The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • A father’s passage

    FOR the almost three weeks that he spent in hospital before he finally passed on to eternity, my siblings and I took turns to watch over and care for our ailing father, Benjamin, Bamidele Ayobolu. Our mother, Mary Ebun Ayobolu, his wife of over 50 years, was a constant feature by his bedside hardly sleeping, only eating sparingly and never ceasing to minister to his needs even as she alternated between weeping and praying fervently for his recovery. A near permanent fixture by my dad’s bedside in his last days was the Medical Director of Liberty-Life hospital, Dr. Benjamin Olowojebutu, a consummate professional for whom medical practice is not just a profession but a missionary-type calling. Dr Ben and his staff went beyond human limits to keep Daddy alive but the best of medical attention could not stay the hand of the grim reaper, death, when the time was up.

    As my father slipped, time to time, from unconsciousness to momentary consciousness, he would recite various psalms he had committed to memory, sing hymns and his favourite praise songs and pray intermittently. It was obvious to me the times I sat by his bedside that my father was discomfited less by any physical pain he was experiencing than his inability to perform for himself natural functions he had done for himself all his life. Daddy had always been fiercely independent and catered for practically all his needs even at his advanced age. To now have to be almost totally dependent on others was a harrowing experience for him. But he bore the inevitable and unavoidable with characteristic fortitude.

    One night, keeping vigil by his bedside late at night my mind went back almost three decades ago, specifically 1984, when I pined away and life slowly ebbed away from my enfeebled body for the six months that I was on admission at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan. Daddy would sit for several hours a day by my bed watching, caring, praying. My miraculous recovery and survival is not a tale for today. But that experience taught me that I could not even contemplate the thought of facing death and meeting my creator without faith in Christ as my sinless and righteous mediator. This may be a function of my Christian background and upbringing.

    I am amazed when the most brilliant of human beings who take life with utmost seriousness yet treat in such a cavalier manner the most serious issue of their fate in eternity. Some say that there is no life after death and this life is all there is. They give no scientific, empirical or truly rational validation for this amazingly audacious view. If this world exists, how then can we be so cocksure that other worlds do not also exist in realms beyond the terrestrial? How can we be so casually and sometimes arrogantly cocksure about a matter as vast, as immense, and with possibly irreversible consequences as eternity? Perhaps I think this way because of my own acquaintance with my own all too many failings and weaknesses and my inability to confront a righteous creator without the mediation of a savior.

    Daddy’s favourite song on his sick bed was ‘mo je lope, mo je baba lope o, igba ti mo ro ise iyanu baba laiye mi, mo ri wipe mo je Jesu mi lope repete’. (I owe my father, God, a depth of gratitude especially when I consider his miraculous deeds in my life; I owe Jesus nothing but bounteous gratitude). Benjamin Bamidele Ayobolu had every cause to sing this song. He was born on May 1, 1936, into unimaginable poverty. But for the grace of God, he would have lived and died an unknown quantity. Through determination, hard work, perseverance, resilience and a never die spirit, he tore the mask of poverty as the inimitable Awo put it in his autobiography and savoured the sweet taste of a reasonable measure of success.

    After a miscellany of menial jobs to make ends meet, Daddy gained entrance into Gindiri Teachers College in Plateau State, to train as a teacher. When he left Gindiri, he taught as a primary school teacher in Jebba, Kwara State, for a number of years. During this time, apart from earning extra money by offering private lessons to pupils after school hours, he improved his education through correspondence courses that eventually enabled him to gain admission as one of the pioneer students of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he studied public administration. On graduation from ABU, my father’s academic performance was so impressive that he was offered scholarhip to pursue his post graduate studies abroad up to PhD level.

    He, however, opted to begin work immediately rather than further his studies. This was because of the level of poverty in the family and the need for him to begin to work on time not only to support the family but to also pay for the education of his younger ones. My father’s late very close friend, Professor Aaron Gana, the eminent political scientist, often told me that Daddy’s refusal to obtain a doctorate degree was a great sacrifice on his part for his family and an immeasurable loss to the academic world. Daddy began his working career at the Nigerian Sugar Company, Bacita, Kwara State, as the Personnel Manager. The company sponsored him on a one year post-graduate diploma in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations at the London School of Economic and Political Science.  When the pioneering expatriates that set up the thriving sugar industry began to handover the management of the company to Nigerians, standards unfortunately began to plummets and unable to cope with the growing nepotism, sectionalism and mediocrity, Daddy resigned from Bacita in frustration.

    Although he was offered a job as a top manager in John Holt in Lagos, Daddy opted to take up the offer of General Manager of the Kwara State government owned Midland Supplies Ltd. in Ilorin, a company patterned after the Kingsway and UTC stores. He feared that life in Lagos would be too hectic and fast-paced for him to be able to devote time to his family. Again, he was forced to quit the job during the second republic when the politicians tried to meddle in the running of the company seeking favours that undermined its profitability. Fed up with paid employment, my father obtained a bank facility and set up a hotel, which was one of the best in Ilorin in the early to late eighties. However, his real desire was to go into manufacturing and be an industrialist. He invested much of the savings from the hotel business in an industrial manufacturing enterprise that, despite his most valiant efforts, proved to be unviable because of the unstable monetary and fiscal policies particularly the ever increasing interest and exchange rates associated with the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).

    Daddy was a progressive in politics right from his ABU days. He was a fervent Awoist although he was critical of some of the management of the finances of the Western Region as revealed during the Coker Commission of Enquiry. Although Daddy was proud of his Yoruba heritage, he was always wary of the Yoruba of the old western region often telling me in Yoruba: ‘Awon ara West ti laju ju’ meaning the people of the Western Region are too worldly wise. There are subtle distinctions and differences in outlook and worldview among the Yoruba that romantic ethnic nationalists too easily gloss over. When Chief Cornelius Adebayo became Governor of Kwara State in 1983 on the platform of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), he appointed my father Chairman of the Board of the Kwara Investment Corporation (KIC) although the regime was short lived as a result of the military coup that terminated the Second Republic.

    My junior brother, Jide, was to tell me later that in his last moments, Daddy called him on two occasions saying:s ‘ Why are you stopping me from going? I am going to be with Jesus. I want to join Him at the right hand of God’. The philosopher, mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate and brilliant atheist, Bertrand Russell had no such faith. As Russell wrote: “That man is the product of causes which have no prevision of the end they are achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms…that all the labour of ages, all the devotions, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievements must inevitably be buried beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand”. This terrible atheistic philosophy is one of despair, hopelessness, purposelessness and meaninglessness. It was not the philosophy of Benjamin Bamidele Ayobolu who hopefully embraced death confident of rising on the other side to meet and live with his creator and savior for eternity. It is the philosophy which I hope will guide me beyond this earthly realm when my time inevitably comes to bid this world adieu. May Daddy’s soul rest in peace.

  • Messi’s boggling wages

     Lord have mercy, I said, after reading of  the staggering figures which Barcelona are proposing to pay the indefatigable Lionel Messi for the next five years. I foresaw another wages war between Barcelona and Real Madrid, with the match sticks being Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

    Clubs which understand the dynamics of business have used their big stars as nexus for change among players. As outstanding stars get their dues, the young ones aspire to surpass the marks set. In the 21st Century, it appears that Messi and Ronaldo are not relenting in getting their clubs to earn more cash from the turnstiles, especially using the available marketing windows.

    Messi will earn $565,000 weekly until 2021, making him the highest paid player in the world. This topples the Chinese offers. Many will fault the decision to pay Messi such a staggering sum. But if you consider his input in Barcelona, you will agree with the increase because when Messi plays, the team can be exciting to watch. Barca can be pitiable whenever Messi is off form. Most people lament when Messi doesn’t play for Barca, especially when he is ill or injured.

    Messi’s incredible pay rise will draw attention from other big earners at Barca, such as Luis Saurez, Neymar, Iniesta, Pique et al. Only Neymar may stoke resentment over Messi’s new wages. But he would acknowledge the Argentine’s incredible contributions to the team.

    Barca’s management knows that they would recoup their investments in Messi from merchandising, ticket sales, branding and other cognate indices in marketing, especially endorsements on one product with Messi’s insignia.

    Keeping Messi at Barcelona will boost the revenue from the turnstiles with fans expected to throng the Camp Nou Stadium to watch their idol, irrespective of the outcome of the games, which they consider already won anytime the little man plays. It is unthinkable of Barca to suggest to its fans that Messi has moved away to another club. It would translate to bankruptcy for the team, which operates in a country where Barca and Real Madrid appear to be the thriving businesses, with Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as the markers.

    Already, there is a cold war between Messi and Neymar. Neymar suggested a few talented players join Barca. Neymar feels that with those players Barca will be stronger this season. Sadly, Barca didn’t agree with Neymar, even though they didn’t tell him so. Those suggested by Neymar were dropped and the Brazilian figures that Messi could have sneezed at those players’ inclusion in Barca. Neymar wanted Liverpool’s gem Phillipe Coutinho and Santos’ Lucas Lima, two Brazilians in Barca.

    Of course, any team with Messi directing its affairs will definitely kowtow to the Argentine than to a younger Neymar. This is why Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger doesn’t fill his team

    with stars. Wenger argues that the negatives in the dressing room from having star-studded squads leave much to be desired.

    One thing is sure – Real Madrid won’t allow Messi to be the highest paid player, especially in the European game ahead of Ronaldo. Madrid could raise the bar to $800, 000 weekly. The deep pockets at Madrid could settle for a higher figure of $1million weekly to set an all-time record. For Real Madrid, breaking records is now a habit in all the spheres of football management.

     Iheanacho’s hurdle

    I like what is happening to Kelechi Iheanacho in the European transfer window since it opened officially on July 1. Iheanacho is rated the best goal poacher in Europe in scoring ratio despite his cameo appearances for Manchester City. I celebrate each time the ratings are out and Iheanacho dwarfs his Manchester City mates. I do not understand why Pep Guardiola cannot see what other experts have seen in Iheanacho.

    It is good to know that something good can still come out of Nigeria. It is also interesting that such deafening accolades are coming from sports. And nobody doubts the ratings since it is generated by the best pundits.

    Today, Iheanacho is worried. I won’t blame him, considering his age. He needs help from his managers, irrespective of whatever he may have signed in his rookie days. Iheanacho may have been overwhelmed by the thought of playing outside Nigeria. He could have signed those documents, not knowing the implications of the contents. Of course, those who brought those documents knew what they were looking for. They were also well versed in signing quality players.

    As at the last count, we have been told that Tottenham Hotspurs FC of London need his services, even though it has been published by leading outlets in the transfer market that Iheanacho and indeed Manchester City had agreed on a deal for the Nigerian to join his mates at Leicester City. We know for a fact that Wilfred Ndidi and Ahmed Musa spoke with Iheanacho to join them at the Foxes. Iheanacho could also have loved to play with his Golden Eaglets mate Ndidi, after they thrilled the world with their sublime skills, culminating in Nigeria lifting the 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup diadem.

    Some of the pitfalls in which our players find themselves have arisen from their greed, a otherwise transfer ought to pass through the NFF like it is done in other climes. Besides, some NFF men and club officials are European clubs’ scouts. They run a racket with some of these unscrupulous agents seeking to cut corners in deals with our budding stars.

    These shylock agents lure our young boys with trips to Europe. The attraction of flying is enough to cow these hitherto village boys to accept anything thrown at them. Some of our young lads have signed contracts written in other languages, not knowing the details.

     Most times when our youngsters in the age grade teams are exposed to competitions, they have been made to sign contracts that enslave them to shylock agents. They get to discover when they have blossomed. They are compelled to stand by what they documented before their rise to stardom.

    Iheanacho needs to get all parties to discuss his future. And if it means paying huge sums of money to free him from the bondage, it is better. Nothing is cast in stone, considering the fact that he was a rookie when the deal was struck. Now that he can make his decisions, he needs to cut the chain to reap where he is sowing now and not work for agents.

    NFF should intervene in this Iheanacho image rights quagmire because he may have innocently signed the document. It is true that ignorance of the law shouldn’t be an excuse. Yet, for a prospective icon, such as Iheanacho, national interest should come first. If he continues to play for Nigeria, all the parties will benefit from his exploits. Nobody should cast any shadow over Iheanacho’s future on grounds of a certain document that he may have signed in desperation, knowing what our domestic league players go through.  The whole gamut of how Iheanacho got himself into this wahala must be redressed. Iheanacho is like what Nwankwo Kanu and Austin Okocha were to us in the past. I digress.

    Tottenham will be playing in the UEFA Champions League like Manchester City. He would have lost nothing. Rather, he will be guaranteed a first team shirt, which provides the best platform to teach Guardiola a few lessons when both teams meet.

    I don’t see anyone in the Tottenham side who will bench Iheanacho in the support striker position when the season begins. Again, Tottenham plays exciting soccer. And they have since learned how to aim for the goals than to entertain the crowd.

    Iheanacho should agree with Leicester City but with one condition – to give his best during Foxes’ matches, such that clubs will be forced to recruit him during the January 2018 transfer window. Iheanacho must be told that a remarkable outing at the Russia 2018 World Cup reminiscence of what Okocha did during the France 1998 World Cup will fetch him bigger teams, using his conditions, not the clubs’.

     

    Prayers for Carl Ikeme, please

    I have been encouraged by the reports from the foreign media about Carl Ikeme’s medical condition. The former Aston Villa Stiliyan Petrou star revealed that his condition lasted for six months. I feel strongly that Ikeme’s recovery will be shorter since his problem was discovered early.

    Wolverhampton Wanderers FC’s management has been magnificent with the kind of support they have given to Ikeme beyond settling the Nigerian’s medical bills, even if the bulk of the payment would be done through the club’s life insurance policies.

    I have been bowled over by Wolves’ management’s decision to allow Ikeme retain his number one goalkeeper’s shirt. They have also stated that some portion of the club’s earnings will be paid into the hospital’s account for his treatment. Less emphasis has been placed on his replacement, which is commendable.

    Please don’t ask me Nigerians’ reaction to Ikeme’s condition with respect to his future in Super Eagles. That is the way we are. We forget easily. If only we know that some of the needless debates on who to replace Ikeme get to him, it would have been better.

    I was excited by Eagles’ goalkeeper trainer Alloy Agu’s comments on Ikeme. He said: ”Our thoughts and prayers, for now, should be for the speedy recovery of Ikeme. He has done well for this country. He has never gotten a bad record ever since he joined the national team.

    “He is just down with an illness. I still have a strong belief he will be back strong and healthy. All he needs is prayer and support. It’s not high time we started talking about replacement but time for prayer and I am sure he will get well soon because I learnt he has been receiving serious treatment abroad. Let’s just wait, hope and pray for the best,”  Agu said.

    Well said, Agu. I pray that NFF chiefs or should I say Rohr will remember not to hand jersey number one to any goalkeeper until Ikeme recovers. Besides, a percentage of what we earn from the gates could be sent to Ikeme. The players must do everything to beat Cameroon to help fasten his recovery. Join me in wishing Ikeme a speedy recovery.

  • Saraki as enigma

    Saraki as enigma

    It promised to be the flagship and major demonstration case of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s exuberantly advertised war against corruption. I refer to the arraignment on Thursday, February 23, 2016, of Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCB) on an 18-count charge of forgery and money laundering. Many observers believed the wily Saraki had been snared in a trap from which there was nary an escape route. The unseemly sight of the head of the country’s National Assembly appearing regularly in the dock to defend himself against grievous corruption charges was the ultimate humiliation and media crucifixion from which it seemed impossible for Saraki to resurrect. But the adroit politician remained seemingly unperturbed and unruffled. His legal team seemed bent on both endlessly delaying and preventing commencement of trial than proving their client’s innocence and thus permanently silencing his traducers.

    But throughout his legal travails, Saraki maintained a remarkable talismanic spell over his colleagues. They flocked in and out of court with their leader. For most of them, he was only being unjustly persecuted for what was perceived in some quarters as the intra-party intrigue and betrayal-laden route that led to his emergence as the country’s number three citizen. In any case, was he the only former public officer guilty, if true, of questionable assets declaration? It did not matter apparently that an alleged transgressor against the law cannot claim immunity from legal culpability because other alleged trespassers of the rules are walking free.

    Not even the eruption of other scandals whirling around the Senate President could diminish Saraki morally or politically before his colleagues. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) linked Bukola Saraki’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Gbenga Makanjuola, Kathleen Erhimu, reportedly the Senate President’s account relationship officer at Access Bank as well as Robert Mbonu of Melrose General Services Ltd, an associate of Saraki from the defunct Societe Generale Bank to an alleged sum of N3.5 billion laundered through the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) from the Paris Club loan refund to states. Saraki’s other principal aides allegedly involved in the deal include Obiora Amobi, Kolawole Shittu and Oladapo Idowu. All payments received by Melrose General Services Ltd. were allegedly diverted by the Senate President’s aides either directly by cash or indirectly through transfers. It did not matter. The Senators could care no less. Their sensibilities remained deadened either to the ravages of negative public perception or the ever increasing fragility of their collective institutional integrity.

    A luxury exotic vehicle, reportedly imported on behalf of the Senate President with forged papers thereby denying the Federal Government of legally stipulated revenue was impounded by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). Rather than allow a thorough investigation of the affair by the relevant anti-corruption agencies, the Senate decided to be the judge in the case against its beloved leader and naturally cleared him of any legal infractions. At the same time the Comptroller General of the NCS, Col. Hameed Ali, was subjected to a high degree of intimidation and harassment by Senators over the petty matter of his appearing before them in official uniform. It was only a court injunction that offered the embattled but no less stubborn Comptroller General some respite.

    Many analysts averred that Bukola Saraki would lose his iron grip on majority of Senators across party lines once the case against him before the CCT was proven and he was adjudged guilty as widely expected. The CCT’s final verdict was the legal and political equivalent of a resurrection from the dead for Saraki. The duo of the CCT Chairman, Danladi Umar, and his colleague, Hon. A. Agwadza, was emphatic in upholding the no-case submission made by Saraki’s legal team. The mercurial Senate President was discharged and acquitted. The Tribunal ruled that the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses were so thoroughly discredited under cross examination that they could constitute no credible basis for conviction by any reasonable court. Of course, the Federal Government has filed an appeal against the decision of the CCT. But for now it is Saraki and his supporters that are chanting hymns of triumph. No one in my view can claim to believe in the rule of law and yet credibly condemn the decision of the CCT or impugn the motives of its members without concrete evidence. Until and unless the CCT’s judgement is overturned by a superior court, Saraki remains guiltless before the law.

    You may hate him or love him. He may attract or repulse you. What you cannot deny is the political astuteness of Bukola Saraki. He certainly learnt invaluable lessons at the feet of his father, Oloye Olusola Saraki, the grand master for decades of Kwara politics. You cannot accuse Bukola Saraki of lack of leadership ability and even some degree of charisma. As chairman of the Nigeria Governor’s Forum (NGF), for instance, Saraki reorganized and revitalized the body significantly enhancing its influence and efficacy in national politics. The main grouse of some of his critics against him is that Saraki’s no mean leadership skills are more directed towards personal pecuniary and political gains than the collective good in the utilitarian sense of pursuing the greatest good of the greatest number of the citizenry. He achieved some tangible gains as Kwara State governor in agriculture through the Zimbabwe Farmers scheme, the establishment of the Kwara State University and some degree of infrastructure uplift in Ilorin. But he surely had the unfortunately largely unrelieved capacity to have done much more.

    In the same vein, Bukola Saraki has done a remarkable job in wielding the Senate into a cohesive group despite the controversial and divisive nature of his emergence as Senate President. He has offered the National Assembly the kind of strong leadership that Buhari, perhaps because of ill health as well as his political taciturnity and cultural insularity, has been unable to offer the executive arm of government. For some time, I thought that Saraki’s vibrant leadership of the National Assembly, his unrelenting effort to protect the autonomy and authority of the legislature against the excesses of the dangerous cabal in effective control of the executive under the Buhari presidency, was a blessing in disguise no matter his personal failings.

    I have, however, authoritatively learnt that Saraki is actually working very closely with the dominant faction of the badly fractured Buhari presidency’s kitchen cabinet. There is not a pin, I am reliably told, not a visitor to the inner recesses of Aso Rock that Saraki is not aware of almost instantaneously. It is certainly not coincidental that in the Senate’s battle against Ibrahim Magu’s confirmation as EFCC Chairman, which Saraki has led with great tenacity coupled with subtlety, he has enjoyed the unalloyed support and cooperation of the Department of State Services (DSS). That speaks volumes of the man’s wide ranging network, pervasive influence and instinctual understanding of the workings of the system. Yet, Magu’s crime is clearly not incompetence or proven lack of moral integrity but the EFCC’s unyielding probe under his leadership of a number of Senators with Saraki also within its investigative radar.

    One can understand the Senate’s new found boldness and audacity in threatening to wield its power of impeachment against what it perceives as slights by the executive particularly the continued retention of Magu as Acting Chairman of the EFCC despite its refusal to confirm him in substantive capacity. I advise the Senate to immediately seek the Supreme Court’s binding decision on this contentious issue. It is not impossible that Saraki and his Senate foot soldiers mistake Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s unassuming and introspective mien as a sign of weakness or timidity. They are badly mistaken.

    Behind Osinbajo’s serene exterior lies the boldness and courage that only untainted character and integrity can confer. Besides, his singular lack of political ambition and unstinted loyalty and fidelity to an unfortunately incapacitated boss has endeared Osinbajo to millions of Nigerians across partisan and sectional divides. The Senate must be careful not to provoke a popular uprising against its excesses especially when it is seen as hounding and harassing a patriotic intellectual and cleric in government pursuing the public good on behalf of his temporarily absent boss without seeking to profit personally or politically.

    However, the Saraki enigma shows again some of the things fundamentally wrong with the Buhari government’s anti-corruption war. Thousands of Saraki partisans in Kwara State reportedly erupted in wild jubilation at the news of their idol’s discharge and acquittal by the CCT. It was the same way parts of Delta State went into joyous ecstasy on former Governor James Ibori’s release from a London prison where he served term on corruption charges and his return to Nigeria. Millions of Nigerians are psychologically and psychically disconnected from the anti-corruption war. It means absolutely nothing to them.

    The outcome of many of the anti-corruption cases that government has lost in recent times also shows the utter inefficacy of an Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), who really ought to be on top of and indeed personally leading the prosecution of some of the high profile anti-corruption cases. In any case, in the intrigue-laden Buhari presidency, what is the guarantee that the AG, does not belong to a caucus of the kitchen cabinet favourably disposed towards Saraki? Things may get even more curiouser and curiouser.

  • Victory as a curse

    Genuine football playing nations are proactive when they set goals for the beautiful game. They look at all the indices surrounding competitions, including historical slants, if they exist. Rather than celebrate the German Machines’ feat of lifting the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia, some Germans are ruing the achievement, preferring to point at the Mundial’s history in mirroring their chances of winning the world Cup back-to-back.

    Did I hear you say that the Germans are Oliver Twists? Is someone saying they are just bluffing because they have used two squads to lift two of the world’s biggest soccer competitions at the senior level? The Germans are the defending World Cup champions, having clinched the trophy in 2014 in Brazil, beating Argentina in the nail-biting final game. The only trophy at the senior level not in Germany FA’s wardrobe is the Confederations Cup diadem, which is being held by the Brazilians.

    Ordinarily, cynics who didn’t give Joachim Low any chance of lifting the Confederations Cup diadem ought to be celebrating his achievement. They ought to have aligned with most soccer greats who have praised a hitherto unknown Low, who rose from coaching obscurity to win the World Cup and Confederations Cup within three years.

    Indeed, Low has guided Germany to lifting the Confederations Cup for the first time in the country’s and competition’s history. But the pessimists have not backed off. They are postulating that no Confederations Cup winner has won the next World Cup. Shouldn’t that be the challenge for Low instead of the defeatist submission that Germany under the quiet workaholic doesn’t have the character and tactical savvy to win the Russia 2018 World Cup?

    Records are meant to be broken by those who understand what they are doing. Besides, records are myths which usually don’t stand the test of time. Real Madrid smashed the record of winning the UEFA Champions League trophy back-to-back. The players and the manager are big in Europe. They were determined to quash the thought of back-to-back trophy feats for previous winners. And they did it in style. If Real Madrid returns next year to set the record of a treble feat, not many historians will doubt them.

    I align with Low’s stoic’s silence. He is quietly plotting his path to winning the 2018 Mundial, given the intimidating list of over 40 players to pick his squad from.

    At the Confederations Cup, not only did the Germans emerge as champions, two of their squad members were honoured. Julian Draxler, the team’s captain, was adjudged the best player of the competition. Timo Werner clinched the highest goal scorer award; Chile’s goalkeeper, Claudio Bravo, won the golden gloves prize. Draxler, 23, plays for Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) in France. Werner is a home-based player (using the Nigerian parlance). He plays for German Bundesliga side, RB Leipzig. He is 21.

    The feat achieved by these young Germans is no mean achievement, given the quality of opposition they faced in the competition. Most of the countries came with their ‘A’ team. Besides, the achievement should be enough joy for Germany in that with the Confederations Cup, they already have the luxury of having in place an experienced bunch of players who will form the nucleus of a future team when the country’s leading and established stars grow dim in later years.  The implication of this is that while other countries experiment or struggle to raise another team upon the dimming lights of their ‘superstars’, the Germans will simply glide into a regime of the experienced and tested team in the nearest future. This will give the Germans a domineering advantage over opposition for some time.

    Germany’s victory in Russia makes them crowd favourites at next year’s Mundial. They would be playing on familiar grounds.

    They won’t need to do any form of acclimatisation. Good thing Germany didn’t beat the host nation at the Confederations Cup. The Germans kept their game simple. Passing the ball and allowing the ball’s movement to dictate the pace of their matches. Today, Germany is the number one nation in soccer, according to FIFA’s Ranking for June 2017. This development is the first big move for the Germans in the world ranking in the last two years. What it shows clearly is that the Germans have built on the gains of hosting the 2006 World Cup competition.

    They are best in almost all levels, including women soccer. And these feats arose from a discerning template anchored on producing talents from their domestic leagues, leaving the best Germans to seek greener pastures in other European leagues. Germans who ply their trade outside Germany return to their national teams to provide the antidote for neutralising other European countries, including the big boys who play in their European clubs’ leagues.

    The big question: does the German Bundesliga tolerate the mass influx of other countries’ nationals? Yes. But since the Germans have a workable template to produce talents, most German teams would rather give openings to their nationals than foreigners. Even when foreigners get such first team shirts, it doesn’t take time for the Germans understudying them to dethrone them. Iheanacho’s unending transfer Since the European season ended in May, as many as 11 clubs have been bandied as showing interest in Kelechi Iheanacho. No surprises for this long queue, given Iheanacho’s meteoric rise in the game since he shot into limelight in 2013 as a member of Nigeria’s U-17 World Cup winning Golden Eaglets squad. I have enjoyed reading the stories but the one that caught my most attention was that of Arsenal FC’s quest to sign the Nigerian. I was excited because Arsene Wenger will polish Iheanacho’s game and make him a world class striker. Please join me in praying that Wenger truly wants Iheanacho.

    He will be Nigeria’s surprise package at the Russia 2018 Mundial. I look forward to watching Wenger establish a goal-scoring link for Iheanacho, with Alex Iwobi supplying the defencesplitting passes. I trust Wenger when it comes to bringing the best out of Africans, albeit Nigerians. Simply put, Wenger revived Nwankwo Kanu’s career and made him one of the legends of the English game with Arsenal. If Iheanacho and Iwobi strike the right chord in Arsenal’s attacking onslaughts this 2017/2018 season, then the world must truly wait for the Super Eagles in Russia next year. Rohr is German and has set the rebuilding of the Eagles around what the Germans are doing.

    I hope the rumour of Arsenal looking for Iheanacho is true. Let’s laugh at Manchester City’s manager Pep Guardiola, who keeps listing Iheanacho as a transfer candidate, yet includes him in all his pre-season plans, making the Spaniard a laughing stock in Europe. Guardiola must be prepared to free the Nigerian when the January 2018 transfer window opens, if he fails to give Iheanacho a regular first team shirt. The World Cup year is 2018 and talents such as Iheanacho must be allowed to play for clubs where they will be regulars instead of cameo appearances for their European teams which translate to average outings for their countries. Very few foreign clubs discover talents for any country. The norm is for these clubs to send scouts to fish out budding stars, most times those who are playing for their countries regularly. Rohr’s noble initiative My views on the Nigerian coaches have not changed.

    No surprises that Nigerian clubs have been eliminated from all the continental cup competitions for clubs. Nigerian coaches must learn to acquire knowledge through remedial courses. Learning is a continuum, if they hope to compete with those who upgrade their skills. Readers of this column also know my views about our coaches who we sent to Europe to visit our players. They return with tales of headiness with some of our Europe-based stars. I have always found it difficult to understand why a coach sent to England to see our players end up in a hotel making calls to them. I also considered those who refused to recommend stiff punishments for those who didn’t return the manager’s messages after their complaints were sounding like a refrain. I couldn’t understand how a manager gets to London and is reluctant to take a cab to see our players in Arsenal, Chelsea and West Ham. I didn’t see the sense in asking them to see their managers in their London hotels. I have been vindicated with the coming of Rohr. Rohr visits our players wherever they are. Rohr takes pictures with the players and their European managers.

    These pictures give vent to whatever they reveal to us about what transpired about them. No stories of players refusing to pick Eagles’ coaches’ calls or refusing to return several messages placed on their answering machines. The two matches against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon are crucial and require our best players to prosecute them. Predictably, Nigeria has dropped on the FIFA Rankings for June by one point, no thanks to the devastating 2-0 loss to Bafana Bafana inside the Nest of Champions Stadium in Uyo last month. But there is hope that the Cameroonians are just fifth on the chart in Africa, with Nigeria occupying the sixth position. Such close setting explains why the September 1 or is it August 31 clash in Uyo is one for those who can withstand shocks. The Indomitable Lions are beatable. Our players owe Nigerians a good game against the Cameroonians for them to celebrate. Nigerians who will be inside the stadium should cheer ceaselessly the players, even when they are not pulling their weight. Such vociferous support has swung the game in the Eagles’ favour in the past.

  • Balkanisation, unity and politics

    IN my Political Science course at the Great Ife, a visiting Professor from the University of Wisconsin taught us that once Broz Tito, the then president of Yugoslavia died, his nation would collapse. His prediction proved true. After Tito died in 1980, Yugoslavia erupted in the nineties with the Balkan Wars leading to its fragmentation into its six component parts of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia Hercegovina , Montenegro, and Macedonia. Balkanisation is a geopolitical term used to describe the fragmentation of regions or states into fractious often hostile entities .

    Painfully then, but now with nostalgia, I witnessed the balkanization of Yugoslavia as a staff writer at Times International, a publication of Daily Times and I still recall the roles of Kofi Annan and US President Bill Clinton to prevent, albeit unsuccessfully the massacre of Croats and Slovenes by Serbs as well as the gory ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs Commanders at Sbrebrenica. I therefore can claim to be a student of history and a witness to the bloody carnage that attended the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and it is in that capacity that I treat, no, attack indeed, the topic of today in all its ramifications.

    Let me make it clear here that I do not suffer any‘ Yugostalgia‘ well enough to wish balkanization on my country Nigeria. But let me also state equally clearly that I hear the drums of war beating ominously on the horizon of the Nigerian state, given the current strident calls for self- determination, expulsion, secession and the on going insurgency in the North East of our great nation. However, I take solace in the fact that in a turbulent world that we live in today this danger is not peculiar to Nigeria.

    Qatar, one of the smallest nations in the world, but clearly the richest, is being held by the balls by its senior Arab nation brothers namely Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and Bahrain, and is being asked to literally surrender its sovereignty or autonomy, close Aljazeera and because it has been seen to be supporting Iran and funding terrorist organisations like Hizbollah, Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt. Of course Qatar has refused to play ball for the simple reason that no nation or person can be asked to preside over its liquidation or funeral with its eyes wide open, which really is a lesson from afar, for Nigeria and Nigerians.

    In Qatar’s case however the Arab nations were balkanized diplomatically and disunite by an American president who asked them to fight terrorism being enacted in the name of their religion by letting charity begin at home, and driving terrorists away from their midst and indeed away from the world. But the US President Donald Trump has not been particularly discriminatory against the Arabs alone with regard to fighting terrorism. He has gone on to Poland enroute the G20 meeting in Hamburg today to polarize the European Union and NATO its military alliance, by stating clearly in Warsaw the capital of Poland that what is at stake is the survival of Western civilization.

    Which then downplays his serious disagreement with the EU nations on trade, migration and climate change. If you add to this the new Donald Trump quasi – military diplomatic objective of countering N Korea’s nuisance incessant nuclear missile threats and launches, you will see that Trump is preparing the mind of the civilized world to call once and for all, the bluff of N Korea by force if necessary, and that again means war. Let me now go back to the lesson to be learnt by Nigerians from the breakdown of Yugoslavia or the attendant’ Yugostalgia‘, which is a phrase I picked up on the internet recently.

    Obviously, the rhetoric on our unity as a nation nowadays is anti – unity and fractious, as agitators on all sides call for secession, expulsion, and self – determination in the midst an intractable insurgency bloodily going on in our North East in the name of Islamic terrorism and militancy. I however wish to divide the agitation into the pro and anti unity camps. In the unity camp are the Acting President who said the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable and is backed by Ohaneze, and the NBA Chairman. In the anti unity camp is human rights very anti- military dictatorship, legal luminary Olisa Agbakoba and Massob. On the periphery are the expulsionists Arewa Youths and the Middle Belters who say they are not from the North and the Arewa cannot speak on their behalf to expel anybody including Igbos. Actually is expected of the Acting President or AP Osinbajo to say that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable and it is in order for the NBA president to say that anti unity talk is slowing down our economic development.

    I am however aghast at Olisa Agbakoba saying that there is nothing sacrosanct about the unity of Nigeria because it came into being without consultation of Nigerians in 1914 and that self determination call by MASSOB is sanctioned by the UN and is not punishable by treason in Nigeria. I disagree with Olisa Agbakoba and state clearly that the issue at stake is political and not legal and that the politics involved is greater than the fine points of law he painstakingly elaborated on. Indeed saying that self determination is not akin to secession and is not treasonable is a fallacy as far as the political stability and security of the Nigerian state is involved. A call for secession or self determination is a call for the dismemberment of the Nigerian state and is at once a security challenge that the government must curb unless of course that government is agreeable to the dismemberment of the Nigerian nation.

    That was what Abe Lincoln did to preserve the United States during the American Civil War and that was the duty General Yakubu Gowon performed by saying – to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done -and went on to quash the Biafran rebellion in the Nigerian Civil war. That remains the duty of any Nigerian government worth its salt and that includes the Buhari government for now led by the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo. That is the security and political bottom line on these agitations which must be within the ambits of the Nigerian state and its laws to be worthy of any consideration. With regard to the contempt for the Amalgamation of 1914 it is like asking a party who was neither a wife or husband at a wedding to ask for the divorce of a marriage consummated in his absence thus exposing himself or herself to the odium of irrelevance or lack of locus or even focus. A word surely is enough for the wise. Once again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • The German ‘machine’

    Interesting scenes have played out in the ongoing Confederations Cup competition holding in Russia. The hue and cry have come from the Video Assistant Referees (VAR), whose judgments have been faultless, the recent decision being the red card issued to Cameroon’s defender in their game against Germany. Colombian Ref Roldan Wimar’s decision was wrong. The red carded Cameroonian, Sebastien Siani, protested, rightly so. It took the VAR to change things, even though the Indomitable Lions lost 3-1. Ernest Mabouka was correctly sent off after video replays.

    I won’t join the motley crowd in Nigeria who are using the Cameroonians’ awful outing at the Confederations Cup to gauge the Super Eagles’ chances against them in August inside the Nest of Champions Stadium in Uyo. No two matches are the same. Otherwise, football wouldn’t be as exciting as it is. Some Nigerians must understand that certain teams are ‘voodoo’ opponents to certain clubs and countries. Indeed, when such fixtures occur, it is the better team on the day that wins, irrespective of how the teams have fared before the game. Nobody can predict the results of the two-legged matches between Nigeria and Cameroon scheduled for August and September in Uyo and Yaoundé.

    But the most interesting scenario in Russia is the exploits of the Germans. Not many people in Germany were happy with the players the German coach, Joachim Low, picked for the competition. Low was pilloried by the German media, ex-internationals and pundits, especially as they are the defending World Cup champions, having won the trophy in 2014. For Low’s critics, it was suicidal for the defending World Cup champions to be the whipping team at the competition. Low ought to have taken the bulk of players who won the trophy in Brazil three years ago to the Confederations Cup, they said.

    Germany Football Association chieftains stood by their manager’s decision to pick a second string of younger players for the Confederations Cup. These German football administrators bought into Low’s explanation of looking for new boys to replace the ageing ones. Low wants stiffer competition for shirts among the players in the team by 2018. The manager’s reason made plenty of sense. But the average football fan wants his country or favourite teams to win all their games. Not good at all. It raises the pertinent question of rebuilding the team when key players get tired or cannot play at the level that they are by 2018.

    Low isn’t perturbed by the fans’ criticisms because he has been through this path before in the games leading to Germany winning the 2014 World Cup diadem in Brazil. Low is drawing lessons from Spain which won the World Cup and later the Confederations Cup with their World Cup winning side, only to be humbled at the Mundial in Brazil. The Spaniards haven’t recovered. They are still suffering the transition of their golden generation, with the new lads taking too long to blend into a formidable side like their predecessors.

    Interestingly, Mexico manager Juan Carlos Osorio described the German side before Thursday semi-final clash in the Confederations Cup thus: “You have mentioned that Germany is a very young squad; they have only one player who is 20. Benjamin Hendricks, who plays with Javier Hernandez at Bayern Leverkusen.

    “There are two who are 21, Niklas Sule and Julian Brandt, who are the same age with Mexico’s winger Hirving Lozano. Being young and having experience are two different things. For example, you can go to university when you are 30 years old and become a heart surgeon and have no experience at all.

    “But you can study when you are 21 and then work in an emergency room in a huge

  • Beyond the Fuoye crisis

    Beyond the Fuoye crisis

    The story seemed to have been conjured out of thin air and yet received prominent treatment in some major news media. A report that 38 universities in the country had astronomically hiked their fees as a result of poor funding by the federal and state governments was attributed to Dr. Deji Omole, chairman of the University of Ibadan Chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Dr. Omole was alleged to have issued a statement to that effect in Abuja. The understandably furious Unibadan ASUU boss vehemently denied either being in Abuja or issuing any press statement to that effect in the Federal Capital Territory or elsewhere. According to Dr. Omole, “Therefore, I do not know the sources of the figures quoted in the report. ASUU is a well-coordinated union, which will carry out incontrovertible research and present this to the public”.

    Under the inspiration and leadership of very courageous and brilliant intellectuals such as Professor Dipo Fashina, Professor Biodun Jeyifo, the late Professor Festus Iyayi, the late Professor Eskor Toyo, Professor Assisi Assobie, the late Professor Abubakar Mommoh, Professor Attahiru Jega to name a few, ASUU embarked on prolonged strikes particularly under the period of visionless military rule to wrestle for better funding of higher education. Although successive military dictatorships tried to portray ASUU as fighting for the selfish pecuniary interests of its members, the truth was that the organization’s struggle was largely informed by the larger vision of a qualitatively transformed national public university system. Beyond this, ASUU achieved the feat of linking up with the trade union movement and civil society groups to contribute immensely to the struggle that resulted in the retreat of the military from the public space and the birth of the current democratic dispensation.

    Although it achieved undeniable gains in terms of incrementally better funding of public universities, ASUU’s frequent strikes also created problems of its own for the public tertiary institutions. In most cases, students knew when they would be admitted but could not determine when they would graduate. It was not unusual for students to spend close to a decade for a four or five year course. Those parents with the means withdrew their children either to local private universities that charged exorbitant fees or to even more costly institutions abroad. Children of the poor had no choice but bear their fate with equanimity looking philosophically to the face of God.

    To worsen matters, successive governments often observed their protracted agreements with ASUU in the breach necessitating a vicious spiral of never-ending strikes. Beyond this, it became obvious that the challenges confronting the universities had become so intricate and complex that simply throwing more money at them would hardly make the desired impact. As a cerebral organization of thinkers, I believe that ASUU is currently re-evaluating its strategies with a view to seeing how the public universities can be liberated from their current state of utter decay to become truly transformational institutions beyond the instrumentality of strikes.

    Under the current All Progressives Congress (APC) dispensation and largely because of President Muhammadu Buhari’s personal antipathy to corruption, the sheer venality and insane greed of the country’s ruling class has been exposed as never before. Not just the universities but the entire educational system, the military, the media, the private sector, federal and state government workers, critical public infrastructure and basic social services have been negatively affected by the largely corruption-induced current economic crisis. The country squandered the oil fortune it made for about five years under the Jonathan administration and is now practically broke with the drastic drop in international oil prices.

    Happily, however, the heavy fiscal haemorrhage due to industrial scale looting of the treasury hitherto witnessed under the previous administration has been substantially stanched. Concrete efforts are being made to diversify the economy from overdependence on oil to agriculture and solid minerals while infrastructure is being frenetically upgraded to enhance economic capacity. But there can be no easy route to Eldorado. As efforts are being made to remedy the damage of the past, strikes cannot be a viable option for workers to resolve their grievances either in the public or private sectors and this does not exclude the universities.

    It appears to me that the ASUU leadership is very much aware of this stark reality. Unfortunately, the non-academic unions of the universities seem blissfully oblivious of this fact. At the University of Ibadan, the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) and National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) have just ended a three day strike to force the university authorities to pay arrears of their ‘earned allowances’. The situation is worse at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), now renamed after the late General Adeyinka Adebayo. There, the three non-academic unions have been on a protracted strike over sundry issues including alleged victimization, intimidation and non-payment of their hazard allowances; grievances over promotion issues and alleged refusal to release workers’ cooperative funds causing the latter untold hardship. These are, of course, legitimate issues on which workers are right to express their displeasure within constitutional bounds.

    However, it would appear the non-academic unions at the university went beyond the limits of industrial relations in pursuing their perceived rights. In an attempt to shut down the institution and achieve a total strike, some union leaders reportedly beat up and injured some lecturers on campus who were ready to teach. They reportedly disrupted a meeting of the governing council of the university, which was forced to hold at a location off the premises. The governing council directed that the union leaders be issued queries. Rather than defend themselves, the unions demanded the immediate withdrawal of the queries and the dissolution of panels allegedly set up to investigate the workers. The university management took the next logical step of suspending the affected union leaders. Anyone who knows the antecedents of the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kayode Soremekun, would know he is a veritable radical himself. But then, the exercise of industrial relations rights must not be allowed to completely erode authority and result in a descent to anarchy. The excesses of the non-academic unions at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, must in my view be immediately brought to an end. Matters are certainly not helped by the alleged partisan interference of the Ekiti State government in the affair.

    In the wake of the FUOYE crisis, the VC, Professor Soremekun had said that his greatest concern is how to develop the university and expand its capacity. A major step in this direction was incidentally taken this week when a three day conference held at the university with the objective of equipping young scholars with the capacity to write proposals that attract research grants from the best universities across the world. This project, the product of a visit by Professor Soremekun to the African Peacebuilding Network (APN) program of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), New York, in May this year is the beginning of a collaborative relationship between the two institutions.

    Professor Soremekun believes that this kind of initiative will enhance high quality research and academic excellence at FUOYE that will have a positive impact on the university’s global intellectual appeal and financial viability to the benefit of all stakeholders including the non-academic unions. The conference was preceded by a seminal, thought provoking lecture titled ‘The Challenge of Peace and Security in Times of Recession’, delivered by Professor Emeritus of Political Science, John Ayoade of the University of Ibadan. As a follow up to this programme, Professor Sola Omotola, Head of FUOYE’s Department of Political Science, says that 30 young scholars drawn from across West Africa will soon undergo training at the institution on how to conduct quality research that addresses peace and security threat in Africa as well as suggesting paths to peace building.

    Beyond its present crisis, FUOYE is clearly set for great things ahead.

    It is time to look beyond strikes as the cure all for the myriad travails of the Nigerian university

  • A tough time to be Acting President

    NOT too long ago the Vice President was not much better than a conquered sidekick. He had too little to do, and much less clout to call his own. From time to time he tried to reassure himself that he was not that individual once uncharitably described as the spare tyre. How times have changed. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is in a different realm. As Acting President, he has his work cut out. A minister of the gospel, worry is not the word, but, every day, he must spare a thought and prayer for his boss, who is in faraway London with the doctors. He must invest his energies and resources in the work his principal left behind, in addition to his own. Before him is a sprawling country of diverse ethnicities and tongues and just as diverse interests and proclivities. Nor is it just about diversity. Prof Osinbajo’s job entails managing a country grappling with recession.

    The Naira has such little purchasing power that every trip to the market brings back dampening confirmations of just how low the currency has sunk. Many have no work, and those who do, bicker about low pay. And oddly enough, as if the foregoing profile is not hurting enough, even some professionals are committing suicide. All of this prompts questions. Why is the economy is tatters? When did the Naira begin to lose its touch? Where are the factories which once provided jobs for the citizens? Isn’t there anything to live for? On June 12 Prof Osinbajo made history, becoming the first acting president, at least in recent memory, to sign the national budget estimates into law. But it was no feat even he could celebrate, simply because the principal was away on health grounds. If there was anything to celebrate in the signing of the projected expenditure document, it was that it was signed at all. Only a few years ago, our very own Goodluck Jonathan, then Vice President, was prevented from functioning in the capacity of acting president even when the principal was gravely ill. A special band of folks designated as a cabal made sure that Dr Jonathan would not come anywhere near that office of president, whether in acting capacity or not. In the reasoning of the cabal, it was immaterial whether the president was incapacitated or not, or whether he was in the country or in a Saudi hospital.

    What was important, it was argued, was that the commander-in-chief could attend to even urgent national issues, and could dispatch files as soon as they got to him anywhere he was. To the cabal, the relevance of information technology could not be overemphasized. With it you could walk on water. How times have changed. Prof Osinbajo cannot only act as president but can also sign the budget. Lest we forget, a few highly-placed individuals did indeed try to reenact the old days of the cabal by bypassing the acting president and flying to London to present some files to the ailing boss. But President Muhammadu Buhari saw through their schemes and told them to their faces to return the files to Nigeria, and to the man in charge. Unwell or not, President Buhari will not brook a split presidency, or giving Prof Osinbajo the cheek. Even the President’s critics will not begrudge him some applause on this one. Yet, as Prof Osinbajo was signing the budget, an infamous and dangerous eviction order served on the Igbo in the North was barely six days old.

    On June 6, at the iconic Arewa House in the equally iconic city of Kaduna, a brood of northern fellows, who preferred to be strangely called youths, told the Igbo, in no uncertain terms, that they had until October 1 to leave the region or be forced out. Much has been said about the reactions that followed that unfortunate declaration, including the fact that the regional governors condemned it. It has also been reported that Ango Abdullahi, a former vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, and exminister of the federal republic, backed and applauded the Arewa youths’ pronouncement, even chastising the governors for daring to condemn it. For the record, the northern youths said their declaration was a reaction to the agitation by some Igbo people for a state of Biafra, and the sit-at-home directive by IPOB on May in commemoration of the original Biafra. Had the Arewa youths any right to play Government? It is equally on record that some agitators in the Niger Delta likewise ordered northerners in the Southsouth to vacate the region, and for northern holders of oil blocks to give them back. This is the country which Prof Osinbajo now runs as acting president.

    It seems safe to assume that he must be praying everyday and night that the country must not break up under his watch. A man of peace, he has been meeting tribal leaders and stakeholders across the country, telling them to keep the peace and ensure that those they lead do the same. Where appropriate, Prof Osinbajo has squeezed in a few tough words, saying those who break the law must be dealt with according to the law. No one, however, has been arrested or questioned, to say nothing of being prosecuted, ever since. As Prof Osinbajo holds the fort, in these interesting times, it is clear that his approach is a mixture of discretion, diplomacy and a whiff of firmness. Still, if the elderly Prof Abdullahi, the Arewa youths’ backer, cannot be questioned for his intemperate and hatefilled speeches, how long will it take to keep others like him from popping up and setting the country on fire? The acting president sure has his work cut out for him.

  • The goodness of change

    The Video Assistant Referees (VAR) system being used at the ongoing Confederations Cup in Russia is the biggest player being whipped by analogue apologists, who are impervious to change. What these critics have not been able to acknowledge is that most of the decisions taken by the VAR system have been perfect. The burden is with the speed in arriving at decisions. But that will come with the users learning. Practice, they say, makes perfect.

    Things happen so quickly in football for the referees’ eyes to capture, making it imperative for some of these new developments to reduce controversies and make games more exciting to watch.

    Nigerian administrators and their ilk are crying because VAR’s introduction will stop a major fraud bedeviling  the domestic game. Our administrators must learn from the experts. And here is one of them.

    Arsène Wenger does not know why it has taken so long for football to embrace technology but can point to some key calls that could have been changed, if VAR had been introduced earlier.

    ”I would choose Barcelona’s equaliser in the 2006 Champions League final because it was offside, and we were 1-0 up with 30 minutes to go,” the manager told Arsenal Player.

    “That’s the trophy I miss here, you know, so that is for me the most important one. The second one I would choose is the second yellow card for Robin van Persie at Barcelona in 2011 because this was the moment we were qualified against a very strong team, and it was a very difficult decision to accept – it basically killed our chances.

    “After that maybe I go to a more recent decision – against Bayern Munich when Laurent Koscielny was sent off for a penalty when Lewandowski was offside. That just comes to my mind now but maybe I forget many, many, many, many more.” Thank you, Monsieur Wenger.

    What makes sports exciting at the global level is the dynamism in the way affiliates are given rules to govern them.  There are thoroughly researched indices which help to give games the desired fillip for growth.

    It must be stressed that not all the changes are embraced. But it is important to make them and see how the enthusiasts react to salient aspects of the game. Indeed, some of the upheavals from such changes elicit further modernisation of what is being tested. The only thing that is constant is change. I embrace the VAR rules introduced by FIFA – to reduce the seeming autocratic powers given to referees.

    Until the VAR experiment at the ongoing Confederations Cup competition holding in Russia by chieftains of the Federation of International Associations (FIFA), the centre referees’ decisions were final. They are also the sole custodians of time. They were the judges and they also had the powers to overrule their assistants, even if they were not in the best position to decide on the prevailing offences or incidents.

    Need I restate some of the controversial decisions taken by referees that poured odium on the game the great Brazilian, Pele, once described as beautiful? No doubt, sport most times is passionate to lovers of such games, but winners must emerge from their deal on a free transfer; the move was completed July 1, at the start of the 2015–16 season.

    Such players seeking vengeance, like Higuain and Khedira, must be reminded that there are players in their former teams who know their strengths and weaknesses, which they will exploit on match day. I will be very surprised if Real Madrid players give Higuain room to operate. Higuain will be marked, having scored five goals so far in the competition.

    So, who are the gladiators at Juventus? Need I restate Buffon’s contributions? I would rather look at the Italians’ defenders, comprising Giorgio Chiellini, Medhi Benatia, Alex Sandro and Dani Alves, who have the daunting task of stopping Cristiano Ronaldo, the talisman of the Spanish side.  Ronaldo will be difficult to pocket over 90 minutes because he has many records he wants to either achieve or possibly surpass. It must be said that victory for Real Madrid offers Ronaldo the best chance of being voted the World Footballer of the Year for the fifth time. If it happens, he equals the feat already achieved by Messi. You can see why it will be too close to call if anyone tries to pick the eventual winners based on facts on paper.

    The Italians are rugged at the rear, but what do they have in the midfield where most of the battles will be fought?  In this area, the Italians will rely on Miralem Pjanic and Sami Khedira to seize the midfield from the Spaniards. If Juve hopes to lift the trophy tonight, their midfielders must dominate the midfield and supply good passes to their strikers – Gonzalo Higuaín, Paulo Dybala, Juan Cuadrado and Mario Mandzukic – to score goals.

    However, Zidane has identified Dybala as the most dangerous striker for Juve. Dybala will be marked.  “Dybala is definitely Juventus’ number one threat. Juve has many good players and Dybala is one of the best. This will be a special final for me as I played for both clubs. I have amazing memories of Juventus.

    “Bale has nothing to tell me; he’s ready, he has suffered a pretty serious injury but I know each one of my players is motivated and that’s the only important thing for me. We still have some days left to prepare for the game, we’ll do some simple things during today’s training and we’ll go into further details tomorrow (Thursday),” Zidane said.

    Marking out star players is what will make tonight’s game very interesting, with each striving to render the opponents’ dangerous men otiose. Indeed, most pundits are expecting a tight and tactical game, which invariably will reduce the number of goals to decide it. Should this be the setting expected from two teams with immensely talented players? Certainly not, except it becomes necessary. Yes it is. So which of the two coaches will blink first?

    Former Brazil captain Cafu starts the rating of key players tonight, beginning with two defenders – Dani Alves (Juventus) and Marcelo (Real Madrid). Cafu said: “It will be a clash of titans. We are talking about the two best full backs in the world at the moment. Dani Alves attacks a lot, but Marcelo does the same. Tactically, it will be very interesting and it will be fantastic for Brazilian football.”

    Already, Higuain is looking forward to the battle against his former mate at Real Madrid, Sergio Ramos. “Let’s hope Ramos doesn’t score in the 90th minute. I have a lot of affection for him and his family and we still send each other messages.

    “Football sometime places you in situations like this one where I will face Real Madrid in the final. It will be an evenly matched game,” Higuian said.

    Will there be personal honour for exemplary players? Yes. Former Real Madrid legend and goalkeeper Iker Casillas raised the likelihood of tonight’s clash by deciding who the best footballer of the year would be when he said: “If the opponent wasn’t Madrid, I’d want him to win the Champions League with all my heart. He deserves it. It’s obvious that I’m a Madrid fan, but Gigi’s journey shouldn’t end without the Champions League.

    “He’s won almost everything, but this is a trophy he’s missing and it weighs heavily on him He’s had a great season, he’s back in the final and for we ‘old people’ – I’m thinking of myself, Petr Cech… – it’s a good thing. It shows that at 39 you can still feel good and be competitive,” the Blancos legend told Gazzetta dello Sport.

    “He started at 17 when I was 14. It was amazing for me to think that a boy just older than me was already at that level with Parma. It was a pattern, I admired him, I followed in his footsteps and I envied him. That was for a little bit, because when I started playing regularly for Madrid in 2001, he moved to Juve. Then we continued on together. The Ballon d’Or? Maybe a goalkeeper could win it, but I think it’s very complicated.”

    So, how deadly is Ronaldo in front of the goal keeper? Zidane captures Ronaldo’s influence in tonight’s game thus: “As you well know, there are no words that can do Cristiano Ronaldo justice. He has now got more than 400 goals for Real Madrid in all competitions. These are unbelievable statistics, but with him, anything is possible.”

    Zidane looks forward to Ramos conjuring last minute goals for Real Madrid, noting: “Ramos represents the values of Real Madrid, the spirit of doing anything to win. For me, those values are commitment, battling and fighting until the last minute. This club has taught me that and our captain, Sergio, represents this. He is a noble player.”

    Can Ronaldo be trusted to win this title with his goals for Real Madrid? “On the day of the game there is going to be a lot of nerves and I prefer not to think much about the final,” Ronaldo told Real Madrid TV.

    “They are an excellent team but so are we. I have the feeling that we are going to play a great game and we are going to win. I feel very good, very good, a bit cold, but it is better than having an injury. I’m better on a physical level compared to the last five seasons. I also played less, although I’m the one who played the most matches in the team,” Ronaldo concluded.

  • Unity, corruption and justice

    THERE is no doubt that the unity of the Nigerian state is going through rough and testy times. But that is not peculiar to the Nigerian nation and that is the theme of my discussion today. My premise is that nations that are diverse have more pressure on tolerance and accommodation of their existence and growth than nations that are united by a common language, culture and beliefs. The core of my observation or belief here, is that diversity is enhanced by unity and promoted handsomely when the rule of law is harnessed for the smooth establishment of justice in all institutions of governance and use of political power.

    I state again here that the basic definition of government, which is that a government is any government, that consistently and successfully upholds a claim to the exclusive use of physical force in enforcing its rule within a given territorial area, comes very much into play here. It therefore follows that we cannot talk of a government worth its salt when it has no force to establish its wishes or directives, as such a government cannot control the use of violence or maintain justice in an environment of diversity in which unity has been corroded or eroded by a lack of law and order.

    It is necessary to be philosophical on this enterprise, given the nature of our topic today. This is because we are looking at political events in diverse nations of the world where educative and important changes took place this week. In Nigeria we look at the fate of the war on corruption in the absence of our sick president as well as the fate of the rule of law, given the current spate of agitation for self – determination which has tasked immensely the legal and political skills of our Acting President, a professor of law in his own right, in the last few weeks. Of course on the global scene, we look at the domestic and foreign twitter antics of the US President Donald Trump as he faces a potential obstruction of justice investigation even as his party, the Republican Party has won crucial bye elections to confirm his popularity amongst those who elected him president, in spite of his media and Congressional travails.

    Thirdly, we look at Saudi Arabia where the reigning monarch changed the royal line of succession by naming his son the new Crown Prince, effectively replacing his nephew who was the Crown Prince till now, and see how that affects the political stability of that leading Muslim nation. Fourthly we look at S Africa where in the face of rampant corruption charges against the nation’s president, a court has ruled that a vote of no confidence can be conducted privately in Parliament against him. We go back to the situation in Nigeria where unity is being threatened by diversity, egged on by allegations of marginalization, injustice and corruption, especially in the judiciary which is expected to adjudicate between the executive and legislature in our presidential political system.

    I intend today to look at the positive side of a rather dismal and discomfiting situation in which the Acting President Professor Yemi Osinbajo has risen graciously and brilliantly to the occasion as a true and gallant ‘Daniel come to judgement‘ in the best tradition of the wise disguised lady lawyer, Portia in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. The Acting President spoke to leaders of Thought in the North and South East which are the areas of agitation for disunity and dismemberment of our great nation and I am happy the governors of the land have assured him that there is no going back on the unity in diversity that has propelled the nation so far in spite of the obstacles of corruption and injustice. In addition let me commend two Nigerian leaders who have shown that God is not finished with Nigeria in the way they have pursued the course of justice and the rule of law in our divesrse nation ridden with insurgency and blatant corruption in very high places. The first is the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Nigerian state, Abubakar Malami SAN.

    The second is the Governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Mamman Nasir El Rufai. Without mincing words the two Nigerian leaders in their spheres of governmental and institutional responsibility showed clearly that Nigeria is not a failed state and that government is in place at both state and federal levels to fight corruption, injustice and insurgency. Attorney General Malami won my heart in the way he retorted to charges that he has supported war on corruption half – heartedly by announcing that he authorized the appeal against the discharge and acquittal of the Senate President of all 18 charges related to false declaration of assets at the Code of Conduct Tribunal –CCT.

    Aside from the numerous grounds of the appeal, what I found most interesting was that there was after all, a written statement by the accused, the claimed lack of which was the reason for discharge and acquittal by the CCT. Also interesting was the appeal ground that in assets declaration the onus of proof is with the person declaring assets to prove his declaration and not on his presumption of innocence in other situations in law. The Attorney General described the CCT judgement as ‘unreasonable’ and accused the judge of indulging in ‘judicial rascality’. What our Chief law Officer Malami has done is to show that the prosecution of corruption is not over till it reaches the apex court in Nigeria which is the Supreme Court.

    He has also cautioned all those powerful Nigerians having corruption charges hanging around their neck like the Sword of Damocles, that though the mills of justice may grind slowly in Nigeria, they grind exceedingly fine. In Kaduna state, the governor told a team of Igbo leaders who visited him in his office that Kaduna has always been a haven for all Nigerians and that long ago, the state cancelled the indigene status making it mandatory for all Nigerian to claim citizenship of the state, once they have lived there long enough. More importantly he vowed to bring to law the Arewa youths who asked the Igbos to leave the North, to justice as a deterrent to others that they are not above the law, no matter how long it takes.

    That to me is the spirit of unity in diversity which is our national motto and the antidote to crass insurgency and the orchestrated and insolent whittling of the power of the state to exert its rule and authority all over Nigeria, as demanded by our constitution In the US populism is on a collision with democracy and the rule of law as the US media and Congress prepare to make a charge of obstruction of justice hang on the neck of a newly elected president whose election they say had a Russian connection. Yet Donald Trump’s supporters called FBI boss Comey who admitted that he leaked information with Trump to the media to foment an obstruction of justice names like lizard and liar.

    This was an unexpected charge which the Special Prosecutor appointed carelessly by Trump seemed to have brought into the centre stage to Trump’s acute discomfiture and embarrassment . Yet Trump has campaigned successfully for Republican candidates who have won bye elections albeit in core Republican states. Which is crucial, as Trump would have been written off if these same elections had been lost to Democrats. That simply means that in the US, the merits or otherwise of politics and the law don’t coincide in the public mind and popularity can exist in spite of legal wiretaps coupled with seething media and political animosities. That for now seems to be the fate of the young Trump presidency in the US. Lastly, in both Saudi Arabia and South Africa we see a show of political power and authority as well as a loss of face and authority respectively. The Saudi King Salman in making his son his legal successor and displacing his nephew, has taken nepotism to new heights even for a monarchy in which power is wielded by the one and only one family, the House of Saud founded after the First World War.

    Yet the displaced nephew has sworn loyalty to the son of his uncle and stability is assured in the Saudi political establishment. But it is worth recalling that an even more popular Saudi monarch King Faisal –who ruled from 1964 to 1975 was assassinated by his nephew also named Faisal, who was beheaded for the crime. Which makes the present cohesion in the Saudi monarchy over succession dicey as wealthy princes don’t just suffer displacement easily. Especially in a situation where a 31 year old Prince is placed well above his uncles and nephews in the powerful succession position of Crown Prince to the throne of the Guardian of the Kabbah in Mecca.

    In South Africa President Jacob Zuma must see his approaching political nemesis in the Parliament as payback time for the jolly ride he has had on the back of the popularity of the ruling ANC, the party of the immortal Nelson Mandela . Which really is a shame given the unassailable majority that the ANC has in the South African political system as well as the respect accorded Zuma because he was one of those who suffered in the notorious Robben Island prison with Nelson Mandela, a point of eternal adoration in post – apartheid S African politics. But Zuma has blown everything on inexplicable greed and he must face the music in the S African Parliament and that means total disgrace, albeit out of public view, as he has nowhere to hide. A sad day indeed for majority rule and democracy in S Africa and Africa at large Once again long live, the federal Republic of Nigeria.