The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

A governor’s dilemma

Sentry

A GOVERNOR in the Southwest is currently at crossroads over his political future. While he is battling festering crisis within the state chapter of his political party, the national leadership appears not to be on the same page with him as regards structures in his state and the entire geo-political zone he hails from.

To further compound his problem, Sentry gathered he recently considered defecting to the leading opposition party in the state but the resentment his speculated defection move elicited from leaders and members of the said party shocked him so much that he told a fellow governor, who has been urging him to make the move, to let him be for now.

It was learnt that the colleague governor from the Northwest, had promised to facilitate the embattled southern governor’s entry into the new party ‘from the top’, in such a way that he will take over the entire structure of his new party, making his 2023 re-election plans easy.

But as we speak, the youthful governor who made his mark in the private sector before venturing into politics about a decade ago is said to be unconvinced about the ability of his northern colleague to assuage the resentment towards him in the party he’s being urged to join. Even more worrisome for him is the twist of events in his current party where it has become very difficult for him and many other governors to see eye to eye with the national chairman.

Whatever happens, Sentry believes that our friend the southern governor will either jump ship or dig into his current party and try to take control while hoping the confusion at the national level will be resolved to favour him.

From Abia with slippers

ABIA State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, is up to something novel. Sentry learnt he spends a good chunk of his spare time working on shoes; he is working on as a newly certified professional shoemaker.

Sources close to Ikpeazu almost swore there’s always a smile of satisfaction on his face whenever he steals time to be with his unfinished shoes.

The governor had in May 2021 enrolled for the shoemaking course at the Footwear Academy in Aba. During the week, he took delivery of, and displayed the first finished pair of slippers he personally produced. In an interactive session with journalists, he presented the sandals as he beamed with smiles.

Sentry however learnt the governor’s interest with shoemaking does not end with the media glitz and opportunity to sell Abia made shoes to the world.

“The governor has caught the bug of shoemaking and is dreaming big about it. In fact, he plans to start gifting every visitor to Government House a pair of slippers personally produced by him soon. That is to tell you how serious he is about shoemaking,” an aide said.

July 24, 2021
Colonialism, culture and compunction

By Dayo Sobowale

I was 70 on July 15 and celebrated with my friends at my two favourite clubs , the Island Club and the prestigious Yoruba Tennis Club where I am the Allocutus . Given the way I feel and in spite of the biblical injunction that life should end at 70 , I think life for me begins at 70 . I remember a cliché that says at 40 people judge their parents and rarely if ever do they forgive them .It is this kind of judgement   that I want to examine today with regard to nations of the world especially at this time when mighty cultural , climatic . and gender changes in society at large are rocking the world today   and   seem    to be accelerating , more importantly with the advent of the presidency of the 46th US president Joe Biden .It is crucial to refer to the Biden presidency because it is the product of a pandemic whose emergence triggered the demise of the Trump presidency   given   the   electoral     changes put in place   because    of the pandemic , to ensure the electorate could vote mainly in absentia as   it were   and that literally sounded the death knell of the president that Biden displaced at the polls who however is still shouting foul that the election was rigged even as he prepared to take Biden on again in 2024 presidential elections .

The pandemic changed the face of American politics for ever and showed that technology is in the driving seat of the American political system and not the much vaunted presidential system with its well known system of checks and balances which    technology   castrated   in the   2020 presidential election in the US . . Indeed the president was silenced by the prevailing powerful technology and that pervading powerful technology has now teamed up with the Biden presidency to silence dissent especially with regard to racism which it has weaponised   in silencing dissenting    opinion   literally . Indeed   America is in in the process of    seeking vengeance for the origin, growth and history of slavery which was perpetrated mainly by Europeans who were mainly white until colonialism created a new population of hyphenated European and American   citizens who suffered brutal discrimination   over the age in all aspects of life and are now seeking redress with the crusade of Black Lives Matter – BLM .

That , then ,   is the theme of today’s topic . We shall remember   how colonialism created slavery , built new   nations,   destroyed native , local cultures and established democracy , the rule of law and freedom of expression but is at a loss on how to establish political stability because rigging in elections to win power has become the rule rather than the exception globally .Even   the USA , the beacon of democracy and freedom of expression is not immune to the cancer of rigging as the last president who lost the 2020 presidential election has been shouting foul before and since       he lost the election . The victorious Democratic Party which won the election is a party which supports open borders instead of building walls to deter illegal migration and is a party believes it is progressive and that the momentum of Black Lives Matter catapulted into power in a pandemic election and is trying to rewrite American history from the perspective that slavery was an offence against blacks for which White America , including the founding fathers who wrote the famous US Constitution , should be held accountable in 2020 and beyond .Such approach to me lacks a sense of history and respect for technology and the true meaning , use and misuse of power . Which is pathetic , as history is repeating itself and that is not lost in plain sight given the way that technology is changing our world today and creating new avenues of power that makes it possible for even nations to influence elections in other nations they deem as adversaries or whose interests do not tally with theirs . That is seen in the way that the Trump presidency was dogged by the unproven Russian election meddling saga ‘ the burial   of the Hunter Biden laptop story during the election by liberal Big Media and Technology during the presidential election in 2020     as well as the origin of the pandemic via a lab leak in Wuhan China which was blacked out of the news in   Big   Media   and the   Tech giants because Trump said it and is now being investigated with Trump out of the way and in the cold .

It is often said that failure is an orphan but success has many fathers . Such is the fate of colonialsm and slavery with regard   to the use of   racism to silence opposition in Europe   and   the US   nowadays especially during this pandemic . We should    look at ways that colonialism   has shaped our world politically and economically and how democracy has performed since the collapse or eclipse of colonialism and the emergence of globalization during which technology made the world a virtual global village . History will certainly show us the path to follow   even though we acknowledge   that history always has a way of repeating itself .

The British , Dutch , the French , Portugal and Spain were the main European drivers of colonialism They used   transportation   technology   , the steam    engine   and ships    to   cover the world   and guns   and rockets    to cower ,   bully   and subdue   colonial    kings and   natives .Now , either out of compunction which is surely belated , or the pragmatism    of failure of integration of the migrants or colonial subjects   into a Christian Europe , and    are   now   using racism as it were   to purge themselves of the ugly face of discrimination of hundreds        of years against blacks by literally   turning racism into a taboo     and almost criminalizing it . But that is better said than done as the racial assault that black England players who did not score their penalties   at the Euro Finals against Italy     at   Wembly faced on the internet   revealed most painfully   after the   England loss at the final   . That clearly showed that the hood does not make a monk and the kneeling by European teams which was booed by a section of the crowd showed that the anti racism profile is just a façade that would soon recede into its shell to show that racism is well and kicking in both the US and Europe at large , in spite of BLM .

In Nigeria’s case the nation has always had a free press that reports objectively even during colonialism         and   under several military   rule when democracy   was interrupted . That is why one was surprised that the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission was attacking media houses and asking them to stop glamorizing terrorists and kidnappers by reporting their criminal activities .   That NBC could label journalists asfriends of terrorists because they report what is on the ground is a fallacy . Both the government and the media should be partners in exposing threats to our collective security so   that the security agencies could follow up and nip such threats in the bud . Journalists are no less patriotic than other Nigerians when they report cases of banditry , arson , kidnapping and terrorism . It is their legal duty and the NBC should not censure that .Once the media at large is objective it should be commended and encouraged not censured , blackmailed as the NBC is doing . Nigeria is not China yet and is not a communist nation where state terrorism is the government of the day . The NBC should not tow the path of the US media in their   coverage of daily events and issues like in the US where the Fox News is decidedly pro Trump and anti the teaching   of the Critical Race   Theory    in US schools   and CNN which   most Nigerians view and believe is decidedly anti Trump and   does not even report on the   influx   of illegal migrants   or the CRT which   are non issues   for the Democrats or progressives   in power   but are vexing issues to the Republicans who lost power    in the last presidential election of 2020 . Such   biased reporting should not be replicated here   as it id an anathema     to   good governance   which needs   objective   reporting   always especially on security such as kidnapping , banditry and kidnapping   now suffocating the Nigerian political system .   Objective reporting is the key    word here and as long as the Nigerian media does this religiously   government should commend it and not tell it to turn a blind eye to security threats in our midst . Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty .Once again From     the fury of this pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria .

July 23, 2021
Anambra: Ngige’s loud silence

Sentry

Two weeks ago, Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, faulted the outcome of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primary conducted in Anambra State. He described the results as a ‘total fabrication.’

Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, who chaired the APC primary election committee, had announced that former Senator Andy Uba won the contest. He was said to have scored 230,201 votes, beating 13 other aspirants to emerge as the flagbearer.

On the day of the primary election, 11 of the 14 APC governorship aspirants claimed that the June 26 primary in the state did not hold. But it appears the national leadership of the party is satisfied with the announced outcome.

Read Also; Ngige’s sermon on the mount, by Femi Adesina

Surprisingly, Ngige, who is leader of the party in the state, has kept mute over the election, leaving many of his supporters to wonder if he has accepted the disputed outcome.

Speaking to Sentry during the week, one of the gubernatorial aspirants confessed that Ngige’s silence was worrisome. “We are worried he is no longer talking. We rely very much on him to ensure this injustice is reversed,” he said.

A chieftain of the party also wondered what could be happening. “I cannot say exactly what is happening. It is true our leader is silent for now but it may not be correct to say the issue has been resolved,” he said.

But a source within the Minister’s inner circle told Sentry that the former governor’s silence was calculated. “His silence is speaking louder than noise to those who should hear him. Ngige is not one to fight aimlessly. Complaints have been sent where they ought to be sent and it is normal to hold our peace and see what happens,” he said.

July 17, 2021
ISWAP: Zulum soldiers in Borno

Sentry

Early in the week, a report surfaced claiming that members of the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) had appointed one Abba Kaka as the governor of Borno, under a new restructured leadership by an interim council.

The news sent fears across the Northeastern state. Sentry even learnt that some ‘security reports’ promptly emerged, warning Governor Babagana Zulum to tread softly in the discharge of his duties. But according to sources, he quickly dismissed the stories out of hand.

Read Also: No area of Borno is under terrorists’ control, says Zulum

He said: “As far as I’m concerned, I’m the governor of Borno State and I don’t have any information that we have another government in the state. Yes. And I’m very much in charge,” he was said to have thundered while proceeding on a planned official visit he was reportedly warned to shelve.

Sentry gathered that while speaking with his close aides later in the day, Zulum said he would be handing the state over to the militants the moment he allows their actions or inactions to determine what he will do or not do as governor.

“He is undeterred. He is carrying on as if ISWAP doesn’t exist anywhere near him. He is not afraid. He says he will continue to govern the state as the man in charge irrespective of any thereat whatsoever,” our source, a member of the National Assembly, said.

July 17, 2021
Femi Adesina’s love-hate with the church

UnderTow

Special Adviser to the President, Femi Adesina, has not met anyone he cannot address yet, and that too with cynicism. He lays claim to being author of several epistles to the Church. He accused the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) of trying to dress the president in borrowed robes. He was the one who, through some form of deduction, blamed churches and mosques in the aftermath of the #EndSARS affair. He stood in prosecution against the church leaders who gave apocalyptic prophecies against Nigeria. His pen was ready to praise Pastor W. F Kumuyi when he saw light at the end of the tunnel which Nigeria currently remains trapped in, at which instance he took time to fall upon other preachers who thought otherwise.

His most recent joust, however, was with Primate Ayodele Elijah of INRI Evangelical Ministries, who prophesied that Nigeria would not survive beyond 2040. The Special Adviser has a right to freedom of expression and freedom to disseminate information even though the National Assembly appears unhappy with the enjoyment of that right. He, however, must learn the discretion that should come with the enjoyment of that right. He alleges that his destiny is hid in God. Christians genuinely hope that it is. Notwithstanding the declaration by a coalition of Christian non-governmental organisations that he is a disgrace to Christianity, the general wish is for him to succeed.

Read Also: The president’s combative spokesmen

That wish is more likely to come to fulfilment if he bridles his pen. A principal may order his subordinate, but that subordinate must retain governance of his soul. Mr Adesina may later find that he does not need to respond to everything, especially not by trying to discredit the ministry of clergymen. If indeed they are false prophets, then he must leave them to God for judgement. Prophecies are tricky things, for they are not etched in stone. A prophecy is a moot statement that can be evaded or brought to manifestation through prayers. If some of Primate Ayodele’s statements have not come to fruition for whatever reasons, does it mean he should no longer give prophecies?

Mr Adesina, despite his hasty interventions, had accomplished a lot in his media career. He may have developed a fatigued method of writing recently, but he is still a gifted writer. Although his writings appear less reflective and seem to suggest that he no longer pilots his own craft, they are still poignant. Only few have reached the heights he has – from reporter to Special Adviser to the President. He must therefore learn caution lest he puts his own legacy to the sword through reckless conflicts with the church.

July 17, 2021
Nigerian media fight NASS blitz

UnderTow

In a demonstration of their ire against the Nigerian Press Council (NPC) Act Amendment Bill and the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) Amendment Bill, newspapers across the country displayed, on their front pages, the same dreary image of a gagged visage. Boldly splashed beneath the image was the message that the National Assembly sought to impinge on people’s rights to information. It was a bold move, the culmination of weeks of protest against the National Assembly, which had obstinately ignored agitations against the amendments to both Acts. The media generally felt uncomfortable that their constitutionally guaranteed freedom was being contravened, and that too by someone who they thought was a strange man to their profession, but their annoyance was compounded by their deductions that the bills sought to lay waste to Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. It was even rumoured that the sponsor if the Bill, Hon Segun Odebunmi, was simply a pawn used to perform a dirty deed.

For the most part, the sponsor of the bill has insisted that he is not a philistine to the profession as his detractors would label him, that he was simply a concerned stakeholder in the country’s information sphere, and that his intention was not to gag the press; but no one is believing him. He has not explained why he did not interface with stakeholders in the industry before sponsoring the Bills, and his motives had remained vague despite his spirited attempts to explain them whenever he made a public defence of the Bills. But the media have insisted that a doctor does not treat a patient before diagnosing him. Neither does a chef serve a dish before cooking it. In a word, the horse must be put before the cart. The presidency, meanwhile, has distanced itself from the Bill, unequivocally stating that the president had nothing to do with it. Nigerians are leery about that.

However, the offending NPC Act Amendment Bill, which proposes to remove bottlenecks affecting the NPC’s performance and make the council to be in tune with the current realities in regulating the press, has been suspended. For the NPC Act, one of the key amendments was made to Section 2, which grants the President and the Minister of Information a crucial semi-oversight inroad into the operations of the press. They get to control the appointments of members of the NPC, and if the Nigerian Judicial Council should serve as a lesson, then the Bill boded no good. It is with dismay that the bar and bench remember the current administration’s cavalier raid on its dignity with respect to the removal and appointment of the Chief Justice of Nigeria in 2019.

Although there are ample provisions under the Law of Torts and Criminal Law, as well as the ethics of journalism which press bodies have upheld, the Bill in Section 3 still sought to introduce an Ethical Code of Conduct to be approved by the Minister of Information for the regulation of media practice. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and in the unsubtle Bill, it was clear to see that the legislation would only serve as a forerunner to a calculated series of statutorily-backed incursions into press operations. It grants the executive secretary the power to issue summons, prescribes punishments and fines, dictates the constitution of an administrative system of adjudication, dictates who can and cannot enjoy Section 39 of the 1999 constitution, and seeks, in a word, to be a sovereign act unto itself with powers of legislator, judge, jury and executioner.

Freedom of the press remains a key institution in the consolidation of democracy, almost as much as independence of the judiciary. Yet, it would be an oddity for a non-legal practitioner to propose an amendment Bill to the very practice of law. Legal minds will hang, draw and quarter both the interloper and his Bill before he gets very far with it. It was therefore disrespectful and contemptuous to the profession for the lawmaker to propose a bill that suggests a method for the practice of journalism without consulting media professionals. The media, after all, deserve that respect. They have paid their dues – from the struggle for independence to the war against overbearing governments, whether of a military hue or of a civilian toga as many have accused the current administration of being.

Sustained pressure from every corner, however, forced the sponsor of the Bill to suspend legislative process on it with the following comment: “We have suspended the process for more consultation to happen on it. They demanded a lot of time and I said ‘no problem, we have given you; even if you spend three, four to five weeks.’ So far, more consultations from critical stakeholders, and many people have been submitting their memoranda to the National Assembly, even within the industry. My intention is not to gag the press and unless all the practitioners can say all is well with the industry, to the best of my knowledge, I know all is not well. And I know the National Assembly has the power to look into the existing Act. All is not well with the NPC agency. It is an agency of government and you’re expecting something to be given back to the society but until now nothing has been coming from the agency.”

His intent is not clear when he says that the NPC is expected to give something back to the society. Does he refer to Corporate Social Responsibility? That is doubtful, for the proposed amendments do not seem to compel the NPC to perform any social responsibilities. When he was asked on Channels Television what he meant by saying that there were lapses in media operations, he maintained some degree of incoherence and kept insisting that all was not well with the media. He even turned the tables and sought to find out if the programme host had taken time to examine the NPC Act. This has left analysts and media experts pondering if the legislator knew what was broken before he proposed to fix it, and if he was in fact captain of his own ship. Does he mean to say that the NPC and the media in general are not performing any function in the society?

Perhaps, the lapse that the media can be accused of being guilty of are the restrictions on its dissemination of foresight as fact, and its lack of second sight. Foresight functions by helping its possessor arrive at logical conclusions through a series of deductions from a cause to an effect. Second sight, on the other hand, functions by granting its possessor unordinary divination to operate outside the scientific boundary of space and time and obtain knowledge of occurrences that should manifest at a later date. Thus, the media could fairly accurately predict that the government of former president Goodluck Jonathan would bring the country to ruin if left for another four years, but could not predict that the government to succeed it would be worse.

It was unwise for the lawmaker to ruffle feathers in the media, for the media do not shirk a fight, nor do they forget. They are the voice of the people and the ears of the people. It was doubly unwise for him to have ruffled those feathers on the heels of the Federal Government’s assault on the Social Media. Even if he had been strung by some mysterious puppeteer and forced to act as he did, it would not be a valid defence for him to stand before those who elected him and give an account that the virtue of firmness of purpose was not convenient at that time. He will have to think of how he sunk from being a man of the people when he was elected to being an enemy of the people and the press. The Bill may in the end stand as his only tangible legacy – and a miasmic one – when he leaves office.

July 17, 2021
APC’s continuing distraction (1)

By Segun Ayobolu

When the comrade Adams Oshiomhole- led National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was dissolved by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party in June 2020, a Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) set up in its place and led by Yobe State governor, Mr. Mai Mala Buni, was given a six-month timeframe to organize a National Convention at which new NWC members would be elected to run the affairs of the party. Elected structures of the party at ward, local government, state and zonal levels of the party were also dissolved and caretaker committees set up to administer the party at all levels. At the expiration of its first six-month mandate, the tenure of the CECPC was extended for another six-month period to enable it conclude its then ongoing membership recruitment and re-registration drive as well as the reconciliation of warring factions in different states, which was part of the committee’s original mandate.

After its presentation of a report of its activities so far to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on June 25, the CECPC, once again, had its tenure extended but this time indefinitely. Although dates fixed by the committee for the holding of ward, local government and state congresses were approved by the President, no date was fixed for the National Convention and it is only after this has been successfully organized and members of a new NWC elected that the CECPC’s tenure will expire. In approving what amounts to the indefinite extension of the CECPC’s tenure, the President cited the success of the committee’s membership recruitment drive for new members as well as re-registration of old members, the progress made in resolving crises among contending factions of the party in many states and what he saw as a more satisfactory state of the party prior to the constitution of the CECPC to run its affairs.

In the words of the President, “It is gratifying to note that with the coming of the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee and it’s effective management of the affairs of the party and the pursuit of its mandate, the fighter has bounced back to life and the National Secretariat of our party has once again become a beehive of activities as it used to be in the good old days before the crisis”. The question is, has the President not been given an exaggerated impression of the APC’s state of organizational health today as compared to what it was under the dissolved former NWC? In the first place, there was no intra-party crisis under the leadership of Oshiomhole that could not be solved within the framework of the party’s constitution and thus necessitating the extra-constitutional intervention through which the CECPC emerged.

Only a minority of not more than three members of the dissolved NWC were opposed to Oshiomhole’s leadership and so it could not be said to have been confronted with an interminable and intractable crisis that could only be resolved in a manner difficult to distinguish from a coup. As it were, all democratic organs of the APC at all levels today are, to all practical purposes, dead and non-functional. Since the NEC meeting of December 2020 that extended the tenure of the CECPC, for instance, no National Caucus or NEC meeting of the party has held. Democratic organs of the party are also non-functional at ward, local government and state levels.

To his credit, President Buhari, despite being recognized as the leader of the APC by virtue of his office has always shown an aversion for interfering in the affairs of the party preferring, instead, to allow its statutory organs to function normally. With the current situation, however, the President is forced to take decisions for the party that ought to have been arrived at through constitutionally stipulated structures and processes. Thus, currently the APC is prevented from function ing as a democratically run political party and is in no position to help add value to the quality of governance by administrations that rose to power on its platform at the federal and state levels. It is only when crises are resolved and changes effected in accordance with the constitutive and regulative rules of the party can the APC be said to be making genuine organizational progress rather than regressing.

In assessing the performance of the CECPC as well as justifying its establishment and mandate, much emphasis has been put on the reported substantial increase in the size of the party’s membership under its leadership. According to governor Mai Mala Buni, over 40 million members have either registered as new members or revalidated their membership of the APC. But what exactly is the significance of party membership in a political system like ours in which parties are distinct neither ideologically nor in terms of policy orientation? What is it that distinguishes members of the APC, for example, from those of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)?

It is indeed ironical that the CECPC is actively luring all manner of politicians and public office holders from the PDP into the APC’s fold without any consideration for their commitment to whatever may be the ruling party’s guiding principles or philosophy while making such a big deal of membership among the rank and file of the party. The blunt truth is that party membership is of microscopic significance in Nigerian politics. Indeed, people are routinely induced to register as members especially of dominant parties just to boost the numbers and provide an opportunity for party leaders and big wigs to boast of party size.

At the height of its political dominance, for instance, PDP bigwigs often touted the party as the largest political party in Africa. Now, it is the APC that aspires to that illusory and pretentious title. What really is the use of practically big for nothing parties that have near zero developmental impact on the polity they have a mandate to preside over? Indeed, how are we sure that some people in Nigeria do not carry multiple membership registration cards of different parties to enable them benefit from which of them happens to be in control of state power at the centre or the state’s and thus in a position to dispense patronage? Indeed, what ideological belief or philosophical worldview distinguishes registered party members from non party affiliated members of the public in this country?

With its over 85 million members out of a population of about 1.5 billion people, the Chinese Communist Party is reputed to be one of the largest political parties in the world. But as the party celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, it’s boast and pride is not in its membership size but the phenomenal development it has brought to China in the one party state. Can the same thing be said of the PDP when it was in power at the centre for 16 years or of the APC in the last six years? It is unlikely.

Again, it would appear that one of the criteria for President Buhari and members of the CECPC’s high rating of the committee’s work so far is the high rate of defections of governors and other leading members particularly from the main opposition party, the PDP, to the APC in recent times. It will be delusional for anyone to think that these defections are due to any superlative performance in governance or demonstration of organizational superiority by the ruling party. Rather, political vagrancy by members of other parties gravitating to parties in control of state power either at the centre or the sub national units of government have always been a cardinal feature of Nigerian politics. One would have thought that helping to bring about an end to this opportunistic, irresponsible and decadent political culture should have been part of the promised change in the polity that the APC promised to actualize and which partly helped propel it to power in 2015. It is most embarrassing that the party now feels comfortable luring and accepting into its fold the same individuals of the opposition party that it had discredited and indicted for non-performance in its campaign to dislodge the PDP in 2015.

Another claim for which the CECPC has received the approbation of the President is its reported success in resolving intra-party crises and reconciling aggrieved persons and tendencies within the party. The committee may indeed have made some commendable impact in this regard. However, the point is that, given the way it was hurriedly cobbled together as an election winning machine in 2013 to dislodge the then ruling PDP from power at the centre, it is only natural that it would take time for the legacy parties that formed the APC to evolve into a cohesive and coherent organization philosophically and ideologically. The perceived ongoing attempt at a brazen power grab to enable one of the legacy parties to become dominant at the expense of the others can only, however, have destabilizing implications for the APC in the long run.

Again, despite what may be the best efforts of the CECPC, the party still faces severe crises and fractures in a number of states such as Imo, Kwara, Ekiti, Ogun and Rivers.The defections of PDP governors and other prominent members to the APC in some states will also likely generate unanticipated crises over leadership and control of party structures. Indeed, continuous intra-party contestation for influence and control by various fractions and tendencies within political parties is an inevitable part of the democratic process. It is impossible to permanently eliminate and impose the superficial and deceptive peace of the graveyard on any political party. The important thing is to ensure strict and equitable adherence to stipulated constitutional principles and processes in the mediation and resolution of such conflicts, which are an inevitable feature of political life.

A doctoral feather to Kayode Opeifa’s cap

His mind is a boiling cauldron, ever restless and bubbling with creative and original ideas, concepts and thoughts that he churns out with amazing ease and infectious enthusuasm. Listening to him articulate his positions either in support of or opposition to various memos and policy proposals as a member of the Lagos State Executive Council during the governor Babatunde Raji Fashola administration between 2007 and 2015 with considerable verve and gusto showed a man with a scientific cast of mind, soundness of logic and mastery of facts and figures that are obviously a function of careful preparation and disciplined attention to detail. I refer to none other than Dr Kayode Opeifa, Special Adviser and later Commissioner for Transportation in the Lagos State government for eight years.

This former student union leader, anti-military and pro-democracy activist, award winning sportsman, accomplished administrator as well as passionate progressive welfarist has just completed a Doctoral programme in Transport and Logistics from the Lagos State University (LASU). His thesis investigated the effects of mobility on poverty alleviation and sustainable development in Lagos State with particular focus on the nature and strength of the relationship between sustainable transport/mobility and poverty alleviation in the megacity. A man of admirable versatility, Opeifa obtained a B.Sc degree in Biochemistry with a Second Class (Hons) Upper Division from the University of Ilorin in 1986 and an M.Sc degree in Biochemistry from the University of Lagos, College of Medicine, specializing in Intermediary Metabolism and Toxicology in 1988.

Opeifa knows the transportation terrain of Lagos State like the back of his hand and he is even more astute and accomplished as a formidable political analyst and strategist. To a friend, brother, ideological soul mate and regular intellectual sparring partner, I say a hearty congratulations. Surely, the best is yet to come and more glorious accomplishments lie ahead of you by His grace.

July 17, 2021
No to age cheats

By Ade Ojeikere

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games begin in a few days without easily the most successful football nation at the multi-sports competition, Nigeria. Nigerians celebrated a gold medal feat at the Games in 1996 in Atlanta, a silver celebration session in Beijing in 2002, and a bronze in Brazil in 2016. We have had several soccer sides bear the sobriquet Dream Team.

Nwankwo Kanu, Daniel Amokachi, and Austin Okocha (no disrespect to the Atlanta’96 gladiators) were the popular names mentioned by the joyous Americans. This love for the Dream Team players wasn’t only in Atlanta. I heard them loud and clear at malls in Philadelphia where I visited to see my younger sister before heading back to Nigeria. It was pure magic. The players exhibited so much understanding that people could predict which of their moves upfront would result in goals. The players were our best at that time. This fact is at the root of subsequent failed attempts by other Dream Teams.

Our leagues at all levels are now death traps with referees and away team members being the victims. Sadly, State FAs and the host clubs get slap-on-the-wrist verdicts with the verdicts of investigation panels unable to state clearly if the away team should be awarded the mandatory three points and three goals for a game said to have been disrupted by the home fans. How can the panel establish encroachment against the home yet not award the three points and three goals to the visitors? Perhaps, we need to be told what the rule on encroachment states categorically. I digress.

The silver medal in Beijing against Argentina would have been gold if the coaches picked our best. They opted for boys who won them glory at the lower levels, forgetting that years have rolled by and those boys weren’t our best anywhere. Fixation is the bane of Nigerian coaches. They would play their wards until they start walking with sticks. No matter how you try to fortify their squads, they dig deep into the filthy past like the pig in the sty. Had the coach used the over-aged players properly, and picked our best history would have repeated itself in Beijing.

The bronze medal feat in Brazil didn’t come without the biggest problem with football’s growth here – government interference albeit from the sports ministry, in this case, the sports minister. Let’s not remind ourselves of the shameful setting where a Japanese lover of the team paid for our expenses. The story of the team’s camping exercise is messy such that Nigeria arrived in Brazil a few hours before her first game. What a country! Was it the minister’s duty to prepare the federations’ athletes (in this case footballers) for the games? Had the minister done his job well by ensuring that cash for the team’s camping in the US was ready on time, he would have chosen where he wanted them to stay, if he smelt any foul play? The federation scavenged for cash to take the team to the US and it paid off as the team won a bronze medal, making the minister apologise to the contingent. This ministerial apology wasn’t necessary if the minister wasn’t a meddlesome interloper. Ironically, the Dream Team which was labelled black turned out to be the best, though we won a bronze medal.

It is the NFF’s job to prepare the team. The minister’s roles include getting the cash from the government for the contingents’ trips, ensure corporate sponsorship and handle logistics for the teams like other countries do, but obviously, this former minister’s focus wasn’t on quality planning. The boys, however, showed great resilience and professionalism to beat Japan 5-4 in the opening match with Oghenekaro Etebo scoring four goals from the midfield. John Mikel Obi made his cheques available to offset bills for the team in the US. This writer isn’t surprised since Mikel has always been a patriot, forget his inability to honour the country’s matches in his heydays at Chelsea.

It is unfortunate that we are going to another Olympics without the country’s male or female soccer teams. Such competitions ought to be our birthright considering the depth of talents domiciled in the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country. The state governments have shirked their responsibility of providing the facilities for the budding talents in the LGAs to recreate. Perhaps, the state governors have forgotten that is part of their responsibilities to ensure that the governed live a healthy life. People would gain a lot from engaging in sports, especially the youth who would be compelled to embrace the games of their choices and inevitably depart from the societal vices for good.

In the absence of a credible platform to engage the citizenry in sports, the country is left to use those that are available. The danger in this arrangement is that they are not properly groomed and rely mostly on their innate skills and what they copied while watching their idols participate in their sport. The athletes discovered under such tardy settings are prone to misinforming their federations about their ages and other statistics needed to guide their career path to glory as we have in other sports-loving nations.

Civilised countries develop their sports through the neighbourhood system where facilities are built to engage the youth and push them away from social vices. Nurseries serve as the basis for storing the data of those discovered. Such information help to nurture and monitor the good ones to stardom. Besides, nurseries lay the foundation where the athletes are taught the rudiments of the game. It is at such factories that playing styles and patterns unique to such countries are evolved.

The ages of some of our footballers in the past have been questionable. It explains their inability to attain their Golan heights attained by others in the different sports. The Argentine side that beat Nigeria at the Holland 2005 World U-20 Youth Championship still has most of their members still active in the game unlike ours. Again, who would believe that Ajiboye was adjudged a better goalkeeper than De Gea at the U-17 World Cup in 2007? Need I waste space to do an evaluation of De Gea and Ajiboye? The examples of many of our cadet players disappearing like ice cream kept under the scorching sun are legendary.

We can’t be talking about growing talents at the nurseries without standardising the academies that abound in the country. The fraud committed by some disgruntled folks in the name of soccer academies can only be curtailed if the NFF through its state affiliates compel all such bodies to register with it. That way, the authorities can identify who the fraudster is if such allegations arise. This collegiate arrangement will eliminate age cheats because a kid discovered in Edo State, for instance as Ikponwonsa Ikponwonsa in 1988 as a 12-year old, cannot be Etim Etim in 2008 claiming to be 16. The details of his data from his first registration in Edo State will give him out even as Etim Etim.

In 2009, Neymar drew all the applause spotting Brazil’s over-size jersey as a substitute in most games at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos during the FIFA-17 World Cup. Brazil didn’t play in the finals like our Golden Eaglets. Yet, many of those young boys are in the current Brazilian side. Ours have either retired or have quit the game for several reasons.

We have won the U-17 World Cup diadem five times, yet we haven’t been able to play in the World Cup finals at the U-20 level since 1989. It doesn’t add up, especially where the bulk of the U-17 players graduated to the next category. Winning the cadet trophy five times suggests that we have a viable template for nurseries. Foul. The dearth of talents is the reason Rohr is opting for the Nigeria-born kids, whose ages are verifiable at the touch of the button on any wire service, unlike ours where we still present manipulated sworn affidavits, even for talents born in the 20th and 21st Centuries.

We cannot continue with a system that has crippled our sports. We need to do those things others do seamlessly if we hope to compete with them. Age plays a vital role in sports. We recycle ageing stars because we have no nurseries to groom talents.

Who cares if we are not in Tokyo with adults as kids? No to age cheats. Where is the little Messi of Nigeria? Do you remember him?

July 17, 2021
DSS opts for propaganda against Igboho, Kanu

UnderTow

Unsatisfied with invading the home of Sunday Adeyemo, alias Sunday Igboho, and finding little of substance to substantiate their apocalyptic theory of his secessionist plot, and unfulfilled at ‘intercepting’ Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB fame and running into a needless diplomatic storm that is still brewing, the Department of State Service (DSS) has begun a welter of propaganda to damage the reputation and standing of both ethnic champions. Mr Igboho is famously hyperbolic about the Yoruba freedom cause, particularly as it relates to the rampage of herdsmen in the Southwest, but there is no record of violent enforcement of his self-appointed cause, nor evidence that he had inspired or directed the killing of any herdsman, the object of the Buhari administration’s umbrage. The coarser Mr Kanu has spoken violence but, despite the rampage of the so-called unknown gunmen in parts of the Southeast, has been largely theatrical, propagandistic, and unwisely eager to claim credit for violence of unknown origin, without understanding the legal pitfalls.

Read Also; That raid on Sunday Igboho’s residence

Neither Mr Igboho nor Mazi Kanu had undertaken the genocidal assault Fulani herdsmen and Northwest bandits subscribe to, but the Buhari administration and the DSS have expended huge resources to interdict their fairly popular causes. The administration is unfazed by public allegations, particularly from the south, that its methods and objectives betray an ethnic agenda, considering how it obsesses over Messrs Igboho and Kanu without a corresponding high-tech effort to ‘intercept’ and destroy the bases and funding of bandits and herdsmen. But no matter what anyone says, the administration will persist in its goals and obsessions. This obsession may reflect the limitation of their understanding of how a pluralistic society should be governed, but they really don’t care. Not only has the administration needlessly turned fringe ethnic players in the south to mainstream players, they have also incredibly drawn an opaque and unfair definitional line in the sand between secessionists in the south on the one hand and bandits and herdsmen in the north on the other hand. The latter may be infinitely more violent, but the administration and the DSS have decided to assign more definitional and criminal weight to the former. This skewed propaganda will continue apace.

Hundreds of schoolboys and girls are being kidnapped regularly, especially in the north, and brutalized or murdered, but the DSS has declared its intention to seek out backers and funders of Mr Igboho and Mr Kanu’s IPOB. The backers have already being criminalized. The administration’s selectiveness is so acute now that no one in the south and perhaps the Middle Belt believes their impartiality anymore. Bandits have extorted hundreds of millions from their victims, and asked for motorcycles and food items, but, as if they are spirits, they have not being located, exposed and humiliated. The bandits have sometimes come out into the open to half-heartedly accept amnesty, and their identities are well known, but still nothing has happened to them. Perhaps the administration is passing on the message that self-determination is evil but killing and maiming and kidnapping are nothing but inconsequential misdemeanour. Had medieval kingdoms been governed like this, historians would have no example of past developments and greatness to write about.

July 10, 2021
Bad citation of Nigeria’s soccer

By Ade Ojeikere

What happened inside the LA Coliseum in the State of California last week was a representative picture of the deplorable state of Nigeria’s soccer beyond the facade that organisers of the domestic game try to force on us. Last Saturday, the Mexicans thoroughly exposed the underbelly of our football such that in four minutes, a pitiable Nigerian side was trailing by two goals with the technical crew unable to decipher what the problems were. The Mexicans could easily have spelled Nigeria with goals but for the remarkable performance of the home-based goalkeeper, Stanley Nwabali, who plays for Lobi Stars of Makurdi.

However, the goalkeeper was also poor when it came to defending his goalpost in the third and fourth goals. He left his goal line on both occasions unguarded and the Mexicans easily capitalised on it. Jersey number 20, Tope Olusesi and the goalkeeper were identified by the Mexican coach as Nigeria’s best performers in a game where we fielded 14 players, an average which told the story of how poorly and miserable we looked on the night in Los Angeles.

The others escorted Olusesi and Nwabali to Los Angeles raising posers if they were the best players in the domestic game and if the team wouldn’t have played a little better with just the leaders of the league Akwa United FC being fortified with three to four players. Perhaps, Nwabali and Olusesi. Prior to the game, league followers faulted the list of players selected for the exercise and it appears their fears are after all not unfounded. But the one which struck me most was the stoic silence from the top contenders in the league seeking to postpone their matches because some of their regulars were part of the travelling party for the Mexico clash in Los Angeles.

A list of players released for such an assignment that did not attract protests from leading clubs isn’t a representative picture of the best in the domestic game. Perhaps, if the league organisers were alive to their responsibilities, followers of the game at home would have known the difference and raised the alarm over the exclusion of the home-grown stars they would have loved to see them at the international platform based on their performances on live games shown on television. If the league organisers knew their onions, they would have perfected the weekly and monthly awards to deserving league clubs’ players which would have served as the pointers to fault any mercantile list, no matter whose ox is gored. This exercise was once sponsored by one of the soft drinks giants in the country, Pepsi, with distinguished Nigerians serving as panellists.

What happened in Los Angeles was another massive failure to expose our best domestic league players to the world and probably make our country the new Mecca for shopping for raw talents to Europe at cheaper rates. What made our performance pitiable was the absence of quality coaching from the Nigerian bench as the game progressed. The substitutions showed clearly that the coaches were either watching another game or they just didn’t know what to say to the boys to change the way they were playing for improved performances. This, without a doubt, is the fundamental problem with the local leagues irrespective of their nomenclatures. And the NFF, the supervisory body for soccer in the country must remedy the situation, lest our players would just be good enough for the novelty leagues in the world. Need I list the countries where the game isn’t anything other than a novelty?

The decision to deploy some of our former players to serve as coaches without prerequisite coaching knowledge from schools and being graded by FIFA and CAF is grossly affecting the way our local teams play the game. Coaching is a much more serious business to be left for any player to transform from being a regular to become a coach on the altar of being injured or aging or both. Such a player should be encouraged to attend coaching courses. he should always attend FIFA and CAF courses regularly to update their coaching techniques. Coaching, like all disciplines of learning, is dynamic – always evolving with new tricks of the game from the manual to the digital platforms.

The coaching methodologies of our domestic trainers are obsolete. Our coaches train our players as if they are preparing for marathon races. I always laugh watching our players run endlessly around the pitches before training begins. The ones perceived to be unfit are made to do a few laps. The players try to add humour to the exercise by singing religious songs to lift up their spirits. You wonder if this is the way renowned coaches drill their players. You need to watch tapes of how Pep Guardiola conducts his pre-match and halftime chats in the dressing room using the boards. Guardiola virtually dances his way through explaining what he wants to be done even in his smattering English.

Modern-day coaching is about cones, dummies, and other devices found in the club’s gymnasium used to keep players fit. Match preparations are about tactics and roles assigned to special players based on tapes of the opposition’s style of play charted for easy explanation. As matches progress the better side is known through its depth in talents and how the coaches deploy them in his line ups to achieve the desired results. The two semi-finals games in the Euro 2020 competition at Wembley on Tuesday and Wednesday capture the essence of having good coaches who are alive to their responsibilities.

Two years ago, the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) wrote Nigeria stating that only CAF A should be appointed as head coaches of clubs in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL). You would think that such a request was a piece of cake for the country, given her achievements in world soccer from the kindergartens to the senior cadre. No prize for guessing right that we were found wanting. Virtually all the clubs in the top flight in Nigeria are headed by CAF B licensed coaches with a sprinkle that have their CAF A licenses.

Nigeria Football Association Coaches’ President Ladan Bosso wrote back to CAF chieftains revealing that: “We have only 43 certified licensed CAF A coaches in Nigeria with a large number of these coaches lecturing in various higher institutions in the country and not domiciled with professional football clubs”. Interesting. Of course, couldn’t provide the specifics in order not to further, expose the decadence in the system.

Bosso expectedly pleaded with CAF to give his Association time to effect this new rule which he described as a great idea because for a long period, we have not had CAF A coaching courses in Nigeria pointing out that this has greatly stunted the anticipated progression of our coaches from the CAF C to CAF B and CAF A certifications. Have things changed for the Nigerian coaches since Bosso’s apologetic response to CAF? Read my lips.

NFF President Amaju Pinnick in his first two years tried to take senior coaches in the system to England for training courses. He was shocked to find out that many of them couldn’t even put on the computers given to them nor could they develop programmes with them. They were mostly analogue coaches. It was that bad. The problem with most of our coaches is that have refused to attend FIFA, CAF, and WAFU coaching courses. They shun those courses held in Nigeria on grounds that they have seen it all in the coaching field. Pity. Dear Nigerian coaches, learning is a continuum. The day you stop learning, you are dead in such a profession.

Nigerian coaches are rustic in their style of coaching. And it permeates through all the levels hence the dearth of talents here. The country’s football needs holistic retooling for it to compete with the best in the world. No sentiments. What we have done in the last three years is to paper the cracks in the coaching industry.

In the past we had trained Coaches such Alabi Aissien, Adegboye Onigbinde, the late Willy Bazuaye, Monday Sinclair, Eto Amaechina, Josiah Dombraye, Godwin Etemike, Carl Odywer, the late Joseph Ladipo a.k.a Jossy Lad, the man who made defunct Leventis United FC of Ibadan, the greatest brand in our country, having emerged from the third tier till the top, Sebastine Brodericks-Imasuen, Amusa Shittu, Ufere Nwakwo, Charles Bassey, the late Solomon Ogbeide, Ben Duamlong, Lawrence Akpokona, the late Kelechi Emetiole including foreigners such as Kowalick (I hope I got the spelling right),who handled Enugu Rangers, Allan Hawks, whose off-side tactics was a delight to watch as it caught unprepared teams to their consternation. In fact, coaches of the Eastern team (Enugu Rangers, Spartan of Owerri, Vasco Da Gama, Sharks FC, Blue Angels), made the competition among teams keener and exciting.

July 10, 2021