The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Still on coronavirus and avoidable waste

    Still on coronavirus and avoidable waste

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    MANY discerning analysts and contributors to public discourse have argued rightly that the Coronavirus pandemic offers Nigeria a critical opportunity to urgently press the reset button as regards her developmental goals, methodologies and trajectory. . There are indeed indications that an increasing number among the country’s political and socio-economic elite are increasingly more conscious, no thanks to the virus, of the need for the country to fundamentally change track, particularly in terms of governance style, structure and values, if Nigeria is to begin to meet her developmental aspirations and promote the wellbeing of the vast majority of her people over six decades after independence.

    A number of elective and appointive public office holders at the federal and state levels, for instance, have had their salaries reduced, some by as much as 50 percent in response to the crisis. This is a noteworthy, tentative first step but does not even begin to scratch the surface of the problem. As this column has noted in the recent past, there is still, for instance, the issue of humongous and opaquely managed security votes of state governors to deal with. Happily the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has added its voice for the abrogation or considerable streamlining of security votes. The clamour should grow..

    The drastic fall in global oil prices has badly decapitated the country’s single most important source of revenue earnings. Federal and state government finances are in a tailspin. Protracted lockdown, directly and indirectly, of huge swathes of the economy has not only affected negatively the tax revenue accruals to government but also compounded the already serious problems of unemployment and underemployment as most businesses have been forced either to shut down completely or to struggle on  at less than half throttle. The federal and many state governments have drastically scaled down their 2020 budgetary provisions. Does this suggest a realization by the country’s leaders that it can no longer be business as usual in the management of scarce fiscal resources? The answer is yes to some degree but no if a closer scrutiny is made of the budgetary reductions.

    For instance, as a result of the pandemic, the federal government has decided to reduce its 2020 budget estimates by N318 billion. Thus, it’s new revised budget proposal of approximately N10.6 billion. But then, in the new proposed budgetary estimates, the federal government still retains N100 billion for execution of the legislature’s Constituency Projects in 469 Senatorial Districts and Federal Constituencies. Yet, last year, President Muhammadu Buhari publicly lamented that the Constituency Projects had negligible impact on the welfare of the people. In his words then, “It is on record that in the past 10 years, N1 trillion has been approved for Constituency Projects, yet the impact of such huge spending on the lives and welfare of ordinary Nigerians can hardly be seen”.

    Even if it is true that less than 70 percent of funds budgeted for Constituency Projects were released, is the huge amount still allocated for this purpose not an avoidable luxury in the face of the current health pandemic? This is particularly so as the budget for the Universal Basic Education (UBEC) and Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), respectively, have been substantially cut. Explaining the cut, the Director-General of the Budget Office, Mr. Ben Akabueze, said, “The statutory transfers to UBEC and BHCPF are set by law at two percent and one percent respectively of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF). Therefore, when the COVID-19 pandemic eroded the CRF, the budgetary provisions were automatically adjusted in accordance with the applicable laws”.

    Sound as this rationale is, the truth is that laws are made for man and not man for laws. With the jolt to reality that the Coronavirus crisis has given us, the relevant laws should be expeditiously amended to allow for increased funding of the critical healthcare and education sectors. Provision for largely opaquely executed Constituency Projects is a luxury we cannot continue to sustain affordably. At a time like this, the health sector, education and infrastructure require all the resources that can be made available to them. There is no time more appropriate than now for more rigorous and disciplined prioritization of budgetary allocations.

    Speaking on the allocation for the contentious renovation of the National Assembly complex, Mr Akabueze submitted, “The provision for renovation/retrofitting of the National Assembly complex in the revised budget is N9.25 billion , not N27 billion as being bandied around. The initial provision of N37 billion in the 2020 Appropriation Act for this was cut by 75 percent due to the impact of COVID-19 on government revenues”. Commendable as this cut is, the allocation to this project can still be eliminated completely at least for this year or substantially reduced further and whatever savings transferred to the health sector. Drastic times require no less drastic remedial measures.

    But then, the internal intrigues and wrangling in the Senate, for instance, as regards the revised budgetary proposals from the executive, reveal that, despite the frightening reality of Coronavirus, not much has changed in the attitudes and values that undergird the budgetary process in Nigeria. This newspaper reported that during its executive session to debate the proposed revised budget, there was a row among Senators over perceived lopsidedness in allocation of the Constituency Projects funds with some Senators benefiting to the detriment of others.

    According to the report, “The session became rowdy when Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed (Binani) observed that the allocation of N200 billion Constituency Projects in the budget was lopsided and unfair to most senators. She exposed how some senators took undue advantage of being in privileged committees, especially appropriation, to allocate projects worth between N10 billion and N12 billion to themselves while some senators got between N300 million to N500 million projects for their districts. Another senator, according to her, got N5 billion project for his district”.

    The report continued, “The implication is that projects meant for many Senatorial Districts have been diverted by the said senator. This development has caused disquiet and we are suspecting the padding of the 2020 Budget by the same clique because some allocations to some MDAs are questionable. In some cases, the budget proposals of some MDAs were increased for no just cause”. So it is still the question of budget padding, diversion and arbitrary increases in Y2020 and despite the Coronavirus emergency? This certainly is not the way to activate Nigeria’s reset button for accelerated development.

    No less interesting is the reported allocation in the revised budget of the sum of N2.2 billion for foreign and local travels of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. While the President has an allocation of N1.7 billion for this purpose, the office of the Vice President has N548 million. This is said to be apart from the N124 million budgeted by the presidency for travels and another N2.8 billion stipulated for the overhead and travel costs of the presidential fleet. But were we not told during the campaigns for the 2015 elections that the presidential fleet would be drastically trimmed to cut governance costs? How come we still have an expansive presidential fleet on our hands that continues to constitute a needless drain on public resources?

    Modest as the allocations to presidential travels may appear to be, it is still a substantial amount that can go into more productive use especially in this digital age when governmental leaders can do so much virtually thus reducing the cost and distraction of ceaseless travel. Many would consider the allocation to presidential travels as mere peanuts not worth worrying about because, as the late Professor Ayodele Awojobi put it in the Second Republic, most Nigerians have lost a sense of the magnitude and value of even one million Naira. Professor Chinua Achebe buttressed this fact in an essay published in 1983 when he pointed out that at the time he was writing, it was not yet up to one million days since Jesus Christ was on earth! Even now by my calculation, it is approximately, 737,300 days since Jesus walked our earth. We think now only in billions and trillions not even of Naira but of dollars. Well, Coronavirus is forcefully changing all that.

    I am told that during his tenure as governor of Lagos State from 1979 to 1983, Alhaji Lateef Jakande never travelled out of the country even once. During his annual vacations, he would habitually retire to the Government Lodge at Badagry where he enjoyed his holiday in the company of scores of files. Yet, it was his administration that conceived and was well on the way to actualizing the path-breaking Lagos Metroline project, which was brutishly terminated by the military regime after the collapse of the second republic. We are not yet, unfortunately, on the path to pressing the reset button that the Coronavirus pandemic so compellingly demands of us.

  • Appeasing bandits was always impracticable

    Appeasing bandits was always impracticable

    By UnderTow

    Finally, Katsina State governor Aminu Masari has come to the despairing truth that appeasing bandits never stands a chance of midwifing peace. Though banditry in the North has not substantially subsided since security forces declared war on the bandits last month, the governor has, however, concluded, after nearly one year of trying to negotiate with bandits, that no peace deal could be reached or sustained with the criminals.

    Speaking to the BBC this week about the 2019 peace deal he signed with the bandits, he had groaned that it was of no use. As he put it, “We choose to sign the peace agreement with the bandits so as to avoid loss of lives and property, but it didn’t yield a positive result. This time around we will hand it over to security personnel. In our effort to honour the agreement between us, we cancelled all vigilantes and volunteer groups and we allowed them (bandits) to continue with their normal activities in the state.”

    On January 3, 2019, Gov Masari had addressed a press conference and declared that his state was besieged by robbers, bandits, cattle rustlers, kidnappers and all manner of criminals. His countenance was pained, and he sounded weary and desperate. He had tried everything, prodded the security agencies to live up to their self-proclaimed billing, and rallied the people behind the government to confront the banditry menace. Said the governor: “There is no option because we are thinking of the survival of our people and state. It is now a daily occurrence as no day passes without a case recorded. It is not even rustling of cows but now kidnapping of people. Our state is currently under serious siege by armed robbers, kidnappers and armed bandits who arrest rural people at the grassroots at will and demand ransom, which if not paid, they kill their victims. The Permanent Secretary was just informing me that his close relative was kidnapped and a ransom of N5 million was demanded and the person who took the money to them was shot.”

    Not done, the governor added: “Some people visited me, and as they left, they were trailed and robbed of their belongings. The armed robbers could not go away with the vehicle because it has security lock. In the past, they carried out their activities in the middle of the night, but now, they operate at midnight, 10pm and gradually in broad day light. It is not up to a month, right here in front of Government House, five electricity poles were carted away. It is getting out of hand that we should not fold our arms. Let’s return to God, let’s pray to Him to salvage the situation. So we must reach a lasting solution at this meeting to curtail this ugly trend…The people of Katsina in the 34 local governments now sleep with one eye closed and the other opened.”

    Indeed, very unusually for a governor presiding over the affairs of the president’s home state, Mallam Masari had painted a very graphic account of how the daredevil criminals operated, their cocky arrogance, their daring, their brutality. By early this year, the governor was worried that the truce he reached with the bandits was not holding up, but he was nevertheless still cautiously optimistic. Alas, last week, he sighed that very little came out of the state’s peace initiative and countermeasures, and he had been left holding the short end of the stick by bandits who remained intransigent. If there would be any rapprochement, said the governor cynically, it should be between the military and the bandits, not the state government.

    Last September, with security agencies seemingly paralysed by fear or incompetence, the governor had felt he had no choice but to reach out to the bandits, many of whom he said the state knew by name. He had entered into discussions with them to forge a truce. That truce seemed to work at first. But it was classical appeasement which this column had  denounced, and which was as impracticable as it was immoral. Reflecting the governor’s optimism, he had suggested that the deal would work despite reservations.

    As he enthused at the time: “Now I can say that over 80 percent of people under captivity in Katsina State have been released. So, in terms of group kidnapping I can only remember that right now we are searching for only 13 people… But in terms of massive attacks since we started, there was no single massive attack on any village or community. By my account, about 57 people have been released by them, most of them women and young children. Among them even are nationals of Niger Republic. So, for us it has brought relative peace. The next step is the issue of disarming the bandits and commanders in the forest that command 200, 300, 400 fighters, fully armed on motorbikes. That’s how they operate and attack the villages. In most cases they go three to one on a motorcycle. They’ve reinforced their motorcycles and they are using tubeless tyres. They put something inside so that their tyres do not get punctured or suffer breakdown.”

    The governor made his misgivings public. But so did the bandits. One of their representatives, Idris Yayande, had boldly declared that some of the bandits were driven into crime by the illegalities committed by the security agencies. According to him, “We have our complaints as well; it concerns some of our people who were arrested like Alhaji Baldu, Alhaji Lawal and Ibrahim Nakutama who were picked up on return from hajj. I was arrested also and up till now, I have not been told my offence. I was detained for 15 months before I was released. For the past five months, since the fasting period when we met with the community, we have not attacked them. We have no one in captivity. If you hear anything of such is not from this camp. Of course, there are places where attacks and kidnappings are happening because we don’t have control of such places.”

    Katsina indeed provides an interesting dialectics of banditry in Nigeria. But hearing from the bandits, it was clear that the problem of banditry had its roots in socio-economic deprivation and injustice. These problems do not lend themselves easily to peace deals involving payment of regular stipends and dispensing token economic and judicial reparations.

    As Zamfara, Kebbi and a few other states in the North have proved, banditry is at the core of the injustice and lack of economic opportunities that characterise and enervate the society. Nowhere are these contradictions so transparent than the North where elite irresponsibility and poor delivery of justice have spawned an adders’ nest of recalcitrant and bloodthirsty bands of bandits, many of which have become inured to peace and are drunk on cheap money. Zamfara under their previous governor Abdulaziz Yari began this abominable culture of negotiating peace with bandits. The former governor had also reached the end of his tethers with security agencies which, despite much grandstanding, were unable to rein in banditry in that state. Left with no option, Mr Yari believed it was better to negotiate peace with bandits.

    It was obvious to critics that the former Zamfara governor simplistically ignored the fundamental fact that the contradictions in his state predisposed the state to banditry. Until those problems are resolved, which the state has not given indication it is capable of doing, Zamfara will not be able to buy peace as it naively hopes. A few months after the initial peace deal, the truce easily fell through, with the bandits returning to their unmended ways.

    Faced with resurgent banditry, the current governor of Zamfara, Bello Matawalle, has sought to revive the peace deal with bandits. He has enunciated how he intends to restore the peace deal, and has in addition expressed optimism that it would work. It is, however, unlikely to work. Katsina State has finally understood how difficult it is to placate bandits in the face of continuing contradictions in the state. He had deployed the carrot-and-stick approach many times, and has now in despair reposed all his trust in military action. How far that military action will work in the face of a highly mobile and self-accounting groups of bandits remains to be seen.

    Katsina’s newfound optimism may be infectious, considering how northern states, which are reeling from banditry, take their cues from the president’s home state. However, it is not altogether clear how leaving the issues of injustice and poverty unresolved would make the states amenable to peace and development. This hope is exaggerated. For about 10 years, the Nigerian military battled Boko Haram insurgents, a group of terrorists spawned mainly by socio-economic dislocations in the north-eastern part of the country. Though the military recorded some successes, the crisis has merely abated, not completely extinguished. The reason is that the problems that gave birth to the insurgency have still not been resolved. So too is banditry. Until the factors that rendered many northern states unstable and vulnerable are dealt with, neither appeasement nor military action will restore peace in those troubled regions.

  • Not yet Uhuru for Deputy Governor

    Not yet Uhuru for Deputy Governor

    By Sentry

    The impeachment threat that hangs over the Oyo State Deputy Governor, Rauf Olaniyan, is far from being over if feelers from the Oyo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the state government are anything to go by.

    Following the reported intervention of some eminent personalities within and outside the state, the frosty relationship between Olaniyan and his boss, Governor Seyi Makinde, appeared over, but the former may still lose his seat.

    One of the reasons given for the failure of an earlier impeachment plot is the “good relationship” Deputy Governor enjoys with the leadership of the state assembly and majority of lawmakers. Ironically, this same “good relationship” is making it difficult for some people and interests within the government and party to be comfortable with his continued stay in office.

    Read Also: My relationship with Makinde cordial, says Deputy

    The allegations against him include the fear that he could one day move against the governor, “given his good relationship with the lawmakers.”

    Sentry learnt of subtle moves within the party and the state assembly to prepare the ground for easing out Olaniyan and replacing him with someone with less political clout and visibility immediately after the Covid-19 crisis.

    Already, there are allegations that the Deputy Governor is being sidelined in the administration of the state. His supporters are of the opinion that there is a calculated attempt to reduce his visibility ahead of a more sinister plan.

  • Bello’s strange U-turn

    Bello’s strange U-turn

    By Sentry

    Following confirmations from within and outside the North-Central state that the COVID-19 index case in Kogi State was not in any way controversial, Governor Yahaya Bello, is gradually beating a very humble retreat and changing his approach to the fight against the pandemic virus without his usual media fanfare.

    The governor, who up until last weekend accused the NCDC of trying to force fictitious patients on the state, while insisting that his darling state is still uninfected by the ravaging virus, is now suddenly aligning with the centre’s earlier claims which he publicly despised.

    Read Also: Bello: an emerging political phenomenon

    It was gathered that the governor, during the week, at meetings he held with stakeholders, openly accepted the fact that there is need for the state to do more in its push against the virus now that it has found its way into the state.

    The fact that the index case is a prominent religious leader is not making things easy for Bello as he is having to retract some things he said when news first broke that the state had recorded two cases. But, like the smart politician he is, the governor is cleverly re-ordering his ways and surprisingly talking less.

  • Power, history and democracy

    Power, history and democracy

    Dayo Sobowale

    Today  I look at  the three concepts of  power, history, and  democracy in    the   light  of the killing of the black  American  George  Floyd  by  a white  policeman  in Minnesota in the US  which  has engendered so  much grief  and  consternation  around the world this week. I  intend to examine  the good , the bad and ugly  side of  this ugly incident  just  like the title of Clint Eastwood’s famous violence and action film,’ The  good, the bad  and  the ugly. ‘I feel sad  to write  on the killing of George Floyd because of the way  he was slaughtered and suffocated by a white  Police  man whose  wife immediately  sued for divorce after seeing what her husband  had  done ;  while  the Police  authorities tried to  down play the murder in plain sight  by calling it  manslaughter even  as the victim begged  for life by moaning repeatedly – ‘I  can’t   breathe ‘. That  death moan has become the rallying cry  for justice and democracy in most  American and European  capitals in recent days and the protests  have as usual  degenerated into looting, stealing and  hooliganism which  I  will  ignore   for   now  as I look  at what caused  all these  protests which    of course  will   soon  peter   out,  to what  Shakespeare  called‘ a tale  told  by an idiot,  full  of sound  and fury  signifying nothing.‘

    Please  remember  that this gruesome event of a murder  happened during the pandemic  and nobody  mentioned social  distance or lockdown  as the protesters flocked the streets in their thousands  to  use democracy  to vent their anger. So  in a  way this almighty  pestilence took a hiding that diminished its glorification  as a an epidemic  by scientists and medical  statisticians who  have closed  society at  large because  of its threat. In  the same way  the US President Donald  Trump  tried to steal    religious    thunder   and   authority by using the bible as a political  weapon against the protesters,  but failed mightily   and   woefully. Nevertheless   he   unwittingly    reminded watching Nigerians of Fela  Anikulapo’s  immortal  song – ‘Authority Stealing ‘. Indeed,  Trump  tried so  disgracefully  to  subvert  and    misuse   religion on this   George Floyd  matter, but fell  flat  on his face politically as he deserved . Inadvertently,   he   became  fake news himself on his actions in this matter. Surely  he deserves  no pity on  his   gamble    on religion,   on   which he has shown clearly  that as far as he is concerned  the Police  can do no wrong as far as they kill only  people  of color in the US. Which   to me is a tragedy that makes Trump a   most   racist  politician so much  like  the proverbial  ostrich with its head buried in the sand. How  he can win this November 2020  US  Presidential   election  with this attitude and posture will  be the real  wonder  of this world before‘ our very  eyes‘.

    Unfortunately   too,  religion  took a hiding, because Trump showed its attraction and  fragility to provoke or conceal  democratic malfeasance and  political rascality and insensitivity. Again,  how  the American  president will  climb  out of the political gutter and trench   he has dug for  himself on this George Floyd  murder, will  remain  his  own   political   funeral   to sort  out,  as he  seeks a  very  ambitious   reelection which  this tragedy  has  given  feet  of clay with  his bible  holding  charade of a stunt.

    We  go back  now to the basics of today’s contention. Power,  in any  democracy like  the US  or  Nigeria is derived  from the concept  of government  of  the people,   by the people  and for the   people . But  that is not always  the case because governments ignore the rights and security of their citizens  most times as the George Floyd  murder  has shown  in the US  this  week.

    In  Nigeria, the equivalent  of this   was  the killing of Nigerians in Kaduna, Zamfara, the North East and  Sokoto  State   from  where Senator  Ibrahim   Gobir  representing Sokoto  East   in the Nigerian    senate  lamented   recently, to no effect,  that Nigerians in his    part  of the nation rely  more on soldiers  from  neighboring Niger  Republic for their safety  and lives, because when they called   Nigerian soldiers they   never    showed  up   to  protect them.  The   Sultan   of Sokoto, a former   military   officer    also   lamented on insecurity   and   killings   in  Sokoto  and called   on the army to  modernize its armoury   to  defend  these  Nigerians. These  are  our George Floyds and they  are  Nigerians  and it is the duty of  government  to use  the legitimate  violence  and authority    it has,  to overcome bandits and terrorists  who  kill  Nigerians with impunity   in Sokoto  and other   such   places. That  is the essence  and meaning  of government   and that was what  these  Nigerians voted  for even in the President’s  home state of Katsina  which suffered a similar fate  such that  a military  expedition has  just   been sent  to   quell   the insurgency and marauding.

    Unfortunately,  it is such state  monopoly  of violence to effect  authority  that  the Police  has usurped in the  US to  kill  black Americans incessantly and  with impunity,  till  we got  to George Floyd this week . Even   after   that  more  blacks  have been killed in these protests including a  restaurant  owner reputed to be  giving free meals to  police officers on shift  duties. The  history of the US and the  American  Civil  War which   was won  by  Republican  President  Abraham Lincoln   [1861–1865] to free slaves  is the root  cause of the unstoppable  killing of blacks in the US leading to that of George Floyd. The  president who  succeeded  Lincoln, Andrew  Johnson [1865-  1869] his former  Vice  President,  did  not believe in giving blacks equal  rights with whites that Lincoln fought and died for. That  successor   Andrew  Johnson  was impeached like  Donald  Trump  but was cleared in the Senate like Trump,  but with a paltry  vote  of  one. Successive  US  governments  have always ran the US   like  a Police state because they  fear for  their security  and lives in  checking police power . This is because Police members ‘unions   contribute      to   the   campaign  elections  of state  Attorney  Generals, local  Sheriffs    or even  elected judges  as is the case in some states   in  the  US.

    Sthe maintenance of law  and order is  the enhancement  of  police power by political  leaders to prevent anarchy and assure their own  security  at the expense of blacks who  have been  historically  profiled as crime prone and unworthy of equal  rights with  whites . Thus supplanting the motive  for which the American Civil   was fought  and won by President  Abraham  Lincoln . Even  the Obama Administration   – 2009 – 2016 –  could  only  survive in  this context  . Even  out  of office Obama  this   week   has called the rioters  and looters to order as he did  repeatedly  for the eight  years he   was  in power  while  blacks were killed by Police in his tenure . Even  if  Michelle ,  Obama’s wife  becomes the Vice  Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party   in this 2020   presidential   elections  the killing of blacks by  American    Police will  still  continue and the looting will follow and be condemned and the Police  invariably   pacified for the killing of blacks .

    Again  , the reason  is not difficult  to see and  it lies at the feet  of   American liberal  democracy and conservative politics and  their  political beliefs  and  ideology . The  liberals   nowadays  place sex  and feminine  rights far above black   Americans  rights .  Indeed gay  rights were equated with civil  rights  and this was stolen  into state and federal  laws  during the Obama Administration . To  change  that  is the political  motive of the  present   Republicans with  Trump as their  champion  and that is why  his Administration  is putting Conservative judges  in the Supreme Court to reverse the sexual  orientation   laws  of previous  liberal  American governments including the Obama  one just  recently . The  vengeance of this violent cultural but democratic war  was shown  in the  committed   and fatal  violence with which  the white police  officer held George Floyd,    a 6ft  4in    giant   ,   but  a black   man  ,  by the throat  till  he died. It  was  murder  most  foul and most reprehensible . But  its pedigree is  in  American  history  and  democracy  of the police state ,  called  the rule of  law  in which  the black man’s   rights has  always been a disposable  commodity .This  has    been  so ,  since Abe Lincoln fought the American Civil  war  but  did  not live to see through the real   Reconstruction   and  freedom of the black  slaves for which  he fought   and won  that war . Ever  since  ,  history  has been  repeating  itself with  Police killings of blacks in the US and  I am    saddened  in a very   morbid  manner  , to show why it will  not end with the gruesome  killing of  the gentle giant called George Floyd in Minnesota this last week . Once again  , from the fury of this pandemic , Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

     

     

  • Growing Super Eagles’ brand

    Growing Super Eagles’ brand

    Ade Ojeikere

    Rock in your casket Shuiabu Amodu for this is the second time a damning judgment would be passed on the Super Eagles by coaches who should lead the team aright. But like the adage goes, you don’t give what you don’t have. The late Amodu told us that the domestic league was populated by average players who had to be taught the rudiments of the game each time they were invited to the Super Eagles. Nigerians went for his jugular, wondering how he could have made such a statement.

    The late Amodu could understand how the players trained in their different clubs. Amodu has passed, but his scathing remarks ring so true of what German tactician, Gernot Rohr, has again said about the team – this time with our armada of stars in Europe. What goes around comes around. Interesting times for football now that a coach has told his employers to stop dreaming about lifting the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations diadem.

    Rohr has stated categorically that he cannot guarantee the Eagles winning the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (perhaps he forgot that there are plans to shift the competition to 2020). Rohr posited further that Nigeria isn’t the best African country in soccer, going by FIFA rankings. He also couldn’t pick top rated stars in the Eagles who are match winners, unlike what Mohammed Salah, Mahrez, Sadio Mane et al do for their countries. What Rohr didn’t say is that it is his duty to fish out these kind of stars for Nigeria to deploy in big tournaments. If he cannot do the job, he could take a walk off now. We still have the time to headhunt a manager who would do our biddings, which are not beyond us, going by the Clemens Westerhof era.

    I wish Amodu was alive. In fact, Amodu stood by his conviction, knowing that the buck stops on his table. Unfortunately, Rohr has done a recant on his interview with the BBC, where he enumerated reasons why the task of lifting the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations amounted to attempting to climb a slippery pole. I wonder how he expects maximum respect from players he described as average and not being the best in Africa. Dear Rohr, isn’t football all about shocking results for deserving countries that play with committed players? So, how does Rohr hope to actualise the targets of winning AFCON and playing at the World Cup at the knockout stage?

    “This is a special job because this is my team, I built it with my staff,” the former Niger and Gabon coach said Monday on local television. “It’s a very young team, but the mission is not finished yet, so we want to continue. We all have to make sacrifices and I will be the first.  Let’s qualify for (the Nations Cup) and then we want to win it. We have a good team, we’re now number three in Africa. When I arrived (in 2016), we were number 13. We have worked together for the past four years and I hope we can progress,” he said.

    Nothing excites this writer better than watching young Nigerians grow through the ranks of the beautiful game here. Although we have wasted several generations of players discovered from the grassroots, it appears we are rediscovering some and playing them during the big games involving Super Eagles, a trend which is in tandem with FIFA’s goals in inaugurating several age-grade competitions. Nigeria needs to catch up with the rest of the world in fielding players who evolved from the country’s age-grade teams. Rohr distinguished himself at the last Africa Cup of nations, when he dropped an off-form Kelechi Iheanacho for a younger and fitter Osimhen. It has paid off today going by the Osimhen’s rave reviews in Europe.

    The difference between what has transpired in this Rohr era is that we can now plan for the future. Such plans include rebranding the Eagles to attract foreign scouts for subsequent transfer windows. If the players give their best during matches in Africa and Europe, especially against the big European sides, then Nigeria’s ranking would soar, giving room for those who distinguish themselves to benefit with improved contracts or outright change of clubs at staggering transfer figures.

    Rohr should forget about his assistants’ interests in certain players and look at the bigger picture of making the Eagles the best team in Africa by the year 2022, prelude to the World Cup in Qatar. So Rohr and his boys have acquitted themselves in previous friendly matches, making it imperative on others to be willing to accept games against Nigeria anywhere in the world.

    Nigeria has no business playing against minnows in the continent, with due respect to such countries, given our players’ exploits in Europe and in the Diaspora. Our players’ peers ply their trade in Europe and they should be seen to oscillate within that orbit.

    The NFF should as much as possible accept the grade A game which are for points’ acquisition in FIFA’s monthly ranking, while the grade B game can be used to test our others players, particularly the home-based players. The grade B games must be played in Nigerian cities to reawaken interest in the game. These grade B games can open a new vista for the local boys who shine in them; the local boys have been forsaken for long and this has affected the quality of the leagues.

    Growing up in Benin City, I saw Bendel Insurance play against teams which were in the country for friendly matches and it raised the morale of the boys then who were excited to play international matches. The corporate world here would be willing to contribute to the brand’s growth if NFF can drag the big games to the country. These firms get to the target audience faster through such big events. Such games should be held in the country to give Nigerians an opportunity to watch their heroes. Playing matches at home will open a new vista for sports sponsorship since the firms’ bigwigs will appreciate the marketing windows available to them to connect with the fans, who they could covert to their customers.

    Growing the eagles brand should include participating in the process of getting our players to play for big clubs. It is heartening to note that Victor Osimhen denied signing for Napoli in the Serie A and their harrowing incidents of racism. Rohr and indeed NFF chieftains should dialogue with our players whose future is hinged on the next transfer window.

    The biggest story for old Trafford on Odion Ighalo is that he wants to return to the Super Eagles. If Ighalo was still a Nigerian international, the process of extending his loan deal would have been much easier. Big European clubs reckon with internationals.

    According to Ighalo: “I am still in contact with Gernot Rohr and Amaju Pinnick, and they congratulated me on my loan deal.”

    “I am still thinking about returning to the national team, but right now I want to concentrate on my club career. I left the national team because of the distance between Nigeria and China, but now that I am in Manchester and just like life and in my career, you never can tell”, he told Brila FM.

    It would be easier for Ighalo to make the three-man cut if he continues scoring goals for Manchester United. Senegal’s Sadio Mane and Egypt’s Mohammed Salah would rate higher than any Nigerian player in the Africa Footballer of Year award because of the superiority of their clubs to where our players are. Weekly, we watch Mane and Salah score goals with relish for the Reds in the EPL and UEFA Champions League competition until the Reds’ exit.

    The Eagles are the biggest brand to market if they are excelling in competitions. We need to build this team on solid foundations, but this appears far-fetched for Rohr, given the potentials available at the 774 local government areas. We will forever be rebuilding the Eagles, if our foreign coaches live outside the country. Eagles need nurseries where players to replace the injured and ageing ones are taught the basic skills of the game, through clinics and competitions. No country measures her growth in soccer by listing 22 foreign-based players with one home-based goalkeeper. It raises the poser over the quality of the youth developmental programmes and what the federation is doing with its grassroots programmes.

     

  • Executive Order 10, decentralized despotism and Coronavirus

    Executive Order 10, decentralized despotism and Coronavirus

    By Segun Ayobolu

    Decentralized despotism. The evocative, richly suggestive phrase is not my coinage. Rather, it is that of the renowned Ugandan political scientist, Professor Mahmood Mamdani. In his book, ‘Citizen and Subject’, he uses the term as a conceptual handle to depict the authoritarian reality and legacy of ‘Indirect Rule’ as an administrative mechanism of British colonialism in Africa. Purporting to rule through pre-existing or manufactured indigenous, traditional governance systems, the colonial power actually abolished the checks and balances inherent in traditional authority structures, inflated the powers of the traditional rulers and, as one author puts it, “created new powers for the chiefs who abdicated their traditional roles, thus a democratic traditional system became an autocratic one”.

    The authoritarian colonial state was thus the precursor and progenitor of the despotic and tyrannical post-colonial state and the resultant democratic travails of Africa is partly a function of this legacy. In this piece, I use the term decentralized despotism with regard to the deformities and dysfunctions of federal practice in contemporary Nigeria. Federalism is generically designed to decentralize powers, responsibilities and resource allocation and utilization in such a way that constitutional authority and governmental functions are shared among levels of government roughly coterminous with the plural composition of a culturally federal society. This is to deepen democratic governance and functional autonomy at sub-national levels of administration.

    Popular discourse and critique of federal practice in Nigeria has largely focused on the excessive centralization of power in the centre, the over-concentration of responsibilities in the federal executive and monopoly of resources of legally allocated resources by the federal government. Yet, the political and administrative reality is that governance gets more despotic, tyrannical and non-accountable, the lower you go down the hierarchy of governance structures in Nigeria.

    Thus, the often excoriated, excessively centralized federal government in Nigeria actually has greater legislative, judicial and sometimes even bureaucratic restraints on the exercise of its admittedly expansive powers than the state and local governments. In reality, the least accountable, transparent and responsive level of government, and thus ironically and surreptitiously, most powerful are the Local Government Councils. Contrary to the constitutional provision that they should be democratic and fiscally autonomous, they are mere puppets in the hands of state governors. In the characteristically pungent words of Chief Bola Ige in the Second Republic, local governments in Nigeria remain neither local nor government.

    But herein is the source of the ample powers and room for maneuver of local councils. Once Local Government authorities meekly accept the often substantial deductions from their statutory fiscal allocations from the Federation Account by state governors, as they have no choice but to do, they are left pretty free to utilize the not insubstantial crumbs that come to them much as they please with scant accountability and responsibility.

    Hence the veritable emperors and worshipful majesties of Nigeria’s extant federal system are the state governors. They have the local governments in their grip. They are hardly incommoded by the necessary restraining influence that professional and competent civil service bureaucracies can offer. State Executive Councils mostly tend to be pliant and are often incapacitated to make qualitative and critical input to governance at that level.  Castrated and impotent legislatures tend to be rubber stamp assemblies for governors while state judiciaries are compelled to function with an eye on the governor’s body language since they are dependent on funding from the executive.

    This unprecedented concentration of power in the executive at the state level is a perfect recipe for governance disaster as the iron law of the corruptive and inebriating influence of absolute power in the hands of fallible mortals can be no exception here. Thus, for instance, in the often erratic, illogical and utterly irrational responses of some state governors to the raging Coronavirus pandemic, we see how the inevitably poor decisions arising from unaccountable and unrestrained power can be no less an existential threat to citizens than the virus.

    It is ostensibly to redress this unsavory situation that President Muhammadu Buhari recently issued his Executive Order 10 to compel state governors to comply with Section 121 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which recognizes the financial autonomy of the state legislature and judiciary. The 8th National Assembly had effected this amendment to the Constitution, a provision which had since been signed into law by President Buhari. Yet, the governors who had rendered this requirement of the constitution nugatory for over a year by simply ignoring it are vehemently protesting that the Executive Order 10 violates sections of the Constitution that guarantee the federal autonomy of state governments.

    If state governors brazenly disregard the Constitution’s guarantee of the principle of Separation of powers among the three arms of government in their states, do they have the moral right to question the President’s assumption of allegedly extra-constitutional powers to ensure constitutional compliance?

    That the governors have the temerity to contest the legality of Executive Order 10, while not denying that they have left the amended Section 121 (3) of the Constitution unimplemented, shows their hubristic insensitivity to public opinion. No rational reasons can be averred for their unwillingness to respect the financial autonomy of the two other arms of government in accordance with the Constitution. The only signal it sends is that they are reluctant to subject themselves to the restraints which operational checks and balances arising from the more effective practice of the principle of Separation of Powers will ensure and compel. This is unacceptable.

    Even then, it cannot be denied that the governors have a point. Nigeria’s democratic and constitutional evolution since 1999 has moved commendably far away from the imperious and suffocating federal centre we had under the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo imperial presidency. No longer do we have a presidency that withholds statutory allocations of states at will or engineers the Gestapo style removal of state governors by captured state legislatures. We must not support any measure, no matter how well motivated, that gives even the slightest hint of a possible regression to that misbegotten era. The cure for constitutional impunity on the part of the governors cannot be purportedly corrective presidential impunity.

    The Presidential Implementation Committee empowered by the Executive Order to enforce compliance by state governors with the provisions of the Constitution that guarantee financial autonomy to state legislatures and executives has dangerous portents. In particular, the powers conferred on the Accountant General of the Federation as well as the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to deduct state statutory allocations from the Federation Account from source and transmit same to state legislatures and judiciaries directly is open to abuse.

    An unscrupulous future presidency can exploit this provision to instigate and empower state legislatures and judiciaries to undermine perceived ‘recalcitrant’ state governors. The financial autonomy of the state legislatures and judiciaries must derive from the requisite constitutional provisions as well as adherence to the authority of state budgetary appropriation laws rather than potentially malicious presidential benevolence.

    It is curious that state legislatures and judiciaries have made no effort to seek judicial remedy for state governors’ non-implementation of Section 121 (3) of the 1999 Constitution as amended. The state legislatures as well as critical stakeholders in the judiciary and legal profession must ensure compliance with the Constitution in this regard by state governors through the courts. Nothing also stops the Attorney-General of the Federation as the Chief Law Officer of the country from seeking authoritative judicial pronouncement on the matter at the apex court.

    In any case, there is nothing that suggests that granting financial autonomy to the state legislature and judiciary will not only provide the opportunity for the two arms of government to join the executive in frivolous, wasteful and corrupt expenditure of public resources. At the centre, we have seen how the National Assembly has simply seized on its financial autonomy to become a huge drainpipe on scarce national resources. In the final analysis, there is no alternative to the emergence of a public that has zero tolerance for corruption and wastage in governance as well as a reinvigorated civil society that is mobilized and willing to fight for adherence to the highest standards of accountability, transparency and ethical rectitude by public officers.

    The far reaching decentralization of powers, responsibilities and resources that advocates of restructuring rightly clamor for will result in no more than decentralized despotism if the people are not empowered at this level to hold their governing authorities in check.

  • Bad omen for Nigerian democracy

    Bad omen for Nigerian democracy

    By UnderTow

     

    The Fourth Republic is about 21 years old. Like the previous three republics, there is little to suggest it has come to stay, let alone flourish, if attitudes to the fundamentals of democracy do not change. Conventional wisdom suggests that Nigeria is running a democracy.

    In speeches and writings, it has become normal to describe the period since 1999 as democratic. But regardless of that manner of speaking, there is no consensus that what Nigeria is operating today is a democracy or that the politicians running it appreciate democratic principles.

    The haphazard and half-hearted approach to Nigeria’s difficult democracy since the beginning of the Fourth Republic indicates that troublous times lie ahead for a country that is in a quandary over what nature of democracy it should practice: Pakistani, Chinese or Egyptian model.

    A manifestation of this ominous trend is intolerance by the political class, particularly their loathing of free speech. Governors, ministers, commissioners, local government chairmen, councillors, policemen and all manner of public officials are completely intolerant of harsh commentaries about their character and policies.

    In responding to what they believe is unadulterated abuse by members of the public — whether journalists or bloggers — appointed and elected officials have themselves subverted the laws of the land and violated the constitution in their response to the vitriol served them by a frustrated public.

    Three fresh examples illustrate just how dangerous the trend has become, and how close to unravelling Nigerian democracy has come.

    Information minister Lai Mohammed, Abia State governor Okezie Ikpeazu, and an Ebonyi State council chairman Ogbonnaya Oko Enyim typify the official loathing of free speech and the distress that now afflicts democracy in Nigeria.

    It is indeed strange that after more than three eras of trying to get the fundamentals and practice of democracy right, Nigerians, particularly elected and appointed officials, have become even more alienated from the public and unsure of the kind of attitude that accords with a liberal political system.

    Typically, this behaviour manifests among those in office. Mr Mohammed’s case involves a traditional poet, Rotimi Jolayemi, whose bold and rhythmic excoriation of the minister took the social media by storm a few weeks ago.

    Since then the Yoruba language poet has drawn the ire of the security services, particularly the police. Mr Mohammed dissociates himself from Mr Jolayemi’s misfortune, but few believe him.

    The poet, according to the police, disseminated his composition on April 14 or so, and since then, particularly on WhatsApp, the poem had gone viral and brought Mr Mohammed to public ridicule and opprobrium.

    In the poem, which drew upon many literary facilities, including puns, alliterations, traditional proverbs, and good old abuse and exaggerations, Mr Jolayemi was unsparing of the minister.

    The traditional poet also took the Humanitarian Affairs minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, to the cleaners, alleging corruption against her, complete with a clip of the hearing in the National Assembly in which her feathers were considerably ruffled.

    The poet also made oblique references to her morals. Miffed beyond forbearance, the poet was ferreted out of his rat hole by the police for questioning and detained with contemptuous disregard for the constitution. His sins were too grievous to deserve constitutional protection.

    In the charge sheet against him, the police disclosed why they harried Mr Jolayemi. Said they: “That you, Jolayemi Oba Akewi, male, aged 43,  on or about the 14th day of April 2020 at Osolo Compound, Ekan Nla, Kwara State, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court did send audio message through your Android phone device to a group WhatsApp platform known as ‘Ekan Sons and Daughters’ and which went viral immediately after it was posted for the purpose of causing annoyance, insult, hatred and ill will toward the current Minister of Information and Culture, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Alhaji Lai Mohammed,  and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 24(1)(b) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc) Act 2015.”

    The police rap sheet was silent on what pains the poet caused the Humanitarian Affairs minister. The oblique references the poet made concerning her were rather too delicate to be tabled before a judge for public titillation.

    Besides, unlike the case involving the Information minister, the other minister’s case could lose focus and revolve around entirely unforeseen and tangential issues. For now, officials reason, better not to litigate those sort of things.

    However, without prejudice to what Mr Jolayemi’s lawyers might argue, or the success or otherwise of the attempt by Mr Jolayemi and his family to beg the minister to bury the hatchet, critics are questioning whether the poet had exceeded the limits of decency or Mr Mohammed had become unbearably thin-skinned.

    Mr Jolayemi was not immediately ‘captured’ for interrogation. In the interim, his wife, Dorcas, and brothers, John and Joseph, were ambushed and hauled in for interrogation and partially used as hostages to arrest the fleeing poet.

    Before then, their phones had been bugged, and having established their communication with the fleeing poet, were arrested for obstruction of justice. Clearly, many issues pertaining to the sustenance of democracy arose as a result of the whole affair.

    First, did the police establish a prima facie case against the poet? Second, did the poet go beyond the boundaries of free speech provided for by the constitution? Third, did the police have a right to detain him for 17 days before charging him in court? Fourth, are the police empowered to hold anyone as hostage, contrary to the law, to entrap a fleeing suspect? Fifth, did the police obtain a warrant to bug the phones of those concerned, particularly Mr Jolayemi’s relations?

    All these questions strike at the root of democracy. How they are answered will indicate the state of health of Nigerian democracy.

    What is not in doubt is that when Mr Mohammed was a spokesman of the opposition party in the years before 2015, he and his party’s supporters poured far worse scorn and invectives on the government of Goodluck Jonathan without attracting commensurate heavy-handedness.

    The Information minister has tried to distance himself from the whole saga, but few people are buying his excuses.

    He owes it to himself, his reputation, and democracy to approach the matter openly, courageously and lawfully while seeking redress to his image battered by the poet. Tomorrow, the shoe could be on the other foot, and democracy could once again be imperilled.

    If Mr Mohammed’s lack of inspiring example is portentous, the other cases involving the Abia State governor and an Ebonyi State council chairman portend even much worse, bringing to the fore the dire condition in which Nigerian democracy is constrained.

    An Abia State lawyer, Gabriel Ogbonna, was alleged to have made some defamatory remarks about Gov Ikpeazu on social media and was arrested by the police on March 24, charged in court for cybercrime almost immediately before a magistrate who had no jurisdiction to hear the case, and admitted to bail some 14 days later.

    He is, however, still detained by the Department of State Service (DSS), his bail frustrated. Mr Ogbonna’s case recalls the case of a Kano-based Islamic cleric, Bello Yabo, who took Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai to task for keeping religious centres shut on the pretext of fighting COVID-19 pandemic.

    The cleric described Mallam el-Rufai in uncomplimentary terms, in one instance painting him as a little bird. Days later, the police were in Kano to haul Mallam Yabo to Kaduna for insulting the governor.

    But a son of Gov el-Rufai had a few weeks before threatened on social media to gang-rape the mother of a critic and also made hateful comment about an ethnic group, and no policeman nor law officer has whispered a word about the affair.

    The threat to democracy is so bad that even council chairmen now give free rein to themselves in dealing with impudent members of the public.

    Angry that an activist, Okochi Obeni, questioned his sincerity and integrity as a public official, the chairman of Afikpo North local government, Mr Enyim, allegedly dispensed with the niceties of law, and dispensed crude justice to the activist.

    The activist was lured into a trap, tortured, forced to recant his accusations, and left on the verge of paralysis. The police claim to have made some arrests, and said investigations were continuing, but little has been done so far, especially with the main suspect still walking free. In Nigeria, when it comes to public functionaries, law enforcement is customarily timid and toothless.

    Democracy is endangered because of the attitude of elected and appointed officials who obviously know or care little about democracy, about the justice system that has been compromised and castrated by the executive branch, about a conniving legislative arm that hero-worships or stand in awe of the executive, and about law enforcement and security agencies whose dignity has been taken away by years of mistreatment, poor remuneration, and misuse.

    If insulting public officials now warrants wholesale abuse of the rights and privileges of the citizenry conferred by the constitution, if no one else but civil society groups and the media are left to defend democracy and are themselves victims of horrendous abuse, democracy may be in far more danger than anybody thinks.

    It is doubtful whether Nigerians have ever had their rights, particularly free speech, so debased, surely not in the First or Second Republic.

    The Third Republic was aborted. The Fourth Republic is supposed to be a marked improvement over the other republics; instead it has arguably become less inspiring, indeed, bland and unremarkable.

    If the public will not rise as one man to defend their constitution, they will be surprised to find in the years ahead that they had carelessly lost it, or were compelled to live with a constitution so weakened and distorted by state officials that it is of little use to anyone.

  • Akeredolu/Ajayi: Has the dust settled?

    Akeredolu/Ajayi: Has the dust settled?

    By Sentry

    For months now, many have been wondering about the relationship between Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and his deputy, Agboola Ajayi, amidst claims that the duo can’t work together.

    While the uncertainties about their relationship rage, with their allies and supporters clashing openly on some occasions, neither Akeredolu, nor Ajayi has confirmed the alleged cracks on the wall of their joint ticket. On many occasions, the duo came out to tell the world that all was well between them.

    But keen observers of the politics of the state claimed their statements were mere attempts to manage a deepening crisis. Stories of how some concerned stakeholders within and outside the state tried to reconcile the duo also flew around with most attempts ending in deadlock according to tale-bearers.

    Read Also: Why I won’t step down for Akeredolu, by Kekemeke

    Two weeks ago, very strong indications emerged that Ajayi may be dropped as deputy governorship candidate in the July governorship election, just as it was strongly bandied that the embattled deputy governor may have struck a deal with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) on his possible defection to the party to pick the governorship ticket.

    Now, it appears that the dispute between the two men may have been settled. Sentry learnt that some prominent traditional rulers and eminent personalities from the Ondo South senatorial district, in a last minute effort to save the situation, may have succeeded in settling the grouses between the duo. As things stand, the dust may have settled. Whether it is so or not, events of the next few weeks will reveal.

  • Lockdown blues, politics, and paranoia

    Lockdown blues, politics, and paranoia

    By Dayo Sobowale

    I love a statement in Political Science that illustrates restraint   on observance of human rights with the caution that ‘your freedom ends where my nose begins.’ However, Social  distancing, a  potent  survival strategy against this raging pandemic,  has however,  made even that quite inadequate,  as you  must  move immensely far from my nose or you may end up in court for flouting lockdown and social  distance  rules , which are now the prevailing rule of law globally  to  contain the pandemic. Obviously since Man is a  political  and  social  animal  and politics is ubiquitous,  human  existence under clearly anti – social and political rules such as social  distancing and lockdowns   nowadays,  has   put humanity  and human values  at large  under stress not only socially and politically but culturally  too. I  intend today to acknowledge and identify such stress  and pressure on political systems globally as well as on the citizens  of the  nations of the world who  have been literally  food  for fodder for  a brutal and most unexpected pandemic, that has changed our mode of life and existence at what  I would call  the speed of light.

    Actually,  I wonder  how  our legal  luminaries and highly respected Senior Advocates will  adapt  to  lockdown laws and  social  distancing in  defending those accused of violating such laws in high  and low places in recent times. Without preempting the  bar  on its  agility  and   ever  readiness to address the courts on any issue, I  can  imagine how really remarkable  legal practitioners  would look  with their normally  distinguishing black wigs and gowns probably  adorned with a black  mask  of the type sported by US Democratic presidential  candidate Joe  Biden quite  recently. Certainly that would be a spectacle to behold but unfortunately with a smaller audience in court due to social distance laws and rules. But   really this is a digression on procedure, albeit on lockdown laws.

    Let me now go to the issue at hand which is the topic of today. I start on the premise that the law is made for man and not man for the law   in examining the issues I will raise. I go on to show how people in various settings have reacted to violation of lockdown rules in different climes and nations. It  is my contention that such or some  reactions have been due  to  the  dire  effects  of the lockdown on people in various  locations and depending on their  type of politics or political  culture. Those  who  have not violated the lockdown  laws  feel  those who have, should be taken to the guillotine as in the 1789 French Revolution, which  to me is high handed,  as not all  such  violations were deliberate and willingly  done. In addition, political bias have come into play in dealing with such lockdown violations.  It  is  also  my opinion that the lockdown  has taken its toll on the psyche of people  generally in most    systems  such  that  it has given them a feeling of paranoia or  mistrust  of any excuse given for any violation.  As such, they want the hammer to fall on any violation, regardless of the context or explanation. In addition, cultural backgrounds,  values  and environment have played a robust part in the way these violations have been treated and regulated across the world  especially  this week. I will explain with examples from Britain, Nigeria, the US, the Netherlands   and   Kenya.

    The matter of the UK PM Political Adviser Dominic Cummins shows vividly all  aspects of the violations of the lockdown in this pandemic. Some have asked that he be sacked for travelling during the pandemic to treat himself, his wife and child during the pandemic. According to his attackers, he should resign for giving a bad example on lockdown violation. He has refused and his boss, the PM Boris Johnson,  has backed him that his action was legal  and reasonable as a father and family man. Clearly, there was a violation, but lives, including his own were at stake and the   lockdown rules   provided for such exigencies.  Was that not enough for some forbearance? Then politics came in and the opposition Labour leader condemned double standards and claimed Cummins was above the law. Was he?    Should he have waited, holed up in the lockdown till he perished with his family in the pandemic? What   morbid   joy or elation would that have given anyone including his political opponents in seeing the end of him in that way and manner? Those  who  feel  saddened  or persecuted by the lockdown should not allow their minds to be locked down against the  humanity  of  a desperate  man trying  to save  his life and that of his family , in a do or  die situation. Politics too should not estrange empathy to political opponents when they are down and out like Cummins was on his desperate travels and travails to save his wife, himself and child. Fortunately for him he can defend himself now, because in reality dead men don’t talk.

    It is a pity this is happening in the same Britain we all appreciate for its NHS policy of treating people at the point of need, unlike other health systems like ours that demand payment first. But another example will show how human values in Britain have changed with the lockdowns. There was a story on the NHS which is well celebrated in the same UK for its excellent performance in the pandemic. A  chef and  his  children  made  a huge  and delicious lunch for   the NHS staff  but a local  government  official  thereafter wrote the chef  for violating the Industrial Relations law on using  children as employees in   serving  the  food. Of  course his boss in the   same  local  government apologized to the  chef and withdrew the  heartless letter, one  which  nothing but the rigours  and  stress of an over locked and   quarantined mind, could  have ignited in the first   instance .

    Let  me now sweep  through  the other  issues as the UK  examples  have largely  served  my  purpose . First, with the US  where you  have a most  unlikely  person in President  Donald Trump  leading the way for US  governors to  break the lockdown and more importantly  for the churches to open . His  opponents in the Democratic Party  are using science to condemn him  but  that is politics .Trump  wants a full house for the November presidential  elections but  his opponents see any obstacles in that regard including especially  the pandemic as a hindrance against  his ambition  for them to exploit . So  US  politics in this Trump  era   and    under    the  lockdown   or  no  lockdown   issue, is one of spite , paranoia and frustration depending on which side of the political divide  you  are  in. Quite interesting I dare say.

    In Nigeria, Denmark   and    Kenya, we look at how some leaders   reacted to lockdowns in terms of violation and otherwise. In Ekiti a father locked his son out and asked him to go to quarantine after returning from a cross border journey. The state governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, a security guru, commended the father and gave him a state job as a reward. Honestly  if I was  the son I will  never forgive the father because a father’s  duty is to provide sanctuary  to his family  under all circumstances,  including the pandemic. I trust the Ekitis to debate the issue further. As for the governor he is father of all especially in this pandemic, as   well as the state   lockdown enforcer. In  Kenya,  the President’s  son went  partying in violation of the lockdown, and the father, President  Uhuru  Kenyatta  said  he scolded  him and the matter ended there  without  any punishment   legally for lockdown violation.  Clearly one man’s   food is another   man’s   poison. In   the Netherlands ,  the PM  Mark   Rutte  did  not visit  the mother for six weeks  during the lockdown  till   the mother who was   over 90   passed away this week   although   not from the pandemic . What a beautiful lockdown enforcer this Dutch PM was! I  however  would   not  be in his  shoes and would  have  sought special  permission   to  see her in full  public view  to  pay   my  last  respects to  a mother   as expected  in most   cultures  globally.This   is because   as  man  or woman,   human   beings are  not  robots   and  have feelings and emotions. More   importantly, the law is made for   man and not otherwise. Please   take your pick. Once again, ‘From the fury of this raging pandemic, Good Lord Deliver Nigeria’ Amen.