The zonal chairmanship ambition of Dr. Eddy Olafeso in the Southwest zone of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is receiving more boost daily.
Olafeso, who enjoys the support of former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, reportedly just bagged the endorsement of some prominent leaders in Oyo State like Chief Nureni Akanbi, Alhaji Bisi Olopoeyan, and Femi Babalola, in spite of alleged objection to his choice by Governor Seyi Makinde.
Reliable sources say former Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, has also thrown his weight behind Fayose’s desire to have Olafeso returned as head of the party in the zone. Oyinlola heads the reconciliatory committee recently constituted by the governor’s faction of the PDP.
Other notable chieftains of Oyo PDP said to be shifting support to Olafeso include Aranse Basiru, Dele Adigun, Baba Sunday Alabi, Alhaji Azeez Ajinowo, Malam Yusuf Akinyemi among others.
Makinde and Chief Olabode George have not hidden their objection to Fayose’s scheme to install Olafeso as zonal chairman. This, sources claim, is at the heart of the tussle between the governor and Fayose.
But recent developments have left observers of the ongoing intrigues within the opposition party wondering whether Makinde and his faction are losing grip in the struggle for the soul of the PDP in the Southwest. Or how else can one explain the daily show of support for Olafeso by notable chieftains of the party, hitherto believed to be in governor’s camp?
Although the Chairman of the Caretaker/ Extra-Ordinary National Convention Planning Committee of the All Progressives Congress, Mai Mala Buni, has been talking tough, promising to sanctions members who sabotage the forthcoming membership registration/revalidation exercise in any way, feelers emanating from some parts of the country indicate that the registration may not pass without some drama.
Sentry gathered that Buni’s statement was in reaction to plans by individuals and groups within APC to prevent perceived ‘opponents’ from being registered during the nationwide exercise.
“Let me make it abundantly clear that the party would not condone any act of sabotage of denying anyone or group of persons from registering. The party would deal decisively with anyone or group who attempted hijacking the exercise. Everyone must be allowed and given the chance to register. The party has adequate back up materials to ensure a successful exercise and no one is disenfranchised,” Buni said.
But he may have to do more than just talk if he truly desires that his warning be taken to heart. Sources tell Sentry that many leaders and their groups are planning to prevent members of rival tendencies within the party in their various states from being registered.
There are also those who want to ensure that their own loyalists form the majority of registered members in their domain. They intend to manipulate the exercise to their own advantage. Here’s hoping Buni and his men can walk their talk.
I really haven’t celebrated any age-grade feat by Nigerian teams at the continental or global levels. I have always insisted on having school children participate in such tournaments if we truly understand what sports development at the grassroots entails. Our penchant for winning every game or competitions where we have been enlisted has crippled sports, especially soccer, such that our senior team is largely populated by Nigeria-born lads. Pity.
Soccer crazy countries during the FIFA U-17 World Cup competitions are not there essentially to lift the trophy. They are there with the products from a structured plan to spot talents early. No kamikaze approach. Players being paraded by these countries are from renowned academies whose duty is to discover, nurture and expose kids from around them to play in such big stages. These nations’ nationals don’t have to ask their neighbours who the players are during games.
Academies which are nurseries for warehousing the game have been standardised to protect the sector and backed by law for effectiveness. It is at this level that countries’ playing patterns evolve depending on what the coaches feel could bring the best from their nationals.
Standards are set for owning such academies including their curriculum to shut out quackery. These academies are registered by the country’s FA with the right synergy struck where players’ movement in and out of the country are documented.
These academies ensure that the players’ career paths are cut to fit their ambitions. Those of them eager to combine playing soccer with going to school are enrolled to be educated. They also have drawn up training schedules to suit their schools’ curriculum, knowing the importance of education when their career as soccer players is over. Nothing happens in such countries as an accident.
We are interested in celebrating what the contingents get and not how such feats improve on the game across the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country. Coaches eager to be decorated by the president of the country at an elaborate reception, always cast an indulgent eye when accepting cheats as kids. The quest to be tagged World Cup coaches have blinded the tacticians to brazenly flout the rules of the competition, knowing that their lives would change with every World Cup-winning achievement.
This mindset is further emboldened by cheating parents who connive with their wards and collaborators in the system to present midgets or should I say those with stunted growths as kindergarten, forgetting that the world knows where to find kids within the set age brackets. It hurts when our Golden Eaglets emerge as champions, with many not talking about their schools or their mates celebrating them on social media. It makes the world sigh, knowing what those with the right systems do theirs.
It is easy to know that something is amiss when our victorious Eaglets storm the country with the trophies and the players aren’t referring to their mates in the schools nor do we see any school sending its kids to welcome their sport ambassadors as it is done elsewhere. I say this without any iota of fear knowing the joy I experienced last month watching parents of the kids in the youth team Aston Villa used to play against Liverpool in the FA Cup Third round game being brought to the stadium by their parents.
These young boys didn’t drive to the match venues nor did they charter big cars to convey them to the stadium. Instead, their parents showing that they are still under the tutelage of their parents. No prize for guessing right that the boys’ schools acknowledged the feat against Liverpool though the kids lost the game 4-1, expectedly.
Recall a certain England youth side which won the U-20 World Cup which had many Nigeria-born kids, although most of them were of mixed parentage depending on their choices. Players of Nigerian descent in the England squad include Fikayo Tomori, Dominic Solanke, Ademola Lookman and Sheyi Ojo as U-20 World Cup champions didn’t come as a surprise. Most of them have been mates since when they were in the lower cadre of age-grade teams in the past. The key point here is continuity and it helped the team to blend easily during games. The English celebrated them because they discovered, nurtured, and exposed these Nigerians to the world, which is sacrosanct. It also underscores the proficiency of the system in place to roll out talents annually unlike ours where we scout for boys with stunted growth for age-grade competitions, which was prevalent in the past.
These kids evolved from the deliberate policies in those countries with their biggest plank being the synergy between such nations’ education section and their sports counterparts.
These nations use sports to change the world’s perception of them just as it helps the citizens to improve on their health statuses, not forgetting the role sports plays in taking the kids out of the social vices for the general good of their citizens. Sports is the easiest way to address the issue of massive employment for the unemployed, only if new policies are perceived by subsequent governments as theirs.
Nigeria sports appears to be in the doldrums because new administrations throw into the trash bins models established by previous governments. Except the school system return to the models which helped to produce great sportsmen and women, the industry would continue to look outside for talents who have been displaced in other countries and parade them as ours. Of course, the results of such quick fixes are not lost on us.
Schools sports died with the introduction of free education which ensured that playgrounds effectively converted into classrooms by our administrators. Schools had colleges up to six from the initial school making it impossible for the students to recreate. Those students who tried to recreate through sports chose to improvise devices, such as playing soccer in the spaces left or arranging all forms of long planks and in some instances arranging two tables to play table tennis. Today, many old students associations are beginning to return their schools to what they were when they were student decades ago. But the damage has been done.
Today, sports councils have been converted to sports commissions which is a better package provided those adopting it know what it entails. It is important to note here that the states with the sports commission models must find how the new contraption can work in tandem with the ministry of education which supervises the schools where the students are. If the schools get on stream fully, Covid-19 permitting, prominent old students and indeed, sports-loving governors can garner resources together to reinvent school sports in the country as a matter of deliberate policies. The students are there but there are no facilities for them to burn out energy.
It truly hurts when schools hire playgrounds to host their traditional inter-house sports, which in the past was a delight to watch with each school showing its facilities for others to emulate. Governors can impress it on their customers (those firms and people who do businesses with them) to chip in some cash to revamp some of the moribund competitions which brought kids together outside of the National Sports Festival which has since lost its essence due to the different contraptions that have bedevilled the competition.
In the case of football, it is the simplest game and perhaps the cheapest to run at the foundation level – grassroots where all you need do to get kids together is to bounce the ball at the centre circle of the field anywhere in the 774 LGAs in the country and the pitches would be filled with eager youth wishing to showcase their talent.
I listened to the Golden Eaglets’ coach on television talking about assembling the players in camp over long periods. The imminent question would be how those kids hope to combine their school work with playing football. The coach should be told that the boys he picked aren’t the best. Which parent would allow the kids such a long period of absence, if they are truly kids (U-17)? What he needs to do is scouting around the country for better and more competitive players who would play games as if their lives depend on it.
The manager should worry about the large number of players who failed the MRI test for eligibility prior to the first campaign where Nigeria finished as runners-up. The place to find U-17 players are the secondary schools and possibly the primary schools for those who started school late to their parents’ and guardians’ lean purses. We need to change the narrative where our Eaglets win trophies and schools can’t celebrate such feats showing us their wards.
Our previous victories haven’t translated to anything good for our football at the higher levels for reason one has espoused here. Why would school-age players be thinking about rewards in cash? Shouldn’t they be talking about how to improve their education while playing the game? Rather than give the players cash, such monies ought to have been routed through their parents who can channel such cash appropriately. The argument in some quarters that Nigeria’s poor showing in age-grade competitions lately is because the NFF stopped paying them as they did in the past is weak.
Last week, Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, bit the bullet by firmly stating during a meeting with Hausa/Fulani and Ebira Communities that herdsmen in Ondo would have to beat it from the state’s forest reserves if they would not be registered. Things had got progressively worse concerning the state’s security for years and someone needed to do something about it. As the state governor, the constitutional lot fell on him to take the bull by the horns. That was exactly what he did. For the herdsmen, it was only a matter of time so it is no surprise that when the state acted, they ended up with the short end of the stick, especially considering the rate at which they soaked up pressure and accusations pointing to their culpability in insecurity across the country. The recent kidnap and ransoming of a couple in Ondo State, and the police’s comical attempt to claim the glory for their rescue may have played a part in the governor’s recent decisive stance.
Firing the first shot, Akeredolu had said, “These unfortunate incidents are traceable to the activities of some bad elements masquerading as herdsmen. These felons have turned our forest reserves into hideouts for keeping victims of kidnapping, negotiating for ransom and carrying out other criminal activities. As the Chief Law and Security Officer of the State, it is my constitutional obligation to do everything lawful to protect the lives and property of all residents of the State… Our resolution to guarantee the safety of lives and property within the state shall remain utmost as security agencies have been directed to enforce the ban. In its usual magnanimity, our administration will give a grace period of seven days for those who wish to carry on with their cattle-rearing business to register with appropriate authorities.”
The governor’s statement was welcome by most of the southwest, especially Yoruba elders who already felt that it was only a matter of time before things came to a head in this manner. Yoruba elders in Ondo too have seized the opportunity to publicly express just how glad they would be to see the back of herdsmen in their lands. For a long time, many had been waiting for one of the governors in the Southwest to develop the right amount of spunk to do the needful. Governor Akeredolu’s policy, however, caught the eye and drew the ire of Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity. It remains unclear whether he read the governor’s statement in full before hastily cobbling together an ill-fated reply that not only attracted cavil, but one which left Nigerians short of imprecating many strange words at him under their breaths. Mr Shehu himself is not a stranger to controversy; his recent statements came on the heels of his claim last week that Nigerians were blind and only President Muhammadu Buhari could see something useful about the service chiefs. Neither the presidency nor Mr Shehu himself can deny knowledge of the security condition in these states, so trying to take Akeredolu to task on the issue was more of an attempt to buck the trend, before it had even started, of governors expelling unregistered herdsmen from their states. Indeed, Senator Shehu Sanni, public commentator and regular thorn in the presidential flesh, once piped up that herdsmen were being overprotected and pampered.
Nevertheless, some nuggets from the presidential spokesman: “Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, a seasoned lawyer, Senior Advocate of Nigeria and indeed, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has fought crime in his state with passion and commitment, greater sensitivity and compassion for the four years he has run its affairs and, in our view, will be the least expected to unilaterally oust thousands of herders who have lived all their lives in the state on account of the infiltration of the forests by criminals. If this were to be the case, rights groups will be right in expressing worries that the action could set off a chain of events which the makers of our constitution foresaw and tried to guard against. We want to make it clear that kidnapping, banditry and rustling are crimes, no matter the motive or who is involved. But, to define crime from the nameplates, as a number of commentators have erroneously done- which group they belong to, the language they speak, their geographical location or their faith is atavistic and cruel. We need to delink terrorism and crimes from ethnicity, geographical origins and religion—to isolate the criminals who use this interchange of arguments to hinder law enforcement efforts as the only way to deal effectively with them.”
His statements have been roundly condemned as being just a sandwich short of a picnic and it is difficult to advocate for him against those who have taken exception to his position. There were more circumspect arguments he could have thought of, instead of the ill-fated reaction he could muster. In fact, he would have fared better if he had simply clammed up and looked the other way. But, he has done what he has done and has hopefully learnt to be less hasty in commenting on deep ethnic issues, a tricky area of nationhood capable of hanging, drawing and quartering even the more broad-minded. It is disturbing that he did not wait to sample public opinion before delivering his own. Where the presidency is the first to speak and the last to listen, there will anyone perceptive enough find a recipe for disaster. Even as far back as 798AD, it had become a common aphorism to observe that vox populi, vox dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God). How then, after all these years, with the many advances in the political theory of democracy, has that simple basic truth escaped Mr Shehu and the presidency he is believed to have represented by that statement?
Governor Akeredolu will not develop cold feet in the face of increasing adversity, instead he will dig his heels in and see to it that herdsmen, who are not registered, are banished completely from the state’s forest reserves. He has the law and the people on his side, and the people are angry, ready and virtually vindictive. The state’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Donald Ojogo, parried Mr. Shehu’s reaction and even followed it up with an indistinct counteraccusation of ethnic sentimentalism. He observed that, “Ethnic nationality and activism on the part of anyone hiding under the presidency or federal government is an ill wind. We need clearly defined actions on the part of the federal government to decimate the erroneous impression that the inspiration of these criminal elements masquerading as herdsmen is that of power. Our unity is threatened, no doubt.”
The state’s Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Gboyega Adefarati, recently revealed how the governor took recourse to the Land Use Act (1969) and the Trade cattle Tax Law of Ondo (2006). The right to freedom of movement alluded to by Mr Shehu is enshrined in Section 41(1) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, but is quickly derogated by Section 41(2) and Section 45(1) of the same Constitution. The herdsmen courted with this danger for a long time and had become persona non grata in Ondo state as far back as 2019. On September 22 that year, a mysterious thunder had been said to leave 36 cows dead in its wake. Some other reports said it was the lightening and not the thunder that did the cows in. Both theories have a strange diabolical romance to the avid believer in the potency of traditional Yoruba magick. Of course, no one knows the truth of the matter and the cows could have simply ingested some poisonous substance and perished for all anyone knows, but the rejoicing of many of the state’s indigenes over the matter should have served as ample warning to them that they were no longer welcome in Ondo. In fact, Ondo State’s approach to tackling the herdsmen crisis is not completely avant garde. In 2017, Benue State imposed a restriction on the movement of herders in the state upon pain of five years imprisonment should they default.
Perhaps resulting from Governor Akeredolu’s actions, Sunday Igboho, a self-styled Yoruba freedom fighter whose incendiary views often enjoy media coverage, also made his own moves. The livewire activist paid a menacing visit to the Seriki Fulani in Oyo state where he delivered a pointed ultimatum to them to put their affairs in order and kindly go away lest he be forced to do something that he would prefer not to do. According to Igboho, he had been invited after certain distressing kidnapping activities in the state appeared set to fade away without justice being done. Igboho is neither a state actor nor a member of any official security agencies so summoning him to help and his involvement in the matter tried the country’s 1999 Constitution a little. The circumstances surrounding his summons, however, and his narration of the affair call for more scrutiny. Igboho was summoned because the people had no faith in the police or other relevant security agencies. The cars and weapons he claimed to have discovered in the house of the Seriki, and the allegations that the same Seriki was part of a kidnapping outfit featuring herders also deserves to be looked into. He will not be happy that Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, perhaps trying to play the diplomat, effectually chided him in a broadcast preaching against anyone stoking ethnic tensions in the state. The governor is right, but perhaps a little too right. Some have accused him of sitting on the fence instead of taking an action as decisive as that of Governor Akeredolu. Chiding Igboho but taking the cue from both Igboho and Governor Akeredolu to impose workable restrictions geared at curtailing the mobility of suspected terrorists would have been more welcome. The governor had been tightly wedged between a rock and a hard place, as most other governors have been, on state insecurity. Governor Akeredolu has set the ball rolling; how many more will follow
It is no longer news that the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has allegedly removed the Kwara State chapter chairman of the party, Bashir Bolarinwa, from office and replaced him with his erstwhile deputy, Samari Abdullahi.
What observers of the politics of the state are waiting to find out is how the faction loyal to Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, to which Bolarinwa is loyal, lost out in the game of wits that has been ongoing in the ruling party right from the months leading to the 2019 gubernatorial election that produced Governor AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq.
Sentry can authoritatively reveal that AbdulRazaq was able to pull the rug off the feet of Bolarinwa and his backers through the instrumentality of APC governors in the north central zone.
It would be recalled that some prominent members of the Lai Mohammed faction had vowed to ensure that the governor is not re-elected in 2023.
According to reliable sources, AbdulRazaq succeeded in convincing his fellow governors to help him rid his administration of intra-party opposition by removing Bolarinwa as chairman.
The governors agreed and the leadership of the north central zone of the party was prevailed upon to recommend Bolarinwa’s removal to the Governor Mala Buni-led national caretaker committee. Although the committee is yet to make any public statement as at the time of filing this report confirming the change of guard in Kwara, a letter of appointment purportedly issued Samari by the committee’s secretary, Senator John Udoedehe, is in possession of the governor’s camp while Bolarinwa and his supporters have been unable to reach out to Buni since the fresh crisis broke.
After stirring the hornet’s nest by accusing religious centres, among other public places, of contributing to the uncontrolled increase of the second wave of COVID-19 infections in Nigeria, Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, retreated to take a ringside seat and watch the blame game begin. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which has long felt that the policy of shutting religious centres was needless and only a little better than upsetting their liturgical applecart, made no bones about just what they thought of the PTF chairman’s statement. CAN General Secretary, Joseph Daramola, was not having any of that.
He said: “It is not true that the reopening of churches caused the second wave of COVID-19. Is it the opening of churches that caused the second wave of COVID-19 in other developed countries? All the places they locked have been opened. Nobody should try and make issues out of this. They may have their statistics, but if you go to churches in Abuja, they are still wearing masks. They have been keeping to the social distance protocol. In my church, we are still abiding by the COVID-19 protocols. I do not agree so. Since the government is there and it has all its apparatus, they can set up a committee. The statement is too wide. I do not want to go into conflict with government officials. What is happening is all over the world.”
Although his arguments were not accommodating in scope, his panic is understandable. He had seen the Federal Government backtrack on its earlier decision to open schools on January 18. The same fate loomed before churches and he clearly had had enough of churches being the sacrificial lambs for the government’s attempts to look busy. But he was not being permissive in his reaction. In fact, he was not willing to understand Mr. Mustapha’s position. The PTF had not fingered only churches; they had also fingered schools, business centres and religious centres as being included in the propagation of the virus. Indeed, there is no evidence that the PTF, which has for quite a while now been threatening everyone and every sector of the country with a second lockdown, was targeting religious centres.
The taskforce has had its work cut out for it. It may even have been correct in its allegations concerning religious centres contributing to the spread of the virus. Churches and Mosques, as well as schools, businesses and indeed all other gatherings including the markets, transportation services and so on have contributed to the spread of the virus. The PTF had not singled out only religious bodies, so while it had deflected the real issue on ground, to wit the small question of what is to be done to arrest the spread of the virus, it was not wrong in its assessment of the situation on ground nor was it exaggerating about the factors influencing the spread of the virus. The National Supreme Council for Islamic affairs (NSCIA), for its part, simply deferred to the assessment of the PTF and expressed its willingness to close up shop should the eminent PTF require it to do so. This was another move which the PTF would not have missed. It will now probably stroke its beard and fancy its chances of throwing religious centres under the bus to keep up appearances of being business-like in its war against COVID-19.
Both parties are barking up the wrong tree by disagreeing with the PTF or even by focusing on responding to the chairman’s statements, which are diversionary rather than visionary. They should have focused more on what the PTF did not say than what it indeed said, for it said nothing new. The PTS’s exposition on the cause of the increase in infection rate of the new wave of COVID-19 was not novel at the time; it was simply stating the obvious. Everyone in the country knew that the reopening of public places contributed in its own way to the increase of the infections in the country. The religious associations should have instead focused on pressuring the government to develop a local vaccine or even a cure instead of throwing ludicrous sums of money at the procurement of an international but still controversial vaccine. A cure for the virus will be as welcome as a vaccine, if not more welcome. Word on the street suggest that the true number of infections in Nigeria is grossly underreported, as Nigerians have wasted no time in stigmatising anyone with even the remotest symptoms of the virus. As such, those that have manifested the COVID-19 symptoms have resorted to herbal remedies, which have traditionally lived up to the task of fortifying their immunities against the debilitating disease. People are afraid to get tested. Those who have been there and done that have told harrowing tales of their experience that many Nigerians want to operate in denial and self-medicate instead of getting tested.
Decades of neglecting pharmaceutical advancements have caught up with the government and, although there have been enough needles pricked into the federal ego by the small but deadly virus, the government has developed a thick skin to the problem. It would rather wait to be spoonfed with the vaccines from abroad than scrape the barrel and get something done locally by way of a medical remedy. Lack of innovativeness in anti-coronavirus policy formulation was quickly followed by a shocking allocation of 400 billion naira for the procurement of an unstable vaccine that has reportedly killed one and lamed another, which was in turn followed by reports of a more controversial sharing formula for the virus. No, both the CAN and NSCIA were dancing to the PTF’s diversionary tune by flogging the wrong horse. They would have fared far better pointing out to the government that the time for announcing causes of the increase in the spread of the virus was long gone, as everyone in the country was not inured to the facts. They should have humbly requested the PTF to focus on finding a cure or devising a means and a strategy that did not include locking down the country to arrest the virus.
Needless to say, Nigeria is poorly equipped with infrastructure to handle the virus, and the economy is already in a recession. If the Federal government locks down churches and mosques but does not lock down markets, which are clearly more effective in spreading the virus, it would look ridiculous and make a laughing stock of itself — more than it already has. If the federal government locks down schools, for just how long will that strategy hold? There is hardly infrastructure for online schooling. The virus will not go anywhere if it is not expelled by either a cure or a vaccine. The borders of the country remain open and flights come in from sundry continents on a daily basis.
Some fresh ideas, which the government and the PTF appear bereft of are needed in the tackling of COVID-19. The time for blindly copying foreign countries is passed. Medical doctors are perishing or alarmingly coming down with the virus, and foreign countries keen on brain drain are cherry-picking the fit and the able left in the country. Really, the religious associations should not have bothered to bandy words with the PTF, they should instead have pointed out these realities to the government.
After the widely reported release last week of a couple kidnapped alongside a third man in Owo, Ondo State, the Nigeria Police Force, Ondo State Command, stole the thunder of the victims. They talked tough and said many encouraging words. Indeed, the media reported that the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and Amotekun Corps contributed their own quota of muscle to the release of the victims. Unfortunately, recent reports have quite confused Nigerians on what exactly went down in the forests of Ondo. No one knows what to believe anymore.
Following the release, Ondo Police spokesman, ASP Tee-Leo Ikoro, was quoted saying: “We got information about the incident and we quickly dispatched our tactical squad for a rescue mission. We heard they were asking for 20 million naira ransom, but we are not interested in that. Rather we are going after them. We rescued the couple and we are going to get the perpetrators.”
According to the couple, they were only released after they had negotiated with the kidnappers and driven a hard bargain of two million naira. They insisted that the money had been dropped off by the husband’s brother and the kidnappers had even counted the money by the roadside and bragged that they would do any police officer in, who was so bold as to venture into the area.
So who is lying? The police have since kept quiet. Silence is not admittance of guilt, but knowing the Nigeria Police, they would not have hesitated to respond to the allegations if they had indeed been lies. They are always first on the podium to blow their own trumpets and claim their deserved awards after successful missions. The couple, meanwhile, have no reason to lie against the police or any other corps that contributed to their rescue. They would have been full of gratitude under normal circumstances. No one knows if these were abnormal circumstances, but nothing points to abnormalities. They appear to be truthful in their claims so far. The police need to clear their name from this sordid mess. The last thing they want is to have the blemish on their record that they claim credits for work they have not done, nor do they want it to be said of them that they do not get their work done as and when due.
A Coalition of civil society groups has been told by a governor in the Northeast to drop the idea of promoting him as a possible presidential candidate in 2023. Sources say the campaigners had gone all the way from Abuja to the governor’s state to inform him of their readiness to tour the nooks and crannies of the country and garner support for his ambition.
Sentry gathered that the group read about the governor’s alleged interest in the race somewhere and wanted to quickly “join the line.”
But an aide of the governor revealed that not only did the governor, a former chief executive in the Federal Capital Territory who also served as a senator in the past, refused to grant the coalition audience. He also sent word to them that he is not interested in the race. “In fact, he told them he will be seeking a second term as governor of his state.
When contacted by Sentry, the group’s chairman declined to speak on the matter but said his coalition is free to support anyone else come 2023. Whichever way to look at it some schemers clearly chose the wrong target.
HISTORY has an uncanny way of vindicating the just, especially when it comes to interpreting the laws of the beautiful game which are supreme. When the English organisers of the Carabao Cup ruled last season that Liverpool had to honour their away fixture against Aston Villa, which the Reds lost 5-0, playing with their U-23 side and coaches, many hissed at the decision. The critics hinged their protestations on the fact that Liverpool’s unavoidable absence from the fixture had to do with their Club World Cup competition which the Reds again clinched. They hinged their resentments on the fact the Liverpool was participating in an international competition which ought to have taken precedence over the local tourney called Carabao Cup.
Not so for the English organisers who stuck to the rules of the game no matter whose ox is gored. Aston Villa roasted the Reds 5-0, with many waiting for a reoccurrence since what happened at Villa had no precedent case. What the English did by authorising that the away English FA Cup game between Liverpool and Aston Villa be played at the Villa Park last week Friday, despite the fact that 10 Villa players and four official had contracted the Coronavirus, underscores the fact that the rules of the game are universal, not selective. The English cast an indulgent eye on Liverpool’s Club World Cup participation by insisting that it wasn’t enough to undermine theirs – the Carabao Cup, whose winners qualified to play at the next season’s Europa Cup competition.
The first instance which favoured Aston Villa was the Carabao Cup. But last Friday’s game which favoured Liverpool was an English FA Cup third-round fixture, showing that the rules or should I say laws aren’t a respecter of persons or clubs. One rule, same interpretation yet different competitions. It shows how the more organised football nations stick religiously to their soccer calendars. With this kind of fairness in interpreting the rules, the corporate world can key into their programmes, knowing that no state governor or bigwig in the seat of government or clashes of fixtures can arbitrarily postpone a game or matches.
Other frivolous grounds where matches are shifted arbitrarily in Nigeria, such as organising political rallies or birthdays of top government functionaries at match venues won’t happen in civilised climes because every facet of the game is utilised as business concerns with set objectives. Those who did it in the past in Nigeria argued that the state-owned the premises and were at liberty to do whatever they liked at short notice, especially as such matches were played on hired grounds are being hired from the government. Hmmmmm!
Adherence to the rules helps greatly to meet the season’s calendar which was used to negotiate business transactions with the corporate world. No firm would want to do business with the government knowing that they are no respecter of rules and regulations. However, such firms would do business with organisations not controlled by the government since they know the importance of timelines and targets. In Europe, commencement dates of the football seasons are known, unlike here in Nigeria where you only know when the season starts.
In Europe, they are running through their programmes with strict adherence to the Covid-19 regulations. It easy to pick out defaulters through internal mechanisms present inside and around the stadium. For instance, Nigeria-born Eberechi Eze was caught by CCTV not wearing his mouth mask during Crystal Palace’s away game against QPR in the FA Cup, although footages later showed that he was munching something. The FA has commenced investigations into the matter. In fact, Crystal Palace was unaware the summer signing planned to return to his old stomping ground and QPR boss Mark Warburton conceded his club made an error in accepting Eze’s request to attend.
Compare this scenario to that in Nigeria where the media have the crowd in one of the stadia on tape with lucid pictures showing people not wearing the masks or observing Covid-19 protocols. Those whose duty it is to punish such defaulters are waiting for concrete evidence before punishing such erring clubs and supporters. The English FA relied on what the media published to institute a probe body to charge Eze. Can you beat that?
This slap on the wrist treatment of lawbreakers in the domestic league underscores the rot in the whole exercise. With crystal clear pictures of fans inside the stadium and outside trying to enter the premises, the local organisers ought to have written to the state FAs and the clubs or possibly the state government drawing their attention to the pictures and videos in the media seeking answers to these flaws, knowing the ravaging effects of the Coronavirus.
Perhaps, NFF, the owners of the game on behalf of FIFA should immediately direct that domestic league matches are played behind closed doors since the State FA and clubs have shirked their responsibilities. After all, the local organisers promised us live footages of the star matches among other packages which have been restricted to watching the domestic game on our telephone sets while using our data. Who does that? What a country! Is this what operates elsewhere where the game is the biggest employers of labour and massive revenue earners for the clubs and government. Little wonder the British government has refused to shut down the country to reduce the spread of the Coronavirus again, inclusive of the football and other elite sports where money accruing to the government through taxes etc is colossal.
We mustn’t lose lives because few people can’t do what is right. No soul is worth being lost on the altar of playing soccer, especially now when the vaccines for Coronavirus hasn’t arrived the country let alone when they would be available.
The KPMG Player Valuation Tool published by the Daily Mail on Tuesday showed that the aggregate market value of the 500 most valuable stats decreased by 9.6 per cent between February 2020 and January 2021. The report predicted that the next five years of the football industry ‘will look very different’. And with the Covid-19 situation worsening in recent weeks, that forecast looks all the more accurate. Such is the importance attached to regulating the protocols for Covid-19, which our domestic league organiser are casting in the indulgent eye on.
The KPMG Player Valuation Tool also revealed the cost benefits of the Coronavirus on the game’s growth and submitted thus: “All six champions – Real Madrid, Juventus, Liverpool, Porto, PSG and Bayern Munich – endured a decrease in operating revenues with estimated losses in that department across those six divisions reaching -£4.5bn.
“Interestingly, only Bayern and Real managed to finish last season with any net profit for the financial year, despite the fact that the Spanish side lost out the most in Match-day income (-£31.5m, a 22% year-on-year drop).
“The 5th annual edition of the report revealed that Real made a slim profit of £300,000 for the year while Bayern was up £5m. PSG was the worst affected, losing £113m, followed by Porto (-£104m) and then Juventus (-£89m). Liverpool was not included in this section of the report as the club are yet to release detailed financial information on staff costs and profitability figures,” the report stated.
The decline in figures are heart-wrenching and it has affected how the big 5 have played this season with may of them tottering in matches. But the flip side is that such leagues have records which guide teams in making investments. With such worrying times, clubs are looking at the transfer market with bated breath knowing the advantages and disadvantages in such an adventure or misfortune depending on how solvent their books look like.
For the Nigeria league, anything goes. Fundamental flaws in the league’s structures don’t matter until someone dies or a near mishap occurs. It doesn’t matter if the league has no title sponsor. It doesn’t matter if referees are being owed their entitlements over three years. It doesn’t matter if club management arbitrarily reduce players and officials’ wages because the team is bottom placed. It doesn’t matter if the coach doesn’t accompany his team to two consecutive matches provided such a team wins.
It doesn’t matter if the league is four weeks old without a CEO, even after the parent body NFF has announced Davidson Owumi as the designated choice. It doesn’t matter if the season began without the ritual called AGM which traditionally precedes each new season. It also doesn’t matter when league seasons are forced to end abruptly with no team relegated or promoted. Na our style be that.
Permit me to end this piece with the wise words from veteran journalist Mitchel Obi who wrote in one the Whatsapp groups, FUBS thus: ”What’s the total revenue made last season of no relegation by all 20 clubs in the Nigeria Professional football league…Tomorrow you want Enyimba FC to compete and win again the CAF champions league with such opposition as Club Esperance or Egyptian clubs who have spent over $75 m in signing foreign players…There is a distinct imbalance of forces between North African clubs and Nigeria…we need to run faster to come close and I mean not catching up…”
Oga Mitchel, if you ask me, who I go ask o? I dey laugh o!
It is a well known maxim in journalism that when’ a dog bites a man it is no news but when a man bites a dog it is news’ . This is the running rule of our discussion of today’s topic and the issues involved. The main news this week was the impeachment of Donald Trump for a second time by the US House of Representatives but given our rule that is no news, because it has happened before. Even the reason given for this second impeachment which is fostering an insurrection in the US capitol was more a political decision than a democratic one. This is because the core grievance of the insurrection was the integrity of the 2020 presidential election and that seemed swept under the carpet by the impeachment executioners. And that really is great news , the sort of news that will not go away for some time but will keep on sticking out like a sore thumb, whether, the Republicans or Democrats like it or even if Trump is again tried in the senate after he had quit office. Which again would be great news because of the novelty of being unprecedented just as Trump has claimed a record of being America’s first president to be impeached twice. Which again is great news regardless of whether you like Trump or not.
What I want to highlight today is the power of the unexpected and unintended consequences in the drama leading to Trump’s second impeachment and the import of that for global democracy, technology and its new found power of silencing world leaders as well as political opponents generally. This phenomenon which showed monopoly of power in the absence of competition in a democracy was so clear as naked raw political power that even German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU leaders who should be celebrating Trump’s exit because he gave them a rough ride in his one term tenure , raised alarm of concern at the way and manner the Tech giants Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook blocked out Trumps’ tweets and his power or freedom of speech just in the twinkle of an eye. More amazingly when Trump’s supporters went to another platform, the Monopolist Tech giants simply removed the software they sold the midget company to further silence those in the aggrieved corner of the US president. How the over 70m voters that voted for Trump can be silenced for the four years of the Biden presidency is going to be real test of the US’ commitment to its core democratic values of free speech, competition and the economic strategy of laissez faire capitalism.
It is obvious that in tackling the big tech giants Trump did not let charity begin at home and he literally put a fire on his thatched roof and went to sleep, with predictable consequences. Trump was busy chasing China and Huawei the Chinese tech giant on security issues and G5 delivery, shouting that American companies should not deal with Huawei because it is being financed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party in China, which is just a way of flexing US technology muscle extravagantly and unjustly. This is because it is an open secret that China funds its state companies amply to face global trade and industrial competition and is using technology massively to police its citizenry and maintain its brand of democracy which West and the US deride but which has given China an enviable level of stability while Western democracies suffer from incessant protests and mobocracy of the type that led to Trump’s second impeachment. Now Trump has been technologically silenced and politically castrated and dumbfounded indeed by America’s top four tech giants who decided on their own that his tweets in protesting what he called a stolen election could lead to further violence and cut his tweets off. Yet these tech giants donated massively to the campaign of the presidential candidate who defeated Trump and would be sworn in on January 20, an event Trump has sworn not to attend because he feels the election rigged him out of office.
It is my candid view that the Democratic Party and the House of Representatives in the US are bent on criminalizing any opinion that the election was rigged. Which to me is bad news indeed because people are entitled to their opinion on the matter. The fact that the Capitol was mobbed on account of this does not make it a lie or make anyone making such claims a mobster or a liar. . That was what the Democrat Chairman on House Rules was trying to establish with Republican Rep Joe Jordan when he asked him to accept that Joe Biden won the election ‘ fair and square ‘and Jordan replied evasively that Joe Biden is president elect and would be sworn in on January 20. Of course the news is abroad amongst Trump’s supporters that the election was rigged and that is their belief and there is no way you can ask them to believe otherwise. For now the news media against Trump always say such charges of a stolen election lack evidence since the courts have turned them down but still people can hold their opinions without being canceled out as being violent because of that. The fact that the Tech giants have silenced Trump can only fuel the suspicions of his 70m supporters that he has been given a raw deal at the polling boots which this time in the pandemic encouraged mail in voting which Trump all along said would make the election rigged against him. Definitely his second impeachment wont silence him on this just as his silencing by the tech giants wont make him silent either.
It is great news however to note that another Tech giant Microsoft has stopped political donations and asked Americans to accept the decision of the Electoral College. This is instructive although it is like closing the stable doors after the horses have bolted But again I do not take anything said by Microsoft seriously since Bill Gates, the founder wondered callously aloud why Africans have not died massively from the pandemic according to projections which can only be satanic projections. One conclusive issue on the powers of big tech giants is that they need to be controlled as they are unhinged for now to derail and disrupt global democracy. In this last US presidential election the pandemic certainly played a grim part in terms of American deaths which rose tragically while Nigerian deaths are under 1500. Which shows God is Great regardless of the foreboding of the Bill Gates of this world and the powers of tech companies to deal with elected leaders and silence them insolently and powerfully as they did to Donald Trump, once the most powerful man in the world as America’s one term 45th president. Once again from the fury of this pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.
