The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

Oshiomhole’s travails and 2023 calculations

By Nosa Ogbemudia

While many have accused the embattled National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of high-handedness and hence, the need to kick him out, it is also obvious that those after him are not doing so for the growth of the party but for their 2023 ambitions.

The plot against the national chairman is as old as his tenure itself. But it was not until recently, and perhaps after his spat with his estranged political godson and governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, took a turn for the worse, that the hawks joined forces, baring their fangs in a desperate attempt to get him out of office.

While the plot against the former President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is national, those who want his political demise had gone to his home state, in fact, his local government, to get his suspension from the party by some political sleight of hand. It was strange that Oshiomhole’s ward would be said to have suspended him. It is is just not possible for anyone familiar with Oshiomhole’s larger than life image in Edo North politics, his alleged ward suspension a huge fraud, a grand deception with the fingers of the state governor written all over it.

Following that, a Federal High court in Abuja, on Wednesday March 4, ordered that Oshiomhole could not continue to parade himself as the national chair of the APC having been suspended by the local branch of his party in his native Edo State. According to Justice Danlami Sanchi, APC’s branch in Ward 10 in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State had on November 2, 2019, suspended Oshiomhole from the party and as a result, the former governor of Edo State could not continue to serve as the national chair of the party since his local branch had suspended him from the party.

A day later, another Federal High court sitting in Kano, headed by Justice A. Lewis-Allagoa, directed all parties to maintain the status quo ante and stay action on the issue. In other words, Oshiomhole should remain the substantive chair of the ruling party.

The National Secretary of the APC declared that the party would obey the court order. A fallout of the high-stakes intrigue was that he chose the one suspending Oshiomhole as the order to obey. Pronto, the party fixed March 18th as the day it would hold its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting.

Those against him seem to be very formidable and unrelenting. The embattled national chair himself mentioned that some governors were against him and it all boils down to 2023 calculations. Sources close to him specifically mentioned the Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi as being the arrowhead of the plot against Oshiomhole. And the cold calculations mean that prisoners would not be taken.

The thinking within the ruling party is that Buhari has never shown the kind of interest and control previous presidents showed in the management of a ruling party. For instance, President Olusegun Obasanjo never joked with the choice of whoever was the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at any point in time. Even the more benign Goodluck Jonathan too never joked with the leadership of the PDP. But not Buhari. The president’s lack of interest in the party’s politics has left the party at the mercy of different tendencies with varying intentions and interests threatening to tear it apart.

A political analyst explained, during the week, that after Buhari might have left, the party would be there for the taking. Interestingly, they are the over ambitious individuals are not waiting for Buhari’s exit. They have drawn their swords.

Read Also: Oshiomhole: Time to halt illegality

“After 2023, APC would not only be in disarray but would be without any recognised father figure,” he explained “But going by the way politicians think, it would be suicidal to wait till 2023 before going for the jugular of the party. That is why they want to do this as early as possible. They want to get Oshiomhole out, so that the former governor of Edo State does not have a foothold in the party.”

That analysis is spot on because most of the governors on their second terms are against Oshiomhole. To them, they would not be returning as governors again and would naturally be going for something higher (presidency) in 2023. And with Oshiomhole still in the saddle, they know it won’t be easy.

Ironically, a governor in one of the Northeast states is also against Oshiomhole and he is on his first term. His own permutation is that if the presidency returns to the South in 2023, he would not mind being the running-mate to whoever is picked as the party’s presidential standard-bearer. So it’s a high-stakes game.

Another major accusation against the embattled national chairman of the APC is that he has brought crisis to the party and has also led the party to losses in states it should have won easily such as Bauchi and Bayelsa. But they have also forgotten that the party has recorded victories in states like Kogi, Ekiti, Osun and Imo.

Oshiomhole himself had elaborated that some governors that were against him all because of 2023 wanted to frustrate his efforts to reposition the party ahead of coming elections. He also accused some of them of not being fully committed to the party as they have membership of more than one party and would move to those parties after destroying the APC.

“They are the ones who will plot how to get rid of (Oshiomhole) because they want to be president in 2023, even when their hold on their state at the moment is doubtful if they were to go for a referendum in terms of their approval rating. But you see, whatever you do, those who want to fight you will fight you. But I know that my tenure will be defined by God and not by man,” he added.

While Oshiomhole may have some weaknesses as a party leader, the fact remains that those who put his head on the chopping block are not doing it for any altruistic or patriotic reasons or even for the sake of the growth of the party. All is about 2023. It is all naked politics.

For instance, many have been saying that Obaseki, the Edo State governor, could not have had the effrontery to take on Oshiomhole the way he is doing if not because he was being goaded on by political heavyweights with coalesced interests outside the state. Observers believe that he probably enjoys the support of some members of the president’s kitchen cabinet.

But with each side trying to outmanoeuvre the other in this high-stakes political battle, it may take more than that Federal High Court pronouncement to kick Oshiomhole out of office. The APC is tense with suspense and the days ahead are going to be very interesting.

March 14, 2020
Culture, democracy and coronavirus

By Dayo Sobowale

It will be an understatement to say that the world is held by the throat and in throes of the deadly coronavirus. This deadly pandemic is redrawing human culture, diplomacy, business and politics in a way that no one could have    foreseen, even as early as the start of 2020, the year that it has chosen to scare the human race and make it scamper like a wet chicken in its wake. Coronavirus is a disease with no known cure yet, according to the World Health Organisation. I pray   a cure is found for the virus urgently. Today however, I want to dwell on situations that are man- made and have always been with us as a modern society, globally. These are situations    which we have ignored and allowed to fester and rot such that    at the end of the day, they are having the same lethal and murderous effect on our civilization and culture. Just     like   the coronavirus that has sneaked in on us, like a thief in the night, against an unsuspecting and unprepared world.

Let me start with the major news items of last week aside from the coronavirus which has shut down nations like Italy and is threatening the US and   world economy. It   has rattled the US President Donald Trump on his reelection chances which hitherto has hung on the performing economy he liked   to boast so much about .In Nigeria the famous and outspoken Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi was dethroned by the Governor of Kano State and banished to exile in a town in Nassarawa State. In Russia   a modern communist state, President Vladmir Putin is tinkering with the constitution to prolong his power and tenure. He     has weaponised marriage between a man and a woman as the basis of human existence    and Russian culture and    is using it as    a political   tool to revamp the Russian constitution. He is backed to the hilt in this ploy by the Russian Orthodox Church which had been in the cold since the Russian Communist Revolution of 1917. In the EU there is a clear clash between lucrative sports competitions like football and health, over the containment of the coronavirus. Just like a European   commentator noted grimly   this week   that before coronavirus, the migrant was the enemy but now the corona infected migrant is the   enemy of xenophobic   Europeans. Which really is a dangerous development but which we shall look at in the way some EU governments are handling the pandemic so feverishly for now.

We go back again to the rise and fall of the Sanusi Emirship in Kano. History has just repeated itself because the grandfather of the dethroned Emir was dethroned by the first Premier of the northern region, the irreplaceable leader of the North the Sardauna of Sokoto   Alhaji Ahmadu Bello.   Sanusi’s grandfather    dared    the   democratic power of the Sardauna, himself a prince who really should have been the Sultan and   the Sardauna   used   his legitimate   democratic power   to remove him and send him to exile. The Sardauna who   was killed in the 1966 coup remains the darling leader of the suffering masses   of the North till    today because he was   a school teacher   and political leader who used   education to accelerate the development of the North to catch   up   with the South. Since   his demise Northern leaders have largely   feathered     their own nest at the expense of the Northern   poor masses, hence the suffering,   anger, violence and   insurgency all over the North nowadays.

In a way it is as if the former CBN governor now former Emir of Kano, was dancing to the tune of banishment and disgrace from office, given the way he lambasted both traditiona and democratic institutions which   have political authority over him during his reign. He reminded me of the Icarus   trajectory in ancient mythology Icarus was a famed engineer in ancient times who built flying objects and was revered for his genius. This got into his head and he decided to build a machine made of wax and strapped himself   to it for a flight to the sun,   which of course melted the wax and he plunged to his death. The former Emir forgot that we live in a democracy governed by elected officials and not royal blood. He perfected the friendship of the cocoyam in the midst of goats with those who put him in office and he     got   consumed   and lost his throne. To me this was a clear sighted   case of political suicide or   regicide, as you like, and I wish him happy rest as a private citizen of Kano in Nassarawa.

We move   on to say that it   is now possible to compare   the political culture in the west with that of Russia a nation that was the arch enemy of the US during the Cold War. Russia was communist and atheist during the Cold War and the Russian Orthodox Church was to be seen and not heard. But either under the Marxists or the Soviet Union, Russia had no sympathy for gay rights till today, just like Nigeria which has anti gay laws in place. Now a Russian leader is using culture and religion which he knows are popular with his people to elongate his hold on power and you cannot blame him since he has carried his people along so far.

Compare that with the west where you cannot publicly criticize gay people and   where the feminist movements have ruined the careers of men who had affairs with them or helped them in the past. President Vladmir Putin is trying to reform the social life in Russia in terms of criminalizing gay rights while at the same time putting that in a package of political reform to amend the Russian constitution to stay longer in office after his present tenure expires in 2024. He plans to stay in power till 2036 when   he is expected to be 83 years old. It is a plan    that is Machiavellian in nature but it is a move popular in Russia and much supported by the Orthodox Church of which 70 per cent of Russians are devoted worshippers. Putin has somewhat managed to put Russia on a higher moral pedestal than the west on marriage and gay rights and as a Nigerian whose people and government share such values he has my admiration, albeit    grudgingly    for his brand of democracy. Democracies worth their salt should be governments   of the people by the people and for the people. Not the near anarchist   type in the US   and   EU where the laws on hate speech have literally silenced dissent and is now fuelling xenophobia because people cannot say their inner feelings in public anymore. That really is the type of situation that breeds resentment against society and its mores and culture. It is a sure recipe for disorder and societal disequilibrium and I do not envy the future of Western culture and civilization for now.

We move on to the   coronavirus      menace   and    Europe   where empty stadia have become more common nowadays because of the corona virus in Europe, the seat of world sports. What started as a simple warning by the young Chinese owner of   a Milan club that his directors should not place sports above health is now the vogue in the fight to stem the spread of the corona virus in world sports. It is even feared that the 2020 Olympics in   Japan may be affected or postponed.

I expect both fans and footballers who earn fantastic weekly salaries should understand and know that life has no duplicate. The only solution is to pray for a cure very fast and I hope that happens soon. But the ways different nations have tackled the virus show t a lot about governance and the peculiar types of democracies. In the US the anti Trump media and   opposition Democrats are busy discrediting all their governments efforts to contain the virus. In Italy where it has killed over one thousand people, the PM has ordered regions and cities closed and sports suspended nationally and everybody is obeying and playing ball. In Germany, a true Federation, the Chancellor Angela Merkel cannot just issue national instructions on the virus but must leave it to the states or consult them before acting. In Nigeria even   though some states are taking actions we know that when it comes to funding they will go cap in hand to Aso Rock to ask for money over a matter that revolves around life and death and which the states   should handle in a true federation and not the unitary system perfected by military intervention in our politics. Sincerely I pray this corona contagion will soon go away for us to live our normal life. Once again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

March 14, 2020
What a generation!

By Ogochukwu Ikeje

Every generation is worse than the one before. No? Ask Mama or Papa or someone of their generation. They are likely to tell you that their world was considerably sane, that children were better behaved, and ladies covered up appropriately, unlike the picture of today’s streets where nothing is left to the imagination of the male beholder.

How did their generation unwind? Of course, they will not play the pope and pretend that there were no boyfriends or girlfriends in their days, or that they did not listen to music or dance enthusiastically. But they are sure to tell you that when they danced, their dance was nuanced, more detailed, more expressive, like art, and that word again, sane. Not the stomping and kicking, nor the offbeat twisting and turning of today’s azonto and shaku-shaku.

Was there violence in Mama and Papa’s day? Of course, otherwise there would have been no police and no jails. There was the occasional killer, the lone thief, even a highway robber (as the felon was once called, largely because he operated on the highways). You will feel the older generation’s horror and alarm as they broach today’s crime profile. But they need not bother. You also know the truth and are just as horrified as they are. Rape is now a pastime, as are murder, burglary, fraud, armed robbery, terrorism, kidnapping, and cybercrime, the last one being, perhaps, the EFCC’s worst nightmare. These days it is not uncommon to see in the papers pictures of as many as 40 young men, sometimes with a lady thrown in, lined up on suspicion of cybercrime or Yahoo, Yahoo, a common term in these parts. And it is not an isolated case in Ibadan, say, or Lagos, but a national malaise. Sometimes they are pictured with such odd items as a package of fetish or miniature coffin, complete with a juju man. The EFCC has their hands full. The suspects are having their day in court. But the army is growing by the day.

Bandits attack communities in Kaduna, Zamfara, Jigawa and other places, going from house to house, in some cases, robbing, killing and kidnapping people, rustling their livestock, and not just cows but donkeys or whatever they can lay their hands on. Sometimes the hoodlums are gunned down by police and military personnel, but like the Yahoo boys, their army is growing.

It is a peculiar era.

This week a polytechnic student in Anambra State, after carrying a pregnancy full term, reportedly threw the newborn out of her boyfriend’s first floor hostel room which served as maternity room. It is not difficult to guess her intentions but the baby survived, though with a broken leg, a barbed fence wire breaking its fall and preventing its certain death. Reports say the runaway mom was later handcuffed and advised to breastfeed her unwanted child in hospital.

This week two women were arrested on allegation of stealing two babies, while a 50-year-old man appeared in court for sexually assaulting an eight-year-old. The other day a machete-wielding man cut up a woman in Ogun State after chopping off her hands for daring to accuse him of stealing a phone. Also, a man burnt his five-year-old son’s fingers, mouth and buttocks for stealing fish. Throw in the report too of a 51-year-old man who sexually assaulted his 10-year-old daughter as often as pleased.

What sort of a generation produced that man, and the lady who reportedly poisoned her teenage daughter to death, and killed herself too just to get back at a husband who neither loved her nor cared for his children?

The National Bureau of Statistics once named Lagos as the state with the highest crime rate in the country followed by the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with Delta, Kano, Plateau, Ondo, Oyo, Bauchi, Adamawa, and Gombe taking their positions in the infamous ranking. But take another look. As per capital, the FCT with just over 3 million people is leader of the pack, with Lagos (22 million people) coming second.

Unemployment and poverty are among a raft of causes of crime in the country. What hope for the next generation?

March 14, 2020
El-Rufai and fresh Kaduna attacks

By Undertow

Whether the distraught people of Igabi and Giwa local government areas of Kaduna State attacked by bandits on Sunday would be reassured by Governor Nasir el-Rufai’s promise that security agencies would take the battle to the bandits is not certain. They were in mourning on Monday when the governor visited, and by their accounts, were deeply traumatised by the loss of over 50 of their compatriots to the bandits’ killing spree. Kaduna is of course not alone in experiencing and enduring the murderous rampage of bandits and other itinerant killers who have turned a wide swath of the North into a killing field, but last week’s killings made the front pages of national newspapers and stirred deep antipathy toward the killers as well as impotent governments. The governor’s response, unprecedented in its resoluteness, also made the gory news of the attacks, which were spread over some six communities, somewhat unusual.

Kaduna State has had a depressingly sizable share of the killings ravaging the North. Bandits, kidnappers, herdsmen and ethnic clashes have sucked the state into the red gullet of skirmishes and low-scale war. In his various responses to the bloodletting, Mallam el-Rufai sometimes became very controversial. For instance, addressing killings in the southern Kaduna part of the state years ago during his first term, the governor told newsmen that he had identified some of the attackers, whom he described as Fulani, and negotiated with them. More, he said to his incredulous compatriots, he had paid them to avert future attacks. Purchasing peace with money was an unusual thing until that time, and Mallam el-Rufai’s policy of financial appeasement was understandably met with derision and incredulity, not to talk of being repulsed by his clandestine gloating of sharing ethnic affiliation with the attackers. That he knew the killers, even if they were justified to claim retaliation as their motive, was, to many, deeply wounding.

It is unclear whether Mallam el-Rufai’s response to last Sunday’s fresh wave of killings was informed by the futility of his previous appeasement measures or by the ethnic identity of last Sunday’s attackers. But it is significant, and it may indeed be the high point of his condolence visits to the besieged communities, that he has sworn that there would be no negotiations with or amnesty for the attackers who have turned some parts of the state into war zones. He had been an apostle of negotiations, having himself proudly but disreputably practiced it at least once, though with dubious outcomes. It is thus a relief to many Kaduna indigenes that their governor has experienced an epiphany about the sterility of negotiating with bloodthirsty bandits. It may also be inadvertent, but when he spoke of denying amnesty to the bandits, he was probably alluding to some states in the North which short-sightedly offered amnesty to bandits and criminals.

Many northern states ravaged by bandits, rustlers and herdsmen have desperately reposed hopes in a solution that seeks to mollify the rage of the attackers. The states’ responses have been largely desultory, unscientific and even provocative. Indeed, overall, those responses have been foolish and futile. They betray an appalling lack of understanding of the cultural, political and socio-economic dynamics that fuel the low-scale revolt being witnessed in many states in the North. Even Mallam el-Rufai himself has, despite his vaunted analytical prowess, spoken sometimes crassly of the nature of the revolts and embraced panaceas that betray his panic and desperation. During his condolence visits last Monday to Igabi and Giwa LGAs, he spoke of wiping out the bandits, without correspondingly speaking to the predisposing factors fuelling the revolt and what could be done to manage or stifle them.

In Katsina and Zamfara, for instance, two states also reeling from bandit attacks, their governors have spoken glibly of negotiating with the bandits, offering them amnesty, and of course backing the exercise with financial inducements. These are counterintuitive measures steeped in brazen fallacies and intellectual laziness. There is of course a place for police or military action, to make criminals pay for their sins, but by negotiating with bandits and offering them amnesty, the governors seem to give the impression that banditry is nothing more than social deviancy. But it is in fact much deeper and wider than that. Until the governors appreciate the reasons that have seemed suddenly to trigger the conflagration being witnessed in the North, they will be unsuccessful in managing a crisis that is also worsening and becoming mystifying. If anyone should be incapable of understanding the crisis, it was not thought that Mallam el-Rufai would number among them.

But on Monday, newspapers quoted and paraphrased him as saying the following to the stricken communities which he visited: “If not for the security agencies prompt intervention, they would have wiped out the villages. I also came to apologise for our failure to protect you fully, we are doing our best to minimise such incidents, you should continue to forgive us. But we are doing the best we can and we are hoping that this banditry issue will be addressed because security personnel are on ground to manage the situation. In Kaduna we have a vast land, if the security agents close one area, they attack another area. But it is our duty to wipe them out and until we send them to their maker, the security agencies are taking the war to the forest and we are eliminating them gradually. The security agencies are doing the best they can, but they find it difficult to get to remote areas in good time due to poor access roads. The natives on the other hand also find it difficult to get to the security personnel due to poor GSM network.”

The Kaduna governor seems to set great store by military and police actions. He thinks the bandits can be wiped out. Yes, they should be wiped out. But they can’t be extirpated until the factors that encouraged them to take up arms against the state have been dealt with. Mallam el-Rufai should have at least acknowledged those factors; but perhaps, for a politician, the occasion was not the best to philosophise about the socio-economic, political, religious and ethnic underpinnings of the revolt that is enveloping much of the North and may yet prove catastrophic to the rest of the country. The federal government, particularly the presidency, has also lent weight to the orthodoxy of acquiring weapons and troops to deal a crushing blow to banditry which have made the highways and vast expanses of land unsafe for living and economic activities.

During his condolence visit, the governor also apologised for the government’s inability to protect the villagers. He said it was the duty of the government to send the terrorists to their maker. Mallam el-Rufai is an emotional man, often carried away by the smallest triggers and provocations. And despite his rhetorical gifts as a notable and sometimes excitable polemicist, he is also often inconsistent in his approach to grave issues. His allusion to sending bandits to their maker and wiping them out should be understood from those idiosyncratic perspectives. Can the governor be trusted to do something substantial about the bandits? It is unlikely. He can lean on the government for more troops to be deployed in his state, and more firepower and airpower. But the hard task of identifying the factors that triggered the revolt all over the North, and the still harder task of cobbling together measures to curb the madness and rebellion of dispossessed and angry youths will very likely elude him and put an inordinate strain on the state’s lean resources. His vicarious apology is also both inappropriate and insufficient.

Rather than the glib talk of wiping out the so-called terrorists from Kaduna or, like the presidency is wont to do, paying frequent condolence visits, perhaps it is time Mallam el-Rufai acknowledged the barrenness of his panaceas, when he unwisely negotiated with and paid terrorists who subjected Southern Kaduna to mayhem. After all, those so-called foreign terrorists he claimed to have paid off have not proved any different from the local terrorists who have continued to subject the same areas to attacks, significantly for the same reasons. It is also time he saw the wider dimensions of the revolt unnerving the North, a revolt whose causes are neither limited to Kaduna State nor triggered by the state’s peculiar and intractable dynamics. The causes of the revolt are extensive, complex and rapidly becoming exacerbated. Northern governors must, therefore, come together to find radical and comprehensive solutions to the problems ravaging the region. And the solutions must involve urgently jettisoning age-old cultural, religious and economic paradigms and stereotypes. It is hoped that they have the courage to embrace the appropriate measures, and that the problem is not already too ossified and too resistant to respond to their weak and half-hearted palliatives.

March 7, 2020
Will Buhari dump Amaechi?

By Sentry

What is really cooking in the Presidency over the renewal of the tenure of the Director–General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside? Will President Muhammadu Buhari dump his favourite godson, the Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, over NIMASA politics?

There were rumours in the last 72 hours that President Buhari has appointed Bashir Jamoh to replace Dakuku Peterside as the DG of NIMASA.

Peterside, who was appointed in 2016, will complete his four-year tenure on March 10, 2020.

But Amaechi, who is the Minister of Transportation, said he was not aware of Jamoh’s appointment, creating an impression that all is not well in the government.

SENTRY scooped that it is true that a process has been initiated to appoint Jamoh, but it has not been completed. A third force was said to be behind Jamoh to spite Amaechi. The leakage of the process caused the brouhaha over NIMASA DG.

Anaechi’s tone, however, suggested that he will not tolerate being sidelined. Will the minister have his way? Or will the President shun his godson?

Already, Governor Nyesom Wike has joined issues with the President for not appointing Rivers State indigenes to top positions.

March 7, 2020
Aftermath of 2019 poll: Is PDP broke?

By Sentry

At its 89th National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting during the week, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) opted to rationalise its staff at its National Secretariat in Abuja. Unknown to many, the party has been trying to survive since the conclusion of the 2019 general elections.

Before the poll, all manners of aspirants and candidates picked the party’s bills with slush cash. Strategy meetings were also held by the party in Dubai (UAE), London and in the United States of America. The permutations of those throwing cash around was that the party will soon be in power to recoup their investments.

But the first sign of the cash crunch came from a South-South governor whose candidate lost the presidential ticket of PDP. The aggrieved governor has since withdrawn his financial support for the party because he felt betrayed.

Although the party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, stepped in with his war chest to bail out the party for many months, he was said to have lost the steam as the sole financier.

Now, PDP is financially gasping for breath and the innocent staff will have to bear the brunt.

March 7, 2020
See Ogbemudia Stadium and die

Ade Ojeikere

Government has no business running sports. It shouldn’t be involved in funding sports, except the amateur cadres at big tournaments, such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, African Games and qualifiers, where the country’s flag and anthem are sung. Government should just provide the enabling environment for sports to thrive. The templates should be backed by laws from the National Assembly or/and State Assemblies, such that no new government jettisons laudable projects.

Indeed, Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki’s resolve to make sports a new economy underscores the revolutionary things that have trailed his four-year stay in governance. The governor’s dream is in tandem with what operates in saner and civilised climes. Obaseki’s new economy for Edo State isn’t just a dream, but one that has several examples in developed economies. Let me illustrate with just football in Spain, which is a developing economy like ours.

According to analysis from the professional services company, Sports Business Group, Spanish clubs spent £1.24 billion breaking the 1 billion-Euros mark for the first time, and more than doubling their expenditure from just two years ago. But there were also summer spending records set in Italy (£1.06 billion), Germany (£670 million) and France (£605 million).

Premier League clubs still led the way, though, with £1.41billion, although the net spent was only £575 million, the lowest since 2015. That net-spent figure also fell by £50 million since the league shut its transfer window on August 8, more than three weeks earlier than many of its European peers. Guess what, the English teams, having learned from their folly, are moving to revert to the old order in the transfer market by November, having seen what they lost as revenue to the early closure of the transfer market on August 8.

The biggest fillip that the national sports festival would have in its over 20 years history is that the 20th edition would be held in a seemingly new stadium with state-of-the-art facilities. Ogbemudia Stadium’s renovation signposts the rebirth of dead sporting activities in the country, such as the Ogbe Hard Court, which laid the foundation for the emergence of great tennis patriots, such as Nduka Odizor, Veronica Oyibokia, Nosa Imafidon, Nosa Amadin et al. Ogbe Hard Court opened a new vista in sports marketing in the country as the competition was bankrolled by companies, not wholly government. The tournament was rated in the tennis circuit and attracted such eminent stars as Loyo Moyo. Companies such as Bendel Lottery, Guinness and others, provided financial support, with the tournament having a beauty pageant, where a bevy of Nigerian girls from across the country participated. Nigerians used the Ogbe Hard Court platform to showcase our arts and culture, which drew the awe of foreigners, who splashed cash on some of these products, especially tie and dye clothing and artefacts.

It is government’s primary concern to build facilities for citizens to recreate. Sports is another way by which government can make its citizens healthy. Sports creates a massive platform for employment. The youth, who form the majority of the populace, can, with the right sporting facilities, dissipate energies in sports, instead of being involved in societal vices.

Therefore, when a visionary government seizes the opportunity to develop sports by rebuilding existing structures which were abandoned to rot, there is the urgent need to remind such a government not to allow the billions of naira sunk into such laudable facilities rot again. This writer was pleased to hear that Edo State government would legislate marketing windows available at the renovated Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia Stadium for posterity’s sake. It was also cheery news to hear that the government wouldn’t immediately takeover ownership of the facilities. Rather, it would allow the stadium’s builders to teach knowledgeable Nigerians the basics of each facility and its maintenance brochures.

The beauty about effecting changes is that it is infectious. The renovation works at the Ogbemudia stadium has forced those who live around the place to renovate their building – many have painted the buildings to be in sync with what it happening. Those who have business concerns relevant to needs of athletes have upgraded, knowing the volume of business ahead of them.

Hitherto, the entrance into the stadium witnessed the conversion of the car park into practice grounds for basketball players and handball players, depending on the much busier team. That setting has been replaced with a befitting ring road construction. A second entrance has been introduced with a police post hidden just as you drive into the stadium. The original gate is there, except that the underneath of the stadium, which housed association offices, would now serve as merchandising platforms to leverage on wares emboldened by items relevant to Bendel Insurance and Edo Queens, both football teams owned by the government. Interestingly, the government plans to institute management boards for both clubs which would run as a business, whose budget would come from the House of Assembly after a budget defence. The essence is to nip in the bud sharp practices and make the management board accountable and prudent.

The main gate is ajar, but construction works going on suggest it would be more inviting when it is fully completed. It is, however, a departure from the past. Sports-loving fans are confronted with a beautiful building which served as the gymnasium hall but is being modernised to host a lot more sporting events.

But what arrests anyone who is conversant with the premises are the four lawn tennis courts, which reminded one of the golden era of Ogbe Hard Courts. The biggest innovation for lawn tennis is the presence of a centre court, essentially to host the men and women finals of the Ogbe Hard Courts, reminiscent of what we see at Wimbledon in England and other top Grand Slam events.. The centre court has its own fans’ setting which would be shared by gymnastics and weightlifting enthusiasts. Not forgetting the construction of another entrance, which would ease movement out of the premises in record time.

The road which separates the lawn tennis courts and the main-bowl of the stadium has been modernised with entrances meant for distinguished invitees. The three squash courts are a rarity here. Three matches can be played at the same time. Two of them can hold in one fibre glass hall. The stadium can host any international squash competition. This partially addresses the issue of what becomes of the facility after the Edo 2020 National Sports Festival.

Ogbemudia Stadium’s renovation didn’t affect its old structure, a great credit to the government. Rather, it expanded, with the complex now all covered. Fans would watch games without being beaten by rain.

My fear, however, are the lovely glass fittings which could be shattered in one volatile game, raising the poser of how culprits would be caught. My fears were doused with the presence of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) device fitted in the stadium, with a CCTV network that is five kilometre radius. From the CCTV, we could watch what was going on at the Benin City airport, including how planes landed. Picking irate fans from anywhere in the stadium was as easy as sucking oranges. The standby generators of high voltage are stationed to power everything in the stadium. Those who would be at the opening ceremony on March 22 would be awed at the lighting systems in the premises.

Since the 20th National Sports Festival heralds the new Ogbemudia Stadium, this writer is excited that the government thought it appropriate to build another warm-up swimming pool which would aid learners. It would also take the pressure off the Olympic size pool, just as it would serve as a basis of training Nigerians in swimming and diving. Indeed, any country which wants to win any multi-sports competition such as the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Africa Games etc, must have very good swimmers, meaning she must have a healthy swimming tradition back home.

Two world class swimming pools at Ogbemudia Stadium takes the pressure off privately-owned swimming pools and eliminates the talk that swimming isn’t meant for the hewers of wood in the society. The government could quickly construct diving pools in the place. The North Africans and the South Africans have dominated the Africa Games because of the rich swimming tradition. And one of the ways of keeping the sporting facilities busy is to organise programmes to discover, train and expose budding talents to swimming. It is only when we have the swimmers, for instance, that we can participate in competitions.

Edo State Deputy Governor insisted that: “What we have done in Edo State with the total refurbishment of the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium and other sports facilities is to create the enabling environment that will allow private partnership in sports business. Sports business is huge.

“There will be all sorts of merchandising businesses around these facilities. Sportswear shops, restaurants and other businesses will be opened.”

For those who keep saying ‘’See Paris and die,’’ this writer’s response would also be ‘’ See Samuel Ogebmudia Stadium, Benin City, and die.’’

What a befitting way to remember the late Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia.

March 7, 2020
The North-East governors and the daunting tasks before them

Sentry

THE governors in the North-East met during the week to find solutions to the myriads of problems facing the region. But how far can they go?

Their host, Governor, Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State, minced no words on the challenges in the zone.

Yahaya said in part: “The aim of this historic consultative meeting is to close ranks among our states and chart a way forward for the North-East sub-region; it will give us the chance to interface and dialogue on the ways to follow in order to attain our aspirations and objectives.

“Over the last decade, the North-East sub-region has been in the news for various reasons. A devastating insurgency that kills thousands of people and displaces millions, debilitating climate change effects that endanger the livelihood of millions of people along the Chad basin and beyond, coupled with desertification with its attendant environmental damage has led to a systematic decline in the quality of life of our people, making the NE the most underdeveloped sub-region in the country.

“As leaders, we have to take on these challenges with all sense of responsibility. More so because, the things that unite us are far more than the ones that divide us.”

Nigerians await new ideas from the North-East because the peace of the zone will determine the fate of the country in the next few years.

March 7, 2020
Wanted! Medical lifeline at stadia

By Ade Ojeikere

Barclays English Premier League matches have thrown up interesting signposts for growth in the game. It would take the eyes of diligent observers to pinpoint them. One of such highlights is how the league owners have ensured mechanisms to address emergencies arising from players’, coaches’, officials’, referees’ and other ancillary staff’s medical needs in the course of competitions. Not forgetting the insurance policies on related matters. These basics help the game grow tremendously since the actors know that their future and those of their family members are secured.

Nothing is left to chance when any of the actors is distressed. The medical mechanisms are such that every detail is considered, from the hosts, to the organisers, and the club whose member is affected. The monitoring process, as swift as it is, ensures that what one party may have considered as little is reviewed to avoid needless deaths.

It is important for us to compare what obtains in saner climes with what we have here, so it won’t come to us as a surprise if any unfortunate incident occurs at league venues (God forbid). The rusty cylinder through which oxygen was given to Felix Anyansi-Agwu at the Federal Medical Centre in Umuahia, Abia State, leaves much to be desired. In other climes, Ayansi-Agwu should have been taken to the hospital fitted with oxygen right on the scene of occurrence.

It showed the absence of a medical system in the league. It showed also that Anyansi-Agwu didn’t receive any proper care on the pitch. Thank God it wasn’t an emergency. Those playing games in Umuahia are doing it at a great risk; they are on the path to death, except the domestic league organisers address this anomaly. Where was the league body’s medical team? Or is the body leaving such daunting tasks to the clubs, which don’t pay the staff? Can such an arrangement save lives? Let’s read how it is done elsewhere.

On March 17, 2012, Bolton Wanderers midfielder Fabrice Muamba suffered a cardiac arrest during the FA Cup tie against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane. The midfielder’s heart stopped beating for 78 minutes as the stadium fell silent and medical staff huddled around him, the match was abandoned.

Medics spent six minutes trying to resuscitate him on the field after he fell, with no other players around him. He was rushed to the hospital and his life was saved but he had to pay the biggest price of retiring from the game he loved so much at 23.

The story would’ve been different for the Kinshasa-born lad if prompt medical action wasn’t carried out on the pitch. Former Chelsea goalkeeper, Petr Cech, who suffered a fractured skull playing against Reading, said: “The medical issues and the structure has changed for the better. Fabrice still has a chance to survive because of all the equipment around the pitch. It’s a great change because sometimes it takes only a few seconds to change a whole life and a whole career.”

It was miraculous that Muamba survived after collapsing for 78 minutes, but it was due to some fantastic response from the medical team.

Leicester City are third on the table with plenty of ambition, having won the league diadem in the past. A fixture against second-placed Manchester City was a show stopper, one in which the Foxes could reduce the difference between both teams. Victory for the Foxes would have made the runners-up chase a fight to the finish exercise. This setting usually sets coaches thinking because victory meant different things to Rodgers and Pep Guardiola. Guardiola tacitly accepts that Liverpool may have won the league title, but he still works on the arithmetical chance of the Citizens retaining their title, if the unexpected happens. Liverpool losing the remaining 12 games. Farfetched. Football is a crazy game. Not many have forgotten early how Liverpool struggled to beat West Ham 3-2 at Anfield on Monday night.

The top-of-the-table clash lived up to its reputation. For Nigeria international, Kelechi Iheanacho, it was a chance to hit back at Guardiola to show him what he has been missing. Rodgers’ decision to start Iheanacho was in sync with the Nigerian’s quest to be the match winner. It showed in the way Iheanacho went for every ball. The Citizens were scared, knowing the Nigerian could hurt them. But, like all things human, a freak goalmouth clash with Citizens’ goalkeeper meant the Nigerian had to be substituted on medical advice.

Iheanacho went down inside the penalty area after a heavy collision with Manchester City goalkeeper, Ederson. Although he finished the first half of the match, he was substituted at half-time based on the advice of the medical team despite the player wanting to continue.

The match was important for Leicester City but Manager Brendan Rodgers couldn’t jettison medical advice, knowing the implications of such defiance. But do we have these measures in place in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL)? If for nothing, at least to save the lives of our players, most of whom are breadwinners for their families.

Serious attention is given to medical care in sports. In fact, Sunday morning’s boxing game between two heavyweights, Wilder and Tyson Fury had potential medical issues which required immediate reaction. the first being the decision to throw in the towel, much to the consternation of Wilder, who wanted to continue the bout in spite of blood dripping from his ear, mouth and nostril.

We are told that Wilder wants to sack the manager who threw the towel in. Who cares? The man took the best decision irrespective of how it suited Wilder. If he didn’t the ring referee would have done so at a later stage.

In fact, Referee Kenny Bayless told ringside media men in a post interview that he was close to stopping Deontay Wilder’s fight against Tyson Fury due to the

battering the American was receiving. What Bayless’ confirmation translates to is that wilder’s corner was right to have thrown in the towel. to hell with the boxer’s views. He can keep his wages. the corner has a career path to guide religiously.

‘’It was a good stoppage in my opinion because in the minute’s rest between rounds before the stoppage I went over to Deontay,’’ Bayless told SiriusXM Fight Nation.

‘’I looked him in the face and I gave him the line that we referees give the fighters to let them know, ‘Hey, you’ve gotta show me something.’’

‘’They know that if you go back out there and you don’t show me something, then I might have to do my job and stop it. Deontay is a warrior, when I saw the towel come in out of the corner of my eyes and stopped it, Deontay’s first response was, “Why did I stop it?”

‘’Then I let him know it was his corner that stopped it, but I was very close to stopping it.’

Towards the middle of the fight, Wilder was bleeding heavily from his left ear though a ringside doctor did check and give him the all-clear to continue. It was later confirmed that his eardrum wasn’t actually bleeding, but his earlobe due to rings he wears in his ear.

“I thought that the blood was coming from the inside of the ear,’ Bayless added. “At the end of the round when I went over to check, the doctor was already in the ring while I was picking up the scorecard.

“The doctor looked at me and said, “He’s all right.” So at that point I left it alone.’

Wilder does have a rematch option which would result in a trilogy fight, but many are calling for Fury to fight Anthony Joshua in a blockbuster all-English heavyweight unification bout.

The boxing authorities didn’t allow Wilder walk home from the where he fought. He was taken straight to the hospital. besides, he has been told not to spare until May 2020. He also won’t box until after May. Precautionary measures meant to save lives not the sport. Food for thought for Nigerian sports administrators.

February 29, 2020
The military, politics and leadership

By Dayo Sobowale

The death of Housni Mubarak, Egypt’s president for 30 years who was overthrown by the Arab Spring Cairo street riots and demonstrations of 2011, provide ample opportunity to reflect on the role of the military in politics in Africa nowadays . Especially   in this era of Islamic militant terrorism which ironically Mubarak was able to contain to   claim political stability    and internal   security as the main    legacies of his    iron     rule   as Egypt’s leader   for many years. Mubarak’s predecessor as president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat was shot at a military parade in 1981 by Islamic Brotherhood militants and Mubarak himself was wounded in that attack. His successor after the Arab Spring, Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first elected president in open democratic   election,   died   unceremoniously after making a   public speech of defiance in a cage that brought him to trial,   after a military coup that saw the military emerge after the Arab Spring, to seize power and continue in the style that Mubarak used to rule Egypt for three decades. Egypt’s army or military played politics with Mubarak’s overthrow   and in retrospect, and with the power of hindsight, one can say it bowed in the direction of the violent storm of the Arab Spring to   survive   and save its boss. So, while true   democratic leader   President Mohammed Morsi was allowed to die in a trial cage, the Egyptian Army   under   President Abdul Fattah Sisi freed Mubarak and he returned to his house in peace and was given a military burial fit for a king and Commander in Chief of the Egyptian Armed forces this week. The military in Egypt   has shown that with its leadership in politics, dog does not eat dog, and   we will today ask ,or see why this is so, and how that phenomenon is working out in some nations in Africa including Nigeria.

Of course we know that the era of random coups or military intervention   in Africa is gone for good and we say good riddance to bad rubbish. We however contend that in Africa, the role of the military in government and politics   has not diminished. This is because while politicians in elective offices run governments in Africa’s democracies, most of the politicians in flowing gowns are no more than wolves in sheep’s clothing.   They have simply exchanged their braided caps and military fatigues, for flowing gowns and long caps as in Nigeria and Sudan. Of    political leadership in these nations   you can safely say   like the deceived   Patriarch Abraham in the bible, that ‘the hand may be that of Esau but the voice is that of Jacob. The   effect   of this type of political leadership metamorphosis, in the nature of the politics and democracy   we   practice   now, as well as its repercussion for   the security   of African nations involved    in this   political   regurgitation, is the focus of our attention today.

Today, Egypt is under the democratic rule of Mubarak’s former Intelligence Chief President Abdul Fattah   Sisi, who won a presidential election after the unfortunate Mohammed Morsi was accused of treason and removed from power. You can say easily that all is calm and peaceful in Egypt. This is because    all those young   rioters for democracy in the 2011 Arab Spring,    encouraged to come out by the Obama Regime in the US and Sarkozy’s France, have been   abandoned    by the West   and are either jailed or killed by the Egyptian army which played ball to avoid Mubarak being   killed by the Mobocracy of the Arab Spring and get political power back for the military establishment in Egypt.

This trend of power regeneration and capture in the chameleonic pursuit of democracy is quite familiar in many nations   in Africa today. We shall look at Nigeria and Sudan   for obvious reasons. Both nations have been ruled by leaders who were former military officers before.

Nigeria’s case of military dominance of our democracy is quite glaring and very much in plain sight. Former Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari were military presidents who were later elected to two presidential terms of office in subsequent   democratic presidential elections. In the case of President Buhari he lost elections before being elected in 2015. And although there are powerful non military politicians in our democracy like the Jagaban, only a fool will say that the two former military presidents are   not the dominant factors in our political system today. Indeed the senior former military president has never allowed his successors to run the nation with a free hand since his two terms   of   office expired.

In addition to this, Nigeria’s legislature is filled with former military officers of various ranks who still see themselves and their roles as that of an elite military officer cadre, bound together by their ethos of spirit de corps that notes again, like in Egypt that dog does not eat dog. Here     is why the issue of security comes in with regard to the Boko Haram menace. This is because it is my honest view that until Boko Haram is destroyed, the Nigerian military both past and present, in uniform or out of it, in Aso Villa or in the legislature, cannot boldly claim to have done its duty of protecting the sovereignty   and territorial integrity of Nigeria . According to reports, even the Nigerian Information Minister this week admitted that Boko Haram is trying to start a religious war in Nigeria by killing Christians. This is alarming but not new, as CAN has always made that tragic allegation. Indeed some Nigerians who recently escaped being killed by Boko Haram have said the terrorists were asking for their names and looking for IDs with Christian names as well as being   on the look out for civil servants who are believed to be rich   to be kidnapped for huge ransoms.

With Nigeria’s brand of democracy in which politicians have immense military and security background as in Egypt, Boko Haram should be history by now. Just    like the Egyptian Army has literally neutralized the Islamic Brotherhood that killed Anwar Sadat and which Mubarak held under lock and key as it were, to make life and property safe in Egypt until he was removed in the Arab Spring streets riots of 2011. Our leaders with military background should be our best assets and main deterrence in defeating Boko Haram. It should not be otherwise. Surely a word is enough for the wise.

This is because it is my honest view that until Boko Haram is destroyed, the Nigerian military both past and present, in uniform or out of it, in Aso Villa or in the legislature, cannot boldly claim to have done its duty of protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Nigeria

In     Sudan’s case the former military president Omar Al Bashir who ruled for almost the same 30 years like Mubarak has not been so lucky. The rioters in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, last year, were unyielding in asking that he must go and eventually he was brought to trial again in a cage. His successors, fellow former military officers tried to give him a soft landing but could not and he is still in jail. Worse still, the International Criminal Court which has a warrant on him for genocide in Darfur, has been assured by the new rulers in Sudan that he would be released to face trial for genocide at the World Court in the Hague. Which really is a lesson to all world leaders, especially in Africa, that they hold power in trust to protect the people that elected them. If the Sudanese former president eventually faces his nemesis on trial for genocide, then one can very well   say that ‘ the mills of justice may grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Once again, long live the federal Republic of Nigeria.

February 29, 2020