The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Religion, politics and racism

    My  initial  title  for this  write  up  was One  Bishop, One  Emir  and  One  Cardinal.  The simple  reason for  this  was  the enthronement of  a   new  Anglican  bishop  that I  attended  this  week  and the  speech delivered  at  the event  by a  well known  and respected Nigerian  Cardinal,  as well  as the well  publicized  admonition of the Emir  of  Kano to  the  Buhari  Administration  to  pull  its  weight  in  terms  of  the expectations   of  the  Nigerian   masses  for  a better  life. Such  a title  would   certainly  have  precluded  my  writing  on the   very  topical  but  attractive  2016  US  Presidential  elections and the  ever  unpredictable  antics  and utterances of the Republican  presidential  candidate, Donald  Trump. This  time however even  Donald  Trump overreached  himself with  the  taunt  he gave to  black  voters  in  telling them  that they have  nothing to lose in  voting  for  him  as their  US   president  as  their  lot has  never  been  better in  voting   for the  Democratic  Party in previous  US  elections. I  found  that particularly  provocative  and  racially  insolent,  hence  the change  of  title  and a mood that  is about  to  unfold   here  and now.

    Let  me  elucidate  by  stating  that  the enthronement  of  the  Bishop I attended was that of Bishop Akinpelu  Johnson  the  new  Bishop of the Anglican Mainland  Diocese   of  the  Nigerian  Anglican  Communion. He  was,  till  his   enthronement    this   week,  the  Provost  Of  Christ  Church, Marina,  Lagos, the  Church  that  I worship  in   regularly.  The  enthronement  was at the  Cathedral  of  St  Judes, Ebute  Metta,  Lagos, the  Church  in which  I was baptized  and confirmed before  my  migration  to  Marina about  20  years  ago. My  purpose in   writing  about  the enthronement   of  this bishop  is  because  of his service  in Christ  Church  Marina,  Lagos which  I believe  rightly  earned  him  the recognition  and promotion  of  the Anglican  Church   ecclesiastical  authorities,  who  made  him  bishop  and enthroned  him at  the Cathedral  of  St Jude’s  this  last week.

      To  me,  as an   Anglican,   Bishop Akinpelu Johnson can  safely and    boldly  say   – like    Julius   Caesar  said     of   England, –  in  his Bishop’s  Court       at   the  Cathedral    of  St   Jude’s,    that    of    Christ  Church  Cathedral  where  he  served  for  7  years,   ‘l    came,   l  saw   and   l  conquered.’ This  is  because   with  the clear   benefit   of  hindsight, and   as  Provost  of  the most  prestigious Anglican  Cathedral  in  Nigeria,  Akinpelu  Johnson left  his mark  in  the sands of  time in the beauty, ambience  and   aura of  spirituality with  which  he adorned a  Cathedral   where  his  father  had     served    before  meritoriously   for 25  years. This   former  Provost improved  the quality  of service and   congregational  participation  in  singing  of psalms,  hymns    and  songs  of  praise  that  made  Christ  Church   Marina, the leading  church  in  terms  of  church  worship  in  Nigeria.  He  refurbished,  renovated  and  revamped  the Christ  Church Marina literally  from  head to  toe.  From  the floors, the pews, the organ, the choir  and  chandeliers, this  ancient  Cathedral   was  transformed  into  a new glowing  edifice in  aesthetics  and  beauty  that  can  only  enhance and  uplift  spiritual  worship.  He  did   obviously   this because  he  had  a goal  as  someone raised in the Cathedral  and  quite  well  educated in  theology  like  a craftsman   who  knows  his  onions and  trade  like  the back  of  his hand.  He  ran  into many  difficulties in  achieving  his  objectives  but  he  was  focused  and  resilient. Today,   I say  boldly   to anyone trying  to  know what  he did  in  Christ  Church, Marina Lagos to go  to  that  ancient  citadel  of  Anglicanism    and  look  around. I  am  certain  that such  curious  people  will   remember   on  doing so  the    immortal  epitaph on the grave of  the great  Architect of St Paul’s  Cathedral  London,   Sir  Christopher  Wren,  whose  epitaph  reads  most  candidly –  If  you must  see his works, look  around  you. Such   is the  measure   of  my  appreciation  and  gratitude   to  this new  Bishop  who  has  lived   so  capably well  to his illustrious  pedigree  and   ancestry  in  Nigerian  Anglicanism.    I doff     my  heart    and say    thank   you  so  much Bishop Akinpelu  Johnson for  the spirit  and quality  of  worship  you  left  in the Cathedral   on  the Marina.   And  as you  always text  in  prayer  –  it will  be well  with you Sir.

    At  Bishop  Johnson’s Enthronement  a new  development  ensued  which  again showed important elements of  the fusion  of  politics,   tradition , history  and religion  in  our   Nigerian   environment.  That  was in  the presence of    Cardinal  Olubunmi  Anthony  Okogie , the  retired  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Lagos  at  the event.  The  Cardinal’s  presence  was well  appreciated  by the  congregation  and  when  it was  announced  that  he  would  speak  later,   people  were   in  suspense and     were    all  ears. As  usual  his  message  was blunt  and of  course,  political. He  upbraided  Nigerians  for  being  weak  in  calling  their leaders  to  order. He  admonished  the new bishop  not  to  betray  the trust reposed  in  his new  office  as that was the main  message of  his enthronement. My  impression was that  an  artist  in  liberation  theology  was  as usual   at  his best in  speaking out   against  oppression and  dictatorship at  any  time and remains unrepentant in that    age  long  pursuit. Even  though he is   now  bent   with  age and time. Again,  I felt  beholden  to  the Cardinal  for his well  known  disposition   in  standing up  for  the poor  and  downtrodden  in  Nigeria. More   so    in an  Anglican  Church  which   broke  from  the  Roman   Catholic  Church   and   founded     by  the  English  monarch   Henry VIII  because  the Pope  then   refused him  permission  to  divorce  his wife  at  that  time.

    From  Cardinal  Okogie’s speech  we proceed  to  another  admonition  to the Buhari  government by  the  Emir  of  Kano  Muhammadu  Sanusi,  the  former  Governor  of  the  Central  Bank of Nigeria. He  pointedly  said  that  lack  of provision  of  employment  to  about 80 million Nigerian  youths  by the present administration  has  made  terrorism  attractive  to them. The  Emir asked the government  to  retreat  from  its  failed  policies and turn a new leaf and stop blaming the last Jonathan Administration  for its  present  problems. He  lamented  that  an economy  in which anybody  can  make a billion  naira just with a phone call  and  without  any investment  was  bound  to  have problems. He  said  he would  not  be politically  correct in telling government  only  what it wants to  hear. Which  really  reminded  me of  Donald  Trump  in the US but   more on that  later.

    Let  me state  categorically however that the  Emir of Kano  is immensely  qualified  to  say  what he  has  said  and he has  said it very  correctly  and timeously. He  stands this  time  very ably,  and  shoulder  to  shoulder   with the Catholic  Cardinal Okogie mentioned earlier.  This  is  because as  Emir  of  Kano  Muhammadu  Sanusi is both the political and spiritual  leader  of  his people. Quite  appropriately  he spoke  in  Kano  at a planning  seminar and  that  too  has its own peculiar  significance  around  the personality  of  the Emir. Since  his  assumption of  office  as Emir  there have been  many  conferences in  Kano  on the economy, commerce, transportation  and  business  generally    and    he has not    only  received participants  and organisers  of such events   in audience  at  his famous palace,  he has   delivered    very  academic   and   educative  papers. Undoubtedly  as a student of history and with  a degree  in Islamic  studies  the  Emir  knows  and is   surely   reviving  the  historical  position  of  the metropolitan  city  of  Kano  in  the   ancient   Trans  Saharan Trade   and  is  repositioning     Kano    on  a similar  pedestal  in  the   context   of  contemporary    economic  development    in   Nigeria. Given  his back  ground  as a banker  and  economist,  he is eminently  qualified  to  advise  the  Buhari a Administration and I urge  government  to  heed  the candid  royal advise  and  move  in the  right direction as  soon  as  possible. This   is  because  Nigerians  know  their  leaders  as well as those credible  enough for  them  to  listen. The  Emir  of   Kano, like  the  Cardinal,  is  one of such Nigerian  leaders.

    Let  me now  round  up  with my  favorite  topic  in  recent times – the 2016  US  Presidential  elections  and of  course its prime mover in  terms verbal vitriol, Donald  Trump, the presidential candidate  of  the  Republican  candidate. Certainly  in  telling black Americans that it  cannot  be worse  for  them in  voting for  him he was being  nasty although I will  not say  as usual. But  this  time however,   in maligning the first black  president for  not helping his people enough he  insulted  a whole  race. I  do  not  see  any  decent  blacks  voting for him  unless  he  retracts the insult  and  apologises publicly. Even  the way he spoke about the poverty of the blacks and the poor state  of  black  schools leaves  a bad  taste  in  the  mouth.

    I  expect  his latest  convert Nigel Farage the  former UK  Independence  Party – UKIP –      leader   in  Britain  who  has crossed over to the US    from     the UK, to  help  Trump   campaign   on  the  platform  of  the Brexit  success  in  Britain,  to   offer him    frank  advice on the decent use  of  language in political  campaigns, no  matter  the disagreement   over  the  issues in any  campaign or   elections.  Although  some politicians   in  Britain  have  attacked Farage himself  whose   party  UKIP  is  Eurosceptic   and   right  wing,    for  claiming the Brexit  success dishonestly for  himself.   David   Cameron  lost   his premiership  position  on  Brexit   victory  and the Labor  Party is castigating its own  leader   Jeremy  Corbyn   for  not  campaigning  sufficiently for the Remain  campaign  in the  EU referendum  and  have plotted to  remove him in the coming Labor  leadership  elections. Which  also  means that Donald  Trump  who  supported Brexit  and  thinks Americans would  vote  for him   likewise    in  line  with   the anti establishment  Brexit    success  in  Britain,  really  believes  that  with  people  like Fagel  around  him  he  would win the  2016   US  Presidential   elections . No  matter  what  happens   however, till Donald      Trump apologises  to US  blacks,  he can  count  black  votes out in his quest for  the US presidency in  November  2016. If  he can still  win in spite of that, then  good luck  to  him and all  Americans. A  people, it is said, deserve the leaders  they get.  Once  again, long live the Federal  Republic  of  Nigeria .

  • Buhari, please save our sports

    Buhari, please save our sports

    We have started again. Those who don’t want peace at the Glasshouse are up to their pranks, which could dovetail into a major distraction that may ultimately cost Nigeria the 2018 World Cup ticket. We should call them to order.

    The Japanese philanthropist’s donation is not enough for us to lose focus, considering the importance of the World Cup, especially after winning a bronze medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. What should be in our minds as a nation is how to set a template which will make Nigerian athletes rise to the occasion to compete with the World’s best. That is the only way Nigeria can be considered for hosting big competitions that will help provide for us the kind of facilities that we found in Rio and its surrounding cities during the Olympics. We shouldn’t spend quality time apportioning blames when we knew four years ago that the Olympic Games’ calendar is a four-year exercise.

    No doubt, mistakes were made en-route the Rio Olympics. But that shouldn’t be the reason to settle scores and make a few people scapegoats. A holistic approach towards achieving better results in Tokyo in 2020 should occupy our minds. And it starts with challenging the Muhammadu Buhari administration to tell Nigerians what its sports policy is.

    Is it about participating in major competitions without providing an enabling environment for sports to be run as a business like we find in other climes? Is it one in which the government does not want to exploit the potentials of creating jobs for the masses through the renovation of dilapidated structures across the country? Is it out of place for the sports policy to create a platform for people to recreate and stay healthy?

    Imagine the situation where there one sporting facility in each of the 775 Local Government Areas based on the natural talents of the people in a locality. There will be jobs for three coaches, three trainers, six doctors, six nurses, two grounds men, two cleaners and two games masters. Twenty-four people will be gainfully employed in each o f the 775 LGAs. Do the arithmetic of multiplying 24 by 775 to find out how many jobs that would be created if this pilot scheme is initiated. When that happens, there would be enough sporting activities to engage the youth who would be compelled to channel their energies towards sports instead of crime.

    If the Buhari administration adopts this plan, which should be backed by a legislation, that will make it binding on each of the 36 states and Abuja to take one sport different from the pilot one in the council areas and employ 12 people, using the same template. Again, multiply 775 by 12. It could trickle down to the local government, such that no one is left out. Amazed? Don’t be. It appears simple but it can work if only the Buhari administration has the political will to implement this initiative.

    The first ripple effect of this will be the return of sports to the grassroots-primary schools, colleges, polytechnics and universities. Young men and women won’t just be training daily without testing themselves to know their strengths and weaknesses. The moribund competitions that served as veritable hunting grounds for talents will be resuscitated. New ones will, of course be introduced.

    The new dawn in sports across the country wouldn’t go unnoticed by blue-chip companies and the rich. They would want to key into the initiative since their target audiences are the people.

    But the government needs to woo them with tax rebates for sponsoring sports. This is one of the ways successful nations lure the corporate world to bankroll sports.

    Part of the strategies towards outsourcing cash to run sports would be for the Buhari administration to find out what happened to the cash from previous Sports Lottery schemes headed by several wealthy Nigerians, such as the late Moshood Abiola. One is convinced that so much cash can be sourced outside, if the government introduces a transparent scheme in which sports-loving Nigerians can pay a token into a consolidated account run by the office of the Vice President. The cash can be drawn when the athletes need it instead of waiting endlessly for it. In the past, fund-raising events were organised prior to the Olympics, with the government opening the show with a substantial amount to convince the people and the business community that they are truly behind the project.

    Indeed, the calibre of Nigerians in the fund-raising body will further convince everyone to support sports. At the end of each major sporting event, the fund raisers will give an account of their stewardship. Statements of the body’s audited accounts should be made public.

    This transparency would lure more companies to associate their products and services with sports, like we see elsewhere. No company will want to smear its corporate image with ventures mired in corruption and controversies like we have in sports.

    The beauty of this aspect is that it is the engine-room that drives all the operations. The funding of sports shouldn’t be left in government’s hands. But, like I said earlier, it behoves on the government to set the templates to woo the corporate world into sports.

    The next question will be: what other things do sports nations do to excel? Simple. They choose a workable model, depending on what their targets are. For instance, after the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Jamaicans wanted to emulate the Americans in athletics. They got back home after the games and sent people to understudy the Americans in their schools, colleges and universities. These sports missionaries returned to Jamaica and today the fastest man and woman in the 100 metres are Jamaicans. The Americans are fighting back by deploying their former athletics greats to the schools, colleges and universities to groom new athletes, recount their experiences to them while serving as their role models, as they aspire to greatness.

     Britain returned home after an inglorious outing at the Atlanta’96 Olympic Games to reinvent their sports through the grassroots. They swallowed their pride and invested in long distance runner Mo Farah, a Somalian, who has now won for his adopted country four gold medals in two consecutive Olympic Games, first in London in 2012 and only recently in 2016 in Rio in the 5,000 metres and 10,000metres.

    We are beginning to see the Asians excel in athletics as one of the fallouts of hosting the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. Today, the Japanese are the second fastest in the men’s 4×100 metres relay race. Imagine what the Japanese will do in 2020 when they host the next Olympic Games in Tokyo.

    Successful sporting nations don’t run the ministry system because the industry is dynamic – full of changes which occur as each game evolves. This is one of the biggest challenges that confront Nigerian athletes in big sporting competitions where they find out that most of the facilities that they trained with at home are obsolete. The ministry model encourages laziness since the people are used to waiting for government money. These lazy people in the ministry create the administrative bottlenecks that slow down adequate funding of sports. Of course, the people who have run our sports recently have left much to be desired.

    President Buhari sir, Nigeria needs a National Sports Commission (NSC) comprising tested technocrats, not recycled people who have reaped from the tardiness of the ministry system. The commission should be headed by a renowned business guru with the pedigree of having revamped moribund institutions, preferably a banker or an industrialist, who would find the time to monitor what goes on in the commission. The members of the NSC shouldn’t be Lilliputians. They should be of the same stature as the chairman to avoid a one-man show. The secretary of the NSC should never be a civil servant. That position should be advertised to get the best person for the job.

    The NSC Chairman should be able to sit at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings, like ministers, to debrief the President about his commission. The clout of members of the NSC will be such that getting cash from the corporate world would be a piece of cake.

    President Buhari sir, the overbearing nature of most ministers has been the reason for the induced rifts and controversies at the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC). To avoid a repeat of this wahala, there is the urgent need to detach these two critical bodies from the NSC. The reason is that both bodies can generate enough cash to run their operations.

    Consequently, both the NFF and the NOC should be covered by a legislation which makes them legal entities, not this setting where they always run to the ministers for approvals. What has caused the needless controversies in the NFF and the NOC is the ego of the men running the two bodies and the minister, with the latter asserting authority.

    A case in point is the Atlanta saga involving the U-23 team where our bronze-winning players, coaches and officials had a torrid experience en-route Rio. Those who denied knowing where the players and coaches were shamelessly got to Rio, apologised to them and now want Nigerians to believe that their intervention helped the Dream Team to win the bronze medal. Indeed!

    The NFF and the NOC play a big role towards shaping people’s perception of Nigeria. Both bodies should be placed under the office of the Vice President for proper supervision. It will be foolhardy for any NFF or NOC group to confront the Vice President, who in any case will be too busy with other state matters. Both bodies cannot source for cash when the minister keeps insinuating that they are corrupt.

    The NOC has become a docile body since we started having the sports ministry decide who its president should be. After Alhaji Raheem Adejumo, the late NOC President, the body ‘died’. The NOC has become a platform for sports ministry chiefs, desperate aspiration. It explains why the minister became the bursar for Nigeria’s Olympic contingent instead of the NOC. This is part of the misnomer, which makes us the laughing stock in the comity of nations. We should reform or get permanently deformed.

  • Not the way to treat senior citizens

    WANT to gauge a country’s progress? Look at how it treats its young and the elderly. Looking after the former indicates a plan and hope for the future, while taking good care of the latter could show how that country appreciates the labours and sacrifices of people who were once young, and how it will respond to those aspiring to grow old. To both categories, Nigeria has been pretty unfair, through the years. The country has failed to harness the skills and energies of youth, and utterly overlooked the contributions of the aged as though they didn’t exist. It is a dangerous path to tread.

    The result has been horrifying. The lack of a coherent plan for the youths has left them at the mercy of unscrupulous politicians who turn them into roughnecks who hound and hurt opponents during elections. In the Niger Delta, at least in the first phase of militancy in the second half of 2000, some of these thugs easily morphed into such effective agitators and kidnappers, among other things, that it took the insightful pleas and negotiations of the late President Musa Yar’Adua to get them to lay down their arms, at a huge financial cost to taxpayers.

    In the Southeast, at roughly the same period, otherwise useful energies of youth were invested in abduction, a nefarious industry that fetched its practitioners some mind-boggling, dirty millions and kept many frightened easterners away from their homeland. It has also been argued that even the terror group Boko Haram, ideological as it may be, equally tapped into the critical mass of unengaged and disillusioned youths to launch and sustain its bloodthirsty campaign.

    Not every jobless youth will embrace vice, it must be said, but many of those who have no appetite for crime have slipped out of the country, at unspeakable risk to themselves; some have been robbed, abused or died on the way, some held by the authorities at their destinations. The old, on the other hand, spent and some certainly ill, have nowhere to run, even if they wanted. At 70, 80 and above, there is little thirst or prospect for escape.

    So to the pension board they turn, but there is little respite there. In most of the federation’s states, retirees are owed several months, in some, years, of pension arrears. This has reduced them to a sad, griping, protesting segment of the population, incapable of finding any joy in life. In word and deed, they convey a picture of being unloved and abandoned after giving all to their country.

    Theirs is a chilling twilight narrative of broken promises; government not remitting anything to pension fund administrators, and PFAs not being able to pay retirees; disjointed payments; fraudsters posing as pension agents; excruciating verification processes; worsening terminal diseases, death, and more frustrations for next of kin. In Bayelsa State, as at the first week of June, retirees were griping over eight months’ arrears of pensions. At a verification exercise organised by the state’s pension board, three senior citizens reportedly slumped.

    Barely three months earlier they had taken their anguish to Government House in Yenagoa, the state capital, where some pro-administration youths promptly chased them away, according to reports. In neighbouring Delta State pensioners were for years locked in a hide-and-seek with the government especially that of Emmanuel Uduaghan. Retirees spoke of government not remitting the deductions to the PFA, which in turn told the pensioners that there was no cash to pay them. At a point pension arrears in the state ran up to N16b, triggering protests.

    Mid 2010 Dr Uduaghan was said to have promised to accelerate the processes and payments. Two years later nothing was accelerated and no payments made. A certain Pa Uwadiogbu, a name that speaks to the mysteries of life, typifies the lot of many pensioners across the country. Employed in the federal civil service as a driver, he ferried dignitaries about, even drove a representative of Queen Elizabeth on October 1, 1960, and later Chief Dennis Osadebey, premier of the Midwestern Region. Pa Uwadiogbu has been in pains and in penury.

    His appeals for his pension to be paid have mostly gone unheeded. Worse, his waist has been in a bad shape, with a piece of metal fixed there by the medics, to be removed after five years. The metal was said to be still in his waist, six years after, leaving him in more pains. Dr Uduaghan’s successor, Ifeanyi Okowa sought to calm agitated nerves, telling the pensioners about six months after taking office that they need not suffer, and that he inherited about N33b in cash arrears. He promised to pay “some percentage of the money owed the retirees”.

    By the end of this April, the state pensioners, frail as they were, risked a 5km protest-walk to the gate of Government House, Asaba, after being unable to table their grief before the House of Assembly. They were protesting their two years pension arrears. In Lagos, where more efforts seem have been made to end retirees’ grief than is the case elsewhere, three pensioners slumped during a July verification exercise, and were reportedly rushed into a waiting ambulance.

    They were later discharged, thank goodness. Penultimate week, Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole said he owed about four years of pension arrears after clearing a 10-year backlog left by his predecessors. This speaks of a culture of criminal callousness to the old. In Benue State, two retirees keeled over on August 3 while protesting their plight. The youth have age and energy on their side. The old have nothing to hang on to, not even their paltry monthly pensions. This is frightening to the young who aspire to attain the age when all hair turns white. Such a country is backward, lacks a core and can hardly hold anything dear. Surely, there must be a better way to treat seniors.

  • Brazil has shocked the world

    Less than two years ago, it was all work in progress. In fact, the contractors were still putting up structures for the 2014 World Cup as the matches began. But the caricatures of what was left to be built in Rio and designated Olympic cities intrigued many.

    Today, Brazil is built up with some of the finest archictural designs ever seen. The awesome structures typify the hilly terrain around the cities. With the hosting of the World Cup and the Olympics,the Samba land can safely be called an industrialised nation.

    Today, nobody remembers the zika virus stories that forced many top athletes to stay away from  the games for fear of being infected with the killer disease. To tackle the virus and the rumours surrounding its outbreak, the government demonstrated remarkable commitment, providing adequate funding for the health sector across all   levels. Interestingly, you cannot walk into any medical facility for medication without the doctor’s prescription, except with glaring evidence of emergency that requires saving a life.

    The two  tournaments hosted by Brazil have changed people’s perception of the country. It is now the new attraction for industrialists bringing in their cash to invest. The first investors are those interested in mechanized farming.

    Travelling by road across the cities are wide expanse of land with irrigation facilities. There is heavy investment in machines. Rice and other agricultural produce are flourishing.

    Indeed, travelling from city to city, mechanized farming is evident on both sides of the roads. It isn’t all about crop farming; livestock is thriving. The castles in the ranches are a delight to the eyes.

    Hourticulture is a major industry in Brazil. The best way to explain how agriculture can be used as a revenue earner for any serious country is to visit Brazil and under-study the agricultural revolution going on here.

    With the massive investment in agriculture come job opportunities. Again, the industrialization of agriculture has brought in investors with the cash that has improved the power sector. A classical example of the effectiveness of the power sector here was the incident that happened Monday night in Maracana. A tree fell on electric poles and caused a massive outage. Believe it, in 30 minutes power was restored in the area. How did it happen? Simple. The electricity company stormed the area with vehicles manned by engineers with the right equipment. The fire service  sent its men. Security operatives stood guard while the outage lasted.

    Businesses  are flourishing. Everyone is savouring the gains of the games. Hotels are jammed in Rio, forcing visitors to find accommodation in neighbouring cities. Parks around the cities have been modernised.Brazil is indeed a major tourists haven.

        Everything is in Copacabana- music, booze and women. The weather is great. Beach lovers enjoy the cool breeze from the Atlantic Ocean. Some just sit around with their loved ones to savour the sweetness of the sunbath.

    Here in Brazil, tourism is a major revenue earner. Tourists’ centres are kept neat. Tourism is also a major employer of labour like agriculture.  I won’t be surprised if Brazil begins to generate revenue from sports because of its state-of-the-art sporting facilities. Sports is business and Brazilians are coming. England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland etc watch out. Soon Brazil would be a new platform for global football. Already, they have the culture of watching games.

    This writer won’t be surprised if international sports bodies start to use Brazil as the hub for all thier competitions. They have during their stay for the Olympics seen that

    government officials can be taken seriously. Health facilities are top notch, security is almost perfect, means of transportation is very effective (inter and intra) and the hotels are world class.

    The effectiveness of the transport sector suggests that it is not only a revenue earner but a big employer of labour. The central nature of the motor and bus centres encourages the large presence of people who engage themselves in various marketing operations that make the place buzz all night long.

    There isn’t any business concern that one can’t find in all these motor centres, including wash-up hotels for passengers to refresh after long haul trips. Movement on the roads is 24 hours. Well laid out seven-track roads most times with effective security ensure that travelling is a pleasure.

    You will marvel at the type of buses here. Brazil is the home of buses and there can’t be enough words to describe many that I have seen here. “Awesome” is perhaps the best word to describe them, especially when you look back at what we find in Nigeria.

    Who do we probe (2)

    Did Nigeria prepare for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games? Is it not true that most of the athletes in Rio secured their qualification tickets from qualifiers such as the All African Games and other qualifiers depending on the teams? Did Nigeria not place third at the All African Games? What was wrong in sustaining that momentum, given our penchant for doing things late? Is this not why we have failed at another Olympic Games, despite the nine-hour session in Aso Rock after Nigeria returned from the 2012 London Olympic Games without a medal? Had Sports Minister Solomon Dalung exercised son restrains and allowed Alhassan Yakmut complete the exercise of preparing for the Rio Olympics, maybe we would have done better.

    Yakmut, as the former Director General of the defunct National sports commission (NSC) understood the dynamics of preparing the contingent, having spent his administrative career in the sports ministry working with several ministers and other renowned administrators. Besides, as former Nigerian athlete, Yakmut knows the body language of sports men and women, many who would trust him better to resolve their problems. Had the minister hidden his disdain for Yakmut by allowing him to complete the process, irrespective of what the new trends were with the emergence of the Muhammadu Buhari-led government, it would have been easier now to draw up a roadmap for future international sports competitions, the Olympics inclusive? Yakmut would have used the hiccups of the All African Games to perfect his plans for the Olympics, which is what other African nations at the Games did.

    Yakmut’s removal as the man in charge of our Olympic Games’ plans is chiefly responsible for our uneventful display in Rio. I’m sure that if the minister had pleaded with president Buhari to allow Yakmut complete what he started, Nigeria would have been talking about one of her best appearances at the multi-sports competition. The merger of the sports ministry with the youth ministry created a vacuum which the minister didn’t quite appreciate. Once Yakmut was eased off, nobody replaced him. Nigeria’s preparation was left on the altar of counter accusation between Yakmut and the Minister which remains unresolved.

    With this lacuna, nothing was done to prepare the athletes beyond the doublespeak by the Sports Minister Solomon Dalung over our chances of winning medals in Brazil. In one breath, Dalung didn’t see any sense in our athletes camping in countries reputed to the homes of certain sports. Yet, the minister acknowledged the fact that we don’t have facilities to prepare our athletes here. Besides, the world was shocked to read the minister denounce the country’s Dream Team VI’s stay in Atlanta in the United States of America (USA), insisting that he didn’t know they were going there.

    Rather than institute a probe panel or anybody for that matter to probe Nigeria’s Olympic outing in Rio, the Buhari administration should first separate the sports ministry from its youth counterpart. The government should then name a competent sports technocrat as minister who would function with a National Sports Commission (NSC) like we have in civilised climes. The reason for a commission is that its members would be sports technocrats who would be eager to run the place like a business concern but with the support of the government in their sponsorship initiatives. Those in the commission would then pick the best sports policy in the system which should be the blueprint for sports development across the country. To avoid needless conflicts which could derail the operations, the NSC must seek the government’s support to get the state commissioners of sports to key into the commission arrangement since most states still operate with the commissioners acting as lords.

    The government can get all the states to run the commission system through a proper legislation, a workable template would have been established to run the industry as a business. If this is done, the moribund sports competitions can then be revamped with those needing cash from the private sector repackaged and sold to interested concerns. Sports can only start to thrive if the schools through the states’ ministry of education integrate sports into its curriculum. This would make it mandatory on the school authorities at all level to embrace sports.

    Sports belong to the people, most of who are the youth that you find in the school system. With schools embracing sports, there would be the need to get the games masters and mistresses to the kids the rudiments of the games. Of course, the state sports commissions would also deploy their coaches to the schools to teach specific sports, according to the dictates of the school’s authorities.

  • Trump’s tantrums, Obama’s legacy and the rest of US

    At long last, Donald Trump the tempestuous Presidential candidate of the Republican Party in the 2016 US Presidential elections has thrown his hat in the ring in accepting the challenge his opponent Hillary Clinton’s strategy of campaigning for the office of the US president with the legacy of the two term Obama presidency. In a major policy speech this week the American billionaire drew his line in the sand for his opponents to dare to cross by asserting that the danger facing his nation for now is similar to that posed ideologically by the Soviet Union’s ideology of communism during the Cold War.

    This time however the ideological opponent to be faced with equal vigor and resolve by the US, according to the new war mongering political gospel of Donald Trump is Radical Islam, represented globally and notoriously by the terror group ISIS or Islamic State. Quite dramatically, the Republican Presidential candidate sought refuge in history to whip up sentiments of an unsafe America leading an equally insecure world.

    A world he portrayed as literally trembling at the sight of the forces of terror which he said could not be contained by the Obama Administration’s eight years in office. These he asserted are the destructive forces of terror which are likely to multiply and escalate under a Clinton Administration sworn to campaign on what he called the Obama Administration’s failed strategy in fighting global terrorism. Donald Trump’s critics have been quick to point out that the Republican candidate was silent on issues like the economy, NATO, Pacific Security and shifted grounds on his earlier promise to ban Muslims from entering the US and the promise to build a wall against the Mexicans.

    But such critics cannot deny that he has a plan and a strategy to protect the US against terrorism in a resurrected 1952 US Ideological policy to contain communism and adapting it to fight Radical Islam in 2016. In terms of finding a campaign ammunition against the Obama Legacy, Trump has not been innovative at all and did not have to invent the wheel. He has just been cunning in whipping up the specter of war, an ideological one for that matter , and to me this is just hard nosed political pragmatism but which strikes starkly at the soft underbelly of the Obama Legacy in the fight against global terrorism. In creating fear for Americans in their homeland and globally, in a world in which no one knows when and where ISIS would strike in Western Europe and the US, he has found a soft target to create an image of weakness and insecurity for the Obama legacy.

    This can only worsen with any subsequent act of terror, which the ISIS as a terror group is murderously committed to against the civilized world. Such a grim and bloody prospect of not only how but when terror will strike provides ready ammunition for the Trump campaign to run precariously on, as it runs out of ideas on the usual issues traditionally associated with US presidential elections such as the economy, foreign policy, education and social welfare. Effectively then, Trump has switched the issues and the campaign to suit his unusual candidacy, mannerisms and eccentricities. I therefore disagree totally with those analysts who say he has no campaign for the presidency because he has just adapted his nomination campaign for the presidential campaign and the two are different. To me his switch of issues to security and the fear of Radical Islam show that he knows where his strength and weaknesses lie hence his present strategy to mess up the Obama legacy at all costs.

    The ball is therefore firmly now in the court of Hillary and the Democratic Party to assert that Trump is wrong on his priorities and is indeed alarmist in terms of the fear and insecurity he has created and is creating in the minds of the US electorate three months to the 2016 presidential elections. The success or failure of the Democratic Party in this regard will determine whether or not Donald Trump will rise to the US presidency on the ashes of the Obama legacy on which Hillary is campaigning and to which Donald Trump is equally dedicated to reducing to tatters vehemently, especially with regard to foreign policy and global security.

    This then brings up the issue of how this 2016 US Presidential elections will affect the rest of the world. Of course there will be need to categorise on who the rest of us are, or who should be in this exercise. Certainly some people, race and religion already vilified by Trump in this campaign, can never wish him well in the elections. These certainly include majority of Muslims who think their religion is one of peace and who are annoyed by his intention to ban Muslims from entering the US and his new strategy of vetting new and existing US Muslims ideologically on American values and Sharia law before entering the US. The same applies to Mexicans on the wall and NATO nations who have not paid their dues and Pacific nations like Japan and S Korea which Trump said are rich enough to fund their nuclear and defence needs and do not need US funds in this regard.

    This then leaves us with nations we shall speak of randomly on this the Rest of Us team. Strong nations like Russia and China and big African nations like Egypt, Nigeria and S Africa. We shall leave out Asian nations like Pakistan and India who have deep military and nuclear deals with the Americans and have no choice but to deal with whoever emerges as the next US president. Similarly it will be unwise to include nations which form the tragic Middle East theatre of the war on terrorism like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and of course Turkey which has borders with Iraq and Syria and which has accommodated over 2.5 million refugees since the Syrian crises started. These nations have had more than their fair share of deaths and killings arising from the war against Radical Islam even though they remain staunchly Muslim. It is these nations in the theatre of terrorism that one can describe as being numb to terrorism given the number of people killed in their midst on a daily basis.

    Not Western European nations who in Nice trooped to the beaches to enjoy after a truck has killed about 80 of them on Bastille Day in Nice, France. It is nations like Turkey, Syria and Iraq that can be said to have fear fatigue as they have no where to go to as they kill each other as if they are not fellow human beings frivolously and bloodily almost daily since the war on terrorism started over the 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers of New York in 2001. Such nations certainly do not care a hoot who the next president in the US is. Certainly these terror numb nations can tell off the two presidential candidates in the 2016 US presidential elections with the words of Romeo’s friend stabbed and dying in Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet – ‘a plague on both your houses, they have made worms meat of me ‘.

    With regard to Russia and China I can see them wishing Donald Trump some measure of success and the reason is not far fetched. Donald Trump is doing their dirty work historically of rubbishing US foreign policy and political values and dragging the Obama policy in the mud . The Russian President Vladmir Putin has scant regard for President Obama and was an admirer of his predecessor George Bush JNR . Putin will be dealing with the third US president after this 2016 presidential election and will be seeing the Russian political system as more reliable and stable than the US system that has thrown up a divisive candidate like Donald Trump.

    This is because Putin knows the Americans want to believe they won the Cold War because the US Ideology was better than the Russian ideology of Communism, a fact that Putin resents very bitterly and has always condemned. As for the Chinese they have their investments mostly in US treasury bills and know that Trump is a billionaire even though the Chinese billionaires nowadays are far richer than their American counterparts. So the Trump presidency is not one the Chinese will lose any sleep over in spite of Trump’s threat to deal with the Chinese once elected. Which now leaves us with Africa and on which we shall consider Egypt, Nigeria and S Africa very briefly. Egypt has an elected military president resembling a diarchy no thanks to the Obama legacy. Indeed the man elected president based on the 2011 Cairo speech of Obama that led to the Tahrir Square democracy protests is now facing a death sentence in Egypt. Certainly the Egyptian army and government would welcome a Trump presidency as they are not comfortable with the possibility of a Hillary presidency.

    The same measure will apply to S Africa where the nation’s president has been engulfed in corruption and diversion of public funds for personal house renovation. The Obama Administration kept the Zuma presidency at arm’s length on account of this so the prospect of a change of guard in the US White House will not bother the authorities in Pretoria. That leaves us with Nigeria where the war on both terrorism and corruption is raging. Boko Haram the terrorist group in Nigeria is an affiliate of ISIS so a Trump presidency will be comrade in arms with the Buhari government.

    But the Americans under Obama have promised help on fighting Boko Haram even though they have always pointed out at joint security sessions that the leadership of the armed forces was corrupt. This fact surfaced with a change of government in 2015 as reality and the bitter truth, with the revelations on diversion of funds for war at the office of the former NSA .So it is a toss up on what will happen between Hillary and Trump in Aso Rock .Although I suspect the ban threat on Muslims will tilt the balance against the mercurial and unpredictable Mr Trump. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • Money is thicker than blood

    Money is thicker than blood

    One of the prevalent myths and conventional wisdoms of contemporary public discourse in Nigeria is that the root causes of the country’s ingrained maladies are essentially ethno-cultural. And a corollary of this submission is that a structural disaggregation of the polity into its ethno-cultural and linguistic components, either through outright dismemberment of the country as it currently exists or its decentralization into regionally contiguous geo-political zones, is the key to rapid socio-economic and political transformation.

    Underlying this thesis is the notion that blood ties, linguistic affinity and cultural affiliation should be the lowest common factors informing territorial delimitation in a restructured Nigeria. Within the context of such ‘ethnic federalism’, it is argued, the developmental potentials of the federating units will be liberated creating more conducive conditions for the accelerated achievement of national goals and aspirations.

    Those who articulate this view often point to the commendable developmental strides made by the regions allegedly as a result of the competitive regionalism of the first republic as justification. While there is undoubtedly some validity to this argument, it overlooks or underestimates some critical intervening variables. First, it does not take sufficient account of visionary, dedicated and patriotic leadership as a key factor in the achievements of the regional governments of the first republic. Competitive regionalism did not on its own produce comparatively uniform levels of development across the regions. The uneven performance of the regions reflected the degree of qualitative vision of its political leaders and the competence and professionalism of its civil service.

    Secondly, a prime mover of the thrust towards the break up of the regions that resulted in the progressive state-centric atomization of the polity was the struggle for political autonomy by regional ethnic minorities who felt marginalized and oppressed by relatively centralized regional structures. Thirdly, it is all too easy and convenient to romanticize the virtues of the first republic. The reality is that the same impunity and perverse values that undermine development in today’s Nigeria were already very much alive and well in the first six years of the country’s independence.

    Corruption is not an exclusive product of Nigeria’s post-regional state structure. Anybody who doubts this should read the reports of the Coker Commission of Enquiry into the management of public corporations in Western Nigeria, the Foster Sutton Commission of Enquiry into the affairs of the African Continental Bank (ACB) in the Eastern Region or the reports of investigations into the affairs of public corporations in the Northern Region. The degree of politically driven and patently immoral privatization of public resources across the regions and at the centre in the first republic is well documented and quite honestly mind-boggling.

    A key anchor of the theory of ‘ethnic federalism’ is that each ethnic group is a custodian of distinct and pristine core of culturally derived values that can serve as the building blocks of geo-ethnic developmental vitality and progress but for their suffocation within Nigeria’s current structural configuration. Among the Yoruba, for instance, the ethnic federalism theorists identify a body of ‘omuluabi’ values that can provide the basis for moral rejuvenation, cultural coherence and socio-economic progress.

    The Intelligentsia of other ethnic and socio-cultural groups also make the same claims for their respective entities. The absence of such a nationally acceptable system of values in Nigeria is said to be at the root of the country’s protracted developmental impasse.  Thus, every ethno-cultural group absolves itself of blame for a national moral malaise that all are jointly responsible for to varying degrees. Of course, I find no credible empirical justification for these suppositions.

    In a very interesting and stimulating paper presented recently at a conference in honor of Professor Akanmu G. Adebayo, at the University of  Ibadan, Dr Dapo  Thomas of the Department of History and International Relations, Lagos State University (LASU), applies his fecund theoretical imagination to the ethical quandary confronting Nigeria’s post-colonial state. Titled ‘Corrupt Politicians, Trial Carnivals and Molebi Theory’, Dr Thomas interrogates the phenomenon of fanatical, almost cultic and very public support for top public officials indicted and being tried for horrendous acts of corruption in President Muhammadu Buhari’s ongoing onslaught against graft.

    As Thomas puts it “The carnivalisation of the trial of a rogue politician diminishes our values, insults our sensibilities, pollutes our cultural space, destroys the foundation of our polity and encourages communal scrambling for the endless gulping of our commonwealth”. In contradistinction to the Ebi concept or thesis propounded by Professor Akinjobi in 1961 to explain dominant socio-cultural traits, Thomas seeks to understand seeming popular indulgence of and support for corrupt behavior within the context of what he calls ‘Molebi theory’. In Akinjobi’s Ebi thesis, the Ebi is the smallest social unit among the Yoruba consisting of everyone across time and space related by blood. “What binds the people together is blood relationship which is believed to be stronger than any other connection”.

    The Ebi thesis bears some theoretical affinity with the famous theory of the two publics formulated by the noted political sociologist, Professor Peter Ekeh, to explicate the relationship between the colonial legacy, state structure and political behavior in post colonial Africa. In Ekeh’s formulation, public officers in the modern, formal state sector of the polity routinely pillage the state offices where they operate to enrich and empower their primordial ethno-cultural communities to popular admiration of the latter. For Ekeh and Akinjobi, therefore, blood and cultural affinity or loyalty is the basis of communal support for what really ought to be perverse and deviant corrupt behavior that has unfortunately become the norm.

    To Dr Thomas, however, his ‘Molebi theory” identifies money and other forms of material gratification as the cementing factor of essentially ‘patron-client’ relations. Money or pecuniary relations, contrary to the premise of the ‘ethnic federalism’ thesis is thicker than blood. In his words, “In Molebi theory, members of the Molebi don’t have to have blood relationship or share any cultural history. What binds them together is their loyalty, commitment, allegiance and belief in their political and economic godfathers…In most cases, these “Molebi” shamelessly ignore or discountenance the obvious evidence and proof of reckless looting of the public treasury by their benefactors…A benefactor’s “Molebi” are beneficiaries of his ill-gotten wealth and dubious hospitality” and these transcend ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious, class among other boundaries.

    It can thus be misleading and unhelpful to resort to crude forms of ethno-regional reductionism to explain or seek solutions to Nigeria’s multifarious problems including corruption. As the current exposure of massive corruption in the last administration reveals, those who perpetrated these acts cut across ethnic, cultural, regional or religious ties. No ‘omuluabi’ or other supposedly superior moral ethic prevented them from feasting gluttonously on our collective patrimony.

    In the same vein, those who have continued to vociferously support even public officers that have admitted to their guilt by returning huge amounts of stolen money, including storming court sessions to solidarise with treasury looters, are not limited to any ethnic, cultural or religious group. We have on our hands a serious crisis of values from which no ethno-cultural group is excluded or innocent.

    But how would Dr Thomas classify the allegedly sectional and nepotistic pattern of many of the APC administration’s appointments or the federal government’s inaction as regards some of its highly placed political functionaries accused of serious ethical infractions? Is this a combination of various manifestations of the Ebi (blood) and Molebi (prebendal) afflictions with serious negative implications for Buhari’s anti-corruption war?

  • Who do we probe (1)?

    History has an uncanny way of vindicating the just. It only takes time, as was exemplified with the laughable apology by the sports minister Solomon Dalung in Brazil on Sunday night after the country’s U-23 Olympic Games’ soccer side qualified for the quarter finals of the soccer event. In civilised climes, Dalung should have submitted his resignation letter and head back to Nigeria. Such things don’t happen here because most of these treasured appointments have the backing of henchmen to the seat of power. What a country!

    Dalung wouldn’t be the first Minister to take out his angst against the hierarchy of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF’s) chieftains. This nauseating trend has continued unabated largely because every succeeding minister sustains the needless fight to always present the NFF chiefs as rogues, cheats and fraudsters. No pity for any minister that has bitten this bait.

    Indeed, Dalung should have resisted the temptation of revisiting the Chris Giwa court case. That was where he missed being fair to the Football Federation. Giwa had already accepted his fate with his team actively involved in the domestic league matches. Nobody knows what pushed Dalung to reopen the case that had been dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), whose decision is final in sporting matters. I don’t want to believe that Dalung is an ethnic jingoist. Many have imputed the minister’s romance with the Giwa saga to the fact that they come from the same state. I don’t perceive Dalung as such a person. Rather, I feel strongly that the quality of advice that he gets is warped. However, it takes the courage of a Christian/Muslim to accept one’s folly, which is why one is tempted to sympathise with the minister, hoping that this would be his last mistake.

    Dalung should back-off the NFF and see himself as being above those in the Glasshouse, instead of his continuous meddling with the body’s affairs.

    The way things are going in Brazil, Nigeria’s surest medal may come from football. And I wonder what Dalung would be telling President Muhamadu Buhari about his support to the Dream Team VI leading to such feats.

    What Dalung must appreciate is that if Nigeria wins the gold medal of the football event, blue-chip companies would flood his office with proposals on what they can do with the team. Everybody loves a winner.

    Dalung should allow the NFF do their job, only mediating where there are controversies. But a situation where the minister persists in running the NFF out in the crease without providing a better template for growth only helps to buoy the corporate players’ resolve not to touch the brand NFF and our football.

    What President Buhari can do to stop this meddlesomeness from sports ministers is to remove NFF from the Youth and Sports ministry and attach it to the office of the Vice President. The President can then get his aide to the National Assembly to recommence the process of repealing Decree 101, which give the minister the power to intervene at any point in time with the affairs of NFF, rightly or wrongly.

    The implication of these two decisions is that NFF will then be able to run its business, knowing that no one is breathing down their necks or waiting to cancel all their decisions taken in a way NFF chieftains may have perceived as the best in the prevailing circumstance (s) to arrive at an amicable solution to promote the game beyond its tottering status. Worrisome, however, is that such reversal of NFF decisions by a “supervising” minister is usually without due consideration for its merits and demerits. I digress.

    So what did Dalung say to the Dream Team players and coaches? “I want to apologise for all the circumstances that led to your late arrival here. I apologise because I am the head, and as such I must take responsibility for anything that happens under my watch.

    “I’m happy you all have put the unfortunate incident behind you and have shown that you are true heroes by making the country proud with your qualification for the quarter finals. This qualification is unique as you guys are the first team to do so in the football event.”

    Speaking further, the Sports Minister disclosed: “I want to assure you that we appreciate your efforts, and I want to say that it’s when a man faces challenges that his true ability is tested. I am sure we all have learnt our lessons and will take the lessons to heart, going forward.”

    Is Dalung telling the truth about lessons learned? I doubt it, given the way he has chased NFF men. Dalung hasn’t been swayed by the FIFA President’s visit to Nigeria to appreciate why he must back the Amaju Pinnick-led board, instead of hounding them about like preys in the forest. FIFA President’s visit ought to have informed the need for the minister to give the NFF men a platform to operate. It is instructive that the first country the current FIFA President visited is Nigeria, not forgetting the fact that 17 Football Associations’ chairmen in Africa came to honour the soccer ruling body’s boss in Abuja. It shows might. It also underscores the fact that this current board may after all be the body to transform our football. Dear Dalung, is it out of place for Nigeria to be the next Confederation of African Football (CAF’s) President? Such high profile offices can’t be ours when Dalung runs the rule against the Federation. Dalung will learn a lot about administration of sports here if he takes his decisions, not fighting his aides’ battles at the detriment of the industry’s growth. Such actions could be phenomenal, if allowed to blossom.

     I also wonder how this NFF, with a paltry N60 million monthly subvention which comes in trickles, run over 11 national teams in these trying times. Certainly, this pittance can’t run the place.

    Reality has dawned on those jokers who promised us that Nigeria would return from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games with at least five medals. It is alright to dream. But such dreams must be worked for, since others have perfected templates that ensure no vacuum is created once generation of stars reach the twilight of their careers.  These countries know that for sports to thrive, its foundation must be anchored on programmes that engage the youths in the hinterland.

    Simply put, the foundation of sports rests in the grassroots. The potentials in these rural areas only need to be taught the rudiments of the game, nurtured and exposed to stardom. Every new group inspires those behind them to embrace the sport such that certain areas are noted to produce stars in particular sports.

    This seamless structure happens because the school system creates the enabling environment for kids to combine sports with education. Besides, sport is part of the schools’ curriculum, making it imperative for students to learn the sport peculiar to the schools. Little wonder kids who went to federal government and state government schools of yore embraced cricket, the noble gentleman’s game. Indeed, schools such as Saint Finbarrs, Saint Gregory, Christ the King College, Hussey College, et al produced brilliant school boy players such as the late Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, Henry Nwosu, Tarila Okorowanta, to mention but a few. These schools churned out new stars yearly largely because their principals understood the import of supporting sports in such schools.

    For off campus students, they found solace in cottage playgrounds around their cities, which were invaded by sports-loving Nigerians eager to recreate. Such recreational centres had older men who played the game serving as instructors. Many of them evolved to become sports clubs, with the locals paying to be members in order to use such facilities. These clubs gave rise to competitions that further energised the youth to play the sport.

    Indeed, sport isn’t a business of the government. Rather, the government provides the enabling environment to thrive, just as it encourages blue-chip companies to fund the industry, with tax reliefs granted to those of them who identify with sports.

    Since sport originates from the people, it is easy for the schools to have quality facilities and the communities providing alternative venues for sports enthusiasts to recreate. With this all round setting for sport, not much effort is made to get the corporate world since they can see the activities and choose which sport they want to sponsor. Of course, everything is done transparently, making it easier for sponsors to have value on their investment, unlike in Nigeria, where government has a stranglehold on the industry that is seen as a business in other climes.

    If we must compete favourably with others in big sporting events, then we must be prepared to do those things others have perfected. One of the biggest revenue generating schemes to back sport is the sports’ lottery project.

  • Change and global realignment of forces

    The  three most outspoken  and controversial   leaders  on  the world scene today  are  undoubtedly US  Republican  Presidential  candidate  Donald  Trump, Turkey’s  President Tayyip Erdogan and of late the  new  President of  the Philippines  Rodrigo  Duterte. For  various  reasons, motives  and  intention they  have commanded the attention  of  the world   and are driving  or  attempting to  make things  happen  as they like or  to make the world  and their environment  see  issues  and problems from  their  perspectives.

     It   will  be a classical  understatement  to  just  call  them  strong  leaders  or  to dismiss  them  as crazy  as many  brand  Trump, arrogant  as some describe Erdogan or murderous   as some call  Rodrigo  the  new  Filipino strong  man. But  no  one can  ignore  the obvious  fact  that  they  are  driving change in their environment, are  popular  and no  matter  how  distasteful  you may  think, they   have  charisma, the magical  quality that guarantee blind,  unrelenting followership.

    In  a world  besieged by Islamic militancy  and  terrorism,  typified  by the murderous Islamic  State or ISIL, of  the borderless  caliphate  notoriety, national  and regional  insurgency  and  the greatest  migration in  history  of   humans   and   global  insecurity is obvious   and  pervasive. With  desperate  migrants fleeing  wars  in the Middle  East  and descending on Europe  from  the Mediterranean and  the high seas, the  emergence  of these three  leaders appears  to be a logical  conclusion given  the type of message  for  change and  hope  for   a  better future   that   their  mannerisms and eccentric  style  of leadership have brought forward.  It  is my  intention to show  today how  these three  leaders  are  involved in measures  that will result in a realignment  of  forces in international  affairs  and  diplomacy  globally. I  make bold  to say   such realignment    may   be as important as such  alignments,  alliances  and deep  feuds   that  characterized  the Cold  War  from the end  of the Second  World War to  the collapse  of  the Soviet Union and the fall  of  the Berlin  Wall in  Germany.

    For  a start  let  us examine  some  of  the utterances  and actions  of  these leaders  in the last  one week . Donald  Trump  this week  said US  President  Barak  Obama founded  ISIS and  gave emphasis to Obama’s Muslim name Hussein in making his point,  which  he has not retracted. Turkey’s  Erdogan  visited Russian President  Vladmir Putin in Russia and  warned  that  unless  the US extradited the cleric living in America that  he insists  was  behind  the failed  coup in Turkey  recently, then the US  will  have to choose  between Turkey  and the cleric.  In  the Philippines the newly  elected president  Rodrigo  Duterte,  called  the US ambassador  in the country  a son  of  a bitch  for  interfering in the last  presidential  elections in that  nation. We  shall  now proceed  to  look  at  the implications  of  the actions and utterances  we have  highlighted.

    Starting from Trump,  it is easy  to  say  that nothing can  be further  from  the truth in saying Obama  is a founder of  ISIS .However  what  the Republican  presidential  candidate was saying in his  usual  polemical  manner was that  Obama’s  foreign  policy contributed  to  the  emergence   and blood  thirstiness  of ISIL   and  that  is  not  very  far from  the truth. It even  does  not make Trump crazy but  at  best confrontational or   perhaps   verbally violent. If  you  add  Syria  and the  failed Obama  line in the   sand on  chemical  weapons  used  by  President  Assad on  his people plus the attendant migration through Turkey and the Oceans by  millions   of   Arabs    and  Syrians fleeing  war  in  the   Middle  East,  then  you get  to  see that Trump  was  holding  the US president  responsible for diplomatic failure of a policy of  deterrence  culminating  in the emergence and ferocity of ISIS. There was  no  way  he could  have been saying he  Obama   was   there at  the founding of  ISIS. Such  a conclusion will  be naïve and  rather   simplistic in  many ways.

    On  the  global  scene Donald  Trump  has cast  aspersion on the Obama legacy  which  is the legacy that the candidate of the President’s  party Hillary  Clinton  has  adopted to  campaign to  succeed  Obama.  Trump  however  has consistently thrown spanner in the works of Hillary’s  succession by  defaming Obama on  ISIS and calling  Hillary  crooked. Trump  has taken  on the world  literally before  becoming president  and it is predictable how the world  would look  if  he becomes  president, a  possibility that  even  Obama who  branded him unfit to be president  has candidly  acknowledged.  Undoubtedly  Donald  Trump is  planning  to bring a new  world in to existence,  like British Foreign  Secretary Lord  Palmerston   once said in defending  colonialism,’ to  redress  the balance  of  the  old‘. Given  the way  Islamic  terrorism  has brought both Muslims and Christians to their  knees globally  I   see  nothing unthinkable about a change of  guard  in the US or  anywhere  for  that matter   if   the  stated  objective  is   to make the world  more secure  for humanity  in any environment  they   exist  in  order to survive.

    Similarly  Erdogan’s   threat on extradition of Gulen or  parting of ways  with the US  should  not  be treated  lightly  or  scoffed   at. The  fact  that Erdogan  has  gone to Putin  in  Russia  to  patch  their relations up  is significant. Turkey  is  strategic member of  the military  alliance  between the US  and  Europe  called  NATO. Turkey  for  now is the nation  at  the heart of  Europe through  which Syrians  are  fleeing  to Europe in  droves  and that is creating tension between  existing  European  governments   and the electorates. Such  tension  created the  Brexit  success  in  Britain  and like the Financial Times wryly  noted  this  week,  is driving  the Donald  Trump  campaign  in  the US.  In  addition Erdogan  has  mended fences  with  Israel  and together  they can screw Syria’s  Assad  which  has always  been  a  mutual  foe  to both nations.  Especially  as both the present political  leaders of  Turkey  and Israel  are at loggerheads  with the US their traditional  patron  and  supporter.

    Meanwhile   some   pessimists   have observed  that any  truce between  Turkey and Russia cannot  last  because historically  the Ottoman  Empire  of Turkey  has  been at logger heads with the  Russian Empire for  centuries.  But  that is so much ancient  history  as Turkey  now knows  the  importance of trade  and tourism  for its  buoyant economy  which was why Erdogan  has won three elections back  to  back and is so [popular  he is using the failed  coup  to castrate  the military  politically and  totally  in  Turkey. In  addition  Turkey’s  protracted  application to join  the EU and  which is  being threatened  for  cancellation by  the  EU  because Erdogan  wants  to execute  the recent  coup  plotters,   may  be  given  some pep  or accelerated approval  after  50  years if  Turkey  threatens  to  open its borders for a predictable floodgate  of  desperate war  migrants into  Europe.

    In  broad  terms then  the diplomatic  options  open to  Turkey  under Erdogan  are  enormous and the US   with  its sovereign reputation  in tatters  because of  the quality  of its 2016  presidential  campaign  is hardly   on  any moral  ground  to give any lessons on democracy, security  or  even   amazingly,  on  political  stability given  the Trump  bull   in the China shop  plaguing its political  system.  Inevitably  then, some diplomatic  horse trading must  be concluded sooner than later in  the Middle  East  which  will  alter immensely  the political  equation in that  part  of  the world,   and    even  the US and  Europe as we know them  today.

    With  regard to  President Rodrigo  Duterte   of  the Philippines   there  could  be no excuse  for  him  to  call  the US ambassador a gay  ambassador  and the son  of  a whore. Yet  that  was  what  happened this  last  week  and the US  has called the Filipino  Ambassador  in  Washington   to  protest. But  the new President  of  Philippines,   Rodrigo a former  mayor  got  elected  because    he  promised  to  kill drug  lords  pestering his  people  and to  trample on  human  rights  in order  to tackle  terrorism,  corruption  and crime in his nation. Yet  he  got  elected  to  show  that   in  a democracy,  the  choice  of the electorate  matters at  the polls  and that the voice  of  the people  is the voice  of  God.

    In  conclusion then,  I think  it is the prayer  of citizens  in  any  nation to be blessed  with  leaders  who  are  people  oriented and who  have  integrity  and are blunt.  I have  mentioned three   world leaders  today and  would have added  a fourth in the Nigerian  President Muhammadu  Buhari. But he seems  to  have  lost  his  momentum on  the promised  change that brought him to power in 2015. The only  shining  armour  he has  now is his integrity  and  the  respect  of  the Nigerian  nation. He  has not shown   enough  strength in punishing  those stealing  public  funds  because  he wants  to  be politically  correct. This  is   something the anti establishment   Donald  Trump in  the US  said  he does  not  want  to  be.  Yet    President  Buhari has  more  political    power and acceptability   in  Nigeria   to    blaze  a trail, than  Trump has  in the US for   holding    political   correctness  in  contempt. Buhari  has  to  do something unexpected  and non-conformist  to  show  Nigerians that those who steal  public  funds cannot  get away   with  murder as at present.  He  can not do that  by being politically  correct  under  our present  laws  where  even  the Speaker  says budget  padding is not an  offence  and the presidency reportedly  agreed. Once again, long  live  the Federal  Republic  of  Nigeria.

  • Clapping for our opponents

    The die is cast with the commencement of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janerio, Brazil. It is the biggest multi-sports competition, where new winners emerge, with former champions humbled. For some previous winners such as Usain Bolt, the Olympics in Rio offers him the best chance to confirm his dominance of the sprint events (100 metres and 200 metres), with many athletics followers wishing that he wins the three gold medals like he did in London in 2012 and Beijing in 2008.

    Since Bolt emerged in 2008, the talk has been who would beat him. Such a feat can be achieved by drug free athletes such as Bolt, who hasn’t tested positive to any banned substance. Bolt signposts the best of athletics as epitomised by the Jamaicans’ superiority over the Americans, who in the past coasted past their competitors with grace and candour. Until the Jamaicans dethroned the Americans, the athletics event was the “birthright” of the Americans, given their dominance of the tracks. And they justified the ratings with their unbeatable template for producing world beaters in the event. Little wonder the Jamaicans went to the United States of America (USA) to understudy the Americans before coming up with their model that has left the Americans in awe, wondering when they would reclaim their “crown.”

    Countries such as Nigeria have gone to Australia to study their model, culminating in the need to improve on the facilities inside the Nigeria Institute for Sports (NIS) to attain the standard required. Sadly, policy somersaults arising from frequent changes in sports ministers have left the NIS in ruins, only producing half-baked coaches, whose certificates are not better than the foil used to wrap bread, only to be flung out the moment the content has been eaten.

    However, the Rio Olympics offer the Americans the best platform to beat the Jamaicans. Will the Americans come up with a new kid to breast the tape ahead of Bolt? I can’t wait. For Nigeria, it would be the place to watch and clap for our opponents, who commenced their preparations when the light was extinguished in London to signify the end of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

    Being a multi-sports event, the swimming pool would be the place where the Americans, Australians and the Asians will rule. Will Nigeria present a swimmer at the Games? I dey laugh o! Can block float? We have the talents to do well at subsequent games. But that won’t happen given the dearth of swimming competitions in the country and the dry pools, that is if we even have them. Since the time when former Sports Minister Jim Nwobodo told everyone that the black man doesn’t have the innate talent to swim, we have been winking in the dark in swimming. And there isn’t any light at the end of the tunnel irrespective of the renovation of the swimming pool at the National Stadium Surulere, Lagos. Soon that place will return to its decayed state where rodents and other dangerous animals will co-habit.

    There will be focus on tennis because of the Williams’ sisters – Serena and Venus, not forgetting Andy Murray of Great Britain. Did I hear you ask about Nigeria’s entrant for this event? Keep dreaming. If we had, he or she would be there to clap for his/her opponents. Tennis has sadly become an elite sport played seriously by rich men and their families who embrace the game as a form of recreation- not to compete for the country. For crusaders of this sport such as Godwin Kienka, their products embrace the game too late to do anything meaningful because they are usually interested in seeking greener pastures for those who got scholarships to play the game outside the country.

    For ping pong, Nigeria has been doing well, except that the Asians dominate the event. Our boys and girls could cause some upsets in the qualifying rounds. That is the best that they can achieve because our preparations were poor. Aruna Quadri, Segun Toriola, Funke Oshionaike et al are not strangers to the Olympics but their best years are behind. Quadri could be our best prospect. But the field at the Olympics is tough, with the Nigerian not showing enough character to sustain his quest for the Olympic Games’ medal’s podium.

    Don’t wake me up from this dream when it comes to Nigeria’s chances of winning a medal in basketball. No doubt, our game has improved, but it is not enough to stop the Americans in the dunking game. Good to know that  this is our second appearance at the Olympic Games’ basketball event, yet majority of our players ply their trade in the NBA; but this makes the task of beating us easy for the Yankees. True, they know them but when push comes to shove, the Nigerians would be lacking in technique and tactics. These are the hallmarks of champions developed over time and not through the fly-by-night approach by the Nigerian government and sports administrators.

    Winning any medal at the Olympics is a seven-year project. This means if Nigeria was serious about wining any medal, preparations ought to have started after the Beijing 2008 Olympics Games. Blessing Okagbare was the best prospect for that. But we wasted the opportunity with our rudderless structures and policy summersaults arising from a high turnover of sports ministers.

    Rather than invest in Okagbare after her debut in Beijing, we allowed her to burn the tracks in all the seasonal athletics meets, leaving her unprepared for the big events such as the Olympics. I won’t blame Okagbare for running round the year. She must put food on the table. She must pay for her school fees. She must pay for the services of her technical staff. Little cash many may argue, but when the Nigerian government isn’t forthcoming, Okagbare must decide her future. Of course, with a government that pays lip service to corporate sponsorships for sports, the blue-chip firms are not inspired to take the initiative. Even the few sports federations that seek sponsorship from these firms are unconvincing to a prospective sponsor when asked what a sponsoring company stands to gain from such investments. This will even be worse now considering the tightened noose on the economy- a development that has left many firms rethinking their spending portfolio. And for such firms, every kobo for sponsorship must be worth their while for their return-on-investment.

    In other climes, government has incentives for firms that support sports such as tax holidays and/or rebates. Besides, those climes establish sports lottery funds which help to support their athletes going for big competitions such as the Olympics. Okagbare has a few sponsors but their cash isn’t anything to refer to when compared with what bigger athletes receive.

    Talking seriously about Nigeria’s chances of winning a medal at the Rio Olympics, one is tempted to list wrestling as the biggest prospect. But my enthusiasm waned when I listened to the Wrestling Federation of Nigeria (WFN’s) boss, Daniel Igali’s lamentations on Channels television’s sports programme during the week.

    Igali lamented thus: “In elite sports, little things matter a lot and as a nation, Nigeria must go beyond the stage of depending on luck to win competitions and do things in the right way.

    “I don’t believe in outcome, I believe in process and part of the process is their training partners. We don’t have to do things the Nigerian way.

    “If Nigerians want medals, come forward to us as the Nigeria wrestling team needs to take five training partners and one coach to Brazil. The wrestlers cannot afford to stay off shape as over 200 teams will participate in wrestling,” Igali said.

    For the records, Igali is an Olympic Games medalist at Sydney 2000 Olympic Games in wrestling, but he achieved that feat wrestling for Canada after being frustrated by our sports administrators. Igali is back to Nigeria and wants to introduce those things he found in Canada that were responsible for his feats. Of course, there can’t be a Nigerian way of doing things. Here, we count on luck as if others signed a pact with ill-luck during sports competitions.

    So, how do you drop the wrestlers’ training partners yet you expect them to warm-up properly before their events? Do our administrators understand that a wrestler cannot train with one who isn’t in his weight class?

    Indeed, Igali’s arguments are germane because the wrestlers won’t be competing on the mats until August 17. So, what would they be doing between August 2 and 15? They can’t be starring into the sky for those 13 days. They need their training partners to keep them fit. It is these partners who would be used as the guinea pigs to perfect the strategies to adopt on competition days.

    With this scenario, one isn’t too sure of a medal in wrestling. But with a Nigerian, anything is possible. Who would have thought that Chioma Ajunwa would win a gold medal in the female long jump event at the Atlanta ’96 Olympic Games? Ajunwa’s feat that year was not because she had an exceptional preparation for the Games- no, far from it. Rather, it was simply Nigeria’s ninth wonder of the world. And in line with the Nigerian tradition, 20 years after Ajunwa’s long jump gold medal, who has emerged to repeat half the feat?

    The world is waiting for Nigeria’s soccer team in Rio for two reasons. Firstly, soccer pundits are licking their lips waiting to see if Nigeria and Brazil will tangle at any stage of the competition.

  • Political awareness, corruption and succession

    I  start  today  with  an  ancient  and  time honoured  saying  that – the mills of  justice may  grind  slowly  but  they  grind exceedingly fine. I  adopt  this saying as the flagship  of our  discussion of  the title  of  the day. In  doing this I will  show  that in various  parts of  the  world as  we know it  today,  people  are  increasingly  aware and are intensely  critical  of  the type  of leadership  they  get or  have and   are  remonstrating  and  protesting where  an when they  are disappointed or  think  that they are being  shortchanged or   suspect  that the present  leadership  they  have is taking them for  a ride.

    It  is indeed  not  very  difficult  to see  what  I am  trying t decipher  because  it not  lost  in  plain sight  to  any  discerning observer  of  world  politics  in  the last  one week.  In   Brazil  in Latin America the Olympics  have  started  but  hundreds  of  protesters  took  to the streets when  the Olympic  torch  was received by the Mayor  of Rio de Janeiro  and the two  presidents who  brought  the Olympics to  Brazil  are  facing  corruption  and  impeachment  charges for budget  padding.  Similarly in  Nigeria the  former Chairman  of  the Appropriations Committee of the House  of  Representatives  has shot  back at the Speaker  who  relieved him of his  position  with much  venom  and charges  of  financial  recklessness on  budget  padding   and has written a petition  to  the anti  corruption body – the EFCC – to  prosecute  the Speaker  for budget  fixing,  padding  and other  odious budget  approval  malfeasance.  Also   in  the same  Latin  America  where  the last  two  presidents  are  on  tenterhooks  in  Brazil  over  corruption  charges a sitting   President  Ortega  of  the Sandinista  fame in   Nicaragua  got  the  Supreme  Court   judgement  to  contest  for  a third term and immediately  nominated  his wife as his  running  mate  for  Nicaragua’s next  presidential  election due very  soon. Surely  one  man’s  food  is  another  man’s  poison especially  in the  politics of  elections  and  succession in  the democracies  of  Latin  America  where  the Perons blazed  a trail  in  matrimonial  succession in  Argentina sometime  ago.

    Yet  it  is in North  America  not  Latin  America  that  the greatest  political  volcano  of our  time  is about  to  explode  and I  really  do  not  think  I am  exaggerating   or  being  unduly  alarmist.  I am  simply  bothered  as  a  serious  student  of  global politics  and  human  progress  and  I have  shown  my  apprehension  and  concern  in  my  last  recent  essays  on  American  politics  and  the 2016  presidential  elections  which  has come to  be dominated  by  the brand  of  politics that  the Republican  candidate  Donald  Trump  has  brought  on  board   with  his forceful  personality and  even  more  violent  language  on  the  campaigns  and the  November elections.  Which  he  obviously  sees  as a no  holds  barred,  winner  takes  all, scotched  earth political  undertaking.  Which  also   is unprecedented  in  US  politics  and  has  prompted  a sitting  US  president Barak  Obama, to  declare  that an  opposition  candidate  against  his  anointed presidential  candidate  is  not  fit  to be  president.  Which  also  on its own is extreme  language  to  use  on any  candidate  including  Donald  Trump  no  matter  how much  of  an  irritant he  has turned  out  to  be in  the pursuit  of his democratically acquired mandate   and legitimate  candidature.

    Similarly  in Turkey the  incumbent  president  who  survived  a military  coup   recently,  has  seized  the opportunity  to  put  his  political  house  in order  by  purging  all  public  institutions  accused  of  harboring  coup  plotters  and  sympathisers.  President  Tayyip  Erdogan  is  making sure  that  lightning  does  not strike twice  at  the same spot  and it is difficult  to  blame him  especially  if  one realizes that  life  has  no  duplicate  and  that  even  a cat  with  nine  lives such as  he  must   learn  fast  to  always watch  his  back  to survive  politically  in Turkey’s  volatile, secular vs Islamist  politics  and  elections.

    These  then  are  the issues  on  the table  today  and  I will  now stamp  on  each  my  views  and  comments in  the light of  the topic  of  the day starting  with  Brazil and  the order  of  narration so  far.  Really,  who  could  have thought  that Dilmar  Rousseff the  President  of  Brazil during  the 2014  World  Cup would  not  be in  office  and would  be facing impeachment  trial two  years  later during  the 2016  Olympics  brokered   by  her  predecessor  who  handpicked  her  to succeed  him  and see   through   the  two  prestigious  sporting events? Yet  the ominous  signs were  there  in  the way  Brazilians protested  during the 2014  World  Cup  at  the corruption in their  sporting  institutions while ordinary  Brazilians wallowed in abject  poverty.  Even  the gods  of  soccer  did  not smile at the  Brazilians in their favorite  sport  of  soccer  as they  were  humiliated by a disgraceful  7-1 defeat  on their  own  soil  as  hosts  by the merciless  Germany   team   which  went  on   to win the 2014  World  cup  in  Brazil,  to  President  Dilmar  Rousseff’s  utter  discomfort  and embarrassment. Events  in  Brazil  have shown  that  politicians  cannot  get  far away  from  public  anger  no  matter  how  many  fanciful  games  and sport  they  invent  and sponsor  to  divert  the anger and  poverty  of  the  people  away  from  their  sufferings  as the ancient  Roman  Emperors  did  with  the staged  fights and lions  in the arenas  of  ancient  Rome.

    In  Nigeria  the sordid  revelations  on  budget  padding  show  clearly  that  dishonesty is a way  of  life  in  our legislative  institutions.  A  simple  task  of   budgetary  cost  control  built  into  our  presidential  system  as a form  of  checks  and  balancing  and   separation  of  powers,  has  been  turned  upside  down  and made to serve the narrow  constituency  interests of  elected legislators. It  is both a betrayal  of  the constitution  and the electoral   process  in  the democracy  that  saw  the emergence   of such law  makers  intent  on  perverting the democratic  process  for  their  selfish  interests. Of  course  no  budget  can thrive under such  a warped  and corrupt  system  which  makes   a mockery  of  budget  planning and execution  while economic  growth  and  welfare become unrealizable  like  a mirage on  our  heated Northern  highways. Of  course  the EFCC  must  do  its duty  and prosecute  those  involved. Since  every  disappointment  can  be turned  into a blessing,  this whistle blowing  by  legislators   turning  on themselves may  yet  be the shortest   way  to put  our  legislative  chambers in  order and  hopefully  make budget  padding  a thing  of  the past.

    Not   much  can be made of  Ortega  appointing  his wife  as running  mate  as that  has  been  done twice  in Argentina – the  Perons   and  de  Kircheners – and  the ladies  performed  well  in  succeeding  their  husbands.  The  issue    however  is   the ethics  of  it. Which  is that  such   a consideration   of a wife  for  succeeding   the  husband   should  not arise in  a healthy  political  system  where  merit  is  the deciding  factor.  The  wife should  in my view  just  not be up  for  consideration  to  succeed  the husband  no  matter  her  talents as the couple is  supposed  to  be one entity and  not two  and  therefore  not  extendable  in  terms of  political  succession in  any way.

    In  taking  on  the US here  then,  I  think  the same bias  would  dog  the  candidature  of  Hillary  Clinton  as  the presidential   candidate of  the    Democratic   Party.  Although  Donald  Trump  has taken  a lot  of heat on his  political  campaign  style  Hillary  Clinton  too is  not having  things easy. An  anti  –  Hillary   documentary  by  Dinesh  D’ Souza   titled -Hillary’s  America; The secret story  of  the Democratic  Party -has  been  said  to  be the highest  earning  documentary in the US  for  now. Although  I  have  not watched  the film  the producer  said  it   showed  Hillary’s    real    motivations   and  is  based  on  facts which will  alter  the way  blacks and Hispanics  perceive  their  relations with  the Democratic  Party.  Given  its  history  of endorsing slavery and discrimination in this documented  history  of  the Democratic  Party, of  which Hillary is the current  presidential  candidate. How  the issues in the documentary which  Donald  Trump  has reportedly  endorsed,  unravel,  and  how  much  publicity it  gets  will  certainly  affect  the progress  of  either  Trump  or  Hillary  in their  quest  to become the next  US president.  Either  way  it seems as if  a  bomb is  ticking to go  off  in  this 2016 US  Presidential elections   and  I do  not  think  that is a healthy  feeling   for  either  US  politics or  even  global  democracy  and  peace  for that  matter.   Once  again  long  live  the  Federal  Republic  of  Nigeria.