The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

Mad results, Taye Ige etc

Ade Ojeikere

What a football season in England! Shocking results weekly. What happened in the league last week was simply crazy, mad, and unimaginable before the games were played. Words failed me to describe what happened, especially as I support Liverpool. No excuses, though on reflection one can’t help but suggest that the voodoo failures can be traced to improper pre-season preparations. This technical build-up flaw has affected the big clubs – Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Chelsea.

If teams had done proper pre-season preparation, the coaches would have been able to correctly recruit players to fix the problematic areas. It is during such pre-season schemes in choice areas devoid of the noise in the cities, family distractions, and busybody newsmen and women that these coaches plot the season’s graphs, knowing when to change formations or otherwise. This period players use it to know their new teammates and get used to how they play. New alliances are formed with these new players which rub off on how well and how quickly they gel during matches. It is during this camping session that players are made to undergo rigorous medical examinations to ascertain their levels of fitness. Those with underlying medical conditions are taken to specialists on such matters to be given the right medications. In fact, Nigeria’s goalkeeper Carl Ikpeme discovered the illness which ended his career during Wolves’ pre-season medicals examinations. Thank God for this.

Besides, players didn’t have the required period to rest their limbs. The anxious wait for the 2020/2021 season to kick off in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic destroyed all that the players needed to do to ensure a smooth transition from a busy season to a new one. the first ripple effect of this lapse are the spate of injuries to key players after three matches. One isn’t trying to make excuses for teams’ losses. but it is important to stress here that every club would experience a crisis no matter how less tedious their schedules are. Manchester United, Manchester City, and Liverpool are the victims today, no one knows the next team(s) slated for the slaughter slab. We wait.

Football faithful are busy trolling losing teams’ loyalists, especially those with the scandalous results. No one is reckoning with the absence of these clubs’ fans at match venues. Liverpool for instance wouldn’t have lost so scandalously had their fans been at the Villa Park Stadium on Sunday. A lack of a crowd is ‘key’ to the ‘crazy’ Premier League scorelines we have seen so far. Liverpool relies heavily on their fans’ battle songs to motivate them to rise up to the occasion when things are going awry as we saw against Aston Villa. In the last round of matches in the Premier League, there were 43 goals scored. Premier League champions Liverpool was stunned 7-2 away at Aston Villa while Manchester United suffered a joint-heaviest league defeat in their 6-1 mauling by Tottenham. The defeats serve as a wake-up call to these big boys to adapt to the new trends and raise their games.

Need I waste space to highlight the devastating effects the Coronavirus pandemic caused the world? In fact, Coronavirus has effectively shut down 2020, with signals in the last few weeks suggesting that the virus could render 2021 otiose, if precautionary measures are not taken to avert a second strike of the pandemic. Fresh cases of the virus around the world are being reported, with words rife that some European leagues could be shutdown.

Same players but miserable results that look like a kick on their groins. It must be stated here that the players aren’t robots. they need adequate time to reset which they couldn’t do due to the stressful European season last year and the uncertainty surrounding the commencement of the 2020/2021 season, not thanks to the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The less-fancied teams are having a ball with few of them at the top rung of the table. The beauty of this development is that it shows growth in the league such that statistics point to Aston Villa and Everton as two of the top negotiators in the transfer window which closed on Monday. Those boogie clubs at the top half of the English Premier League knows that the big boys would storm back. It is important to predict that the relegation dog fight towards the end of the season would be very fierce.

The group of sleeping giants such as Arsenal, Tottenham, Leicester, and Chelsea has filled the void arising from the big boys’ whiplash. Of the quartet, my mind skips knowing who Jose Mourinho is. Mourinho knows how to win leagues and sensed what is happening to Spurs with the tactful manner in which he recruited his new players in the transfer window.

I’m being careful not to comment on the heavy defeats suffered by Manchester United and Liverpool. If I do, one could be addressed as a sore loser. But these two teams would struggle this season and would be lucky to make the top four. What the results have done to their season is that it gives every team the impetus to exploit the weaknesses in the two teams. The huge defeats would define their seasons, especially Jurgen Klopp, who is rigid about his belief in playing with small squads.

Klopp adopted the small squad mechanism coaching Borussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga. It worked because the competition isn’t as large and tasking as playing in the English game. Since Klopp changed Liverpool’s brand of football, he pays less attention to the Carabao Cup and the English FA Cup. He gives his all in the UEFA Champions League and the Barclays English Premier league competitions.

Klopp’s preference for small squads is to reduce the grumblings in the team from the benchwarmers and those who watch the club playing games from the stands. I sympathise with Klopp because he would be forced to register to man the goalpost for the Reds following his short-sightedness in not recruiting a competent goalkeeper to replace Adrian.

I miss Hotsports’ weekly debates which created another platform to tackle the mocking crowd of soccer faithful beaten by the fanatical towards their clubs. Arsenal’s fans are jumping all over the place forgetting that the team’s fumbling circle which begins from December yearly until to February the next year beckons. At Hotsports, Ige could change the topics of discussion if a story breaks. He allows for his decisions to be changed, but such changes must get his approval. We changed one topic once without his consent but the journalistic instinct in Ige ruled supreme.

The late Stephen Keshi had just be given the Super Eagles job. This columnist called the Big Boss urging him to grant us his first interview, which he respectfully agreed. I informed the anchormen who reluctantly agreed to change what Ige had directed. The interview held. After the programme on Saturday, my phone rang indicating an international call, and Ige was excited when I picked. He commended my decision, knowing that none of his staff could have changed his decision without approval.

This scenario represents who Ige is. He is a man with ideas. A high-risk taker, having thought through the process of what he wants to embark on. Converts anything near him to illustrate what he wants. If unpleased, throw away his high office attires and do it himself. He doesn’t tolerate lazy people. Did I hear you ask who this person is? Let me identify him this way – Taye Ige, many who know could take bets that he talks while asleep. Ha! I no know book o!

Do you blame anyone who feels that Ige talks in his sleep? Sleep talking also is known as Somniloquy. One won’t blame him since he always aims for perfection. Ige wants to be successful. He stops at nothing to achieve what he wants albeit it legitimately and won’t fail to reward excellence. From the dusty town of Efon-Alaye in Ekiti State.

Taye explains how the twins’ concepts work in relation thus: ‘’I came first and my twin brother second. Kehinde Olabode Festus Ige. He’s into real estate management here in Lagos. But the legend is that he sent me to the world as his forerunner to go and taste the world and that he only decided to come after I had faithfully reported back to him that the world was sweet and that he could now come. This is the meaning of Taye which full meaning is Tayewo meaning “taste the world and see”.

Yes, Taye was 57 years old last week Sunday and he supports Tottenham Hotspurs. I hope Taye doesn’t bend my neck for exposing his age. Congratulations!

October 10, 2020
Restructuring: Small can be beautiful

Segun Ayobolu

This column has always been very reluctant to go along with those who advocate an all out, fundamental ‘restructuring’ of the Nigerian polity, which often amount to a seeming revolutionary overturning of the extant constitutional order and its replacement with something utterly novel and dangerously experimental. Yes, as a young student, yours truly was enamored of programmes and agendas for the revolutionary overthrow of existing socio-economic and political orders with some new structure giving the promise of a brighter, more promising future for the majority of the citizenry. But have we not seen too many revolutions, particularly bloody ones, consume their children with a no less oppressive and venal order replacing the old with deleterious consequences for the populace? This does not mean that far reaching radical change, particularly in the highly unequal, unjust and inequitable system that currently obtains in Nigeria, is not justifiable. It is just that we must proceed on a less emotive note in our quest for the much desired socio-economic change in Nigeria.

In the run up to the country’s 60th independence anniversary, there have been incessant and increasingly strident calls for the restructuring of the country by leading intellectuals, past public office holders at the very highest levels of governance, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), accomplished professionals. respected clerics and many more. These advocacies of restructuring, sometimes revolutionary change, spanning from deepening federal practice, confederalism or outright secession, have understandably struck a responsive chord in many quarters partly because a large number of Nigerians are disenchanted with the vast gulf between the bright promise of change by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the run up to the 2015 election and the actual realities of governance under President Muhammadu Buhari over the last five years.

True, PMB has continued to demonstrate a high degree of personal asceticism, frugality and pecuniary self-discipline but he has also, unfortunately, allowed some of those in his close inner circles to act in ways contrary to the values he has espoused all his life with considerable damage to the image of his party and governance. It is the seeming persistence of the values, processes, orientations and attitudinal disposition of public office holders in the first 16 years since 1999, even under the APC, that really create the impression that, ethically, there is little to choose from between the APC and the former ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). What is the difference and what has really changed fundamentally under the current dispensation compared with the immediate past many are wont to ask?

And since material conditions for the vast majority remains harsh and forbearing, the economy continues to reel, no thanks, largely, to the unanticipated coronavirus pandemic, while security of lives and property across the country remain chronically unsafe, despite the administration’s best efforts, it is difficult to convincingly sell the administration’s no mean achievements to a largely skeptical and frustrated public.

Perhaps this is why the presidential spokesmen of the administration have often adopted a belligerent, aggressive and sometimes hubristic tone and style in their communications with the public. Dismissing the calls even by highly respected citizens, statesman and reputable civil society groups advocating the restructuring of the polity, Mr. Shehu Garba, needlessly retorted that the President would not ‘succumb’ to threats as regards the demands for restructuring. While some fringe and utterly discreditable individuals and groups have made inciting statements in their advocacy of restructuring, the same thing cannot be said about the various credible individuals and groups that have called for restructuring. For God’s sake, PMB is a twice-elected President of Nigeria who holds the custody of the people’s electoral mandate till 2023.

His spokesmen do him a great disservice when their tone, demeanor and rhetoric portray him in the semblance of a garrison commander in the late General Sani Abacha’s gulag. It would have been more productive, for instance, had they engaged the public on why the APC government has been unable to take any concrete action to forward the important recommendations on constitutional amendment by its intra-party committee on true federalism headed by Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir –el’ Rufai which has long finished and submitted its work to the party and the presidency.

In the same vein, Mr. Femi Adeshina, could have been more hesitant and cautious in attributing motives of the grievances of those opposed to the call off on September 28th, of the strike initially proposed by the labour movement and elements of civil society in response to the twin hikes in petrol and electricity tariffs. Adeshina’s contention that those who have spoken up against the labour leaders’ decision with respect to the suspended strike were only aggrieved that their plan to destabilize and embarrass the PMB regime through the strike was aborted, is not supported by the slightest iota of evidence. After all, did these same unions and civil society groups not undertake nationwide strikes in 2012 when the Dr Goodluck Jonathan initiated similar fuel price hike with the hazardous implications for the well being of large numbers of citizens and with the support of the then opposition APC? The presidential image minders must not give the impression that they are impervious to the hardship being experienced by millions of Nigerians.

There is really no need for the belligerence and linguistic aggression exhibited often by the administration’s spokesmen when they are communicating with the public on tough economic policies that the administration has no choice but to take. This is particularly because there are readily available and credible facts and figures on how much the administration has accomplished in aggressively working on infrastructure rehabilitation across the country, which had been abandoned in the preceding 16 years under the PDP, the colossal amounts disbursed to the poor and vulnerable under its many Social Intervention Programmes as well as the huge sums it has invested in diversifying the economy especially by its sustained efforts to revitalize the agricultural sector.

This message can surely be communicated without affecting a needlessly hysterical style. There is no doubt that one key factor that fuels the increasingly more vehement clamour for restructuring is the structure of the Buhari government itself, which is widely perceived, rightly, as skewed in favour of one part of the country particularly with regards to the leadership hierarchy of its security architecture. Yet, even the call twice by both Houses of the 9th National Assembly on the presidency to restructure his government’s security apparatus to be more reflective of the country’s plural and cultural realities has met a stone wall. Under this kind of atmosphere, it is only natural for all kinds of conspiracy theories and sectional as well as dysfunctional grievances to thrive.

This is surely not a matter of structure. It is only one in which even the most minute of changes in the body language and attitudinal disposition of PMB to reflect a more cosmopolitan and inclusive outlook will bring about remarkable change both in the functioning and public perception of his government. This is what one writer refers to as ‘The power of One’, the powerful influence and impact that one leader imbued with the necessary emotional intelligence can make.

My belief in the amazing power that little incremental change in small and large organizations, rather than big and ultimately potentially destabilizing restructuring, is more desirable was strengthened by the insights in the contribution of the renowned Professor of Zoology and a Nigerian National Merit Award winner, Professor Anya O. Anya’s to a collection of articles in a book titled ‘Remaking Africa’ and edited by the philosopher, Professor Olusegun Oladipo published some years back.

Giving his insights into the issue of political change from the prism of his scientific academic discipline, Professor Anya writes, “First, out of the neo-modern synthesis of evolution has emerged the insight that the most profound changes in living systems have arisen, more often than not, from continuous and regular conservation and consolidation of small, desirable and adaptive changes in the organism and biosphere. These small, adaptive changes confer on living organisms an enhanced capacity to survive changing circumstances more than large, sudden, cataclysmic and dramatic transformations of either the organisms or of the environment. These have a lesson to teach us with regard to our approach to the selection and harnessing of novel strategies for social and economic development”.

When this insightful postulation is adapted to the current clamour for restructuring in Nigeria, it appears to me that small and incremental changes that enhance the institutional coherence, organizational transparency and technological capabilities of key political agencies like the electoral umpire, political parties or legislatures or the security apparatues and enable them acquire increasing autonomy, stability and credibility are far better than seeking to initiate big scale and revolutionary changes in structures the direction or end, which we are unable to predict or control before crises occur.

October 10, 2020
Abiru’s baptism of fire

The APC candidate for the Lagos East senatorial by-election, Tokunbo Abiru, can no longer be called a neophyte in politics because he got his baptism of fire during the week.

Sources close to the banker-turned-politician claim he was shocked beyond words when he first read the things published about him and credited to the Media Director of the People Democratic Party (PDP) Senatorial Campaign Council, Dr. Tokunbo Pearse.

Abiru, who is the immediate past Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Polaris Bank Limited, obviously didn’t bargain for mudslinging when he set out to seek a seat in the senate.

“He kept asking everybody around him why anybody can say such things about him. He kept wondering if that is what politics is. He was so shocked he didn’t know what to say for a while. Especially when the things said about him weren’t anywhere near the truth,” a source said.

Read Also: Abiru to institute N1bn suit against PDP media director

Pearse called for Abiru’s disqualification from the senatorial contest in Lagos East, alleging that the APC candidate was guilty of double registration. He also alleged that Skye Bank Plc “collapsed under Abiru’s leadership” and that Polaris customers “are today accusing Abiru of fraud.”

Of course, the candidate and his team have denied all the allegations and are threatening to institute a N1billion suit against the Lagos PDP chieftain if he fails to retract all defamatory publications within seven days.

As we watch the unfolding drama, one thing is certain: the incident is an eye opener for Abiru as he continues his pursuit in the nation’s muddy political space.

October 10, 2020
2023: Taraba APC dusts its cupboard

Sentry

Ahead of the 2023 general election, the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in Taraba State is working hard to put its house in order and go into the election united.

Sentry recalls that infighting among its members, leading to the exit of some leading lights from its fold, cost the party the governorship in 2019. It appears the party is now desirous of winning come 2023.

Moves towards uniting the various camps started last month with a meeting of major stakeholders held in Abuja to discuss how peace can return to the party.

The successful parley led to four subsequent meetings within and outside the state, where far-reaching decisions were taken and agreements reached.

Read Also: APC has performed more than critics – Malami

Sources say state chairman, Tukur El-Sudi, is now the rallying point for all interest groups. “The agreement is that everybody should regard him as the party leader for now and listen to him. Gradually, we will resuscitate all other organs of the party in Taraba State in such ways that everybody will submit to just one leadership,” a source said.

Another meeting of the party’s stakeholders is scheduled to hold early in October in Abuja to put finishing touches to the memorandum of understanding to guide APC operations in Taraba as it prepares to challenge the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (PDP) dominance.

October 3, 2020
Between Akpabio and Udoedehe

Sentry

When news filtered out that the Akwa Ibom State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had appointed Senator John Udoedehe as the leader of the party in the state, many observers of the politics of the state saw serious crisis looming.

Barely a week after the pronouncement, the party has become so divided that calling a state executive meeting is almost impossible.

Sentry gathered that while the new acting chairman of the party in the state, Dr. Ita Udosen, belongs to Udoedehe’s grou, the state secretary, Augustine Ekanem, is a loyalist of Niger Delta Minister, Godswill Akpabio.

Akpabio and Udoedehe have been battling for the control of the party since the former’s defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Akpabio had the upper hand until the recent emergence of Udosen as chairman. He was appointed following the demise of Mr. Ini Okopido, on Aug. 5, 2020 and the former House of Assembly member wasted no time in showing his preference for Udoedehe as against Akpabio, who enjoyed Okopido’s loyalty till death. The recent emergence of Udoedehe as acting National Secretary of APC has also strengthened his group and weakened Akpabio’s.

In a very controversial move last week, Udosen led a faction of the state executive committee, along with some major party stakeholders, to declare Udoedehe as the new leader of the APC, just as they described Akpabio as incompetent to lead the party to electoral victories. Expectedly, supporters of Akpabio have vowed to reject Udoedehe as leader in the state.

October 3, 2020
Malami’s subterfuge before Justice Salami

By Undertow

Justice Minister and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, was determined not to appear before the Justice Ayo Salami judicial commission of inquiry probing the activities of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He had authored a petition to the president against the former chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, suggesting that many unseemly practices had taken place in the agency. Before the panel wrapped up its inquiry, it issued a subpoena against Mr Malami at the prompting of Mr Magu’s lawyers in order to help determine where the case should lean. Mr Magu had been suspended on the strength of that strongly-worded petition. However, citing constitutional reasons, the AGF declined the invitation, and insisted that his role as a supervisory officer precluded him from testifying. In composing the petition against Mr Magu, he had merely responded to the petitions forwarded to his office, he explained. What he didn’t explain was why Mr Magu was suspended based on unproven petitions. Was he implying that all it takes for a public official’s goose to be cooked is for a petition to be written against him?

Clearly, Mr Malami regarded his job done the moment he authored the petition to the president. Did his action help the president? It is hard to say. He was expected to have done his homework before advising the president to sanction the suspension of Mr Magu. The impression he gives is that no homework was done. The judicial commission, he hoped, would establish wrongdoing against the suspended chairman and the EFCC. But what if the suspended chairman was exculpated? Why, that would hardly matter. They’ve got rid of him, and he is unlikely to be returned to office. The dilemma is, therefore, not for Mr Malami to concern himself with, nor for Mr Magu to pine over; it is for Justice Ayo Salami, a former president of the Court of Appeal, to groan over.

Under Mr Malami, the country’s laws have fared very badly, and have been clumsily administered. It is unlikely to improve, whether it concerns removal of judges or their appointment, or even when it comes to ensuring the sanctity of the law or the fair and unprejudiced prosecution of certain categories of offenders. In light of Mr Malami’s brazen subterfuge, the country should simply brace up for more galling legal and judicial chicaneries. They will not get better, and justice in its purest form will seldom be served.

October 3, 2020
Edo poll, APC and Odigie-Oyegun

Undertow

It will take time and quality attention for the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to get over the quakes and aftershocks that led to its defeat at the September 19 governorship election. They were well and truly trounced, with a margin that appears embarrassingly high, in astonishing excess of 80,000. That defeat began remotely with the internecine conflict between Governor Godwin Obaseki and the state’s former ruling APC members, traversed the primaries in which the governor got disqualified from one party and was nominated by the opposing party, and culminated in the aforesaid tectonic victory by the incumbent. The defeated APC will now be hard pressed to justify why they disqualified Mr Obaseki in the first instance.

But there is another sort of justification that few will bother with in the months ahead. After the APC defeat, the party’s former national chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, who was replaced by Adams Oshiomhole in July 2018, insisted that the defeat was merited, and that Mr Obaseki approximated the Edo people’s wishes more than the APC candidate in the poll, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, would have. There were many treasonable calls by party leaders feigning neutrality and admonishing the electorate to vote their conscience during the 2019 elections. Deployed perversely and with great effectiveness, not to say unfathomable ramification for the survival and future of the APC, such curious neutrality and calls appear certain to become an intrinsic part of the APC gene. President Buhari is credited with proposing that formula of voting according to conscience; and Mr Odigie-Oyegun with propagating it with devastating, and perhaps cruel efficiency.

The summary of the conscience weapon deployment is that the APC has lost Edo, lost its toehold in the South-South, and regardless of the speculation that Mr Obaseki might soon defect back to the APC, the national ruling party will be facing an uphill task in making an electoral dent on the solidified region in the 2023 elections. No part of the country’s six geopolitical zones is so uniformly besotted to one party as the South-South. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is now lockstep with the South-South, a romance that appears set to bloom in the months ahead and defy any seduction from the APC. It is unlikely that the national ruling party thought of this drawback in its strategic considerations. Surely they could not be so ethical and so determined to serve Mr Oshiomhole his comeuppance that they abjure their own political future.

Whether in Edo or Ondo — and there is no proof that the APC will win the October 10 Ondo governorship poll, or if they win, by as healthy a margin as the PDP took Edo — every victory and defeat has special and general implications for 2023. The PDP seems more acutely aware of this conundrum than the APC. In calculating for Edo, PDP leaders voiced the regional influence they could muster if that last outpost fell into their hands. On the contrary, APC leaders, including President Muhammadu Buhari and Mr Odigie-Oyegun, have enthused over the PDP victory in Edo and made light of their defeat at the hands of an implacable enemy. While the president incredibly saw his party’s defeat as a corroboration of his fairness and commitment to democracy, Mr Odigie-Oyegun saw it as a vindication of his extraordinary conscience and repudiation of the pervasive unfairness that has riddled the APC. Both APC leaders’ actions of course mask deeper feelings and motives.

The president and those around him had convinced themselves that Mr Oshiomhole had become a liability. They seemed convinced that losing the state was the lesser evil compared with the raptures they would feel savouring the humiliating defeat Mr Oshiomhole, who indiscreetly personified the Ize-Iyamu campaign, would experience. They are wrong; but they won’t find this out until the rebuilding of the party begins in Edo in the months ahead, and when they begin to discover during their next elective convention that the fault lines in the party were neither caused by Mr Oshiomhole nor exemplified by his presence or absence. Mr Odigie-Oyegun will also soon discover that despite given Mr Obaseki open support in the last poll, his own status as an APC leader has been considerably diminished.

Worse, by openly identifying with Mr Obaseki and the opposition, a cynical compliment the APC rank and file would be eager to repay when the battle for the soul of the party is joined, Mr Odgie-Oyegun will find it tough retaining any influence whatsoever in the party going forward. On September 14, 2020, he had penned a diatribe against both his party and Mr Oshiomhole less than a week before the fateful poll, and had suggested that the party was patently unfair to the governor, an unfairness he argued should be punished. Even though he tried to disguise his animus by conflating it with political morality and a disingenuous quest for justice, few APC supporters had any illusions where he belonged. Without necessarily using the word godfather, perhaps in order not to trigger suspicion about being in league with the opposition, Mr Odigie-Oyegun urged the state’s electorate to disrobe those who tried to arrogate to themselves the right to decide on their behalf. There was no room for what he termed primitive loyalty, an allusion to party loyalty.

Even if the former chairman had not voiced his preferences days before the poll, the outcome would still not have changed. The PDP had deployed its campaign mantra effectively, and in the face of a conniving presidency and national APC, there was simply no way the APC could avoid defeat. In the end, defeat came spectacularly for a galled party rank and file. Accused of campaigning for the PDP despite being an APC leader, Mr Odgie-Oyegun denied he sold his party out. No one believes him. But here is his logic: “I am a strong believer that when the rules of an association you belong to have been so flagrantly disregarded, put aside, not complied with then you have to go back to your conscience to say can I support what has happened, can I not support it? I cannot support injustice in terms of going out to work for injustice. Going out to say what I in my conscience consider wrong and I will now support working for it. I can’t do that and normal people should not do that. Your loyalty in life is to support what is right. That is the principle, every human being should believe in something. If you agree to kill a man for a sin he did not commit then something is wrong with you obviously.”

Mr Odgie-Oyegun’s speciousness is befuddling. He is at liberty to advocate any position he chooses and support any politician of his liking within or outside his party. But he cannot have his cake and eat it. With his September 14 press statement repudiating his party, he made very clear how he felt and whom he supported. He felt aggrieved, not just because he thought the party had been unfair to Mr Obaseki, but also because he nursed long-standing grudges against Mr Oshiomhole and everything the now humbled former APC chairman stood for. The September 19 poll was a chance to even the scores. And they were exhilaratingly evened. Mr Odigie-Oyegun also clearly campaigned for Mr Obaseki, and exulted thereafter, in such a fashion that Edo, the national APC and the PDP knew where his heart was and where he stood.

It is not clear whether the chafing Mr Ize-Iyamu will litigate his loss, or whether his party in the state and at the national levels will back him. It is not even clear whether he has the money to prosecute what might become a huge and expensive lawsuit. Indeed, by spontaneously acknowledging the outcome of the poll and congratulating the winner, the president has seemed to disavow any court action, no matter how promising. The APC is still divided; there is, therefore, no indication that those who sold the party down the river would render any assistance overtly or covertly to reclaim what might be considered a stolen mandate. Much worse, Nigeria’s justice system is a serpentine labyrinth of juridic sleight of hand. It is more plausible that Mr Ize-Iyamu would come to grief in the courts than receive succour.

Mr Obaseki is triumphant, and Mr Odigie-Oyegun relieved and vindicated. But in the end, the governor can neither change his behaviour nor be persuaded to give what he doesn’t have. In rebuilding the party in the state on the other hand, time is on the side of the feisty Mr Oshiomhole who says he has learnt his lessons, and with Mr Ize-Iyamu who has age on his side. It is, however, harder to see how time could help Mr Odgie-Oyegun paint the decapitation of his party in the election, which he connived at, as a life-saving favour.

October 3, 2020
Evolution, integration and values

Dayo Sobowale

Today’s topic evolved from a mixture of the Nigerian Head of State 60th Independence Anniversary speech on October 1,   the spat between the EU and some member states over democratic values and compliance with EU Laws and the very   divisive   presidential    debate   in the US   this week. The   three    issues indeed are about   nation building and the problems of leading multi ethnic and diverse   societies and nation states. While the Nigerian President’s speech was a    realistic sermon and   frank appraisal of how Nigeria is fairing right now at 60 , the division or dissent amongst member states in the EU was triggered by   a Commission Vice President in charge of values and transparency while the bitterness of the US debate showed America at its worst in terms of political division and extremely low level of tolerance and mutual respect for opposing political views or respect for political differences.

Let me note at the outset that the Nigerian President’s speech was a lesson in nation building while also admitting the government’s failure in some or many respects. In   addition Nigerians   on Oct 1 protested in some cities against what they called the government’s failure and the recent increases in fuel prices l and electricity tariffs. These protesters were threatened not to protest by   the   Police, yet they did. They are brave Nigerians in my view and they are patriots and the government which has admitted its faults largely, should treat   such protests with kid gloves because a protest in broad daylight is preferable to revolutions hatched secretly, which can be turbulent and disruptive of political stability.   The point I want to make here is that comparably Nigeria and its leader this time around appear more level headed than the leaders of both the EU and the US in the way it has handled its evolution as a nation state, the integration of the   diverse    tribes   and nation states   that make up Nigeria   nation    as well    as    the   democratic values evolving   in the Nigerian political system.

While the Nigerian president called for   the   beginning of a process of healing, he admitted ‘the stereotype of thinking of ourselves as coming from one part of the country before seeing ourselves as Nigerians is key starting point to project us on the road to our deserved nations’ evolution and integration’ Which is another way of saying that tribalism is the bane of Nigeria’s evolution and integration as a nation where   all   Nigerians have equal opportunities and rights. It is this observation that we shall   dilate   on at length today while comparing its   language and admonition with the violent and insulting language that the leaders of the EU    have been hurling at each other this week over issues of EU Integration , evolution and protection of democratic values .As   well as the verbal assault that the two   presidential candidates for the US presidential election shouted at each with the opposing candidate calling the incumbent president a liar, a fool and finally asking   him   to ‘shut up, man ‘

Let us now look at the advice of the Nigerian president that Nigerians should see themselves first as Nigerians before seeing themselves as Hausa, Ibo, Efik or Yoruba. In a nation where merit is the standard judgement on performance, and opportunities are equal , it should be easy to be a Nigerian first in all competitions    or opportunities of life. But really that is not the case in Nigeria where we have the quota system and federal government appointments are lopsided in favour of the North and those tribes in power. In addition, one’s ethnic culture or values are learnt from birth and it is that which shapes a Nigerian’s   thinking and loyalties. There is as yet no Nigerian way of looking at issues and none has evolved. Indeed what has evolved is a culture of’ everybody for himself, God for us all ‘or’ the devil take the hindmost‘. What some have said in the   past is that it is difficult   to have loyalty to a Nigerian nation because Nigeria is a mere geographic expression or a conglomeration of strange tribes with nothing in common forcibly put together by Lord Lugard in 1914. Such thinking is opposite to what the Nigerian president is asking for. Such thinking says that tribal values are well known and respected and it is such values that should be transferred to the Nigerian nation and not the other way round. Which means you have to be a proud tribesman or woman before you can transfer such values to the Nigerian nation. Also with the policy of Federal character being used to do ethnic balancing, your tribe matters before your Nigerian citizenship and under the Federal character maintenance scenario, the Nigerian is seen first as an ethnic entity before the federal character balancing is implemented. Which in a way turns the logic of the president’s appeal on its head and makes it hard to be a Nigerian first, before being a tribesman and that is the reality check of the situation. It follows therefore that   being a Nigerian first before the tribe is an illusion in present day Nigeria or at best a work in progress under the present Nigeria president and government.

This week the EU Foreign Affairs Ministers met in Brussels,   Belgium to discuss many issues, including the feud between Turkey and Greece over gas exploration in disputed waters and China but it is the call by Hungary that the vice President of the Commission should resign that interests me seriously. The EU Commission Vice President Vera Jourova had called Hungary a ‘sick democracy ‘ under the Rule of Law Report on the EU and both Poland and Hungary have been condemned for breaches of democratic standards in the EU. While EU laws recognize gay rights and LGBT people, Poland has a new Education Minister who has said ‘LGBT   are not equal to normal people’ According to the Polish Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek –‘ Lets protect ourselves against LGBT Ideology and stop listening to idiocy about some human rights or some equality ‘ Such strong language make integration and evolution of moral and religious values difficult to achieve in the EU and shows that Hungary and Poland are ready to go to any length to ensure that the concept of marriage being only between a man and a woman ,   is the norm in their part of the EU even though most member nations of the EU think and act very differently in implementing their rule of law on the matter. The strong language on both sides show their commitment to the democratic values they appreciate and respect in their various nations seeking integration in the evolution of EU values and norms.

Finally the US Presidential debate has shown that US President Donald Trump has met his match in Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden , who called him both a fool and a liar to his face and asked him finally at a stage to just shut up. Trump called Biden a dull man and boasted he had done in 47 months in office as president what Biden has not been able to do in 47 years in public life. One thing is clear, Trump underrated Biden’s oratorical and debating skills and long experience on debates in the US senate and he was told off in a fierce confrontational manner laced with personal insults. Nevertheless although the debate was virile, I think it is to be expected given the great division in American politics today. The two contenders defied political correctness   and civility but then that is the mood of their nation as well as that   of their supporters too which is that their candidate is the right man to lead America after the election of November 3. The debate was a spectacle that shocked the watching world but at least it showed the US President does not have a monopoly of bad manners and nastiness. That is the nature of US politics in the unusual Trump presidency and Biden has shown that he is not a walk over in every sense of the word. Once again – From the fury of this raging pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

October 3, 2020
Edo no be Lagos

Segun Ayobolu

LET us flash back to 2012. It was the year of another governorship election in Ondo State. The incumbent governor then, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, was seeking re-election for a second term on the platform of the Labour Party (LP) and he was given a fierce competition by the candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN). The party leadership’ with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu at the forefront, campaigned vigorously across the state. The ruling party in Ondo State at the time stridently accused Asiwaju of seeking to extend what they described as Tinubu’s influence to the sunshine state. Those who argue this way discount the fact that for the big political parties with wide national spread, no election anywhere in the country is an entirely localized process. So, a loss in any state by the bigger parties will necessarily have negative implications for the party in future elections. That then explains why party leaders will strive to ensure the victory of their party in any election and this includes the leading party members, as well as serving and former governors.

When in 2012, Dr. Mimiko won his bid for re-election he was projected in certain quarters as the emergent leader of the Yoruba. I can recollect a famous photograph in which Mimiko posed between the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, and some PDP top shots in the South West including Senator Iyiola Omisore after his victory. ‘Behold, the Yoruba leader cometh’, the photograph seemed to scream. Unlike Professor Francis Fukuyama’s sensational thesis on what he termed the ‘End of History’, history continues to evolve in Nigeria and the South-West systematically and unceasingly and what she has on offer for each individual lies in the womb of time.

Let’s fast forward to last year’s governorship election in Kwara State. That was when the ‘O to ge’ slogan shook Kwara to its roots and, when the entire political legacy and extant structure in the state, as exemplified by the late Dr. Sola Saraki, and his son, Dr. Abubalar Saraki, were swept away. Following the demolition of the Kwara political structure of the Saraki family, some persons glibly announced that the ‘O to ge’ symbol was to be moved to Lagos. The ruling party in the state, they argued, had been in power for too long and there should be a change. A prominent Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) addressed the media to sell the ‘O to ge’ philosophy to the public. It did not fly. Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu in fact had more votes than that recorded by his party in previous elections since 1999.

But what is responsible for the sheer structural and electoral solidity of the dominant sections of the political class in Lagos State since 1999? A plan was formulated for Lagos. Asiwaju built his administration on the developmental foundation of this plan. The governors who came in after him – Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Mr. Akinwumi Ambode and now Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu – have not only built on the foundation laid but have continually, improved on it. The result is the steady progress that has been recorded in the state over the last two decades of civil rule even though the state still has a long way to go in its goal of becoming Africa’s model Megacity.

Neither Edo nor the centre has achieved the kind of progress that Lagos has made since 1999. And this is as a result of careful planning and massive innovations in financial engineering as well as leadership continuity that have guaranteed the state almost total fiscal emancipation.

It is indeed not always that leadership continuity is good for a given polity. Where a given leadership and the government they head have themselves become dysfunctional and an obstacle to the developmental transformation of society, then the time has come to terminate their rule. Lagos today exemplifies the possibilities of progress and systematic modernization in Nigeria. It is improbable that the electorate will reward a non-performing governor in Lagos State like happened in Edo State. We thus have a situation in which successive governors of the state try to outperform their predecessors. A standard of government has been set and a governor who cannot quickly reveal his ‘action –orientation’ to governance will most likely incur the wrath of the electorates.

In Edo, it seems that the electorate have voted back to power a government, which reportedly recorded minuscule achievements in its first term. That is within the rights of the people. So stringent was the opposition to the return of Mr. Godwin Obaseki for a second term and all because of perceived below par performance. Given the intensity of the anti-performance missiles hurled at him, I expected Obaseki’s media machinery to go into full scale action showcasing his government’s much touted achievements in diverse sectors. The government’s campaign visuals and commercials, some of which I watched, concentrated on showing a secondary school or two as well as the revamped Ogbemudia stadium. Where were the new schools in at least in half of the 18 Local government areas? Or the hospitals? Or the 150, 000 new jobs that governor Obaseki had reportedly pledged his commitment to create during his campaign for the first time? As I watched the Channels television debate for Ize-Iyamu and Obasekki, I found it puzzling to me that Obaseki was not sure-footed in dealing with the allegations leveled against him, especially poor performance record.

However, governor Obaseki was, without doubt, very successful in framing the election as one between a godfather who wanted to continue to wield control of the government and its resources and a godson who wanted to offer service to the people of the state without distractions.

Comrade Adams Oshiomhole loomed large in the campaign and this may have contributed to the effectiveness of the Obaseki group in demonizing him as a meddlesome interloper in the governance of Edo State. There is also no doubt that the harsh words Oshiomhole had thrown at Ize-Iyamu during the campaign for the 2015 election came to haunt him this year.

Asiwaju Tinubu’s video recording appealing to the electorate to reject Obaseki at the poll has also generated controversy in certain quarters. Those who did not cease from active support for Obaseki now tried to prevent the National Leader of his party from backing the candidate of his party in the election. If this does not smack of hypocrisy, I don’t know what will. Asiwaju’s intervention was focused on the need to reject Obaseki at the poll because of his prevention of the duly elected legislators, about 14 of them, to take their places in the House. The constituents who elected the legislators thus were without representation for the better part of Obaseki’s first term. This crippling of the legislature is authoritarian and anti-democratic and the victory of Obaseki at the polls does not make it right.

Reacting to the piece published in this space last week by Media aide to Asiwaju, Mr Tunde Rahman, Somebody on social media pointed out that Oshiomhole had also prevented the state legislature from sitting during his tenure; if so, that does not make it right for Obaseki to do the same thing. After all, he has portrayed himself as a modernist and technocrat who will handle resources credibly and adhere to his oath of office, which does not empower him to abuse the constitution by incapacitating the legislature.

In the instance of incapacitation of the legislature, again surely Edo no be Lagos. For, truly it is unlikely that any governor of Lagos State would dare to sack the legislature as Obaseki has done in Edo State. I remember that sometime during Asiwaju’s second term as Lagos State governor, the majority of members suddenly effected a change in the leadership of the House without reference to the party. Of course, Asiwaju could have deployed resources and other means to overturn the decision. But he listened to the apparently aggrieved legislators and accepted the decision of the legislators so as not to circumscribe their autonomy as one of the most important institutions in a liberal democratic order.

How then does Obaseki now handle his victory at the polls? He can follow the path of triumphalism and continue to gloat in his triumph thus giving hypocrites and sycophants the opportunity to waste his second term or he can rediscover a sense of purpose with no malice towards any man and charity to all.

October 3, 2020
Professor Femi Kayode (1939-2020): Economist beyond the ivory tower (1)

Segun Ayobolu

In a scathing interview published in the 1970s, in which he responded to the academic critics of his novels and short stories, that masterly chronicler of the fun, foibles and follies particularly of urban city life, Cyprian Ekwensi, urged those with negative perceptions of his literary themes and style to ‘quit their cloistered ivory towers and live’. He thus inferred that a secluded academic life may insulate the reclusive scholar from the realities of life and living so vividly captured in many of his works such as ‘Jagua Nana’, ‘People of the City’, ‘Beautiful Feathers’, ‘Restless City and Christmas Gold’ or ‘Lokotown’. Indeed, the same advice can easily be given to many academic economists, whose preoccupation with the cold logic and mathematical as well as analytic rigidities of their discipline, make their theories far removed fom the existential realities of millions of people whose material well being it is supposedly the lot of the economist to enhance.

The same thing can certainly not be said of the frontline economist, Professor Mathew Femi Kayode, who passed on to eternal life on August 10, 2020, in Ibadan, the famous city where he rose to become professor of economics at the University of Ibadan in a productive career spanning four decades. An indigene of Egbe in Kogi state, Professor Kayode had his primary and secondary education at the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) primary school, Egbe, and the illustrious Abdulazeez Attah Memorial College, Okene, respectively. He obtained his Higher School Certificate (HSC) at the prestigious Kings College, Lagos, showing early intellectual promise by winning the school’s economics prizes in 1961.

Graduating with a Second Class Upper Honours degree in economics from the University of Ibadan’s Economics Department in 1965, Professor Kayode thereafter obtained postgraduate degrees in the discipline from the London School of Economics and the Harvard Business School, Cambridge. In 1972, he earned a PhD degree in Economics from UI becoming the first doctoral graduate of the institution’s economics department. With this sterling academic grounding in his beloved discipline, one would have expected Professor Kayode to delight in the often arcane and obscurantist theorizing as well as esoteric discourse intelligible to only fellow members of the disciplinary cult.

But what do two of his students and mentees who later became professors in the discipline tell us about Professor Kayode’s philosophy of and approach to economics? In the words of Professors Abdul-Ganiyu Ajani Garba and Kassey Garba,“Professor Kayode made economics more real to man and much livelier than the abstract body of thought that economics has been designed to be. He always cared more about how the issues in economics affected people. He was never content with the very abstract nature of the discipline and would often distinguish between the letters and the spirit as he mapped out a range of options using ‘scenario analysis’. He would often look for different ways in which economic phenomena could have a human face”.

It is perhaps not surprising that Professor Kayode specialized in Business and Management Economics, which enabled him to make practical and enduring contributions to the real world of business and added tremendous value as a consultant and/or member of the board of diverse public and private sector organizations. I have heard post graduate students of economics and Business management fulsomely praise his magnum opus, ‘The Art of Project Evaluation’, published in 1979 by the Ibadan University of Ibadan Press and which is considered an indispensable Bible for students of Business and Management Economics particularly with specialization in project management. Although I have not read the book myself, its subject matter indicates the more pragmatic and practical rather than essentially theoretical bent of the professor’s scholarly orientation.

Professor Kayode was one of the country’s foremost exponents and exemplars of productive interaction between the scholarly gown and the societal or communal town. No wonder, President Muhammadu Buhari, in his tribute to the late economist, commended him for his “willingness to leave the university to share knowledge, wisdom and experience with governments’. Apart from serving as a Special Adviser to the President on economic matters between 1988 and 1992, Professor Kayode served on the boards of several bodies adding tremendous value to their operations. At various times, he served as Chairman, Kwara State Investment Company (1985-1987), Member, National Revenue Allocation, Mobilization and Fiscal Commission (1988-1992), Chairman, Think Tank Committee for Strategic Projects, National Raw Material Development Council (1989-1992), Member, National Capital Issues Commission (1976-1978), Member, Technical Committee, Vision 2010, (1997), Member, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Board of Directors (1999-2007) and Chairman, Board of Trustees, Foundation for Economics Education, (1975 – 1981).

Other committees and boards of organizations on which Professor Kayode served at various times include Afribank Economic and Financial Review, Nigerian Association of Management Education and Training (NASMET), Kwara State Government Planning Council, Broad Express Nigeria Limited, Trade Bank PLC, African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Nairobi, Kenya and National Hospital Insurance Fund for the Kenyan Government. On the academic terrain, he was at various times, Head of the Department of Economics, University of Ibadan, President, Nigerian Economic Society (NES), and Editor, Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies (1975-1981).

Given his essentially non -rigidly ideological disposition to scholarship, I was surprised that Professor Kayode was one of the speakers at the proceedings of the Third Memorial Programme in honour of the late Professor Claude Ake, organized by the Centre for Advanced Social Science (CASS) in conjunction with the African Centre for Democratic Governance (AFRIGOV) in November 1999. The theme of the programme was ‘Ideology and African Development’ and the paper delivered by Professor Kayode was titled ‘African Development and the Ideological Sword’.

Summarizing Professor Kayode’s presentation, the organizers wrote, “While not dismissing the relevance of ideology to African development, Kayode believes that “the key to eventually overcoming the ideologically imposed burden of African underdevelopment does not amount to using any single known ideological brand”. He stresses the need for a development strategy that would not only bring out the best in the individual, but also engender the competitive and community spirit in every African. Such ideology is one that positively drives a dynamic and mixed economy. It is one that accommodates both private initiatives and public interests, he argues”.

The concluding part of this tribute will focus on the book, ‘Managing Change in a Nigerian University Setting: The Ibadan Experiment’ published by the Ibadan University Press in Y2000 and in which Professor Kayode recounts his experiences as the pioneer Director of the Consultancy Services Unit of the University of Ibadan as well as the pioneer Director of the university’s Centre for Resource Management and Consultancy (CEREMAC), which managed all the institution’s profit centres between 1979 and 1984.

October 3, 2020