The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Gbolahan Salami’s fate

    Where is Gbolahan Salami? Did I hear  you say which Salami? Ok. Let me ask again; where is Salami, aka Balotteli? Oh my God? Sometimes, such nicknames come back to haunt us. I hope this is not what has happened to Gbolahan Salami, Nigeria’s CHAN Eagles captain and last season’s Globacom Premier League top scorer.

    So what about Salami? Well, wherever he is today, he must be ruing his situation, having chosen the pursuit of the Golden Fleece to an unnamed club outside Nigeria rather lead the country’s home-based Eagles to the ongoing CHAN Championships in Rwanda. This isn’t the first time Salami has chosen self above country. Shortly before the team was to play against Tanzania in Dar es Salam, Salami left the camp because his travelling documents were stuck in one of the European embassies. The Eagles missed Salami’s bravado and sharpness in front of the goalkeeper. Nigeria played out a barren draw against the Tanzanians.

    I won’t blame Salami for choosing the European transfer option, especially with the backlog of unpaid salaries and allowances in most Nigerian clubs. But he has been through this before. He knows that deals don’t come easily during the January window, largely because European clubs are looking for quick fixes – players with pedigree to block leakages in their teams, not upstarts, such as Salami – with due respect to his talent.

    Salami ought to have known that as the team’s captain, he would get better and bigger European contracts from direct negotiations with him than through agents or managers. Rwanda has been invaded by club scouts searching for “cheap” talents just as we have heard that they are falling over themselves for Nigeria’s wonder kid, Chisom Chikatara.

    Indeed, it would have benefited Salami more if he joined his mates in Kigali. Salami would have given the coaches the option of playing two goal-scoring strikers instead of changing winning formations simply because one striker is nursing an injury. Salami’s bustling style which is reminiscent of Daniel Amokachi of yore, could have helped the CHAN Eagles. He would have scored goals with aplomb. He would have been the poster star of the tournament. And the scouts would love to come in droves for his signature. Salami wouldn’t have needed any agent to do his bidding. As the poster boy of the competition, negotiations would be done directly, with his agent listening.

    One must remind Salami that European clubs want regular internationals. He is an international but would need to show his suitors clips of past games, instead of giving them the opportunity to watch him live as they are doing with Chikatara. But would the Eagles chief coach Sunday Oliseh give Salami another chance to fight for a shirt in the team after two incidents of dumping his squad?

    Salami will get a shirt, if selected for the camp but most coaches stick with winning squads. Oliseh won’t want to bank on Salami a third time, having been disappointed twice. He would definitely rely on Chikatara, who must learn from Salami’s mistakes.

    Salami’s fate reminds this writer of the need to get NFF chiefs to call registered agents for a meeting where they would be reminded not to cajole our players who have national assignments to prosecute, except the deal have been concluded before the lads are invited to the camp.

    Agents are destroying our emerging stars with their promises of juicy contracts when they know that transfers during the January window are targeted at tested players who will make immediate impact not fledgling star, such as Salami.

    The NFF must warn these agents and scouts not to confuse the players now that the 2016 Olympic Games beckons. My fear is that with the Olympics slated for August, we are likely to have the scenario where our talented players sneak out of the country in search of better deals in Europe. These home grown players jump at anything. Such offers give them the best chance to earn a living from playing football, unlike what they are faced with in the local leagues. These gullible boys easily multiply the meagre cash in foreign currencies by the going rates in Nigeria and head for such destinations at the behest of shylock agents. I digress!

    Salami’s loss, like they say, is Chikatara’s gain; yet the former in the CHAN Eagles would have been a strong arsenal in the team’s armoury. Sadly, we are out of the CHAN Championships in Rwanda with Chikatara, Usman Mohammed, Chima Akas, Ikechukwu Ezenwa, Austin Oboroakpo and Ifeanyi Mathew as new names for the Super Eagles. These players form part of the positives from the country’s disappointing outing.

    The CHAN Eagles didn’t do well at all. They were poor in set pieces; they didn’t know what do beyond sending long balls to Chikatara, who evidently became a marked man after his hat-trick against Niger and intelligent strike against Tunisia. The team was largely unimaginative in its play; the players couldn’t send passes to themselves to force their opponents to make mistakes, especially in the game against Guinea. CHAN Eagles played as if they were told that a draw result was all that they needed to qualify. So, when the Guineans struck, it was clear that we had no plan to score goals.

     

    Oliseh’s laughable excuses

    One can excuse Sunday Oliseh of some of the blame because he was out of the country attending to his health. I hope he took down notes, which should include devising other ways of scoring goals – set pieces and teaching the boys how to shoot accurately in front of the goal area. But Oliseh must responsibility for the team’s ouster. It is laughable that he is talking about moral issues when he should bury his head in shame that we couldn’t qualify from a group that had Guinea, Niger and Tunisia.

    Since Oliseh got this job, I have refrained from scolding him, largely because I have been accused of not liking Nigerian coaches. But the truth is that Nigerian coaches have not grown from being players in their utterances and actons. Otherwise, what does Oliseh mean with this ignoble excuse: “It’s a big disappointment, but I’m proud of my boys, even though we did not go through. They gave a good image of themselves. Somewhere inside it was difficult for the players. They have given their best; they needed that lift and they couldn’t find it then.

    “We came out to win, but we did not play. My players are human and there is limit to what they can hold. For some morale reasons, they couldn’t fight it today. My players have children and families. Adult tournaments are not youth tournaments,” said Oliseh.

    Is Oliseh saying that the Sport Minister’s stay with the team didn’t address the issues he was talking about? Did they not tell Nigerians that they were given all they needed to excel before and during the competition? Did NFF not provide Oliseh with the logistic support for him to succeed? Is it not true that everything he asked for he got? NFF secured a camping site in Pretoria at the high performance centre. The federation organised two international friendly games against Cote d’ Ivoire and Angola? So what does he mean by moral issues? Did the minister not explain to them the reasons for the delay in settling their matter? Oliseh didn’t know the boys because he wasn’t with the team in Port Harcourt.

    Oliseh must shut his mouth because he got all that he needed. What manner of moral issues is he talking about given the fact that Samson Siasia delivered the trophy with the U-23 side, Dream team VI, with his mother held captive by kidnappers? Siasia is my man of the year for how he managed to put aside the trauma of his mother’s kidnap for a national assignment? Oliseh, please learn to own up to your faults.

    Those who didn’t make their mark in Rwanda should be dropped. The NFF needs to have a permanent coach for the CHAN Eagles who should periodically be made to present his team against the Super Eagles, whenever they are in camp, ahead of any international assignment.

    I align with the thoughts of NFF President Amaju Pinnick, who reiterated that the African Nations Championship is “both developmental and preparatory for bigger challenges”, and said without mincing words that the Federation would now shift focus to the qualification race for the bigger Africa Cup of Nations. There could also not be a better response from the Glasshouse chiefs than to apologise for the woeful outing in Rwanda.

    Former Green Eagles Captain Christian ‘Chairman’ Chukwu, ruing Nigeria’s ouster from CHAN offered insights into what to do with the team.

    Chukwu said:  “Well, that’s football for you. There is nothing any of us can do to change the result. It’s just unfortunate. However, I will like this CHAN squad to be kept together to form the bulk of Super Eagles so that in the next competition we will be certain we have a team already on ground.”

    We, however, need to have a basis for picking national team players, such that people don’t say that we left our best players at home when our teams are eliminated. This task of picking the best players rests with the chieftains of the Nigeria Premier League (NPL), whose duty is to ensure that proper evaluation of players exists in the system.

    The Nigeria Premier League is the only competition where those in charge don’t see anything wrong in not having the best players’ XI of each week which will also result in monthly awards for the best players, as we see in most European leagues.

    What it simply means is that in a month, we would have had 30 names that will be constant in the weekly selection of 11 players. It means also that we will have monthly between these 30 and 44 names of outstanding players in the domestic league.

    With this evaluation chart, no coach would dare list any outsider, knowing that his employers have a list of outstanding players in the league. The task of picking these players should be handled by the NFF Technical Committee, headed by Shuaibu Amodu, in conjunction with those that the NPL would pick to handle such a sensitive assignment.

     

  • Responsibility, corruption and terrorism

    Boko Haram was cheering enough but  for the fact  that it claimed they  were those who benefitted  from the Dasukigate   $2.1  bn arms diversion scandals  in the  ongoing   sordid  revelations. This  was not helped by the accompanying  news that Boko  Haram  has again killed, through suicide bombers in, of all places,  Chibok from where the over 200 missing school  girls  abducted by the same terrorist group  had gone  missing over a year ago to date. If  you add  that to another  revelation   by the  new  Methodist  Church  of Nigeria  Prelate  that  the last ruling party  brought money  in Ghana  must  go sacks to  get  the Church’s support  but the  Church  rejected the money because it loathed  corruption but  instead asked them  to go  and campaign, then you see the rudiments for today’s analysis taking   shape rather quickly.

    Naturally  it is necessary  to analyse the  logic of these statements as well  as their  pragmatism  and practicality.  It  is also  necessary  to examine  if they are true or are indulgences in crude mendacity. We  must  also try  to see if  they are just mere excuses or cover ups for real  and unforeseen actions or inactions.  In effect we have quite  a plateful of issues  to tinker with.

    First  of all to say the beneficiaries of the arms diversion revelations are the cause  of the Boko  Haram  menace  is an oversimplification of the matter and is sheer  fallacy. At best the  arms diversion culprits,  if  and when found guilty, can only be punished for escalation and prolongation of the insurgency and as such can be  found  guilty  of treasonable  felony or crime against humanity .Nevertheless   it  is necessary  to remind the Borno State Elders Forum  that  Boko  Haram started as  an  Islamic protest group that wanted to establish Sharia law in the North East  and Nigeria and was able  to recruit jobless youths roaming Maiduguri  and the various capitals of the 6 North East states carved out of the 15m  people said to be living in the North East then. Mismanagement  of government resources, coupled with the big lie of a huge population claimed for the area  to  get huge  federal government funding, as well  as poor leadership and misuse of security  and infrastructural  funds are indeed the root cause  of Boko  Haram  and the North  Elders Forum  cannot claim ignorance  of this or claim truly  that it has no hand in it. After all,  Elders Forum anywhere do not just emerge in a vacuum.  They  emerge or  evolve from the  leadership,   over  time,  of any society  especially  from the ruling class which includes the clergy  or  religious  leaders, the traditional leaders and politicians – and the Borno  State Elders Forum  cannot  be an exception. To  look  for scapegoats for the emergence of Boko  Haram outside  Maiduguri and the North East states  capitals is a bitter  diversion, equal  in magnitude and  irresponsibility  to  the ongoing cruel arms diversion revelations we have called Dasukigate. It  is illogical  and dishonest. It can not gel in any way   with  reason ,or   even serve as an excuse which  certainly was  its  initial  and  ultimate  objective.

    Next,  the  attack on  Chibok  again brings  to the fore the fact  that Boko  Haram has changed strategy from frontal combat to guerrilla warfare and that is not new and we do not need to invent the wheel  to combat it. It was the strategy  used  by the communists in Latin America against dictatorial US sponsored military dictatorships. Its  main hero in legendary and myth  context was Che  Gueverra the Argentine hero of the  Cuban revolution who was more popular  than even Fidel  Castro the leader  of the revolution. But even  Che, who  was my hero in my undergraduate days when I had his poster in my room at Ife was  killed  by organized government forces in a jungle somewhere in Latin America  where  he was leading another insurgency  for the establishment of communism.

    But Che  and the revolutionary forces he led were popular with the masses  who  helped and even hid them from government forces. Boko  Haram  however is not popular because  it is killing both Christians  and Muslims and even though it is claiming to be a borderless  caliphate,  most if  not all Muslims all over the world  have denounced it. How  come  then that it is still capable of killing people in broad daylight as it successfully did in Chibok this week? The  answer is simple. They  have willing collaborators  in Chibok and any where they kill  people and get away with it or kill  themselves in the process. That is where communal policing and intelligence gathering should be stepped up in areas in or regions of the North  East  where they have been prolific of recent in their nefarious guerilla warfare. Community groups,   age groups  and institutions  should be asked to police and guide  their members because as in the case of bank  frauds where connivance and internal  collusion play  a major  role in the success  of such frauds, Boko  Haram  has members living in our communities  as  such  people do not live in a vacuum. They  are  full  blooded Nigerians and when and where young girls detonate bombs to kill themselves  and innocent  people, their parents or kinsfolk  should  be cornered for  explanations and  responsibility for their wards murderous activities. On    the present Chibok suicide  killings those  interviewed said they  had always reported that Boko  Haram  was in the vicinity  to the authorities but their warnings were ignored. Police  and security institutions  should, in house, find out from their  members why  such calls were ignored and blacklist  such  officers on security  matters. They  can   post them out of the area or sack  them with  no benefits if found  to have connived or colluded with suicide  bombers  or their  relations. Really  it is high time mosques, schools  and public  institutions  in the North East did a Boko  Haram  staff  audit of their members and employees  to find  out the wolves in sheep’s  clothing in their midst who  are definitely helping Boko  Haram  to  kill innocent people as they did in Chibok  –  just  to rub it  in that the Nigerian state has not   only failed  to  find the Chibok girls they  abducted a year ago but that they  have the  audacity  and impunity to strike  again  where thunder should really  not strike twice  in our beleaguered North  East.

    On  the statement  credited  to the Nigerian  Methodist  Prelate  one should  certainly commend the bold  action of the Methodist  Church in standing up against  corruption. This  again is because the religious  institutions in our midst have  been  beneficiaries of looted funds one way or another as those involved with Dasukigate are well  known Church and Mosque goers. Have these  institutions tried to find out the source of the donations by politicians and businessmen who fund  projects so lavishly  and   so generously  and who  are praised  to high heavens for  their  gifts  by highly  appreciative priests  and imams during sermons  and every  opportunity  to show gratitude  for such charity? I  attended a funeral  where the Bishop   at  the  pulpit asked  those who have take Dasuki’s  money to return it  and the audience roared in  approval. Yet  politicians serving and retired  public officials   formed a large part of that audience. If  that is not a clear case of a pot calling the kettle back then I wonder what it is.  The  law  says he who comes to equity must  come with  clean hands. Religious  institutions  should sanitise  the opulent gifts they get   from their  rich  members as they are a cool  front for money laundry, diversion of funds  and other vices. This  society  is on an anti-corruption  drive and  the religious  institutions must  accept responsibility for the source and application of the gifts they receive as well as the social  responsibility and accountability that go with them. They  must  be seen  to be transparent not only  before men but also God whose representatives they are according to the belief of their followers.  That  is a very urgent strategy  to be adopted by them not only to defeat Boko Haram in particular  and terrorism generally,  but to defeat  corruption by showing that like  Caesar’s  wife they  are above reproach  as the Methodist Prelate  so clearly  illustrated on the  rejected  Ghana Must  Go  money  sacks.

  • The President’s friends

    Few can deny that leaders are as good as the advice they get. Wise counsel, taken and implemented, leaves the leader on the warm side of history and of their people’s hearts, long after they have moved on. Bad advice, on the other hand, does not merely cut off the leader’s name; that would amount to a reward; it subjects him or her to constant attacks, even in death.

    A certain ancient Egyptian ruler, on the advice of an aide, according to legend, decreed that male children born to some promising settlers in the land be killed at birth or cast into the Nile to swim or drown. There were more hideous counsels to follow, taken and implemented, but which, in the end, left Pharaoh altogether a much reviled figure, even in death, to say nothing of how he ended up.

    In contemporary history, former President Goodluck Jonathan demonstrated just how unloved that Egyptian king was (and still is) when he exploded in exasperation, really, with critics of his lack-luster style, that he was no Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar or such other maximum rulers.

    On the right side of Egyptian records, though, one young man named Joseph, twice a slave, once a prisoner, would prevent what would have been a national disaster probably of unrivaled proportions simply by giving good advice to the king.

    What was his advice? In years of plenty, O King, save for the rainy day, for the seasons of scarcity that are sure to come. He didn’t say save up for yourself and the palace, and leave everyone else to their devices.

    That wise counsel saved Egypt starvation and large-scale death.

    Who are President Muhammadu Buhari’s best friends? Who are his advisers? Are they those who give him a bear hug, smile in his face and say, ‘Shame on bad people, they couldn’t keep you away from Aso Rock forever, you got it in the end’? Are his best associates among those who simply count themselves lucky to land some comfortable appointments in these hard times and will resist every nudge to offer wise, if uncomfortable, counsel? Or can we class as his friends any in the National Assembly who will say, Scratch our backs and we will scratch yours? Or those, God forbid, who will say in spite of the President’s aversion to ostentation and waste, they will spend the people’s money as they please? Are they the aides who swear they know just how his mind works and will help him get whatever he wants whether he approves of the means or not?

    On the flip side, who are the President’s enemies? Are they those, like writers, commentators and analysts, who spot a derailing, a foot put wrong, a miss-carrying policy, and speak up?

    Whatever a leader does, if he cannot tell his genuine friends from self-seeking lackeys, I think that leader is doomed. He must, for the life of him, know for sure those who understand his vision, if he has one, and who, despite all odds, are determined to help him achieve it.

    Readers who have endured my exertions in this space in recent weeks, I believe, have a fair idea what my perspective on the Buhari vision for the country is. But if the readers can humour me one more time, I will reaffirm that Mr President is on a mission to clean up a much-tarnished country, and that if he keeps at it, he will end up as the leader we have been looking for since independence in 1960. The stench of fraud has so spread that people in far-flung places practically feel sorry for us. Corruption has become so deep-rooted that not a few seem to mistake it for the rule rather than the exception.

    This year’s federal budget estimates, presented today-missing-tomorrow-and-declared-never-lost-at-all-the-day-after, inspires inquiries. What happened? Who are the President’s advisers and their role in what happened? What is the condition of the heart of the federal lawmakers to whom Buhari presented the estimates? And what class of prank would we term such a disappearance and then appearance of such an important document at such an important institution as the National Assembly? Or the retort that it was not lost?

    Of the two sides to the matter, the Presidency is clearly the more tight-lipped. When the Senate spoke, whether through its president Dr Bukola Saraki, his aides or other senators, all we heard was either that the missing budget issue would be sorted out as soon as a committee met on it, or that we were making a mountain out of a mole hill and that the proposals document was not really missing.

    The Presidency’s taciturnity is as unhelpful as is the wave-of-the-hand dismissive approach of the senators and their assistants.

    It would have been appropriate for one or even both arms of government to issue a full-disclosure statement on the matter, realising that it was too important to Nigerians to be glossed over. Many suspected all kinds of foul play, none of which flattered the Presidency or the Senate. President Buhari has now formally written to the National Assembly to withdraw the document and edit it.

    That move was late, and, in any case, shouldn’t put an end to the matter. It has been said that the President’s liaison aide on Senate matters, Ita Enang, brought in another version of the budget proposals different from the one his principal presented earlier. Was he acting alone or with the connivance of some senators or staff of the chamber?

    The point to note is that this foul affair does not lift the spirits of believers in the change regime or anti-graft campaign.

    Something can still be done to restore confidence. The guilty in the matter should be appropriately sanctioned. Some have asked whether Enang was plain overzealous, seeking to please his boss whose first budget as president has received mixed reactions, some saying there were instances of padding and the vain old order in which ridiculous sums were unnecessarily attached to some items on the budget. If the charge sticks, the President’s senior special assistant to the National Assembly should be fired. That is not how to assist or advise the President.

    One more point: if the President realised too late that his advisers padded up the budget by inventing unnecessary things on which to spend scarce cash, such as furnishing kitchens and acquiring new pots, cookers and whatnot at exorbitant prices, he should fish out those advisers and give them the proper treatment.

    If their disposition does not chime with his frugal nature, it is unlikely that they can help him achieve his vision for the country. He should dispense with their advice. They are not his friends any more than are lawmakers with some outsize luxury-car tastes.

  • New twists and challenges for peace and security

    This week Microsoft’s  Billy  Gates  and Nigeria’s  Dangote put aside $100m  over the next  five years  to help turn around  the ravages of malnutrition in Nigeria, a very  commendable social  responsibility move that showed  their two companies as responsible global  corporate citizens.  But  not many Nigerians seem  to have noticed the good gesture because  they had  more interesting  things going on in their minds and in the news media  especially  the daily exposures on

    Dasukigate, the  notorious arms diversion deal of the century that has been the death knell as it were of Nigeria’s  ruling party under the last administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. Which  really is not an unexpected development given the fact that the entire world is adrift on the repercussions of the wars in Syria, and Iraq  and the concomitant surrogate wars and insurgency  they  have fanned across the globe.  Including that of Boko  Haram which  really was the genesis of Dasukigate which in  turn   is  actually a tall tale of how the security  chief  became an ATM for  funding other activities except the procurement of arms for which the  ATM    was  originally and initially  configured  for.

    Today’s  discourse  will  centre  around  developments  and incidents that have emanated directly or not  from  the wars in Iraq  and Syria and how these are shaping the development of our globe and reshaping world diplomacy and local politics and relations  between  old  and new enemies.

    According to  the  French  Prime  Minister   Manuel   Valls, the migrants crisis in Europe where over 1m  trooped in last year alone is going to redefine the concept  and  meaning  of  Europe  or the

    European Union  as  we know  it   today.  In Nigeria  the Army boss has asked army  officers  to declare their  assets in the wake of massive  diversion of funds meant for arms  by army bosses  that the military have promised  to give up to  the EFCC  once they are declared culpable  by the anti  graft  commission.  In  Saudi  Arabia the  new King Salman who  has spent just a year  on the throne has taken the fight to ancient enemy Iran with the vigor of a young boxing champion  even  though  he is  over  88 years of age. This  is  not assuaged  in any way by the news that with the raising of the sanctions on Iran over the Iran Nuclear  Deal Iranian  economy will blossom while the new Iranian oil  supplies will  make life more difficult  for oil  suppliers like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria already reeling from the crushing impact of falling oil  prices on their respective  economies.

    Going  back  to the migrants  crisis in Europe  the French  Prime Minister insists that France is at war  to protect its citizens  and the emergency  measures  put in place will  persist  for as long as the threat to security  endures. He criticized the present open door policy in Europe and  contends that it is just not  good or safe enough to say migrants can come and that they are welcome. That  puts Germany’s  Angela Merkel  of  Germany and the willingness of Germany to take 1m refugees on the line    as  well  as others  willing to take  more refugees into their EU  nations.  More  interestingly it creates a twist with  regard to EU’s  refusal  to give Turkey EU membership  which  has been delayed  for over 50 years now.  Funny enough Angela  Merkel is on record  as once saying that Turkey is Islamic and Europe  cannot  have an Islamic  state at the heart  of Europe. Definitely  the refugee  crisis is going to change her views as she is in the vanguard of those EU  nations ready and  willing to take in refugees. Whether that will lessen her hostility   to Turkey’s  membership is  another matter.

    Again  one is reminded of a statement in the book ‘Culture  Matters’ that Europe  has been penetrated by Islam through importation of labor, religion, capital, talent and knowledge. This was a point of view expressed a few years back  and the penetration was  said  to be  slow but steady. Given the one million refugees or migrants that flowed into Europe  last  year one can safely say it  has become  an avalanche and very  soon Europe  will lie prostrate to Islam whether the Europeans like it or not. The import of that for global peace and security  however  is a different topic  for  another day.

    In  Nigeria  the order  for Army officers to declare their assets reportedly  came  from  the Army  boss who had already  declared his assets  when he became head  of the multinational  task  force fighting Boko  Haram  in the North  East and when  he assumed office as Army  boss. That order is in tune with the anti  corruption stance of the present government and its Commander in  Chief.   But the Army  should tighten up its security in this regard as corrupt officers under arms are a dangerous lot. Indeed  the coup  that removed the present Commander in Chief as a military head of state was by fellow army  officers  when  he was about to probe   those  who reportedly acted while his very anti  corruption deputy  was on a pilgrimage to  Saudi  Arabia. Eternal vigilance  should be the watch word  in fighting corruption especially in the armed  forces.

    On  Saudi  Arabia’s  new war with  Iran it has been  revealed  that King  Salman  made a favorite  son of  his   Prince  Mohammed who is 29 years old his defence minister on assuming  power and taking the throne and also made him the Deputy heir  apparent  and that son is really  the power behind the throne pushing the fight against Iran although King  Salman  himself is very  much  in charge.

    Incidentally both Iran and Saudi  Arabia condemn Islamic  State  but  cannot come together to eliminate it and are fighting each other in the  Middle East which  has become the battle  ground  of the  world.  Both  are dictatorships too as Iran is a theocracy  while Saudi  Arabia is a monarchy.  Both  have  however  been  drawn into the present war  by the US in  a rather bizarre twists of events  and global  diplomacy.

    First  of all the US deposed Saddam Hussein in 2003 and created  a democracy in Iraq which  brought  the majority  Iraqi  Shiites  into power. That infuriated  the Sunni  minority which  controlled the army under Saddam  and that has led to the endless wars  in Iraq  from which  IS eventually emanated. Before that the US  had  propped  up Saddam  for  a  long time to prevent Iran  from blocking access  to Middle  East oil through the  Straits  of  Omuz.  Indeed Iran and Iraq  fought a seven year war  in this regard.

    However the seeds for the present war between Saudi  Arabia and Iran were sown  over Obama Administration’s  support  for the Iran nuclear deal  which  has now led  to the lifting of sanctions against Iran.

    The  Saudis  found  it difficult  to believe that a US  government can sign an agreement that allows Iran to go on with  its nuclear development  while assuring the civilized  world that Iran will  not get nuclear power. That disbelief and irritation of the Saudi monarchy provoked the breakoff  of diplomatic relations with Iran over the attack on the Saudi embassy  in Teheran Iran this year. By executing the outspoken  Saudi  Shiite   cleric  Nimr one  year after getting to the throne  the Saudi King  Salman took  the fight to the Iranian Ayatollahs to  tell them that he does not care a fig about the new friends the Ayatollahs  have found in the American  government  of Barak  Obama.  This  has produced  another watershed in US –  Saudi relations  as the Saudis  are the biggest  buyers of  expensive US sophisticated F15 and  F16 jet  fighters for  now although  their resources  have plummeted because of low oil  prices which indeed could  have been the end  product  of the new US led and orchestrated

    Iran  Nuclear Deal. The import of that for global  peace and security is also a matter  for discussion  on  another time. Once  again long live the Federal  Republic  of Nigeria.

  • Kogi and history

    Kogi and history

    History is irrepressible. She is impossible to cage. Bury history a million times. She springs back to life each time ever more vibrant and resilient. With the collapse of communism in the late 1980s, Eurocentric intellectuals like the brilliant political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, in his book, ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ imperiously pronounced the end of history. History laughed derisorily at such palpable ignorance. She has since resurrected with a fury in the form of civilizational, culture and religious clashes, particularly the horrendous spectre of extreme Islamic terrorism, that have since replaced the comparatively tamer and far saner super-power ideological clashes of the cold war years.

    For inexplicable reasons, the mysterious masters of the Nigerian universe decided to banish history from primary and secondary school curricula in the country. Were they afraid of their own shadows? Was this a subliminal fear of the power of history to record their atrocities in indelible ink on the unalterable pages of time for the perusal and contemplation of generations yet unborn? No matter. History like the genie last Friday, January 15, escaped from the bottle and has been on rampage. That day marked the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Nigeria’s political space by Professor Samuel Finer’s fabled ‘men on horseback’ signalling the loss of the country’s political innocence.

    Barred from schools, history erupted in beer parlours, pepper soup joints, newsrooms, board rooms, commercial buses, newspaper vendor stands and sundry other places. Many columnists and analysts lampooned the hot headed masterminds of the January 15, 1966 coup – Majors Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, D. Okafor, C.I. Anuforo and Wale Ademoyega. They have been variously described pejoratively as unrealistically idealistic and naïve. Some deride them as simplistic. Others assail them as inept in the execution of the coup. Some excoriate the seeming bloodthirstiness that saw the savage slaughtering of key political and military leaders principally from the North and the West. They have been blamed for rupturing the country’s democracy and setting the stage for the country’s descent to anarchy and civil war.

    I think this is entirely wrong- headed. What happened on January 15, 1966, was only the whirlwind. Those who sowed the wind were the rabidly anti-democratic elements that raped the country’s constitution with impunity, violated the rule of law and enthroned a reign of impunity. Yes, democracy in the first republic was buried on January 15, 1966. However, it had died much earlier. The first republic and constitutional rule were effectively guillotined on May 29, 1962, when the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) coalition government at the centre unwarrantedly and illegally declared a state of emergency in Western Nigeria and effectively took over the Action Group (AG)-controlled government of the region. This was in reality the first coup in the history of Nigeria executed, ironically, by civilians who were apparently following the due process of law to perpetrate blatant illegalities.

    Capitalising on the intra- party crisis within the Action Group, the leaders of the NPC and NCNC in collaboration with the treacherous Premier of the Western region, Chief S. Ladoke Akintola, saw it as a golden opportunity to break the hold of a supposedly rigid and stubborn Awolowo and his party in the west. It did not matter to them that Awolowo remained the hero of the masses of the west. No, Awo was not born great. He did not have greatness thrust upon him on a platter of gold. Indeed, Azikiwe and his NCNC enjoyed considerable popularity and electoral support in many parts of a liberal western Nigeria including Lagos giving the AG stiff competition in the area. It was Awolowo’s superlative performance, first as Leader of Government Business and then Premier of Western Nigeria between 1952 and 1959 that decisively changed the political tide in his favour in the region.

    The crisis between Akintola and the leader of his party, Awolowo, degenerated irreparably. Chief Bola Ige gives a vivid account of the crisis in his book, ‘People, Politics and Politicians of Nigeria (1940-1979)’. On 19 May, 1962, Akintola was charged and tried for anti-party activities by the Federal Executive Council of his party. The trial lasted six hours. At the end of the day, he tendered an apology and gave an assurance to relinquish his office if there was a recurrence. That evening, however, he quit the AG with his supporters and announced the formation of a new party – the United People’s Party (UPP). He was consequently expelled from the party.

    Satisfied that a majority of the members of the region’s House of Assembly had lost confidence in Akintola, the governor of the West, Sir Adesoji Aderemi, the Ooni of Ife, exercised his constitutional powers by removing him from office as Premier and appointing Alhaji D.S. Adegbenro as his replacement. Akintola was recalcitrant. He rejected his removal from office arguing that this could only be done by a vote of no confidence in parliament. Yet, knowing that he did not have the requisite support to survive as Premier, he refused to convene a meeting of the House.

    Alhaji Adegbenro thus convened a meeting of the House for May 29, 1962. The task before the House was simple: affirm support either for Akintola or Adegbenro as Premier. Akintola and his minority of supporters attended the sitting but with an agenda to disrupt the proceedings. They broke the mace, jumped on tables and caused pandemonium. Rather, than restore order so that the House could sit peacefully, men of the Nigeria Police, acting on the instruction of Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, shot tear gas into the chamber, dispersed members and locked up the House.

    Claiming that law and order had broken down in the region, Balewa thereafter declared a state of emergency in the West, removed the constitutional government and appointed his Minister of Health, Dr Koye Majekodunmi, as Administrator. This was despite the fact that there was peace and calm throughout the region. It was a swift and ruthless takeover of the west – the first successful coup in Nigeria. Of course, one act of impunity needs a succession of even more brazen acts of lawlessness to be sustained. In the course of time, Awolowo and his key supporters would be serving prison terms for farcical and comical allegations of treasonable felony and Akintola was back in power as Premier of the West – courtesy of his federal friends and supposed ‘conquerors’ of Yorubaland.

    Matters came to a head in 1965 when the regional elections in the West were blatantly rigged to keep Akintola and his Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) in power at all cost despite being deeply detested by the vast majority of the people. Akintola’s deputy, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, openly boasted that the NNDP would win the elections whether or not the people voted for them and that is exactly what happened. Of course, the proud people of the West would have none of such barefaced injustice. The region descended into anarchy.  Amazingly, when Balewa was told that the West was burning, he calmly replied that he could see no flames! That is the kind of arrogance and impunity that set the stage for the tragic events of January 15, 1966. Serve impunity diligently all your life and your pension is death!

    Recounting history just to excite and titillate is nothing but a futile exercise in intellectual masturbation. The crucial thing is to learn the appropriate lessons at the feet of erudite ‘Professor History’ so that past disasters do not mutate into even more devastating future catastrophes. On Wednesday, January 27, the tenure of the incumbent governor of Kogi State, Captain Idris Wada, expires. What should ordinarily be a smooth transition to a new democratically elected government in the state is being turned into a veritable fiasco with dire implications for our democracy by an Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with increasingly blighted professional and moral integrity since the exit of its immediate past chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega.

    The good people of Kogi State went to the polls on November 21, 2015, to elect a new governor to pilot their affairs for another four years. They cast 240,867 votes for the APC TICKET of Prince Audu Abubakar and Honourable James Abiodun Falake and 199,415 votes for the PDP TICKET of Captain Idris Wada and Architect Yomi Awoniyi. It was a decisive and CONCLUSIVE victory for the APC ticket. They won the highest number of votes and had the requisite Local Government spread as stipulated by the constitution and the Electoral Act.

    Before the results were announced, the APC candidate, Prince Abubakar Audu, died. It is precisely for unforeseen occurrences like this that presidential and governorship candidates are constitutionally mandated to have running mates. For some inexplicable reason, INEC declared the election inconclusive and on December 5, 2015, held so called ‘supplementary elections’in 91 polling units across the states.

    Curiously, on the advice of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Abubakar Malami (SAN), an interested partisan party, INEC allowed the APC to substitute the late Audu with Alhaji Yahaya Bello who came second in the APC primaries. Unlike James Faleke, Audu’s running mate, Bello is completely alien to the election of November 21, 2015, on which the supplementary election stands. The Electoral Act, legal pundits point out, does not give room for substitution of candidates AFTER elections have been held – this can be done only before the polls.

    Bello went into the supplementary election without a running mate since Faleke openly declined to play that role contending that he should rightly be declared duly elected as governor of the state. This is another patent illegality. Unless Faleke changes his mind and accepts to be his deputy, Bello cannot come up with a constitutionally valid deputy unless further acts of impunity are perpetrated.

    As it were, Yahaya Bello has added absolutely no value to the APC in the election. Remove the 13,000 votes recorded in the supplementary election in which he participated and the result of the November 21, 2015, polls still stands clear, conclusive and inviolate. That election needs no crutches. We may need more impunity to consolidate the present impunity in Kogi. But let us be wary of impunity. It will always demand its wages in full and democracy is always the ultimate casualty.

  • Buhari, please stop Dalung

    Buhari, please stop Dalung

    I won’t disappoint you, dear reader. Many would want my views about what transpired at the Sports Minister Solomon Dalung’s office on Wednesday night. I don’t care who runs the NFF, provided they emerge from elections supervised and approved by FIFA- the only body empowered to talk about elections into their group, not any truce meeting, and ministerial intervention as many would want to call it to avoid FIFA’s sanctions.

    The minister, we are told, has a degree in Crisis Resolution but he is an interloper in this matter since FIFA is a society with laid down rules obeyed by over 207 countries. If Nigeria doesn’t want to belong to the body, she has a right not to, but it should not make us the laughing stock in the soccer polity, simply because our government is paying lip-service to repealing Decree 101, which empowers our Sport Ministers to intervene in a crisis, which most times are fuelled by them.

    We give FIFA chiefs the impression that elections into the NFF are done using their statutes. What it simply means is that the elections must follow FIFA rules, which define the voters and what their qualifications should be. FIFA statutes provide for how conflicts should be resolved. FIFA frowns seriously at government interference, which is what happened on Wednesday at the minister’s office.

    Like the Americans would say, ain’t no break; no fix. The Muhammadu Buhari administration’s focus includes the fight against corruption. Among its achievements are the sterling performances of our sportsmen and women with football being the flagship.

    With such impeccable performances by our soccer teams, it doesn’t make sense for any minister to listen to protesters who have exploited all the means of seeking redress and lost. With due respect, Buhari should tell Dalung to mind his business.

    Some people think that they must run our soccer, even with the evident changes in the new dispensation. These disgruntled few must be told to join hands with the new group at the NFF, which has so far guided the Golden Eaglets to an encore FIFA U-17 World Cup victory, the winners medal at the Africa U-23 Championships where Nigeria won the trophy for the first time, Nigeria is still looking for the qualification ticket to the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations while the country’s domestic league players are focused on doing well at the CHAN Championships holding in Rwanda, with the CHAN Eagles beating Niger 4-1, in the opening game.

    A saner polity would have supported the incumbent NFF to achieve its objectives instead of dragging us back to the past. Sadly, rather than accept the verdicts of the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), which threw out the petition of the complainants, we are toying with another potential FIFA ban by looking for a political resolution, for a matter that had been withdrawn or struck out in court. CAS’ decisions on all sports matters are final. I do hope that in seeking the political solution, we must understand that FIFA has over 209 countries; 208 of them have complied with FIFA’s statutes. We cannot be the exception to the rule, simply because a few people have been eased out of the NFF. NFF should never be a job for the boys. It must be run by tested technocrats who are adept in the dynamics of business. The days of lickspittles in the NFF are gone.

    Those striving to resurrect a dead issue must pro vide answers to these nine posers; otherwise Nigeria would be worse off when FIFA wield its axe.

     The nine posers are:

    1. Let Giwa produce those who voted for him on August 26.
    2. Who were the accounting officers at the August 26 elections; where is the list of accredited voters? Did the electoral committee that organised that election have the stipulated number of members as outlined by FIFA, NFF statutes and electoral guidelines? Did FIFA send representatives to monitor the August 26 elections? Isn’t that the norm?
    3. Let Dalung ask the former Sports Minister if FIFA, the NSC and the NFF had not agreed that elections should not hold on August 26 but rather that date should be used to draw up a new roadmap for credible elections after it became obvious that the then NFF Electoral Committee Chairman Amoni Biambo couldn’t handle the exercise.
    4. Didn’t former Sports Minister Tammy Danagogo publicly admit that the way Amoni Biambo was handling the issues and elections forms were being hoarded, there was no way a proper elections would have held on August 26?
    5. Can anyone remember the famous petition of Abba Yola on the disaster waiting to happen if Amoni Biambo and his group were allowed to go on with organising the ‘fraud’ called elections on August 26?
    6. Did anyone tell Dalung that on the morning of August 26, the man who was supposed to declare the Congress of August 26 open, Aminu Maigari was in DSS detention alongside the NFF Secretary General and another board member?
    7. What is Dalung’s agenda? The fact that his SA Media started a live tweet of what was meant to be a private reconciliation meeting means there is more to his actions than meets the eye.
    8. The Perm Sec of the Ministry of Youth and Sports Ohaa underlined his complete ignorance of the whole issues by asking why Pinnick never appealed against Giwa’s election?…an election that FIFA described as a sham, an election that failed every integrity test, an election where some persons who were not FA chairmen were mobilised to vote?
    9. Why has Dalung decided to bring back a dead matter, a matter that CAS had ruled on and that we have all moved on from?

    “It’s really unfortunate because, in the first instance, that meeting was uncalled for. The timing was bad; Chris Giwa and his group were called by the Secretary of the Government in the past and if they wanted to be part of the elections (2014), they knew the rules. They went to the Tribunal, FIFA and even CAS and before that there was a court ruling.

    “We shouldn’t ridicule ourselves; we know the rules. I would advise the Minister strongly he should distant himself from Giwa’s group because FIFA is watching and it could evoke certain sections of the statutes which could have serious consequences,” Sani Toro told footballlive.ng on Thursday.

    I rest my case.

     

    Buy kolanuts here

     

    I’m a strong advocate of cash rewards for our athletes, knowing their flotsam and jetsam upbringing, where many literally scavenge to make ends meet. I thank President Muhammadu Buhari for giving out cash and gifts to our distinguished sportsmen, women and officials for feats recorded in sports competitions. I was deeply touched when Buhari directed a minute silence for the late Kingsley Aikhonbare, the band-wearing Golden Eaglets’ defender at the 1985 Kodak U-16 World Youth Championships held in China.

    The President, who directed a one-minute silence in honour of the late Kingsley Aikhonbare (a member of the U-16 world champions of 1985 who died in London in 1996), said the reception and rewards were “in line with our belief that the labours of our heroes past shall never be in vain.” I digress!

    Most of our sports ambassadors don’t like to talk about their beginning. They keep their parents from public view, knowing that their new status would bring the desired change. Majority of them have intriguing grass to grace stories which underscores the depth of talents in the 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria. The grassroots is rich in any human endeavour, provided the government is prepared to institute structures that would help them develop their talents.

    The latest in this rags-to-riches tale in sports is Chisom Chikatara’s block-buster performance against Niger in the ongoing CHAN competition holding in Kigali. Chikatara was introduced into the game as a 52nd – minute substitute. Warming up at the sidelines before his introduction on Monday evening, many things ran through his mind, especially the fear of failure. He didn’t exhibit it, yet it was obvious that he was determined to seize this life time chance to write his family’s name in gold. Chikatara achieved that but not after he had tottered for 15 minutes. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t make the initial impact. As a rookie, playing on the big stage for the first time, he needed time for his adrenalin to rise to the level where he would give his best.

    Chikatara missed some unbelievable scoring chances, but the three goals he scored showed that he will be a revelation, if he keeps his head down, listens to the coaches’ instructions and remains humble thereafter. He ran around the field, pulling his tug as if to remind himself he was in no trance. Chikatara’s runs off the ball and ability to be in scoring positions in the early minutes of his entrance into the game gave this writer hope that he could be the CHAN Eagles’ “undertaker” in this competition, depending on what Coach Sunday Oliseh has designed for the Abia State-born star.

    Chikatara’s pace needs to be exploited by the creative midfielders in the team. With a dashing Chikatara, the CHAN Eagles would leverage on his strength on the ball to use the wings to destroy any opposition.

    I saw Chikatara’s naivety after the game when he was discussing with the match referee. Ordinarily, Chikatara ought to have picked any of the balls used during the match to take home as his reward for scoring a hat-trick.  The referee knew he was meeting a rookie and enjoyed cracking jokes with a pleasant player, who wasn’t desperate to claim the match ball with him.

    I salute Chikatara for showing understanding with the referee. He eventually got the ball inside the dressing room. I’m tempted to ask CAF to query the referee. But is CAF any better?

    From the back streets of the dusty Umuahia town comes a budding star, Chikatara, who hawked kolanuts for his parents to make ends meet. He joins the legion of self-made achievers who toiled to earn their stripes.

    Not born with the proverbial silver spoon, he woke up to help his parents do the routine morning chores before heading for school. Back from the school, it was time for him to hawk kolanuts brought home from the farm.

    Of course, walking through the streets, Chikatara kicked any round object, a trait which stuck with him until he got the attention of football scouts, who watched him play on bumpy playgrounds across the town.  Won’t you join me in welcoming a new star?

  • Dasuki is not to blame

    Dasuki is not to blame

    On July 29, 1975, when the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon was overthrown, Nigerians trooped out on Lagos streets in their hundreds to boo the military governors of the then 12 states who were being taken to Dodan Barracks. They had fallen from grace to grass.  A day before, they were the envy of the same Nigerians condemning them after the coup and decrying their alleged corruption.  This tendency towards docility and complicity through silence in the face of corrupt impunity was portrayed by the master story teller, Chinua Achebe, in his novel, ‘A man of the people’.  At the end of the novel, a coup overthrows the civilian regime and the military take over amidst popular jubilation. The people, who had tolerated, encouraged and even benefitted from the venality of politicians like Chief Nanga suddenly became wiser after the fact. They now hypocritically condemned the gross corruption of the politicians and expressed support for the new regime.

    Has anything changed today as regards the passivity and unquestioning submissiveness on the part of majority of Nigerians to those in public office irrespective of the degree of malfeasance on the latter’s part? I do not think so. Long before now, there had been intimations of massive corruption perpetrated by top officials of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. Nigerians, however, chose the path of silence and inaction. For instance, the former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and now Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had cried out loud that $20 billion due to the Federation Account was missing. The Jonathan administration was largely indifferent to the matter making only a few desultory motions without movement in response.  Nigerians kept mum.

    It was the same tameness and paralysis of the will to act by majority of Nigerians that was witnessed as regards the multi-billion Naira pension fund scandal, the atrocious fuel subsidy scam; the illegal procurement of two luxury BMW armoured cars for the then Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, or the obscene expenditure of over N10 billion to charter luxury private jets by a former super minister. There  was also the fiasco in which scores of unemployed youths either lost their lives or were wounded in an ill-organised recruitment exercise that saw over 400, 000 applicants who had  been charged N1000 each by a private consultant vying for less than 400 vacancies. In all these cases, there was thunderous quietness on the part of most Nigerians.

    How then would public officials not believe that they could get away with anything no matter how heinous? Why should anybody blame the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki, if he casually and cavalierly dished out largesse in hundreds of millions of Naira and dollars to top PDP chieftains? The truth is that Nigerians as a whole are more to blame for not sustaining and even strengthening in this dispensation, the kind of vibrant, vigorous and virile civil society that so effectively confronted and ultimately helped to terminate military autocracy. Unaccountable power will sooner or later corrupt the holder absolutely and this is true irrespective of the party in power. This is why it becomes more imperative than ever that our currently slumbering civil society be urgently resurrected to help hold any party in power to account and discourage the tendency to impunity by governments that perceive their people as passive and biddable.

    In any case, how many of those baying today for the blood of Dasuki and the PDP beneficiaries of his ample war chest would have resisted the temptation to do what he did if they were in the former NSA’s shoes? How many of us would, on ethical grounds, have rejected Dasuki’s bounteous largesse if offered?

    The point I am making was that also made by Sam Omatseye in his Monday column in this newspaper. The on-going anti-corruption war is still a one man show of the latest Sherriff in town.  There is as yet no anti-corruption mass movement. Most Nigerians simply do not see corruption as a crime. That is why the Abachas remain heroes in Kano today despite the hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from the nation’s coffers by the late dictator, General Sani Abacha. It is most likely that if Dasuki were to return home today, he would be given a rousing welcome reception.  I do not see any of those PDP chieftains indicted in the Dasukigate affair being denied by their people. It is only that since everything has now been exposed, they will be forced to spread part of the money round just a little bit.

    Indeed, there is even no guarantee that the trial of those currently indicted for corruption will make any headway because of the collusion between greedy senior advocates and judges who lack moral integrity. It is widely acknowledged that our legal system is laden through and through with corruption.   President Muhammadu Buhari, it appears to me, is severely on his own in this war.  We should, therefore, go beyond the current sensational preoccupation with Dasukigate to find out why corruption is so deeply rooted in our value system as a people and the way to reorient society to be less accommodating of corrupt behaviour.

     Interestingly, as observed decades ago by the distinguished political scientist, Professor Peter Ekeh, strict moral values are rigorously upheld when Nigerians are acting within the context of their traditional and native communities. When functioning within the purview of the post-colonial state, however, Nigerians – both leaders and the led- have no compunction whatsoever in brutally and mercilessly milking the Nigerian cow even in the most criminal of manners.  Why does the Nigerian state remain so alienated from the Nigerian people after over five decades of independence? The Buhari administration must confront the corruption menace not just at the level of recovering stolen funds and punishing treasury looters,  but also at the theoretical level of  investigating the root cause(s) of corruption as a first step towards conceptualising and implementing potent behavioural change strategies.

    Another key issue thrown up by Dasukigate is the question of funding political parties particularly during elections. Let us not kid ourselves. As things are today, every political party needs some degree of financial support from the governments they control both to survive on a day-to-day basis as well as effectively contest elections.  It is just that the PDP completely went overboard in a way that borders on sheer lunacy.  They did not take heed of Achebe’s admonition that the wise thief does not steal too much for the owner not to notice.  There is a limit to which wealthy party members can solely fund parties. To make matters worse, party members do not pay dues and so cannot claim ownership of the parties. And to compound issues, the electorate has over time become increasingly materialistic with a tendency to vote for the highest bidder. This was vividly demonstrated in the last Ekiti governorship election, where ‘stomach infrastructure’ was said to have played a key role in the outcome.

    There are, in my view, two ways to tackle this problem. One is to go back to the model of the Babangida regime in the ill-fated third republic.  At that time, the two officially sanctioned parties, the SDP and NRC, were funded by the state. Indeed, the government built party secretariats for them at all levels. They were thus able to function more efficiently and systematically while no party had a decisive financial advantage over the other.  Now that we have an emergent two-party system, that option should be seriously considered.

    Second is to return to the political culture that saw party members paying their dues and thus becoming the fiscal life line of the party. But in this austere economic clime, do rank and file party members have the means to engage in what they may consider a luxury? If they do, are they willing, do they trust the parties enough to invest their funds in them? If the parties can mobilise effectively enough to become mass movements, the amount each individual member pays as party dues will become negligible and less inconveniencing.

    Dr Tunji Olaopa on my mind

    It was shocking to see Dr Tunji Olaopa’s name among the Federal Permanent Secretaries recently retired from service. We were course mates at the University of Ibadan, where he obtained his first and second degrees in political science. He holds a doctorate in public administration from Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU),  Ile-Ife. Dr Olaopa was one of the most studious students in our days at UI. He was easily one of the most cerebral and accomplished Permanent Secretaries of the Federal Civil Service. He has published no less than five magisterial works on public administration in general and Nigeria’s public sector in particular and is easily the leading authority on public sector reforms in Nigeria today.

     Dr Olaopa would have been an outstanding Head of Service if his career had not been cut short by an arbitrary system with little regard for merit and talent. Those acquainted with his contributions to various newspapers will readily attest to the quality of his mind. He shone brightly in the written examination that qualified him to become a Permanent Secretary.  Surely a man like this can contribute so much in this season of change.  But then, with his qualifications; mental celerity, and character, fresh opportunities and challenges certainly beckon on Dr Olaopa.

  • Tears for Yaya, Okocha

    Tears for Yaya, Okocha

    So much has been written about Yaya Toure’s seeming harsh words at chieftains of the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF), following the loss of the Africa Footballer of the Year crown to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Gabon. Yaya has come under severe attacks from pundits here in Nigeria. Little attention is being paid to his message, which implies that CAF prefers those who excel in Europe than those who are exceptional in continental soccer competitions.

    Yaya felt strongly that he deserved the award, having seen his national team Elephants of Cote d’ Ivoire and Coach Renard crowned the best. The law of averages would have been to make Yaya the best footballer, having been the pivot of the Elephants at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

    Commonsense would allow Yaya’s assumptions, if for anything else but to justify the rankings of the team and its coach. Besides, one is forced to ask how the voters were so unanimous in picking the team and the coach, even as they ignored the major character in the Elephants. It reminded me of the famous newspaper awards where one paper cleared majority of the awards at stake, yet wasn’t declared the newspaper of the year. Only in Africa, especially Nigeria can that happen.

    It is important to look at what both players achieved in the year under review. Expectedly, Aubameyang scored goals for Borrussia Dortmund in the German side’s worst year. Not many are talking about Aubameyang’s records with Gabon nor are they looking at how he fared with Gabon; at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, where the Elephants emerged as the champions.

    Gabon was a disaster at the Africa Cup of Nations last year, winning only one match out of the mandatory three games. Aubameyang scored in the last game against Burkina Faso in the last group game. Gabon lost the first two games 2-0 to Equatorial Guinea and 1-0 against Congo. Is this what those who voted Aubameyang considered to be better than Yaya’s record? Those who voted must be told that the beauty of the game rests with scoring goals. If Aubameyang scored only one goal for Gabon in the group stage, it raises serious doubts about his proficiency and constituency in the art of scoring goals as a striker. This is the point Yaya made when he called CAF chiefs “indecent” and “pathetic.” Goals scored for European clubs shouldn’t take precedence over those scored here in Africa.

    Yaya scored only one goal for the Elephants against DR Congo. Goal scoring isn’t Yaya’s duty. But he steps forward to be counted anytime his club’s or country’s strikers develop clay feet in front of the goalkeepers or are goal-shy. It is this extra responsibility beyond being the team’s captain that stands Yaya out of the African pack when players’ evaluations are made.

    I had my doubts about Yaya’s chance of winning the diadem for the fifth consecutive time when social networks’ feeds came up with the laughable thought of picking another person for the simple fact that Yaya had won it for four consecutive times.

    Such obsolete thinking can be so brazenly justified by CAF because we don’t know the parameters for voting beyond the fact that players, coaches and some other people cast their votes for the eventual winner. How does it sound that Cote d’ Ivoire and Renard are the best in Africa and Yaya is allowed to lampoon the organisers.

    Anytime CAF President (or is it acting FIFA Presiden) Issa Hayatou eulogises Austin Okocha, I take exception to it because he heads the body that didn’t crown Okocha as Africa’s best.  At the France’98 World Cup, Okocha was easily Africa’s best player. Yet Hayatou and his clan ignored him. CAF chose Mustapha Hadji of Morocco. Hadji, the pony-tail player was with Deportivo La Coruna of Spain. Okocha was in Fenerbache in Turkey. Okocha’s sterling showing for Nigeria earned him the juicy contract at Paris Saint Germain (PSG) in France.

    I’m glad that Yaya piloried CAF chieftains, because his utterances would form part of the discussions in planning for future awards. His rant, like the BBC described it, reminded me of how Austin Okocha was twice denied the Africa Footballer of the Year award, despite his outstanding talent.

    Okocha won the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Africa Footballer of the Year award twice, yet he wasn’t considered the best in the continent. CAF must clearly define the parameters for voting, especially in the years where the body’s biggest tournament is played.

    Ordinarily, star performers in years when the Africa Cup of Nations is held should be clear nominees of the CAF award, with the best going home with the Glo/CAF Africa Footballer of the Year gong. It is whimsical trying to equate the parameters used by FIFA in picking the World Footballer of the Year and those used by CAF. Most times, we are sentimental and emotional in our thoughts on such issues. Indeed, days before FIFA named its winner the social networks’ feeds raised the same voting pattern as ours’. I laughed it off because there wasn’t going to be any sentiments in picking the World Footballer of the Year.

    There were two close contenders, Ronaldo and Messi, although Neymar was added to make the trio. Yet, based on the benchmarks set by FIFA, we didn’t need rocket science to know that Messi would nick this year’s award, irrespective of it being his fifth award, as it would have been for Yaya, if he had got the CAF award.

    My pain is that Yaya wont honour any award organised by CAF, even if he merits it. He certainly wouldn’t want to swallow his vomit just as I don’t see how CAF will crown Yaya, even if all the voters pick him in the future. It would be a big shame.

    I foresee a situation where Yaya will be challenged to give his best for Manchester City throughout 2016 to pour odium on the CAF award. Why? Yaya is hurt. And he looks set to take his pound of flesh from CAF.

    What if Manchester City wins the Barclays English Premier League, the English FA Cup and play in the final of the 2015/16 UEFA Champions League with Yaya the usual star performer. Would CAF chiefs have the guts to name Yaya as the best player in 2016, if he truly earns it?

    Yaya does more than the ordinary to propel both sides to victory. It is true that Yaya told his national team coaches that he would want to pick the games that he would play subsequently. Yaya’s reason was anchored on the fact that he wanted the coaches to scout for his replacement now that it has become apparent that his playing days are drawing to a close. Should that be the reason he should be rated third best in Africa? This is simply preposterous.

    What stands out in Yaya’s rant is the need for CAF to review the parameters for voting. The change should include crediting players who excelled playing for their countries, not so much about their clubs, like we have seen this year.

    I distance myself from the jibes thrown at Yaya that he benefited from his European club’s excellence against John Mikel Obi, when Nigeria won the Africa Cup of Nations in 2013. Will Nigerians say that Mikel was a better player than Yaya in 2013?

    Otherwise, a time will come when African players would disregard the award. If we continue to give preference to European club performance over country, the Africa Cup of Nations would be less attractive, with the big stars opting to play for their clubs than their countries. This club-over-country rubbish should stop.

    If we must compete with the best, we must do the things others do seamlessly. When I shouted over the need to truly select young boys for the country’s U-17 squads, many called me names. I was excited though that the last two NFF boards toed the paths suggested in this column. And the rewards are a bountiful harvest.

    Today, revelations at the last two FIFA U-17 World Cups from the Golden Eaglets are in big European clubs’ academies. The implication of this development is that the Super Eagles will be the biggest revelation in Africa in the next decade.

    Taiwo Awoniyi is with Liverpool FC of England but plays for German second division FSV Frankfurt in Germany. Kelechi Iheanacho plays for Manchester City. There are other Nigerian kids in the club’s academies, most products of the successful Eaglets’ squads in the last two editions.

    Victor Osimhen is almost through with a German deal, playing for Wolfsburg. English Premier League side Watford and Serie A outfit Udinese along with La Liga side Granada are tracking David Enogela and Joel Osikel, who featured for Nigeria at last year’s U-17 World Cup in Chile.

    It simply means that we have a large pool of young lads eager to win laurels for Nigeria, only if our coaches shed their mercantile tendencies and allow these boys graduate through the national teams, like Lionel Messi et al did.

    With our pool of talents being absorbed in the European clubs, we don’t need any over-aged player at the Brazil 2016 Olympic Games. Instead of looking for over-aged players because they have experience, I would rather we go for those Nigerian-born lads who are grounded in the basics of the game to fight for shirts with those we have discovered.

    We have taken the pains to get the names of Nigerians who can compete for shirt with those who earned us the Olympic Games ticket without looking for over-aged players to strengthen the squad. These are talented young boys who can deliver the goods if challenged and told what to do on match days.

  • The politics of corruption, credibility and diplomacy

    The  mood in  Nigeria at present is for government to nail  all  those who have received any amount from  the $2.1bn arms deal in which  funds  meant for arms have been diverted for other purposes other  than the purchase  of arms, even as the Armed Forces  faced the Boko  Haram bloody  insurgency which  had dented the battle readiness of our military immensely. That  mood can  be compared without apology to the mood  and  frenzy   at the Arena in  the Ancient Roman Empire when Christians, gladiators  and  unfortunate enemies  of the state, were thrown into arena  to be killed  by lions and wild  animals just as gladiators fought to death  after declaring,  hands raised   to  Caesar  and   to the blood thirsty, and roaring audience – Hail  Caesar!   We  who  are about to die salute you!.

    That  type  of mood  is inherent in the picture  painted in the minds of US citizens  and indeed the rest  of Europe over the acceptance of refugees fleeing wars in the Middle East which  Donald  Trump, American  Conservative Party leading presidential contender compared to  the ancient  Greek story  of the Trojan war  while defending his call  for a ban on Muslims entering the US  which  he called a security issue rather than a religious  one.

     These  comparisons hobnob  into the topic of the day in several ways just as they are delicate and sensitive issues  mixing up religious sentiment and loyalties  with equally delicate and ponderous  matters  of security, credibility, leadership and integrity. Indeed these issues are issues that will not go away  for a long time in spite of the boldness and assurance of King Abdullah of Jordan  that  ISIS  can  be defeated decisively in a CNN  interview  this week –  and  the  sooner  we tax our  patience and tolerance in treating them decisively and  emphatically and stopping the carnage and killing by militant Islamic groups both locally  and internationally  the better for our individual and collective sanity and more  importantly the security  of our lives, property,  history  and peace  of mind.

    Quite  seriously  the arms diversion deal has brought shame and dishonor to the beneficiaries regardless of  their  reputations,  and  sense of responsibility.  In this regard it  is similar in terms of the opprobrium on their good name to the Name and Shame List  of  wealthy professionals  like doctors  and lawyers  in debt ridden  modern  Greece who  were exposed  as tax  defaulters and whose  taxes  would have helped Greece immensely  in fulfilling its obligations as a valid member of the Euro zone and a responsible  sovereign  citizen in the EU  capable  of honoring its debt obligations. The  Name  and  Shame  List when published  in Greece ruined the reputation and respect  of many hitherto  leaders of men and resources in that  nation. That  is where the comparison with  Nigeria’s  mood on punishing the converted arms deal however  stops,  and totally too.

    Whereas  in  Greece the names on the list of defaulters  was a proven one and the opprobrium well earned, the list of the beneficiaries of the diverted arms funds is made  up of those  who  have  not  been opportuned to defend themselves but  have  been consumed in brazen media trial  that has generated the killer mood for reparation, confiscation, jailing  or  even  outright  execution   of the arms diversion  payments. This  should  not  be so because our law presumes a person innocent until proven guilty  in court. This  is our legacy from the British Common law. It  is different from  the French and Francophone legal  system  inherited  from the   Code  Napoleon which  presumes  a suspect guilty until  the prosecuting magistrate decides otherwise  and this French judge  is both  the prosecutor  and  the judge. For  now  that is the legal  strategy we seem  to have adopted in  bringing the beneficiaries  of the arms diversion deal  to justice and it is bound to backfire in open court where the rule of law  should prevail. By now I expect the NBA, the  Chief  Justice   and  our   busy  and   immensely   wealthy   SANs   to highlight  the Achilles heel  of this strategy  which seem for now to  have turned the EFCC into the prosecutor and judge as in France or our neighboring Francophone  states when Nigeria has a different  legal pedigree as a Commonwealth  state where suspects are deemed  innocent until  proven otherwise in a court of law.

    To  me those  who  looted public  funds and have even returned them  as announced by the President  have not gone to sleep  over the matter or  are  folding their hands.  Indeed   they   have  started  to fight back and orchestration   of   poor, opaque  and  ineffectual prosecution seem  to be  their adopted  strategy  and  the government should watch its back and  review its  present strategy,  as  these looters have ample funds from  which they can derail the anti corruption campaign,  since what they have  returned  was    just a  tip  of  the ice berg and  they  have means  and connections  and even power  to discredit  the anti corruption campaign  which  is very  dear to all honest and right thinking Nigerians to change our government  and governance  priorities  for  good.

    Again  it is in that light that one should  look  at the unbelievable spectacle and announcement by  the Senate  President this week  that the wrong copy of the budget speech was what was  sent to the Senate to work on in fulfilling its legislative obligations to  Nigerians. The Senate President  went on to say that its Senate  Committee on Ethics  discovered that that the Presidential  Special  Adviser,  a  distinguished senator in his own  right made the mistake and the senate will not discuss the budget until  the alleged anomaly  is rectified. Definitely I smell a rat here and a rather  rotten,  dead one too. I   also  smell  a whiff  of  vendetta and  retaliation against  the presidency and the president himself over the forgery of election  rules in the senate when the administration  assumed  office.  Definitely in the senate it is payback  time or time for negotiations to resolve the senate  leadership election forgery, this time at  the toll gate of retribution,  veiled in dutiful  and  diligent pursuance  of the constitutional legislative duty of the senate as an arm of government. I  am  sure that that is the ultimate goal of this Senatorial  arm  twisting of the Executive in  this unbelievable saga  and complaint  of a false version of the Budget  from   the Presidency.  But  then Nigerians are watching  and waiting.

    Similarly Donald Trump’s  comparison of the influx  of migrants to  Europe as  similar  to  the Trojan  War   cannot  be dismissed lightly and  events in Germany and Turkey this  week   should  bother  our  attention  and conclusions.  In  Cologne in Germany migrants were  said  to  have been involved in rape and robberies in the new  year.  This  has put some  pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel  who is an angel  of mercy  on the migrant issue  and  has taken steps to  firm up  German laws  to effect swift deportation  for miscreant  or lawless  migrants to  Germany. Similarly a suicide  bomber blew up and killed several people in Istanbul,  putting pressure on Turkish  President  Yeccip  Erdogan’s pro  migrant  policy which has made  Turkey  a safe   destination for  migrants fleeing Syria and  heading for Europe. ISIS  has  claimed responsibility  for the bomb attack  which will hurt Turkey’s  blooming  tourism  industry  which   has  been  under pressure recently  because of  Russian  boycott of it over the shooting down of a Russian plane by Turkey sometime ago.

    If  you  remember that the  Trojan  Horse   story  was about  a wooden horse  left  at  the gate of the city of  Troy   by the  Greeks   in their   war  with  Troy  then  you  see  a  pattern  of  danger.  Unfortunately   for  Troy  the horse  was  filled with   Greek  soldiers  who wreaked havoc on Troy in the night and won the war.  Definitely  Donald  Trumps historical analogy  is not  nonsense  but  a call  for closer security  and scrutiny of  all migrants  entering not only US  but any  nation fighting ISIS and  Boko  Haram just  as the US  and Nigeria  are  doing at present

    Again  long live the Federal  Republic  of  Nigeria.

  • Too much bloodshed

    With a Certificate of Return and a broad grin of relief, Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson has reclaimed his crown, leaving his main challenger and immediate predecessor Chief Timipre Sylva to sulk and threaten another fight at the tribunal. But what about those whose blood were spilled in the bruising battle for Creek Haven, the state’s seat of power?

    The initial and main election was nasty, compromised by not just what is commonly referred to as irregularities but also, more frighteningly, brazen violence of booming guns and deployment of other tools of atrocity. INEC, the national electoral organ, declared the exercise inconclusive and promptly rescheduled a supplementary poll in places where election could not hold or where it did not meet acceptable standards. One can only conclude at this point that the electoral body was probably hoping that whatever was wrong the first time out would be fixed in the second round of ballot in the southern parts of the state.

    It wasn’t to be. The guns boomed again. Other weapons of brutality were freely used, again. The result: many people died. The reports vary, as do casualty figures. But one said no fewer than 12 souls were probably lost in the Bayelsa governorship election. Another account said four policemen and two soldiers may also have died in the exercise. This is appalling and should be so labeled and condemned but beyond condemnation, every effort should be made, from Yenagoa to Aso Rock, to stem the bloodshed and bring its perpetrators to account.

    The dead may have been more, and even more the injured and the terrorised. But you get this sneaking feeling that even if those who died were more, say, 20, 30 or 50, the public revulsion and reaction would still have been just about as tame as it has been after the exercise. In fact, if anything, it was the major rivals, Dickson and Sylva, who shouted the most about the violence in the election battle. The governor let it be heard from him that his election was fraught with violence, and that he and his party and supporters were appalled by the thuggish acts accompanying the exercise, and that his administration would do everything possible to fish out and punish the killers and the roughnecks. Even before he took the tribunal decision, Sylva equally, and quite vociferously, condemned the killings.

    Both men left the questions open. Who did the killings? Who hired the killers or for whom were the killers working? What will come of any inquiry set up by the state in an election contested by two major party candidates, one of who was declared winner but each blaming the other for the atrocities?

    From what we are used to, and by our unflattering standards, the Bayelsa election was always going to be mean. The Buhari and APC hurricane which swept Dr Goodluck Jonathan out of the presidency also left the hitherto ruling party with pretty little to hold on to. Only a handful of states were left standing in the PDP column. That was why Bayelsa, Dr Jonathan’s home state, looked like, in the language of a certain Owu lord, a do-or-die affair. If Bayelsa went, too, what would be left? Both Sylva and Dickson also had some personal pride issues of their own to sort out. The former was shooed off the state government house in a manner that had his disagreement with Jonathan written all over it. Worse, Dickson was drafted in from the House of Representatives and soon took over Sylva’s seat. Sylva defected and kicked off a campaign to reclaim what he lost, while Dickson did everything to ensure his predecessor failed in his comeback bid.

    All of that was clear; what was not was the bloodshed that characterised the contest between the two Ijaw chiefs. Why was there so much violence? Why isn’t there enough spirit to deter the violent elements in our midst? How much blood will be wasted before we rise up as one against such assaults? How long will people who are neither in the armed forces nor law enforcement be allowed to acquire, keep and freely deploy high-calibre weapons in a country run by constitutional laws?

    Decades ago someone made the point that Nigerians were immune to shock. Now, that someone would be shocked as to how even more hardened and inoculated we have become. We witnessed the horrors of the Niger Delta militants before they turned a new leaf, thanks to the departed President Umaru Yar’Adua. We have also seen how the Boko Haram militants scaled up their atrocities, slaughtering over 17,000 people, sending more than 2m out of their home including some 800,000 children. Homes have been wrecked, whole communities burnt alongside farmlands. Such plunder is rare even in full-scale war. We have the baby factories and all the seedy behind-the-gates acts among us. And while the baby merchants are at it, some other outlaws have turned kidnapping into an irresistible industry.

    But does that explain why we seem to have lost our collective sense of, and sensitivity to, horror? Is that why it continues to look normal and acceptable if we cannot cast a ballot decently without spilling a drop of blood? Why does it look as if the outlaws are getting the better of the authorities and, by that stretch of reasoning, everyone else?

    As I feared earlier in this piece, not much may come out of an inquiry into the Bayelsa election violence. So, what to do? Federal authorities should step in, activate all relevant laws, strengthen all necessary facilities and ensure that killers are brought book to justice.

    I pointed out in an earlier installment that fighting corruption and insurgency, as President Muhammadu Buhari is doing, is in itself a huge undertaking, in fact, practically Nigeria’s most pressing task. Now, the president must add combating electoral violence and illicit acquisition of firearms and other lethal weapons. We must reclaim our humanity. Every life must count and no one should be allowed to spill blood and get away with it. It is the order of civilisation.