The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Desperate religionisation of Operation Amotekun

    By UnderTow

    Operation Amotekun, the nom de guerre of the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN), is assailed on all sides in desperate plots to neutralise or weaken it so that it is unable to meaningfully advance the regional plan to secure life and property in the Southwest.

    The plots may not always be rational, but those who antagonise Amotekun are not discouraged by the inanity of their arguments from attempting to undo the little progress so far made by the security measure’s advocates, particularly governors of the six Southwest states of Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Lagos and Ekiti. In order to survive, the security network must now fight on three fronts, to wit, ethnic, religious and legal. It has a herculean fight ahead of it, particularly in the coming months. The option of failure, it has become abundantly clear to every south-westerner, does not exist.

    Shortly before the commissioning of Amotekun on January 9, 2020, the governors encountered their first opposition when Attorney General Abubakar Malami poured cold water on the security outfit by casting doubt on its legality. Shortly after the commissioning, Mr Malami, who is also the country’s Justice minister, declared Amotekun illegal. That declaration triggered such an uproar that it brought back the dark memories and debilitating politics of the June 12, 1993 annulment. And emboldened by Mr Malami’s opposition to Amotekun, a few key northern leaders, including the supposedly progressive former governor of Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, began to rail against the security measure, describing it as a primer for secession. How they came to that hysterical conclusion remains baffling.

    While Mr Malami’s legal arguments against Amotekun were still puzzling observers, the ethnic arguments, which were nothing but a pastiche of guesswork, bore no relation to reality. As Amotekun advocates were trying to grapple with the ethnic and legal booby traps being erected by its opponents, from unlikely quarters came another set of opponents cloaking themselves in religious robes.

    Early this week, the vice president of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria, Abdur’rasheed Hadiyatullah, came up with the stupefying argument that since Amotekun, which is the Yoruba word for Leopard, was mentioned in the bible, then it must ipso facto be a Christian ploy to fight Southwest Muslims. Armed with that errant religious argument, he said it would be inadvisable for Muslims to lend support to the security measure, irrespective of its laudability.

    Said Sheikh Hadiyatullah in Osogbo, Osun State: Amotekun is a subtle method of further Christianization of the Southwest by its promoters in their usual manner of having political and power dominance over the Muslims in the region. It is another elusive way of establishing a ‘Christian-dominated State Police Force whose affairs would be designed and determined from the Church at the expense of the Muslim majority in the region.

    Amotekun is a coinage from Jeremiah Chapter 5: Verse 6 of the Holy Bible, which reads, ‘Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.’ It was once advertised that any applicant for the purpose of recruitment into the outfit should produce a birth certificate from a church as a precondition for qualification.”

    Sheikh Hadiyatullah did not indicate how the mere mention of Amotekun should be equated with Christianisation, nor did he seem to appreciate the confusion he obviously created for himself and his audience when he narrowed Operation Amotekun, a Southwest initiative, to Osun State. By referencing the demographics of Osun State, he was unwittingly suggesting that his fear of Amotekun is limited essentially to Osun State and the protection of what he deems to be the Muslim majority of the state. Furthermore, he did not even attempt to substantiate the alleged advertisement for recruitment, which he said churches had put out to the public.

    Sadly, Sheikh Hadiyatullah seemed unable to understand Operation Amotekun. It is strange how the sheikh appeared inured to the pains ramped up in recent years by the large scale insecurity overwhelming the formerly peaceful Southwest, a large-scale breakdown of law and order which the measure is designed to address. It is even more shocking that given the recent experiences of most Nigerians, in nearly all parts of the country, where banditry and insurgency have shown no religious colouration, anyone, not to say an enlightened cleric, could equate a measure designed to restore safety and security in the Southwest to one religion or the other, especially when such a measure was inspired by politicians and governors, not priests and clerics. Other than Boko Haram, there is no record of abductors differentiating the religion of victims before executing their nefarious deeds. And when herdsmen attack farmlands, there is no record of them finding out the religious beliefs of their victims before ravaging their farms.

    But the Osun State governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, has given a fitting response to the desperate, concocted and illogical religionisation of Operation Amotekun. Speaking through his spokesman, Ismail Omipidan, and obviously bothered by the fallacies and discord being promoted by Sheikh Hadiyatullah, the governor argued: “If you sit down with those peddling the misinformation on Amotekun, they probably do not understand the basis of the argument they are making.

    Apart from the social media misinformation about Amotekun being taken from the Bible or whatever, there was no time the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) was part of the meeting when most of these decisions were taken. And if CAN has never been part of the decision, how will you ascribe it to a particular religion? I think it is important to make that clear that there is no recruitment based on church birth certificate…I may not be able to speak for the people generally, but I’m speaking for Osun State because they (Sharia Council) have been addressing the press in the last three weeks from Osun, and I ask, why Osun? Is there any special interest in Osun? I’m not sure Osun is the headquarters of the Supreme Council for the Southwest. I am not sure of it. Why Osun?”

    Mr Oyetola is not the only governor stepping in for Amotekun. The other five governors, PDP and APC alike, have been vociferous in standing up for the regional security measure. They will of course be mindful of all the arguments of naysayers, but if their statements so far are any guide into their minds, they appear determined to press forward with Operation Amotekun. Governor Rotimi Akeredolu has been unequivocal; Governor Kayode Fayemi has been persistent; Governor Seyi Makinde has been exuberant; Governor Oyetola has been sprightly; and the Ogun and Lagos governors have put their money where their mouths are. More encouragingly, the Southwest itself, Christians and Muslims alike, have been delirious with joy and enthusiastic in their support for the regional security measure.

    No one knows exactly how Operation Amotekun will eventually look like when it begins operation, both in terms of its composition and its legal framework, whether it will in fact be much fatter than originally conceived or, in view of the strident federal, ethnic, and religious opposition to it, it will be much thinner than required for its survival. But whatever shape it eventually manifests, its advocates hope that Operation Amotekun will do a yeoman’s job in making the Southwest the safest region in the country. Herdsmen and other parochial regionalists fear it, and government officials and their paid agents cast sheep’s eyes at it, but it will survive and hopefully not disappoint the region, regardless of the not-so-clever attempt by the government to subsume it under the police establishment. In fact its survivability seems more assured now than ever, partly and ironically on account of the strident, ethnic and religious opposition to it.

  • Are Secondus’ days numbered despite street protests?

    By Sentry

    Behind the façade called street protest by some stalwarts of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is a looming implosion to remove the National Chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus. And the last straw Secondus is clinging to is the street protest to prove that he has been providing a responsive leadership.

    Party leaders, especially governors are tired of Secondus because of the performance of the party in the last general election and standalone polls in Kogi and Bayelsa among others.  The aggrieved leaders vented their spleen at the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the party when only eight PDP governors attended the session. Even at that, to save his face, the PDP national chairman was combative (like a trade union leader) at the session when it was evident he was talking to a deaf audience.

    Read Also: Ihedioha: Secondus leads protest against Supreme Court Judgement

    But despite Secondus make-up, PDP governors and some influential leaders are already shopping for a new national chairman from the South-West. Top on the list is a former Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, who was disgraced out of the party as its National Secretary.

    It was learnt that high-stake consultations have started on the future of the party beyond Secondus. It is left to see how Secondus will weather the storm.

    A PDP stalwart told SENTRY: “The battle for 2023 is beginning internally within our party through massive house cleansing. We won’t take things for granted any more. If our leaders are to choose between Secondus and Oyinlola, I can tell you that Oyinlola will receive an overwhelming support.

    “Even the Board of Trustees (BOT) will be sanitized. Enough is enough.”

  • The US and the rest of us

    By Segun Ayobolu

    Should countries like North Korea and Iran, for instance, somehow get obliterated from the face of the earth, would the world become a safer, more secure and stable place? The answer would be yes if the fundamental principles of the foreign policy of successive governments of the United States – Republican or Democrats – are taken as gospel truth. But nothing could be more false. The reality is that the United States, which has the greatest capacity to do the greatest good and promote the cause of peace in today’s world, is also the most lethal and unpredictable threat to the continued existence of humanity. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the twin towers in New York, President George Bush fingered Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the ‘axis of evil’ and declared the commencement of what he christened the war against terror. US troops have since been bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq in what is turning out to be an unwinnable war despite the asymmetry in power disparity by the combatant parties in those distraught territories.

    The insatiable US greed to control the vast oil resources of the middle east is fundamentally at the root of the blood drenched, killing fields that formerly stable, even if undemocratic, countries like Syria, Iraq and Libya have become. These are countries where the US championed regime change without strategically thinking through on what would replace the dislodged extant stable order. After the terror attack of September 11, 2001, President Bush said “America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world”. Of course, the renowned linguist, philosopher and social analyst at MIT, Boston, Professor Noam Chomsky, incisively debunked any such platitudinous nonsense.

    In Chomsky’s words in 2003, “A lead analysis in the New York Times stated that the perpetrators had acted “out of hatred for the values cherished in the West as freedom, tolerance, prosperity, religious pluralism and universal suffrage”. Glaringly missing from the U.S. media’s coverage was a full and realistic account of U.S. foreign policy and its effects around the world. It was hard to find anything but a passing mention of the immense slaughter of Iraqi civilians during the Gulf War, the devastation of Iraq’s population by U.S -instigated sanctions throughout the past decade, the U.S.’s crucial role in supporting Israel’s 35-year occupation of Palestinian territories, its support for brutal dictatorships throughout the Middle East that repress local populations, and on and on. Similarly absent was any suggestion that U.S. foreign policy should in fundamental ways be changed”.

    It is instructive that Saddam Hussein was once a good boy of the U.S., which amply equipped and strengthened his Iraq army considerably. Yet, the same U.S. was to turn against Saddam and heavily armed Iran in that country’s long drawn eight-year war with Iraq. Similarly, the Taliban was trained and armed by the U.S. to resist the then Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. The Taliban was later to turn those same arms and skills against what it perceived as American imperialism just like Osama Bin Laden, another one time good boy of the U.S. turned ‘traitor’ to his former benefactor. Under President Donald Trump, the diplomatic finesse, which gloved the iron fist of the U.S.’s foreign policy, has been removed. Trump trumpets America’s military might with boyish enthusiasm. In the U.S.’s latest face off with Iran for instance, Trump gloated about his eagerness to test some of his country’s $3 billion worth of new ‘beautiful toys’ – deadly sophisticated weapons – on that country.

    Not content with tearing to shreds the nuclear arms deal between Iran, the U.S. and a coalition of other countries and imposing punishing economic sanctions against that country, President Trump ordered the recent killing of one of Iran’s top Generals, Qasem Soleimani, for reportedly plotting an attack against Americans. Anyone who remembers how President George Bush and Tony Blair of the United Kingdom manufactured the lie that Iraq had developed weapons of mass destruction as justification to attack the country for no tenable cause, would naturally take the U.S.’s claim in this case with a pinch of salt. The more probable truth is that Trump simply utilized the lawless state murder of Soleimani as a diversion from his impeachment travails at home. Most American Presidents have often resorted to foreign military adventures against disproportionately weak countries to buoy up sagging domestic support.

    I find it disconcerting that many Nigerian analysts simply lap up as gospel truth what the mainstream western media churns out as justification for the U.S.’s all too frequent acts of international outlawry over decades. Many analyses of contemporary global terrorism, for instance, hardly refer to the U.S.’s history of lawless military adventurism that has made her an object of intense hatred in many parts of the world. For instance, the book, ‘Anti-imperialism: A guide for the movement’, lists no less than 40 acts of military aggression against other countries by the U.S. between 1898 when she seized the Philippines from Spain to its war against Iraq in 2003″. How can anyone analyze meaningfully contemporary Iranian politics without reference to the overthrow of democracy in the country by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1953 and how the country was nothing but the foot-mat of western imperialism before the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the slavish and servile Shah dictatorship? Is Iranian democracy, as imperfect as it may be today, not better than the brutal monarchical dictatorship in Saudi Arabia that enjoys the Trump administration’s unalloyed support?

    The U.S. is best placed today to champion the cause of the total abolition of nuclear weapons in today’s world. Yet, it prefers the clearly unrealistic and unsustainable policy of the few countries that currently possess these weapons to retain them while preventing others from joining the elite club. It cannot work. Indeed, if Nigeria had the right kind of post-independence leadership, she should today have developed nuclear capability on behalf of the black race. For, with the rise of illiberal, right wing governments across the economically, technologically and militarily advanced countries today, the attempted re-colonization in future of a continually weak and vulnerable Africa cannot be ruled out. The acquisition of nuclear capability by a black African country must be a future deterrent desideratum.

    Given the hardly bridgeable gap, at least in the imaginable future, between the U.S. and other countries in the arsenal of conventional weaponry, America will retain her considerable global military superiority even without nuclear weapons. She thus ought to provide moral leadership to the rest of the world in the direction of totally abolishing the latter category of weapons from the face of the earth. In the words of the historian, Professor Niall Ferguson, in his book, ‘Colossus: The rise and fall of the American Empire’, published in 2005, “On land the United States has 9,000 M1 Abrams tanks. The rest of the world has nothing that can compare. At sea the United States possesses nine “supercarrier” battle groups. The rest of the world has none. And in the air the United States has three different kinds of undetectable stealth aircraft. The rest of the world has none. The United States is also far ahead in the production of “smart” missiles and pilotless high-altitude “drones”. The British Empire never enjoyed this kind of military lead over the competition”.

    Yet, as Professor Chomsky has argued in several of his writings, so critical has the military-industrial complex become to the health of the United State’s economy that she has no choice but to be perpetually at war for one reason or the other. He describes this as America’s ‘Permanent War Economy’. According to him, at the end of the Second World War, there was the fear among economists and policy makers in the U.S. that the country would slip back into the depression of the 1930s because an end had come to the “big period of government stimulation of the economy” that the war afforded. In his words, “See, the truth of the matter, and it’s very well supported by declassified documents and other evidence, is that military spending is our method of industrial management – it’s our way of keeping the economy profitable for business. So just take a look at the major declassified documents on military spending, they’re pretty frank about it. For example, N.S.C. 68 (National Security Council Memorandum 68) is the major Cold War document, as everybody agrees, and one of the things it says very clearly is that without military spending, there’s going to be an economic decline both in the United States and worldwide – so consistently it calls for a vast increase in military spending in the United States…”.

    Thus, every President of the United States, Republican or Democrat, has expanded military expenditures and sought one reason or the other to engage in foreign military adventures. America makes good business selling military equipment to other countries, including poor and impoverished ones, while investment in military research through the Pentagon also aids innovation and breakthroughs in other areas of advanced science and high technology. According to the late Professor Howard Zinn in his book, ‘A Peoples History of the United States’, “Randall Forsberg, an expert on military expenditures, had suggested during the presidential campaign of 1992 that “a military budget of $60 billion to be achieved over a number of years, would support a demilitarized U.S. foreign policy, appropriate to the needs and opportunities of the post-Cold War world”. However, the military budget kept increasing, even after the fall of the supposed target of the military buildup, and by the end of Clinton’s term was about $300 billion a year”.

    What would it take to fundamentally shift public expenditure in the U.S. from destructive military to productive social spending? Professor Zinn’s answer: “A radical reduction of military budget would require a renunciation of war, a withdrawal of military bases from around the world, an acceptance, finally, of the principle enunciated in the UN Charter that the world should renounce “the scourge of war”. It would speak to the fundamental human desire (overwhelmed too often by barrages of super-patriotic slogans) to live at peace with others”. Can the U.S. change herself fundamentally enough to lead the world in this morally ennobling direction? It is not impossible under the leadership of a person like Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential aspirant, who categorically describes himself as a socialist. But that seems a far from realistic possibility.

  • Change, politics and humanity

    By Dayo Sobowale

    Real   change  came for the EU and UK during the week when the EU Parliament finally agreed the Brexit Deal and Britain left  the EU on January 31.  Also    while  the impeachment of the US President Donald Trump was gathering  steam in the US senate, the US President found time to announce his Middle East  Plan   midwifed by his son in law,  which was  nothing but a one sided plan  to buy out the rights of the Palestinian  with  huge American dollars, and create  the impression of looking for peace when all  that was being done was to provoke  the helpless Palestinians. During this same week over 40 Heads of Government gathered in Israel  to commemorate 75 years since the Germans under Adolf Hitler murdered over   one million Jews  at  Auschwitz  in the Holocaust just  as the Anglican Church Lagos Diocese at  the Marina  continued with its choice of the tune of Hitler’s Germany  as its Diocesan song.

    All  these actions on the world stage this week  have   three things  in common.  They  are brazenly  political for the simple  fact  that politics  is ubiquitous   either  with diplomacy or in gas chambers. The three have a rich  historical  background that warns that  history  cannot  be ignored . And  all  three smirk  of impunity or  levity or even  callous  indifference  and I really  mean that and will  explain  the   harsh  words on the three issues.

    First  on the conclusion of Brexit, there is no doubt  that the UK is deeply polarized as the Brexit vote was a  narrow  one   with 52 %  for Brexit and 48%  for  Remain. But  the  Remain machine tried to sabotage Brexit  and leaders like Boris Johnson and Nickel  Farage  showed  exceptional  tenacity and persistence  to see Brexit  through and they  should be commended  for their politics of  persistence in showing that  the majority  must  have its way. This has always been  the way and manner of British politics with its first past the post  democracy  which at  the end was what the consummation of Brexit was all about. From  Jan 31, 2020 the UK   became an Island unto itself, separated in word and deed from Mainland  Europe  geographically   as it   has always   been  by the  Ocean    but   now politically    too and it must now grapple and wrestle with the   economic and demographic consequences   of its actions in fulfilling the terms and conditions of its Brexit   strategies  and decisions.

    On  the revelation of the Trump Middle East Plan in the middle of his impeachment, it is not difficult to fathom  why. One  could  call it  diversionary and  show  that even  the Palestinians have a price in spite  of their  hatred of the Israelis.  But  it is certainly  a bribe  which the Palestinians must perceive rightly  as an  affront  or insult,  because it  does not return their lands seized in 1967 during the Six Days War  to them.  In  addition both Trump and his  guest the Israeli  leader and current  PM Benjamin Netanyahu   have tenure  issues as they  are  both  not sure of being around for  sometime to implement their dollar  dangling bribe to split  the ranks of Palestinian leadership. Netanyahu is facing bribery  charges and has just been refused immunity by the Israeli  Parliament  and must   face  his  charges if he has any respect  for transparency  and the rule of law as he should as an elected leader in Israel.

    On  Trump’s impeachment trial there is  no doubt that  history may repeat  itself  and he may  not be removed from office  as indeed no American  president  has  ever been so  removed in the senate.  But  again the fight to call or  not call  witnesses will  decide how fast or slow this senate  impeachment   trial  will  be.  Then  there is the issue of the Bolton book, ‘ the Room where it happens ‘.  It is only in the US that a security  chief  will  breach his oath of confidentiality  to publish  a book implicating a president who  recently  fired him. The Democrats  see things differently and would honor and give  credibility  to  any information from any quarters that  buttress  their impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice   against   the US President.  They  however meet  their match  in the Republicans lawyers  who  have rattled the democrats with searching answers and observations that  make the impeachment charges less than legal and credible.  Anyway  the impeachment  trial  continues and one   cannot    but wonder  if  at  the end, the Impeachment  Managers  themselves will not  be in the dock   for the   charges  they have so swiftly    and    hurriedly   made  available  to the senate  to ensure that Trump  will not contest the 2020 presidential  elections;  while shielding their presumed but not yet  elected presidential  candidate Joe  Biden  and   his  son from any questioning  when  the two  are  blatantly    and with impunity, at the center of the impeachment  charges against  the US president.

    The 75th Anniversary  of  the deaths at the gas chamber at Auschwitz was a reminder to the world of man’s inhumanity to  man in the way the Germans  under  Hitler’s   Nazi  Germany   carried   out the  death of 6m Jews. This particular  remembrance came at a time when anti  Semitism  is on the rise globally.  The   German  nation since unification in 1990  has  been trying  to atone  and ensure that a horror and hatred like the Holocaust  never  repeats itself.  Retaining  the tune of its national anthem  is part of that  compunction and mortification.  Again  I do not see the sense in the Anglican Church in Lagos Diocese in Nigeria in 2020  singing  a new Diocesan tune set like  the anthem  that the Nazis used to  kill  6m  Jews in gas chambers  during  Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror  in World War 11.  I  say  the choice of that  tune and the refusal  to take another look  at  it, shows  a lack  of humanity on the part of those who  made the choice. It  shows clearly  an  insensitivity and   nonchalance for  history and  the horror  of the Holocaust.  I   feel  it is a Christian  duty to point this out and will  persist  if  the impunity  and  nonchalance  of those who  made the choice  persists,   for  the simple  reason that  the tune is a recall of horror  and a disgrace to  humanity in being used  as a compulsory  Diocesan  song.

    At  a time when  Nigerians especially  in our part of the nation are increasingly bothered about their  security and safety of life and property,   religious  institutions like the Anglican Church in Lagos should provide  succor,  sanctuary  and   spiritual  leadership.   A  Diocesan song is  like a national anthem and should be sung with  gusto,  love and respect.  Recalling the Holocaust  during such  a song in Nigeria is an avoidable  and historical distraction and an ugly one too because  it is in bad  taste  and  very  lacking in respect for human  dignity and love of humanity.  Once again long live the Federal  Republic of Nigeria.

     

  • Edo 2020, Shaibu & Dudu-Orumen

    By Ade Ojeikere

    Thoughts of finding myself in Benin City enroute my village in Owan East Local Government Area raises my adrenalin, having spent close to 40 years in the ancient city, either schooling or spending the holidays in the old Government Reservation Area (GRA). Such visits provide the opportunity to see my friends and pay surprise strolls around the neighbourhoods I walked through in my 40-year stay there.

    I cherish such surprises except that they remind me of being older, with many people greying. Many of my friends wonder how I’m not growing grey. They reach out for any object when I remind them of the efforts they made to carry Afro and all manner of haircuts of yore. Indeed, when I want to laugh, I flip through my photo albums of Government College Ughelli (GCU) and enjoy what I see. I have stopped looking at them because many of them have left this sinful world. They were very close to me. Rest in peace Paul Otobrise, Franklin Owho, Lucky Okpodu, Moyo Achora, Morgan Ovuede et al.

    Coming home for societal activities gives room for one to savour the sweetness of the village setting, aside eating fresh meals – bush meat, snails, pounded yam and other delicacies which make you belch. Not forgetting the fruits which are got from the bush. Everything in the village is pure and fresh. The candle lights at night reminds one of scenes read in novels as a young boy.

    Going to Benin City comes with the task of seeing the renovated Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia Stadium, especially the adjoining competition venues, ahead of the 20th National Sports Festival. The Edo State governor Godwin Obaseki saddled the task of hosting the most successful festival to his deputy Phillip Shaibu, although the state has a sports commission headed by Godwin Dudu-Orumen. Dudu Orumen wants to work with Shaibu, knowing that a successful games will give the state the fillip of growth and return it to the sports city which the late Ogbemudia thought of, when he made the defunct Bendel State the sports hub in Nigeria.

    The Ogbemudia era in sports in the region is gone. But Delta State, cut out of the old Bendel State has continued the tradition, with Edo spoiling to unseat their neighbours. Daunting task for Edo but Shaibu and Orumen don’t think so, insisting that the bricks laid for a new dawn in sports in the state have factored all the tricks Delta have built on in the past. Will the 2020 National Sports Festival be a straight fight between Edo and Delta? It won’t be as simple as it is being presented. States such as Lagos and Rivers, which have done well in the competition, are keeping sealed lips, preferring to do the talking on competition venues. How far can Shaibu and Dudu-Orumen go?

    Today, his main preoccupation is delivering on the promise of the Edo State government to host the best sports festival in the annals of the Games in Nigeria. Recently, when Phillip Shaibu, Edo State Deputy Governor who heads the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the festival, set up an eight-man committee to ensure successful hosting of the 3rd Edo State Sports Festival from which the state will pick its contingent for the main Games, he made Dudu-Orumen head of that committee.

    “This is no light assignment. On the contrary, the hosting of the third edition of the Edo State Sports Festival will have ramifications for the hosting of the larger festival for two principal reasons. In the first place, as we have said time and again, we are hosting this festival to win and when we say win, I mean win fairly unlike what has been happening recently where host states do everything lawful and unlawful to win. With Edo 2020 it will be different. We want to show that it is still very possible to win Games of the magnitude of the Sports Festival by sticking to the rules.

    “That is one. Another reason the hosting of the state sports festival is important is that it provides us with a perfect opportunity to test-run facilities and simulate logistics ahead of the main festival. As you know, the Edo State government has spared no expense and effort in either constructing new facilities for the Sports Festival from the scratched or refurbishing existing ones. We need to see how they work out ahead of the Games so that we can make the necessary adjustments in time for the festival,” Dudu-Orumen said.

    He spends more time outside of his office as he shuttles between visits to proposed facilities for the games and meetings with critical stakeholders for the successful hosting of the games. One such critical stakeholder is Deputy Governor Shuaib with whom the Edo State Sports Commission boss has been holding series of meetings to review the progress being made with regard to the successful hosting of the Games. Aside, the Deputy Governor, Dudu-Orumen has also been meeting with athletes and coaches whose inputs to the success of the Games are pivotal.

    “You can’t host and win on the strength of having excellent facilities alone. The human element is critical. Our coaches and athletes are the ones who will make this happen and we are sparing no expense to ensure that they are in prime condition when the Games begins.

    This is important because for us the hosting to win concept is not a hollow mantra driven by a surreptitious desire to win at all cost. We will only do what is fit and proper to win and there is no better way to do this than by providing our coaches and athletes with all they require to excel including motivating them to go the extra mile,” the ESSC boss stated.

    In addition to his preoccupation with excellent facilities and athletes’ performance, Dudu-Orumen has also been paying attention to the business side of the Sports Festival. He is looking beyond the important but intangible psychological benefits hosting the Games would confer on Edo State and its people to the more tangible and permanent economic benefits it would bring to the state. He believes that with the number of athletes and officials as well as other sports loving Nigerians and corporate organisations that will pour into the state for the two weeks the festival will last, the economy of the state will receive a major boost. He believes that small businesses too will thrive beyond the duration of the festival.

    As a critical component of this economic agenda, he has embarked on a vigorous marketing of Team Edo, a step he believes will not only free the state government from the burden of sole financing of the contingent for the 2020 Sports Festival but will ensure that going forward that the team would have strategic partners that would ensure quality and timely preparation of the contingent for future games.

    “We are working seriously on Team Edo marketing because it holds the key to future dominance of the state in sports in the country. We are currently holding discussions with a number of corporate organisations and are hopeful that we will make some headway, Dudu-Orumen said.

    Dudu-Orumen is optimistic everything will work out well in the end. He says so much time and effort and more important, commitment has been put into making the sports festival a success to make it fail.

    “Governor Obaseki and the Edo State government have thrown in a lot to ensure that we pull this hosting off and we do not intend to fail them”, he said.

  • Ile Arugbo: Will Bukola Saraki be more forthcoming on withdrawal of case?

    By Sentry

    A few weeks after boasting that Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq has crossed the lines over the demolition of Ile Arugbo (an inherited political sanctuary) of the late strongman of Kwara Politics, Dr. Olusola Saraki, there is suspense from ex-Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, on the sudden ceasefire.

    On Monday, the family of Saraki  sought an out-of-court-settlement with the Kwara State Government.  In a January 20, 2020 letter to the Attorney-General of the state, Salman Jawondo, counsel for Asa Investment, A.A Ibraheem & Co, informed the state government of the family’s readiness for an amicable settlement.

    The letter reads in part: “Pursuant to the advice and directive of the court on the above matter, that parties should explore settlement, our client has directed us to notify you of its disposition to explore settlement with a view to resolving the outstanding dispute between the parties in respect of the subject matter in contention.

    Read Also: The Gov Abdulrazaq/Sen Saraki land imbroglio

    “Consequently, we hereby request that you should use your good office to, as the Chief Law Officer of the state, make the necessary arrangement as to the time and venue where parties can meet and discuss.”

    Although it claimed it heeded to an advice by the judge handling the case, there appeared to be more than meet the eyes.

    Nigerians want Bukola Saraki to be more forthcoming on why it sheathed the sword without a legal fight.

    Could it be that the C of O of Ile Arugbo is missing? Was it true that there was no shred of evidence tendered in the court by the family on the allocation of the disputed land? Could Bukola Saraki have been careless without perfecting the title deeds of the land for eight years as a governor?

  • What does Kwankwanso want?

    By Sentry

    Still trying to recover from the pangs of the last governorship poll in Kano State, ex-Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso has been singing lullaby in the last few days after the Supreme Court sealed the fate of his political godson, Abba Kabir Yusuf, by declaring Governor Abdullahi Ganduje as duly elected for second term.

    He was pained by the judicial verdict that a video in circulation confirmed his political frustration. In March 2018, he had boasted that he will retire President Muhammadu Buhari and Ganduje from politics. But his prophesy turned against him.

    And as if the judgment was not enough, the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state, Alh. Rabiu Sulaiman Bichi, defected from the opposition to the All Progressives Congress(APC) barely two days after the Supreme Court affirmed Ganduje’s victory.

    The reality has dawned on Kwankwaso that for eight years, he has to be on the sideline in Kano politics. Will he regain his political grits?

  • Amotekun and Biafra

    By Segun Ayobolu

    IS it just merely fortuitous that the utterly unnecessary Amotekun controversy in the South West is coming at exactly the same time as Nigeria is commemorating 50 years to the end of the county’s three-year fratricidal conflagration – one of the bloodiest and deadliest civil wars in Africa? That was a largely ethno-regional inspired conflict among supposed brothers in which no less than two million lives were estimated to have been lost. This was in addition to the colossal loss in properties, businesses and infrastructure on a humongous scale. The absolutely avoidable arrogance and total lack of humanness in the response of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mallam Abubakar Malami, to the decision of the South West governors to set up the Western Nigeria Security Network popularly known as ‘Operation Amotekun’ shows vividly that the mindset that led the country down the ruinous path of war is still alive and well in some quarters in today’s Nigeria.

    In his brusque and uncharitable reaction to the Amotekun initiative the AGF, Malami, failed to acknowledge that the governors were responding to serious existential threats to their people throughout the length and breadth of the region largely by an assortment of heavily armed criminals.

    Anybody reading Malami’s position with little information about happenings in contemporary Nigeria could be forgiven for believing that the governors just woke up one day to engage in a fantastical enterprise just to flex muscles with the Federal Government and threaten the security of the nation. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Thousands of lives have been lost, maimed, raped and denuded of their humanity by these elements operating with impunity in the South West.

    However, Malami opts for a rigidly and narrowly legalistic position on the matter. As far as he is concerned, the relevant sections of the extant 1999 constitution place the responsibility for the defense of the country’s territorial jurisdiction and maintenance of security solely in the hands of the military, security and police agencies all controlled by the Federal Government. If these laws are patently not working thus endangering lives and property across the country, Malami does not see it as his responsibility, given the sensitive office he occupies, to help strengthen and reshape the laws as well as adjust them to the realities that confront millions of Nigerians daily. Nigerians he seems to believe are made for the laws and not the laws for Nigerians.

    In displaying an utterly discreditable deficit in emotional intelligence and a capacity for human empathy, the AGF does not even refer in a fleeting sentence to the huge scale of loss of lives and property in the South West, which prompted the governors’ action. He gives the impression that the laws as they exist are working quite efficiently and need no tinkering with. It is, of course, not impossible that he is on permanent mental vacation on some exotic resort while residing physically in Nigeria. Were Malami to face the reality, he would admit that in most states of the country today, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is virtually entirely dependent on the state governments for funding, equipment and operational costs. So much, then, for his deification and mummification of sections of the constitution that have outlived their usefulness; such would have since attracted the urgent remedial intervention of a more brilliant, objective and proactive AGF.

    A few weeks ago, the military high command gave the indication that soldiers will soon be withdrawn from the diverse operations in which they are involved across the country. In taking this decision, they argued that many of these areas have been stabilized and the police can now revert to their constitutional role of maintaining internal security while the military concentrates on its stipulated institutional role of defending the country’s territorial integrity. The bottom line is that those Unitarian sections of the constitution so gleefully cited by the AGF to thwart the Amotekun initiative have become worse than useless. It is dangerous at a time like this to have an AGF with a unitary mindset that seeks, against all canons of rationality, to impose a monist and monolithic security structure on a plural polity like Nigeria.

    It is unfortunate that revered elder statesman and former governor of Kaduna State in the Second Republic, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, could have inexplicably come to the conclusion that the establishment of the Amotekun initiative was a forerunner to the creation of an Oduduwa Republic in the South West. Nothing could be more preposterous as he offers no empirical or logical basis for this kind of assertion. The South West has been consistent in making a case for the re-federalization of Nigeria rather than giving any inkling of wanting to break away from the country.   It is indeed the rather reckless and extremist posturing of the likes of Balarabe Musa, Dr. Junaid Muhammed, Meyitti Allah spokesmen and other hot heads from the North that play into the hands of those who habour separatist designs for the country.

    When certain incredibly irresponsible voices from the North, contend that the retention of Operation Amotekun will cost the South West the presidency in 2023, they create the impression that they are a set of first class Nigerians who have the prerogative of handing out the presidency at their will to second hand citizens of their choice. This is brazenly unintelligent and counterproductive in maintaining the country’s cohesion and harmony. It is indeed the unidirectional thinking and excessively centralizing mind set of the likes of Malami, Junaid Muhammed, Balarabe Musa, Meyitti Allah and others that enable groups like the banned Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) to win converts and sympathizers to their secessionist causes. Nobody wants to be accorded inferior second class status in a country where we are all supposed to enjoy equal citizenship.

    Responding to the misgivings of many in the South East on the perceived marginalization of the region in terms of appointments after the 2015 elections, for instance, some members of the ruling party publicly stated that positions would be filled based on the electoral performance of the party in the different zones of the country. That was unnecessary and insensitive. Again, the strong armed response of the administration to IPOB’s largely ineffectual Biafra agitations only helped to further its cause in the minds of many people of the region. You can forcefully drive an organization underground; it is more difficult to eradicate the imprints of an idea from the minds of men.

    Instead of approaching the whole Biafra issue from an essentially hostile and uncompromising perspective, for instance, is it not possible to perceive Biafra as a national asset? Just as the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr is now a public holiday in the United States, is it out of place for Nigeria to have an annual National Biafra Day owned by all Nigerians? There would, in my view be two aspects to such an annual Biafra remembrance day. First, will be symposia, conferences and other activities nationwide that will apply the lessons of Biafra to contemporary experiences such that we will annually renew our commitment to ensuring that ‘Never Again’ would such a tragedy of colossal proportions be allowed to happen in our country ever again.

    On the more positive side, we would also celebrate annually the example of Biafra, which demonstrated the capacity of the black man to rise to the demands of scientific and technological development when faced with acute existential challenges. To demonstrate my point, let me quote extensively from a presentation by the late Professor Pius Okigbo at the First Obafemi Awolowo Foundation Dialogue in February, 1993. In his pungent words, “Why do I seem so confident that the Nigerian is capable of producing the technological change required to propel the country into the next century? I am heartened by the fact that it has been done before. The Nigerian civil war proved beyond doubt that with determination and a conducive environment, the Nigerian can be induced to recreate a technological civilization. The ‘Biafran’ scientific community was able to develop entirely out of purely local materials, weaponry that included anti-aircraft rockets, mortar bombs, land mines, tanks and armoured troop carriers, food substitutes involving the use of hitherto unused plants and crops”.

    Continuing, Professor Okigbo said, “They succeeded in building out of entirely locally fabricated materials, a giant petroleum refining facility and thereby made the technology so diffuse and more universally understood and applied than anywhere else in the world. They installed an air traffic control on wheels for use in an airport utilized only in the hours of darkness. Yet, save the airport of Johannesburg, that airport was able to handle more flights in those few dark hours per night than any other airport in Africa operating twenty four hours a day. These are solid technological achievements started and learned in less than three years of wartime. It gave at once to the blacks anywhere the confidence that here at last, since the iron age, it has been possible to create in black Africa a truly indigenous technological civilization”.

    To fully liberate the potentials of Nigeria for rapid socio-economic advancement including ensuring maximum security for her people, the likes of AGF Malami and his fellow travelers must find a quick way of escape from the unitary mindset that inhibits creative intellectual exertions.

  • A nonsensical piece of legislation

    By Undertow

    The pressure to justify a parliamentary seat can sometimes impel lawmakers to extravagant displays of legislative fecundity. House of Representatives member Sergius Ogun (PDP-Esan Southeast/Esan Northeast), a lawyer, is one such member. Representing his constituency a second time, after obviously serving with some noticeable distinction in his first term, Hon Ogun has sure-footedly proposed a legislation to bar public officers from overseas medical treatment without first securing the approval of the courts. It is not clear how he hopes to make it work, but he fully expects it to work once the bill has been passed. The public officers targeted by the bill include the president and governors.

    In his opinion, without imposing such strictures on medical treatment abroad, Nigeria’s healthcare facilities would remain undeveloped or obsolete. By the careful wording of the bill, an indication of his legal profundity, Hon Ogun ensures that the obstacles public officers would surmount in securing approval would be high and almost impossible to scale. His arguments are plain and easy to appreciate. Said he: “If those of us who can afford, all go abroad for treatment, what will our constituents who cannot afford treatment in Nigeria or do not have access to quality medication, do?  You can see it on AIT(a private television station) every time, how our constituents are always pleading for support to attend to one ailment or the other; that’s AIT CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), but  what are we (public office holders) doing for our people in terms of quality health care?  The purpose of the Bill, is to help upgrade our hospitals to international standards, so that the billions we waste on medical tourism, will be saved and jobs can also be provided back in Nigeria.”

    It is impossible to fault his rationale. Not only have public officers abused overseas medical treatment, they have often carried on as if Nigeria’s healthcare facilities do not exist, nor are they worth any serious attention. For such a critical problem, could Hon Ogun’s legislation hope to address the matter, let alone curb it significantly? If passed, would that piece of legislation not violate one of the cardinal principles of federalism, one that enables each state to order its affairs as it deems fit and in accordance with state laws?

    Entitled “Public Officers International Medical Treatment Trips Regulation Bill, 2019”, the proposed bill states among other provisions that: *A public officer who desires to travel abroad for medical treatment, shall apply to the Federal High Court for leave to travel abroad for medical treatment, showing cause why he/she must embark on the medical trip abroad.

    *The court shall grant the public officer leave to travel abroad for medical treatment, when it is satisfied that the treatment being sought by the public officer is one which cannot be gotten within Nigeria and that from the showing of the public officer he/she has the legitimate means to undergo the treatment abroad.

    *A public officer applying for leave to travel abroad for medical treatment, shall file a motion ex-parte, before the Federal High Court, supported by an affidavit of legitimate means, deposed to by him/her with the following exhibits: (a) A duly signed medical report (certified true copy thereof) from a public hospital recommending further treatment abroad for the applicant. (b) A duly signed referral form, showing the name of the indigenous hospital visited and the applicant’s treatment history. (c) Results of laboratory investigations/tests conducted on the applicant, a copy of the applicant’s letter of appointment, a copy of the applicant’s last promotion letter (if any), a copy of applicant’s bank statement of account, a copy of applicant’s current salary pay slip and a copy of applicant’s Asset Declaration Form submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau.

    As far as technical efficiency is concerned, the bill is nearly unimpeachable. Its motive and clarity of purpose are also beyond cavil. The problem, however, is its practicability in Nigeria’s murky and convoluted political environment. Bills that are even more precise and worthier of support have fallen on the many and monstrous guillotines erected, often deliberately and cynically, by politicians and elected parliamentarians and government officials. Even if it escapes censure, Hon Ogun’s sponsored bill is unlikely to escape the said ubiquitous guillotines. The bill can be circumvented, and in any case the rich and powerful will always find a way to take advantage of its loopholes, as hard as lawmakers may work to plug them. The Edo federal lawmaker surely knows that Nigeria’s problem is not its laws, of which there is a plethora, but the discipline to obey and respect them, and the weakness and littleness of sanctions for those who breach them. And try telling someone on his deathbed that he could not make a recourse to the best medical treatment available in any part of the world. Matters like that could be easily emotionalise, even among the poor who should benefit from the elite’s full compliance.

    The bill, according to a newspaper report, has just been slated for second reading. Will it eventually pass? The chances are slim, though not impossible. But whatever happens to the bill, it is unlikely to pass as it is currently worded. Sadly, like virtually all other issues, conflicts and disagreements in Nigeria, the bill envisions the courts as the final arbiters. A huge number of elections end up in the courts for final decision, sometimes precluding even the voters from being the final determinant of who wins and who loses. Indeed, nobody loses election fairly, partly because Nigerians have shown little administrative acumen or moral uprightness in organising their polls. With many elections ending in the courts, lawmakers should find ways of inspiring laws that do not further empower or implicate the courts in resolving simple but admittedly important matters.

    What is even more damning is that, given recent events and court decisions, the courts themselves have scandalously proved not to be immune to either corruption or incompetence, or both. Hon Ogun’s bill proposes the courts as the sole and final determinant of who qualifies for overseas medical treatment, and when. But in recent years, the executive has spectacularly suborned the judiciary to its bidding, and the courts themselves have been eagerly and embarrassingly subornative. The executive branch is of course not alone in spooking justice; the political class, almost entirely, and the rich with their benumbing sarcasm against the courts, have also found or pushed for a common ground to thwart and contort the wheels of justice. How Hon Ogun expects his bill to navigate such an adamantly hostile environment to enthrone his noble objective of rebuilding Nigeria’s decrepit healthcare system is hard to say.

    But for whatever it is worth, let the bill make its tortuous way through the labyrinthine gridlock of the National Assembly. Far less noble and relevant bills, such as the ones on hate speech and social media regulation, are also already elbowing their way through Nigeria’s slow legislative mill. The international medical treatment bill is, alas, in noticeably bad company, but it should do far better than its discredited wayfaring companions. It will ultimately fail of course, despite whatever good it might do to the body politic, but it will at least be worth both the effort and public money for lawmakers to sculpt what many sceptics have dismissed as a piece of nonsensical legislation than waste public time and money pandering to the obnoxious twin bills designed to castrate public speech and social media life.

  • Ihedioha: Why PDP governors stayed away from street protest

    By Sentry

    Fresh facts have emerged that not all the leaders and governors of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) were in support of the street protest against the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, to seek the review of the judgment against ex-Governor Emeka Ihedioha.

    Unknown to many, there was a split among the opposition governors on the desirability or otherwise of such an action.

    The division became evident when it was realised that the PDP Governors Forum  did not issue a statement to mobilise party leaders and members to join the protest. Also, some South-East and South-South governors pretended as if no protest was being staged.

    A South-East governor was heard saying: “I cannot be a party to mudslinging against the Judiciary. We warned some of those behind the protest to think of tomorrow.”