  is still  expecting to be confirmed  as a full  member  of the EU.

    Security is key to successful integration and unity as component states in any union, federation or confederation believe that their strength lies in their numbers and solidarity. When that security is not assured then coalitions of dissent spring up and that can threaten the unity and security of the larger whole. That  security uncertainty  or  guarantee,  while  the responsibility of integrated  states  or union is  also the barometer  to measure  national   or regional loyalty and sovereignty especially  in times of crisis. We now look at integration challenges in the states and unions mentioned before, starting with Nigeria.

    That  Nigeria’s Northern governors  can say  no to power shift is to be expected  because most Northerners believe  in the ‘born to rule syndrome  which drives  the Northern quest  to monopolise power  in the Nigerian state. Yet the North has not been able to live up to its responsibility of securing the lives and properties of Northerners not to talk of Nigerians at large in the Nigerian nation. In the entire North from the North East to the Northwest and recently in Kaduna state there are painful reports of Northerners being killed in large numbers. Yet  the Northerners  have  been in  power  for the last eight  years and still  want  to continue  in power  in a nation of 36 states. The  perquisites and rewards of power  have  been  lopsidedly in favour of the North since independence in 1960  and more  so  during  military rule and yet the North  has  not lost its  appetite and greed  for  power in a nation that  loudly proclaims  unity  in diversity. Obviously  the north does  not  see security  as important in its quest  for power  but  sees power as something it must  have to lord it over the  rest of Nigeria. All  the calls for restructuring  are to correct  the northern monopoly of power as the rest of the nation wants a greater share  of the national  cake or at least a chance  to guarantee their safety or security  of life and property. Such expectations from the south for now are like barking at the moon. But 2003 is still  far off and  one hopes there  is a  change  of  mind in the northern  perspective  of monopoly  of power.

    The AUKUS submarine deal is to sell technology to Australia which is a neighbor of China in the pacific region. China is already worried with the deal but there nothing it can do for now. For the UK the deal  shows what Brexit sovereignty  can do  for British  business, diplomacy and security .France can  shout foul but it knows the British  and Americans are closer as the US  was a colony of Britain even  though France  helped the US in its war of rebellion and independence from the UK. But in diplomacy there are no permanent enemies but permanent interests. All  the same the French deal  with  Greece will  serve to deter Turkey  which is Islamic and is always  threatening  Greece  especially  with the migrants  crisis and French President Macron’s crackdown on Islamic   terrorism  inside France for which the Turkish  president has  called his French counterpart  a mad man. The  French  president spoke wisely  when  he called on the EU  to   take  its security  in its own  hands rather  than relying on the NATO  Alliance dominated  by the US  which with its America first policy  under  Trump treated  the EU with disdain, made worse  by  his  successor’s confused and  unilateral  withdrawal  from Afghanistan.

    With Turkey’s weapons deal   with Russia, the EU should know it has an enemy in the   house and do something about its security apparatus. The  Turkish  president  is telling the EU that  it can release  thousands of illegal  migrants  into the EU  even  though  the EU  has given a large  amount to Turkey  to look after the migrants in Turkey. Rightly the EU warned Turkey that Greece is its border with Turkey and the Turkey Greek deal should serve as a warning in that regard.

    On another scale  Turkey  poses  a threat  to Europe  in terms  of religion as the EU is  largely  Christian  and no less a person  than  a recent  Pope  noted that the EU  cannot  harbor a Muslim nation like Turkey  in the heart of Europe . In   addition the EU nations  have found  it difficult  to integrate Muslims  into European culture  as the beheadings   in France  have   shown as well  as  the   new   danger  for European women  to come out at night as free folks as they fear  attacks   from migrants especially Muslim  men  prone  to attack them. Muslim migrants, men, have attacked women in nudist clubs in some parts of Europe forgetting that their culture is different   from the culture of their hosts in the EU. Yet EU nations’ liberalism  which  has scant regard for religion will  definitely  pay a huge price in future  for its failure to integrate Muslim  migrants who hold  religion in high esteem  and is not only their  faith  and Sharia but their total  way of life  regardless of European  integration of  whatever kind .  Once again From the fury of this pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

  • Can Salah emulate Weah?

    By Ade Ojeikere

    I love the beautiful game called soccer by few elites but proudly called football by the practitioners. The world literarily stops when important games are being played. On such occasions, I sit before my computer to record historical perspectives to such matches, not forgetting the piece of poetry from some renowned commentators. I challenge lovers of the European game to name five top players today, Mohammed Salah would make the list along with Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Romelu Lukaku, and Lewandoski. One thing cuts across these names. They take delight in scoring goals with aplomb.

    Scoring goals come to the feet of these strikers like second nature. These goal poachers’ knack for scoring goals is phenomenal. Listening to Michael Owen talk about Salah being able to be the best player in the world with exploits at Liverpool, where he virtually breaks one of two Liverpool records, which invariably translates to breaking some UEFA or world soccer feats.

    Owen told Premier League productions: “His touch – I’ve seen him do it a few times now – where you think ‘wow, how has he done that?’

    “He’s dragging it from an impossible position. As he moves it across, it’s got so much backspin you think it’s going away and it just checks back into his zone. Just brilliant.”

    With eight goals in eight games (across all competitions) this term, the No. 11 currently looks set to deliver yet another world-class individual season.

    Salah is now the second-highest African goalscorer in the Champions League (31) having overtaken Samuel Eto’o, and he is now behind only Didier Drogba (44). An absolutely remarkable set of stats given that the Egyptian international is competing with an out-and-out centre forward in Robert Lewandowski and the globe’s top two stars in Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

    But can Salah emulate the incumbent Liberia President George Opong Weah by winning the Balon D’Or as the best player in the world like Weah did wearing AC Milan of Italy’s shirt in 1995? Weah’s statistics in 1995/96 when he was voted the World best player was awesome. Indeed, Weah played 35 games, scoring 15 goals, providing 15 assists and he was shown the yellow card once in that season.

    Two players Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi look like the big stars to stop Salah when the chips are down next year, except something catastrophic happens (God forbid) to them. Ronaldo has found his mojo playing for Manchester in the English and European seasons, scoring goals that have stood him out as the man for all seasons for the Red Devils. Ronaldo’s clubs’ goals record is 679 from 902 matches while his national team appearances are put at 180, scoring 111 goals for Portugal which is quite huge.

    President (sorry) George Weah’s goals’ record arose from playing 458 times, scoring 184 goals. He grabbed 58 assists, 16 yellow cards and one red card pointing to the fact that he was a disciplined player despite his towering contributions on the pitch. Credit must go to Weah for sticking to his fatherland in spite of his tremendous feats in the European game and his pedigree. Weah’s choice of playing for the Lone Star of Liberia saw him score 18 goals from 75 national team appearances.

    What qualifies Salah for this award when Messi has won six times with Ronaldo being decorated five times?  Will Salah win it once as Weah did in the 1995/96 season? Salah has played 462 matches, scoring 210 goals, with 102 assists, 18 yellow cards and one red card. Salah’s citation looks rich with most of his yellow cards coming from pulling off his shirt in celebration. Ronaldo is also guilty of this type of goal-scoring celebration which attracts a yellow card from the referees.

    Read Also: Salah scores 100th EPL goal

    Salah isn’t the traditional big number 9 striker like Romelu Lukaku and Lewandoski. Nor is he the quintessential goal poacher like Harry Kane who plays the game with lots of swaggers. Salah is very fast, with his strength being able to judge passes from his mates. Salah’s plays on the right wing using his left foot to score goals, one quality that stands him out from the pack. It must be stated here that the doctrine of strikers being selfish rings so true with the Egyptian’s penchant for goals. Liverpool’s manager, Jurgen Klopp has employed a lot of wit and patience in dealing with the rift between Salah and his mate, Sadio Mane.

    A talksport programme showed where Dean Saunders, a Liverpool legend alluded to the fact that Salah was above all other big players in the world with his current form, pointing out that: “Right now, as we speak, who’s better than him?

    “Eight goals in eight games from right-wing, he’s not playing down the middle. He just looks unstoppable. There’s Messi and Ronaldo, who are on their own, but right now they’re not as good as Salah.”

    Ronaldo was bought this season for the big moments. Ronaldo always wants to be his team’s Man Friday and does it so remarkably. A serial winner, Ronaldo has scored several last-ditch goals which underscore his mental strength and also impeccable concentration, especially when the odds stacked against his team. Can Salah match these qualities inherent in Ronaldo? Possibly, but he needs more time to overrun Ronaldo.

    Ronaldo has according to records played 900 games, scoring 679 goals with 229 assists but his disciplinary statistics are not enviable having been shown the yellow card 107 times with four red cards.  Many pundits would not come hard on Ronaldo over his disciplinary stats given the attention he gets from opponents and the foul means in which they try to provoke the power-playing striker. Who won’t respond when provoked?

    Ronaldo accepts when he doesn’t play well in matches. But, he keeps his eyes on the ball for slips by the opposition to score the goals that matter. One of such examples is in Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League game against Villarreal inside the Old Trafford Stadium. A 95th minute blinder from Ronaldo earned Red Devils its first three points in the ongoing Champions League, having lost the opening game 2-1 to Young Boys.

    For the 2020/21 season, Lewandowski was the favourite for the award, but Italian Jorginho won the award, having helped the Azzurris to lift the European Cup at Wembley, beating England in a nerve wrenching shootout exercise. Jorginho played a prominent role in Chelsea’s conquest in the UEFA Champions League and Super Cup competitions.

    Lewandowski has played 639 games for Bayern Munich, scoring 472 goals, 128 assists with 66 yellow cards flashed at him by match referees. He has been shown to date two red cards. Does it just take being a member of cup winning teams to be adjudged the best player in the world? Something to ponder over, no doubt. Lewandowski has started scoring again for Bayern Munich and could get this season’s trophy if he sustains the tempo by breaking all known goal-scoring records.

    In the past, the best player in the world prize has been centred around Ronaldo and Lionel Messi with the latter winning six times compared to the former who has won it five times. This permutation changed recently. But the duo’s return to top clubs such as Paris Saint Germain (PSG) and Manchester United has given them the new fillip to challenge for this season’s award. Messi opened his goal account for PSG on Tuesday in a home game against Manchester City.

    Messi has so far played 782 matches, scored 673 goals with 301 assists and has been shown 82 yellow cards by referees. Messi has only been given the marching order by the referee once in his eventful soccer career. No doubt, the fight for the 2021/2022 season would be very fierce considering the fact that the European season dovetails into the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

    Looking at the stats leading to the Mundial in Qatar, it appears that Salah, Messi and Ronaldo look like the trio to watch out for. Poland may miss out on the Mundial and that would greatly affect Lewandoski, when the chips are down next year to decide the best player in the world. Egypt, Argentina and Portugal have brighter chances of qualifying for the Mundial, going by the results of the qualifiers. We wait!

  • Shame at ‘The Cathedral’ in Enugu

    By Ade Ojeikere

    Sports unites nations. Wars and other distasteful acts are suspended for sporting events to hold. In Nigeria, soccer is the king of sports and it rightly unites us. It is only during soccer matches that Nigerians embrace each other whenever goals are scored. Nobody remembers if he is a Muslim or a Christian. It is only during matches that you hear and see Christians sing Muslim songs to galvanise our players when things aren’t going their way. You recognise and appreciate the power of soccer when Muslims raise Christian songs at match venues.

    When the organisers chose the Super 8 format to be played on a neutral ground to all the teams at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium (otherwise known in soccer parlance as ‘The Cathedral’), Enugu, most soccer pundits looked forward to round-robin fixtures where all the eight teams would play against each other, and the team, with the highest points emerging the champions. A round-robin format would have thrown such frivolous allegations as match-fixing, or the cheap talks like one team buying referees to ensure that team’s ABCD qualified for promotion into the elite cadre next year, into the trash bins.

    Therefore, what transpired during the Super 8 in ‘The Cathedral’ in Enugu made a mockery of the unity which sports bring among Nigerians. The circumstances which informed the demarcation of the Nigeria National League into Northern and Southern zones were understandable – ranging from security challenges, armed robbery incidents involving teams, banditry, kidnappings, accidents in the course of honouring games, and other issues. Bringing the eight teams to one place to play, pre-supposed that all the reasons for the grouping have been eliminated, leaving the field of play to decide the best four teams from among the eight that qualified for the Super 8. Not so for Nigerian football administrators with their parochial minds. They opted for the North and South formats.

    They had forgotten apparently, that Remo Stars and Bendel Insurance FC’s last game in Ijebu-Ode during the regular season was fraught with violence and tales of the expected, especially the visuals of watching Bendel Insurance players pursued by urchins, leaving them with only one option – to jump over the stadium’s high fences to escape for their dear lives.

    The organisers showed that they were bad students of history with the way the game between Remo Stars and Bendel Insurance was conducted. Thrice, the referees were changed with only one side aware of the decision. The game was fixed for 3 pm but the teams didn’t get to see the referees until almost 30 minutes late. The game was eventually played the next morning ending in a 2-2 draw. It was an eyesore watching the referee being chased by irate fans who capitalised on the absence of television to vent their spleen on the match officials.

    Pray, how can any administrator worth his onions organise such a tournament without providing a budget for television coverage in the 21st Century? The field day, which urchins had in Enugu to wreak havoc, raised the fundamental question of security at the venues before, during, and after matches. Again, what manner of administrators do we have who wouldn’t consider the lives and properties of people before scheduling sporting events?

    The absence of functional security operatives says a lot about the value we put on human lives. It is not enough for dignitaries to be at the stadium with the security details. What about the fans, players, officials, and referees? Are they lesser beings? Certainly not. A competition without adequate security arrangement, no television to capture the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the events is a veritable ground for the mess we saw in Enugu, last week.

    Sadly, the organisers of the Super 8 had an agenda that would guarantee two teams from the northern group and two from the southern group. This kind of devious permutation was bound to explode onto their faces as it did. If all the eight teams met themselves over the period, the four qualifiers would have been different.  The arrangement of two northern teams and two southern teams is laughable and kills the competitive spirit among the players.

    Before now, the joy of supporting a football club used to be about the performance of the football club irrespective of your tribe. It was about Shooting Stars, Kano Pillars, Bendel Insurance, Stationery Stores, and Enugu Rangers, Vasco Da Gama, amongst others. A Yoruba man in Kano would support Kano Pillars against Shooting Stars of Ibadan, the same way a Northerner in Ibadan will support 3SC against Kano Pillars. It was about the passion, the love for the players, administration, and their winning or losing techniques as the case was. Supporters of the football teams cut across several tribes and referees were neither biased nor corrupt as it is now obtainable as a result of the deficiency of the organisers.

    World soccer has moved several years with time. The organisers of the Super 8 should not only tow in line but they should also go for refreshers courses before brainstorming on plans for a football event of such magnitude.

    The season has ended with no idea of when the competition would resume. A league without a calendar cannot plan. it also cannot attract good sponsors to bankroll its operations, hence the show of shame in Enugu last week.

    It is a shame that matches’ venues in Nigeria don’t have Closed Circuit Cameras to capture volatile scenes in order to fish out the rampaging fans and criminally minded fellows during stampedes at match venues? If our stadia had CCTV cameras, simple playbacks would have identified the culprits and put a lie to any falsehood from any of the teams. The video playbacks would have effectively guided the disciplinary committee in arriving at a decision, but nothing would come out of the sham in Enugu. For our inept league managers, it doesn’t matter as long as nobody died. Pity.

    Of course, thugs held sway in the absence of television coverage which would have told the stories without biases. Television rights would have ensured that the organisers had video evidence of all that transpired during the Super 8. One wonders what the members would use to evaluate this year’s competition in the absence of television. When you don’t have working systems to correct anomalies of the previous seasons, the unsportsmanlike incidents will keep recurring.

    With the spate of violence at venues, nobody will do sports business with the league until hoodlums are chased away from the stadia. The carnage at the stadium may dissuade spectators from watching games. Nobody will bring his family to the stadium only to scamper out of the place as violence breaks out. I don’t subscribe to the view that we should introduce soldiers at match venues. They are no battlefronts. Stewards and those associated with keeping the stadium peaceful should be made to do their jobs; negligent ones should be axed. Many jobless Nigerians will be happy to land this kind of job.    Referees should be encouraged to sue clubs that send touts to beat them. They should get justice, no matter the cost. The referees’ bodies should secure lawyers for them and refuse to discontinue such cases, no matter whose ox is gored. This idea of only asking clubs to pay assaulted referees’ hospital bills is not enough to save referees from violence.

    Our league administrators have disappointed us in the last five years. Why they want to remain in office leaves much to be desired of. Football is a business everywhere else but Nigeria, simply because there aren’t benchmarks to determine who gets into the federation. Our football administrators have constituted themselves into being undertakers and would not resign, even with the broken roof on their heads. What a pity.

    Unfortunately, we remain a country without a football calendar which makes the game rudderless. For us to have a seamless league, the organisers should develop a calendar that can’t be tampered with.

     

  • US, Afghanistan and arrogance of power

    US, Afghanistan and arrogance of power

    By Segun Ayobolu

    IN the aftermath of America’s untidy and hurried disengagement from Afghanistan in a rather humiliating scenario after a 20-year self-imposed ‘civilizing mission’, designed to lay the foundation for the institutionalization of liberal democracy, entrenchment of a culture of respect for individual and human rights, particularly gender equity, as well as adherence to the rule of law in that country, I have been reading a small but powerful book titled ‘The Arrogance of Power’ written by Senator J. William Fulbright of the US Senate, which was published in 1966. Born on 9 April, 1905, Fulbright, who died on 9 February, 1995, represented Arkansas in the United States Senate between 1945 and 1974 when he resigned. He  remains one of the longest serving Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations” and from that pre-eminent platform was  a consistent voice for wisdom, caution and prudence in the utilization of that superpower’s immense material, moral and military resources in the conduct of her foreign policy. According to Wikipedia, Fulbright was “best known for his staunch multilateralist positions on international issues, opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam war and the creation of the international Fellowship program bearing his name, the Fulbright Program”.

    With uncanny insight and foresight, Senator Fulbright in one of the essays in ‘The Arrogance of Power’ warned that “…America is now at that historical point at which a great nation is in danger of losing its perspective on what exactly is within the realm of its power and what is beyond it. Other great nations reached this critical juncture, have aspired to too much and, by overextension of effort, have declined and fallen. Gradually but unmistakably America is showing signs of that arrogance of power which has afflicted, weakened, and in some cases destroyed great nations of the past. In so doing we are not living up to our capacity and promise as a civilized example for the world; the measure of our falling short is the measure of the patriot’s duty of dissent”.

    Of course, in the resilience of her institutions, the respect for human rights, subordination of all citizens within its jurisdiction to the supremacy of the rule of law and the guarantee of free speech to all lies the sources of America’s great strength and the guarantee of her sustained economic, political, social and technological might  into the foreseeable future. It is because of respect for these values that the US survived the Donald Trump era despite the sustained assault by that administration on the very foundations of America’s liberal democracy. True, some of the most trenchant and brilliant critiques of that country’s socioeconomic and political system reportedly tend to be shut out of reportage in the country’s mainstream media, they are still able to get their view across in several alternative media outlets in the same US. To form a more balanced and nuanced perspective on key developments in the foreign policies of America and her western allies, I also seek information from online publications such as ‘Monthly Review’ and ‘truthout’, which offer more radical analyses of society, politics and economy both within and outside the US.

    For instance, beyond the reasons given by President George W. Bush to justify the military onslaught against Afghanistan,which was to bring to justice the masterminds of the dastardly terrorist attack against America on 9/11, 2001, were there other factors responsible for the continued stay of the super power in the country long after it had  achieved its initial objectives? Writing in the ‘truthout’ edition of September 1, 2021, William Pitt, noted that President Joe Biden’s speech to the nation on the disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan failed to touch on what he believes to be the real reason why the war lasted for two whole decades. In his words, the war was unduly prolonged because of “the trillions of dollars in mineral, gas and oil deposits lying fallow in Afghanistan. This is a rarely spoken answer to why we remained there for  so long after the Taliban was defeated, after al-Qaeda was shattered and after Osama bin Ladin was killed: If the country could be brought under some form of control, there were riches to be plundered beyond the dreams of avarice. This, then, was another goal our efforts failed to achieve”.

    Read Also: Two decades after 9/11

    That the Afghan occupation we just another source of enrichment for America’s military-industrial- business complex through the award of luscious contracts for the big corporations was revealed in another detailed analysis in ‘truthout’, which stated that “In the months leading up to the US ending its 20-year war in Afghanistan and the Taliban gaining control of the country, major defense companies were awarded contracts in Afghanistan worth hundreds of millions of dollars and spent tens of millions lobbying the Federal Government on defense issues”. The report cited an alleged award of a nearly $1 billion  defense contract to 17 companies by the Department of Defense related to work in Afghanistan and that was meant to continue past the initial May 1 withdrawal date. Specific mention was made, for instance, of the Texas-based defense contractor and construction firm, Fluor, which has received contracts of at least $85 million this year for work in Afghanistan. According to the report, Fluor spent over $1.4 billion on lobbying in the first half of 2021.

    It would thus appear that even as blood flowed profusely from the more than 80,000 bombs and missiles dropped on Afghanistan over the 20-year period, America’s defense contractors made an immense pecuniary killing from the killing fields of that beleaguered country. Another question that is routinely evaded by the mainstream media in America is the legality or otherwise of President Bush’s invasion and bombing of Afghanistan,which began on October 7, 2001, barely a month after the September 11 terrorist attacks on targets in the USA.  In bombing Afghanistan, the US acted unilaterally and not at least in concert with the UN and its Security Council in accordance, as some experts point out, with the dictates of international law.

    As an editor of the New Left Review, Tariq Ali, in response to a question asking him to contrast the last wars of the twentieth century with the first war of the twenty-first century put it, “One difference is that the previous wars were fought by genuine coalitions. The United States was the dominant power in these coalitions, but it had to get other people on its side. In both the Gulf War and in Kosovo, the US had to obtain the agreement of others before it could move forward. In the Afghanistan war, the first conflict of the twenty-first century, the United States just did as it pleased, not caring about who it antagonized, not caring about the effects on neighboring regions”. While it may be good to have the power of a giant, it may not be wise or prudent to deploy it with reckless abandon was the succinct admonition of Senator Fulbright quoted at the beginning of this piece. It certainly was not a wisdom that America’s planners and thinkers in the foreign policy arena either had access to or, if they did, had any respect for.

    For, with the debacle of its involvement in the Vietnam war, where it had to withdraw in defeat and humiliation, the United States had no business getting embroiled in another war and in a country for that matter that is reputedly described as the grave yard of empires as alluded to by President Biden himself. As one expert notes, “The only wars the US has won since 1945 have been limited wars to recover small neocolonial outpost in Grenada, Panama and Kuwait”. True, the 9/11 terrorist attacks on targets in the US were inexcusable, indefensible and unjustifiable in any way and this is why it was roundly condemned across the world. Given this near universal repulsion of the terroristic acts and their perpetrators, the US could have mobilized a credible international coalition under the auspices of the UN to fight the war against terrorism both in Afghanistan and anywhere else in the world. As Tariq Ali put it, “The US failure to commit to multilateralism – the cornerstone of international law and the heart of the UN Charter- is the fundamental flaw of US policy in Afghanistan”.

    Some experts have argued that such crimes against humanity as that perpetrated in the US on 9/11 could have been prosecuted in domestic courts under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which allows countries to prosecute foreign nationals for heinous crimes against their citizens. In the alternative, the Security Council of the UN could have set up a special tribunal for the 9/11 attacks like it was done in the crimes against humanity in Yugoslavia and Rwanda rather than the indiscriminate bombing that was witnessed in Afghanistan. When he addressed the crews of B-2bombers at Whiteman Air Force Base before the commencement of their bombing of Afghanistan in 2001, then Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said “We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we change the way they live. We choose the latter. And you are the ones to achieve that goal”.

    Well, 20 years down the line, that goal has unraveled -spectacularly. As a chastened and sober President Biden has put it, “Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy. Our only vital interest remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland”. Unfortunately, it has cost at least $2.26 trillion, the death of more than 2,300 Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians for mighty America to come to this realization. Let me end with another quote from Senator Fulbright’s powerful book, “If America has a service to perform in the world – and I believe she has – it is in larger part the service of her own example. In our excessive involvement in the affairs of other countries, we are not only living off our Assets and denying our own people the proper enjoyment of their resources, we are also denying the world the example of a free society enjoying its freedom to the fullest. This is regrettable indeed for a nation that aspires to teach democracy to other nations, because, as Edmund Burke said, “Example is the school of mankind, they will learn at no other”.

  • Culture, politics and the military

    Culture, politics and the military

    By Dayo Sobowale

    It  is  unfashionable   globally  nowadays  to  have successful  military  coups. A former  Nigerian   general   noted   recently  that   mobile   phones   have made  coups impossible  as they  make  connections  available  and  can  make it  quick  for  those in power    to mobilize  against   coup  plotters.   Yet  we have had two in Mali and Guinea in recent times . In  ECOWAS    states  , the fashion is always  for ECOWAS  states  to call  on the soldiers to return  to the barracks and hand over to  the dismissed  democratic government ,  but  the coupists never  do  because  they know ECOWAS  has no military  clout  to dislodge their hold on power in their country . In  other  places after condemnation by the international  community the soldiers draw up a time table to conduct elections and return the country to democracy   or have their leaders change uniforms  and become political  leaders and  continue  their  hold on the political system by other means  as in Burma recently   .This   has been  the style of   the  so called third world  or what western democracies   have always termed or derided as banana republics .

    Funnily  enough it seems that this  is no peculiarity  of   the third   world  as a new  book  on what  happened after  the  former US President  Donald Trump lost  his reelection bid  in the   US  has revealed  . It  is not necessary   to mention the  title    of   book or its authors because I find what  they  have  written as irresponsible and disgusting  and more  of a threat to the security  and stability of their  nation the US  than the so called Jan 6 Capitol Insurrection which  has been the yardstick of calling to call  to order or calling the Big  Lie ,   the insistence  of Donald Trump that the 2020 presidential  election  was rigged . I  will  nevertheless  discuss the allegations in the book and do an objective and pragmatic  analysis    here today  .This    is  because   of my   belief   that  in the quest  of the  authors to make money like the New York Governor who  wrote a book on his   brilliant   handling   of the raging   pandemic prematurely  ,  as he   was later found out to be incompetent on his handling of the pandemic leading to many  unnecessary deaths , these  authors  threw  caution  and  knowledge     under the   bus  . In    addition   I  contend    that they    are not as familiar and  knowledgeable   on  the  workings   and   nature   of   coups    as Africans  and indeed Nigerian   who  have  lived with coups and military  intervention as well as the consequences of failed and successful  coups or military  interventions .

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    The  book  reportedly said America’s incumbent military  boss appointed by Trump reportedly phoned his Chinese counterpart and assured him that in spite of Trump’s  post election tantrums the US is stable and he  would not order an attack on China  and would  indeed let  China know if an  attack  by the US  was imminent . Reportedly  the Speaker Nancy  Pelosi  spoke  to  the  American   military  boss  and  asked  him  to  be ready for action and he   said he was prepared  . This  top  general   also  had  a meeting with his high command and got  a one by one commitment  similar to an oath  that they  are with  him  in  calling  to  order their Commander in Chief  of the US military then , President Donald Trump . The  book  is not fiction as it claimed interviews  of key  participants . But  the former US  president  has called it  fiction and  has gone to defend  the military   boss that  he would  not phone the Chinese and  if  he did as the book claimed , then  that  would  be treason .  That  assertion and conclusion of Donald Trump  is  part  of our examination and analysis  today .

    I  start with what  I will call  the Chinese  connection and note  that the authors do not know  about the Chinese  political  system , culture and ideology . The  president of China is the supreme leader of the Chinese communist  party which controls and rules  over China .He  is a  an  absolute leader and his leading general  cannot do anything without him . The  authors   have literally  put this Chinese general’s  life  in danger if he acted without the  consent or approval  of the Chinese president . Similarly  the US top  military  boss involved  will  have to make  a statement to defend  himself  on a serious security breach if  he  indeed made  the phone call . The American  general  is lucky so far that Trump  lost the election  and that  means that his coup  has  succeeded as I do not  see the Biden Administration   removing him for the phone call  or his obvious military  intervention in the presidential  system under the Trump  presidency .Of  course the Speaker of the US legislature  who admitted putting the military  on alert during  the   aftermath of the Jan 6  insurrection will  not allow any  bad thing to happen to  this general as she  prompted the military intervention or collusion against a  sitting US president . How  the issue  is resolved  will  depend on how the  Biden presidency  sees  the future of US politics and  the looming danger of what is good  for the goose being good  for the gander . That  certainly deserves leadership  discipline which  is in short supply  in the very  divisive US that we are seeing on the world  stage today .

    To  those  of us familiar  with failed and successful coups  ,  we  know that execution is the  price of  failed  coups . The  authors have put  the career of US   generals  involved  in danger if  not in jeorpardy .  They   should  find  out about the history and political  culture of Nigeria . It  is enough  to tell them that  our present president was a general  and  he had  been a military  head of state  before .  When  democracy   returned after military  intervention he  contested and lost elections to be president twice  before getting elected and reelected for another term.  Indeed  our last  team  of military   chiefs were rewarded  as ambassadors even  though  they were unable to defeat Boko Haram  or stop the growing banditry and  insecurity  during their tenure . In  Nigeria the military have become an integral  part  of the political class and leadership  . That  cannot  be said of the American political leadership and political system and that  is the taboo that this dangerous book has  revealed on American politics and diplomacy .The  authors  should  have  promised to write on why  American generals  under  the leadership of the American  general  who  phoned China lost  Afghanistan so  swiftly and  left American security equipment   in the hands of the Taliban so  recently . This  military  leader  should  be asked to explain the quality of training the American  military gave the Afghan army  which  surrendered   to  the Taliban   without  a fight . That  will  be a worthwhile  effort that  will  educate how American  military leadership  built and lost both the war and democracy  in a foreign land . That  will  be more educative for the entire  democratic  world instead of writing and glamorizing  military intervention in America’s   hitherto admirable , and inimitable political  and    democratic  culture ,  with zero   tolerance   for military intervention in politics .Once again From the fury of this pandemic , Good  Lord Deliver Nigeria .

  • Celebrating milestones

    By  Ade Ojeikere

    I’M not a fan of Gernot Rohr, although I like the way he stabilised the Super Eagles when he assumed the position of the team’s Technical Adviser, which changed to Chief Coach or is it, Head Coach. I’m, however, an unrepentant fan of foreign coaches for the Eagles. Part of my reasons is their spirit of fairness which enhances competitiveness for first-team shirts and the coaches’ listening ears. Nigeria’s game against Liberia inside the late Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos was a bonus. But Rohr made Friday’s game an item for me to follow when it became apparent that Ahmed Musa was going to achieve a milestone in his national team career.

    Did I hear you ask which milestone? 100 caps according to our records, although FIFA, in faulting the records stated that the away game against Algeria at the 2018 World Cup qualifiers which was cancelled and awarded to the hosts, ought not to have been counted as a game for Musa.  Such reversals for breaches of the law are not counted as games. Happily, NFF has recognised FIFA’s ruling.

    “We defer to FIFA in this regard, so Ahmed Musa has 98 caps. If he features, as expected, in the home-and-away matches against Central African Republic in October, he will clock the tally of 100 and the celebrations will follow in full flow,” NFF’s Director of Communications, Ademola Olajire, said on Wednesday.

    However, my mind flashed back to the trouble previous achievers of this feat went through before they were crowned. Incidentally, the two past winners wouldn’t have been crowned but for pressure from soccer-crazy Nigerians who joined the legion of football lovers craving for these former internationals to be given their dues. One would have thought that with Nigerian coaches who were former Super Eagles captains, the quest to crown people after 100 appearances would have been a piece of cake.

    Had the custodians of the game not removed one of the coaches, perhaps, Vincent Enyeama would either have taken more time to attain his 100th cap playing for the Eagles or would have attained it years later than he did. Let me not trouble you with the hell Enyeama passed through before walking out unceremoniously under another Nigerian coach. Why ex-internationals have problems with big stars in the team remains a puzzle. The culture of decorating achievers of the beautiful game isn’t alien to them, having played the game in Europe at the highest levels

    The other Nigerian who has attained the 100th cap status, Joseph Yobo almost couldn’t attain it but for pressures on the coach by Nigerians who couldn’t understand why Yobo shouldn’t be in the team to the Mundial in the Samba Boyz region. In the two scenarios, the coaches learned that the game belonged to the people (lovers of the game) not strictly their prerogative. Nigerian coaches must learn how to manage their egos with the big players they find in their squad lists.

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    For Ahmed Musa, these are the best of times in his soccer career. He is the Nigerian who has scored the highest number of goals at the senior World Cup, playing not as a striker but a winger. Musa is a game-changer, one who isn’t worried that he has been benched by his coaches. He recognises that only 11 players can play at a time. He waits for his time and seizes the day. He has scored a brace and another goal against Argentina at two different World Cups, yet he remains the most humble player on the squad’s lists.

    Musa has scored 17 goals in 98 appearances. He was a member of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) winning squad in 2013 in South Africa. He has played in two World Cups for Nigeria in 2014 and 2018 in Brazil and Russia, scoring the most World Cup goals (4) for Super Eagles He is the first Nigerian to score two goals in two consecutive World Cup appearances. Let me not waste space to outline all the philanthropic ventures, Musa, has done to Nigerians in distress.  Musa’s lists of assistance including building mosques across the country are phenomenal.

    For FIFA, Musa has played 98 matches. No problem FIFA. He will play the 100th game in October in the two-legged ties against Central Africa Republic (CAR), God sparing his life to satisfy your records in Nigeria’s next World Cup qualifier. Statisticians here have accepted FIFA’s 98 caps ruling for Musa. Musa must count himself lucky that the coach in charge isn’t a Nigerian. Pity. Otherwise, he would have been thrown inside the trash bin, since he isn’t a big club player and may have been picked to remain in the team due to his diligence, discipline and to serve as an inspiration to the younger players in the squad.  Musa would be doing his career a world of good if he quits the game at top flight after the Qatar 2022 World Cup, although it isn’t sacrosanct. We have seen many players play at the Mundial more than four times (16 years).

    For the records, Mexico’s Antonio Carbajal has played five times at the Mundial in 1950, 1954, 1958, 1962, and 1966. Germany’s Lothar Matthäus also played in five senior World Cups in 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, and 1998. Another Mexican, Rafael Márquez played in five different senior Mundial in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018 to emulate his fellow compatriot Carbajal.

    NFF President Melvin Amaju Pinnick has raised the bar of appreciation on Musa by saying that the federation would give him N10 million for his 100 caps feat. Pinnick said: “The NFF will give Ahmed Musa N10 million for reaching the 100 caps. We will sustain this gesture and honour our players that hit 100 games henceforth.”

    What manner of man is Musa? He thanked his coach Rohr for making him who he is today. He used the occasion of the N10 million gift pledge by the NFF to offer his teammates N5 million out of the N10 million for being part of his 100 caps’ success story. Isn’t Musa awesome?

    Perhaps, FIFA’s clarification on Musa’s record provides the platform for the NFF to organise a grand ceremony where the Eagles’ captain would be celebrated both on the field before the game against CAR and at a buffet in the team’s hotel. Nigeria has been unable to celebrate our sports stars, not just football. It is one of the reasons our sportsmen and women feel unwanted by the country during and after their meritorious careers. It hurts watching and reading how people who brought shame to the country in different spheres get decorated with national honours simply because they belong. Whatever that means. Others call it the Nigerian way of doing things.

    The country’s sports ambassadors distinguished themselves at the Olympic Games and Paralympics. It won’t be out of place if these athletes are decorated by President Muhammadu Buhari at a dinner on the country’s Independence on October 1. Dinner with the president at the seat of government in Aso Rock with the athletes in attendance would serve as the best way to reassure them of the government’s backing and recognition of their feats. The athletes would cherish the moment and keep pictures and videos of their chat with the President on social media. The spiral effect of such an act is the desired fillip of growth to the government in sports. That reception could serve as the best platform for the government to interface with the corporate world to provide the cash for sports as it is done in other climes.

    The president would hear directly from the blue-chip firms their constraints towards supporting sports as they did in the past. Of course, the president’s response would address how to provide the needed palliatives to help the firm do a massive change of heart and back sports, leaving the government with the daunting task of providing facilities and its maintenance.