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Category: Saturday

  • Banire, Aregbesola and Osun polls

    Banire, Aregbesola and Osun polls

    His diminutive physique masks a razor- sharp intellect and wit. Dr Muiz Banire, lawyer, commissioner first of transportation and then the environment for 12 years under the Tinubu and Fashola administrations and now National Legal Adviser to the APC, was the guest speaker at a colloquium in Lagos in honour of Ogbeni Raufu Aregbesola. The colloquium was obviously spurred by Aregbesola’s outstanding re-election for a second term in the bitterly contested August 9th governorship election in Osun state.

    There is much to agree with in Banire’s presentation on the occasion titled ‘Osun’s Election: A Pathway to Nigeria’s Democratic Growth’. For example, he paints a vivid and harrowing picture of the security siege on Osun before and during the election. He exposes the many behind the scene bids to manipulate the poll and rig the elections and how these were thwarted through vigilance and proactive action. Among the more sensible of Banire’s recommendation is his admonition that a political party should always monitor closely officials elected in its platform. This is in order to ensure adherence to the party’s manifesto as well as prevent the alienation of the government and the party from the people due to unpopular policies.

    However, Banire treads treacherous and slippery analytic terrain when he makes a distinction between a party and the candidate seeking election on its platform. He contends that it was Aregbesola that won the election in Osun and not the All Progressives Congress (APC). The APC, according to Banire, has become unpopular because of imposition of candidates such that the people may have voted for the opposition but for Aregbesola’s charisma, grassroots appeal and superlative performance.

    Let us admit without conceding that Banire is right. What would be the incentive for the average voter or APC supporter to vote for the PDP, for instance, when its own candidate for the Osun election emerged through a violence-infested process where a former governor of Osun was savagely manhandled by a serving Minister all because he aspired to fly the party’s flag in the election!

    Again, could it be that most of those Banire claimed to have visited on door-to-door campaigns and who reportedly expressed disenchantment with the APC, sought elective or appointive positions and were unjustly denied the opportunity? That would be strange. I would wager that in most polities, those who actively seek elective office constitute less than one per cent of the population. Osun certainly cannot be an exception.

    In the first republic, Chief Obafemi  Awolowo’s Action Group (AG) was the cynosure of all eyes due to its spectacular developmental achievements in the South-West. Even though he was enormously gifted as a leader, thinker and astute manager of men and resources, Awolowo never sought to personally appropriate the party’s collective success to himself. It was the same case in the second republic when Alhaji Jakande was easily the most distinguished governor. Again, he never claimed or sought personal glory. He knew that in a progressive party, both successes and failures must be collectively borne.

    I am sure that Banire’s thoughts at the colloquium are his and do not necessarily represent the views of Aregbesola. For, being a product of collective struggle himself right from his student days, I think that Aregbesola is too philosophically deep, intellectually sound, historically conscious, and organisationally disciplined to identify with the kind of hubris espoused by Banire.

    It is pertinent to ask, ‘Why was Aregbesola able to seek re-election for a second term?’ It is because he had won election for a first term and performed creditably. Why was he able to contest for the first term? It was because he was fielded by the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) as its governorship candidate. Here is where I think Banire misses the critical point. The relationship between a party and a candidate is a dialectical one. The party can offer a candidate its platform but it cannot do the candidate’s job for him/her.

    If we apply Banire’s logic to Ekiti, then we can surmise that the outcome of the polls there was a vote against Fayemi and not the APC. That would be nothing but sterile intellectual masturbation. Even if it were so, the reality is that both Fayemi and the APC in Ekiti are out of power – at least for now. The APC must gnash its teeth and bemoan the calamity that befell it in the August 9th election. The grief is not that of Fayemi alone. In the same way, the APC is entitled to rejoice at the triumph of the party in Osun while basking with Aregbesola in the euphoria of victory.

    If the candidate performs exemplarily, the success belongs both to him and the platform that gave him the opportunity to develop and exhibit his leadership skills. On the other hand, if an elected official performs poorly and is defeated at the polls, both the party and the candidate bear the consequences.

    Let us take governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) as an example. By 2007, he came to power relying solely on the machinery and structure of the party as he did not have any structure at the time. By 2011, however, his impressive performance had turned him into a formidable brand. The party gave him an opportunity to run for governor on its platform. He grabbed the opportunity and through industry, competence and vision, endeared himself and his party to the electorate. At the end of the day, both the party and the governor enjoy a mutually beneficial and reinforcing relationship.

    Banire rightly stressed the need for internal democracy within parties to allow the best and most popular candidates emerge in free and fair intra-party processes. He argues that imposition of candidates is one of the greatest banes of the APC. Well, it is difficult for one to scientifically determine the meaning of imposition in a situation in which, for instance, over 20 aspirants are gunning for a given position and each believes that if he does not win, it is because the winning candidate has been imposed on the party!

    The eminent political scientist, Professor Richard Sklar, is quoted by Banire as describing the defunct AG of the first republic as “the best organised, the best financed and the most efficiently run party in Nigeria”. But nothing in this quote suggests that the AG was a model of internal democracy. In fact, I think Banire should read Sklar more extensively. I would recommend in particular his collection of essays titled ‘African politics in Post-Imperial Times’. He has at least two chapters in this book, which offer a rigorous discourse of the contradictions of Nigeria’s political system as well as the travails of Obafemi Awolowo in Nigerian politics.

    When Awolowo, following the failure of his party in the 1959 parliamentary election, went to the centre as Leader of Opposition, he tried to re-fashion the party as a vote harvesting machine capable of winning elections outside the South West. To do that he had to retain a firm grip both on the party as well as the machinery of government in the western region even as he sought ethnic minorities in the North and the East to ally with the AG. This led to a head on collision with Chief SLA Akintola, who had succeeded him in office as Premier of the region. His espousal of the new ideology of democratic socialism further alienated Awolowo from the business interests that formed a formidable pillar of support for the AG as well as many of the elders and traditional rulers who flocked to Akintola’s side. Awolowo’s attempt to have his way against all odds was partly responsible for the crack within the AG that ignited a chain of events that led to the collapse of Nigeria’s democracy in the first republic.

    No matter what anybody may think about Tinubu and Fashola, they have managed their relationship with maturity and mutual respect such that we have not witnessed in Lagos, the kind of intra-party implosion that destroyed the Action Group in the first republic and nearly brought the entire country to ruin or the godfather versus godson skirmishes prevalent in different parts of the country in this dispensation.

    A third critical issue raised by Banire in his lecture is that of the place of zoning and religion in the country’s politics particularly Lagos State. He is opposed to any form of zoning or concession of positions to accommodate divergent interests in the political process. He declares: “For God’s sake, Lagosians are only interested in good and qualitative governance and no-one cares whether you are a Christian or Muslim”. To put it mildly, this is simplistic and overly idealistic.

    I recommend Professor Arendt Lijphart’s ‘Democracy in Plural Societies’ for Dr Banire’s perusal. Lijphart examines the various strategies, including institutional strictures and processes put in place in ethno-culturally plural societies like Nigeria to achieve political inclusiveness and promote political stability and national cohesiveness. Yes, merit must never be sacrificed on the altar of zoning. But the truth is that there are capable and competent candidates for public office cutting across all nooks and crannies of the country? Would Banire, for instance, want the federal character provision, which is a deliberate balancing device in the 1999 constitution abrogated?

  • Eagles’ coaches as lords

    THEY are back. Yes; they are. Our cantankerous coaches are back in the Super Eagles saddle. Is anyone surprised that the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration can embrace a coaching crew that was the world’s laughing stock in Brazil, where they spent the night before the game between Nigeria and France sharing their $3.85 million appearance fees?  It means the return of revolts by the Eagles in foreign land. We must prepare for a season coaches scolding their erstwhile employers with ignominy. I hope it doesn’t dovetail into beating up NFF men, now that they coaches take orders from the Presidency. Aren’t these coaches blessed?

    What you need to have to coach the Eagles is to have friends at the Presidency, get the ears of the Senate President, shout loud enough for the Secretary to the Government to hear, call any governor of your choice and, of course, get the attention of the Sports Minister to ridicule your employers. These are not easy targets but when everyone calls you big, it doesn’t matter if your team has won one game out of 13. What counts for the coaches’ friends in high places is that they have broken records last achieved some donkey years ago. It doesn’t also matter if the mantra for coaches of being judged by their last matches runs against your recent achievements. Eagles’ coaches cannot be assessed by the team’s performances on the pitch because the NFF is perpetually enmeshed in crises. But our girls win trophies and play in the finals of the women World Cup. Will Nigerians sit up at night to watch the Falcons or Falconets like they do for the Eagles? I can hear those in government retort as they read this: Is that so?

    Who cares if the Eagles are 42nd in the world or even ninth in Africa? The Eagles can be 100th in the world and rock the bottom among African teams. The coaches must stay. They are untouchable. After all, there is the unseen caveat by the government that no foreign coach should be appointed. So who is that Nigerian coach to dethrone our immutable ones? Those in high places have forgotten that these coaches took the job from others. Let them continue to peddle influence in the corridors of power. Our football will be the loser. I hope it won’t be too late. I digress!

    I have watched in awe how these Eagles coaches have smuggled themselves back. But if these coaches have any self esteem, they ought to walk up to those influence peddlers at the corridors of power to politely reject the job. Would they do it? How can they? Where in the world would they secure such mouthful deal for their poor tactics? Indeed, the talk of having seven offers on the table is cheap. They dropped those deals because Nigeria has better players to sustain their mercantile tendencies for selling players to the European markets. That is the hidden truth; not patriotism; not the love of the game. No.

    But my joy stems from the fact that they are not beating their chests to celebrate this unholy return. Nigerians are not fooled by this senseless decision which has left the NFF as the inferior partner in an agreement where it should be calling the shots. I don’t believe that President Goodluck Jonathan ordered the coaches’ return. If the President did, he ought to have directed that their contracts be sealed and payment made upfront if that is what they want.

    I hope those at the Presidency understand the import of keeping quiet while this tale reigns in the minds of Nigerians. If the coaches succeed, which I doubt very much, the purported presidential fiat would have worked. However, if Congo beats Nigeria or secures a draw in Pointe Noire, then the masses would descend on the President, whose hands are full with the myriad of problems besetting the country. Those peddling this presidential directive don’t like President Jonathan. They need to speak up because nothing has changed since the coaches returned.

    The team list for the two games against Congo and South Africa has Ikechukwu Uche as the only meaningful addition. Even at that, Uche still needs more than this game to blend with the others. I know that Uche will be pilloried if he fails to excel against the Congolese. But that is expected after being sidelined from the squad for two years. It means that the coaches don’t know the problem with the Eagles. I hope that the coaches know that the game will be played on synthetic turf, which gives the Congolese significant advantage. The argument of playing on artificial pitch is untenable because the Congolese beat us on a grassed pitch. Football hardly has anything to do with the playing surface, if the players are fit and know what to do. The coaches must give them the right tactics to run the opposition aground. But where we have half-fit and bench-warming players in the Eagles, only divine intervention can rescue them from imminent defeat in Pointe Noire.

    The 25-man squad doesn’t represent our best in Europe for the months of September and October. It is despicable that Victor Moses is being dropped by the coaches because we are playing on artificial turfs. Shouldn’t they have asked Moses if he would want to play on such turfs? Moses is the most exciting Nigerian player in Europe today. He attracts rave previews and reviews in the Barclays English Premier League, including the backlash from Swansea’s Manager Monk for diving.

    Is it not also ridiculous that Chinedu Obasi isn’t on the list? Obasi has been a jewel for Schalke 04 since Di Matteo joined the German Bundelsiga. Obasi has also been outstanding playing for Schalke 04 in the competitive UEFA Champions League. He has scored goals in this competition. Shouldn’t such a player make the Eagles list based on his club form? I really don’t know what the coaches have against Obafemi Martins’ inclusion on a list that has players who have been perpetual bench warmers in the Eagles in the last three years? Can anyone ask the coaches what crime Sunday Mba has committed? Why is Obasi excluded? As it is now, the NFF dare not ask these coaches? They take orders from the top.

    Part of the problem with the Eagles rests with the arbitrary manner in which the list of invited players is drawn without recourse to certain basic ingredients, like we see in other countries. John Mikel Obi isn’t fit, with less than one week to the battle in Congo. In fact feelers from Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge grounds suggest that Mikel may not play until the next two weeks. Yet, our all-knowing coaches picked him for the two matches to be played within five days. Oguenyi Onazi isn’t also too fit. Ambrose Efe has lost his first team shirt at Celtic FC of Glasgow. Elderson Echijile scored a goal last weekend after a spell on the bench. Kenneth Omeruo hasn’t been able to tie down a regular shirt at Middleborough. We must thank God that Emmanuel Emenike has started scoring again. Only Ahmed Musa is a sure bet in terms of his current form. It is for this reason that our coaches ought to have invited Moses, Obasi, Martins and Anichebe. Even Kelechi Ihenanacho.

    The Congolese would panic seeing all our big stars doing well in Europe in our line-up. It would give us the psychological advantage that such big players need to bury the hosts. The 25-man list doesn’t inspire me. It is good the coaches are told the truth so that they don’t return with tales of sabotage by some Nigerians. Again, the coaches are not complaining now that they cannot train the boys on synthetic pitches. I hope they don’t return with tales of the unexpected.

    As for the game against Congo, it is my fervent wish that Nigeria wins. Victory will improve our FIFA ranking, except that it will make the coaches more powerful than they were until their reinstatement by the Presidency. It is only with the Eagles coaches that the employee is bigger than the employer. What that encourages is indiscipline. It also sets the coaches against their employers and Nigeria football is bound to suffer as either party strives to show its importance.

    Already, the coaches have won the battle to recall Slyvanus Okpala, just as they have succeeded in reversing NFF’s decision to drop the team’s former media man and coordinator. Will this victory party for the coaches continue? I hope this trend doesn’t dovetail into the situation where the coaches would wake up one day to say that the NFF board should be sacked?

    Now that NFF men have become Lilliputians before the coaches, who then will pay the cash they will demand if we eventually qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations? Or will the coaches’ friends in high places provide the cash? Time will tell.

  • Values, elections and war

    I seek refuge in William Shakespeare’s play Henry V in my musings and analysis today and the reason is not far fetched. Henry V is a war story of the Battle of Agincourt that chronicled the leadership qualities of a young English king who led his small number of troops to a great victory over the French army which vastly outnumbered the bedraggled English soldiers. Henry rallied his troops by telling them – ‘the fewer we are, the greater the share of honour‘. He told them pointedly – ‘ In peace there is nothing so befits a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blow s in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger. It is Henry’s leadership qualities that interest me today and his effectiveness as a war leader who led his people to victory against great odds in his time. The young English monarch showed commitment, honesty, courage and integrity in leading his troops to victory in spite of the numbers against them. He did not lie to them. He did not abandon them. He raised their morale and lifted their spirit to a heroic performance that led to victory. These are the values that have made the story of the Battle of Agincourt one of the best of Shakespeare’s historical plays and indeed my favourite after Julius Caesar. Sadly though, these same values are clearly lacking in Nigerian politics and leadership today especially as we go to the 2015 elections. This has been made more glaring in the reckless statement credited to a presidential spokesman that no President resigns during a war and comparing the situation in Nigeria now to that of former President George Bush in 2001 when Al Qada struck the Twin Towers of New York and the Pentagon, and the US president declared the global war on terror.

    Obviously the presidential spokesman missed the point and went on to hurl abuses on the opposition as charlatans and anarchists. His reaction was a simple piece of irritable illogicality because he mistook the shadow for the substance thereby committing a laughable fallacy. He said ‘no president resigns in the middle of a war’. The opposition said the president should resign because he could not contain the insurgency thus endangering the security and territorial integrity of Nigeria. The president has not declared war on Boko Haram. He sees it as an affordable insurgency. That explained why he could go to Burkina Fasso during the week on behalf of the African Union to ask the army there not to take over . While Boko Haram during the same week was giving a new name of City of Islam to captured Mubi in Adamawa state and City of Wisdom to Gwoza in Borno State, in the beleaguered North East of Nigeria where Boko Haram is busy creating caliphates with impunity.

    In the uninformed reference to George Bush and 9/11, some corrections have to made apparent to the presidential spokesman. After 9/11 George Bush sought and got the mandate of the US Congress to go to war. He told the American people – Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be served. And the American people gave him the blank cheque to pursue the war against Al Qada and terrorism. The war on terror made George Bush one of the most powerful presidents in US history because it gave him back some powers which the Watergate and Mona Lewinsky scandals had eroded during the Nixon and Bill Clinton presidencies. Indeed the war on terror boosted George Bush’s 2004 re election campaign mightily such that he defeated Democratic candidate John Kerry with a massive majority. Yet, this was the same George Bush that barely defeated Al Gore but for the Florida recount and the US Supreme Court decision to stop it in his first election in 2000. If the war on terror boosted George Bush’s re election bid in 2004 can the same be said of the current re election bid of our President given the handling of Boko Haram just over a quarter to our presidential elections in February 2015?. Definitely not. This is because re election should be based on performance on several sectors of the economy and given the results on power or electricity availability, security, employment and jobs for our teeming graduates we are definitely not out of the woods. The example of Francois Hollande the French President is educative here when he said this week in an interview in France that he would not seek re election in 2017 if the figures on employment have not improved. This was because, according to him, he promised in 2012 when he was elected that he would provide more jobs and that he would not be able to face the French people and seek re election in 2017 if he had not fulfilled his electoral pledge that secured his election. He therefore promised to work hard to improve the employment situation in France so that he can be a credible and electable candidate for re election in 2017.

    Really the French president’s candour reminds me of Henry V although it was the French Dauphin, his countryman that Henry defeated and showed such equally admirable candour and honesty in so doing. At home too, two Nigerian leaders have shown leadership values and qualities that have gripped my attention and both have presidential ambitions. They are former Vice President Abubakar Atiku and present Governor of Kano State Engineer Rabiu Kwankwaso. Both to me are good presidential candidates provided they can win the primaries of the APC. But I look at them in terms of their records of performance and their environmental and political relevance in their catchment areas to see how electable they are as potential presidents of Nigeria. Let me say that I am using some statements in the media this week on both leaders to buttress my assertions on both candidates.

    Former VP Atiku showed great sympathy and empathy for the plight of Nigerians in the North East of Nigeria under Boko Haram and warned Nigerians that what is happening there could spread to the rest of Nigeria if care is not taken. That is great insight from some one who should know, given his antecedents in power in this nation before. But those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. The former VP is best remembered for his disputes with his former boss while in office leading to litigation right up to the Supreme Court which made even his eligibility to contest the presidential election too late to be effective when the apex court eventually cleared him. This time again he bears another huge albatross or excess luggage in terms of his locality or political catchment area which is Adamawa State, which for now is a war zone. Atiku himself reportedly said recently that Boko Haram controls 16 local governments in the North East. The state Governor Bala Ngillari at Aso Rock this week confessed that they need more troops to secure the state and he sounded really panicky. One can ask almost rhetorically- can elections be held in Adamawa state today?. If the former VP can answer that question in the affirmative then he should continue his quest for the presidency. Otherwise he should close shop on his presidential bid for now.

    In contrast the present Governor of Kano State Rabiu Kwankwanso’s presidential quest catches my fancy not only because of the red colour of his entourage’s caps but for his guts, courage and record of performance in office. He had been governor in Kano before and was the nation’s Defence Minister sometime ago. So at least he has relevant experience in terms of our Defence and security in the ‘middle of a war‘ as the presidency would say. But I first noticed his love for education when I stumbled on a programme the Kano State government conducted for indigenes of the state sent off after being given scholarships to a university in Ogun State. Before that I has read a fiery interview in which he said that some leaders were just waiting for the incumbent president to declare for his re election before knowing what to do next. I think his presidential bid is the answer to that.

    In addition his courage and guts are shown in the way he has executed his programme for educating girls in Kano State in spite of the cruel and bloody aversion of Boko Haram to this which has made Kano a ready target for the murderous Islamic group. In addition his presidential bid programme mentioned boldly that he banned Okada in Kano State which is a bold and audacious move by any Nigerian leader given the potential nuisance value of that means of transportation amongst the masses of this nation. Okada is well known hindrance to meaningful economic development in spite of its mass appeal which has made less courageous leaders and governors to turn a blind eye to the Okada danger and menace in our streets and cities. Kwankwanso has demonstrated successfully that he can take brave decisions in a volatile environment like Kano and I do not see why he can not replicate that at Aso Rock for the benefit of Nigeria. His governorship seat gives him great leverage to give front runners like former General Muhammed a run for their money in the APC primaries. He certainly reminds me of Bill Clinton and his bid for the US Presidency from his Governorship of little Arkansas state. Except perhaps that relatively in Nigeria, Kano State is a bigger proposition than Arkansas in the US. Which really shows that Kwankwanso has the means and clout to make him electable as a President of Nigeria. I tremble therefore for those in his party or anywhere else who do not take his candidacy seriously. This Engineer Governor certainly has what it takes to confront our present war and insurgency such that no one will ever think of asking him to resign ‘in the middle of a war ‘. Again, like the Presidency would or has indeed said, of our present predicament.

  • Global security, insurgency and elections

    I read  with concern and great  interest  the news of the assurance that Senate President David Mark  gave to a delegation of the EU that Nigeria will come out of the present Boko  Haram insurgency stronger  and that our 2015 elections will be fairer  because our institutions are better and Nigerians have become used to the processes of democracy.  That really is how leaders  should talk to strangers who can be of help on various issues in and outside the nation especially on the simple matter that we can still not find the over 200 missing Chibok girlseven as the ruling party, the  PDP gave a blank cheque to the president to be its sole candidate in the 2015  elections. Just as it also endorsed its first time governors with automatic tickets for the governorship elections of 2015. Obviously to our distinguished Senate President,  the ruling party,  and the President of the Republic,  insurgency and elections are mutually  exclusive issues. Which means that they are  independent of each other.  Or that one can do without the other That really  is where  I beg to disagree – and saying  how and why I do this, is the kernel of discussion today. I have no doubt in my mind that the Senate President, the ruling party  and especially President Goodluck Jonathan must have a robust  political strategy for containing the Boko Haram insurgency and  conducting ahitch free,  rigging free  elections through  INEC in 2015. I do not for now expect them or the PDP to divulge such a strategy so as not to give ammunition to the Opposition to attack or subvert it. But then I want to share  with them some knowledge and theories on the principle of Strategic Management, beginning with a basic definition of a strategy.  The definition says that a strategy is a plan, a pattern, a perspective, a position and a ploy and that a strategy is inseparable from its environment. It is to these five Ps of Strategy that I want the leadership of the ruling Party  to address  their great minds to see if they know what they are doing in steering our ship of state in the direction  that says clearly that globalsecurity, our  insurgency and the coming 2015  elections can exist in isolation of each other.  On my part I will show here,  with examples of events and global news, this last week, why I think they should not go in thisdirection as  it is very dangerous.  Given the state of our insurgency  and the fact that the Boko Haram has reportedly  seized Mubi where I served as a youth corp while the government was said to be negotiating the release  of the over 200 abducted Chibok girls with expectation rising over their release  this week, one could say that there  was nothing cheerful about this insurgency  and our management of it, at least on our own soil. But worse news came from abroad,  from France to be precise,  to show that global security is being threatened  and the threat  is really  not far from hitting our shores  very soon, if care  is not taken. The news is that drones  have been buzzing or circling the nuclear facilities,  at least five of them, that provide 75%  of the electricity that France uses. Drones are  unmanned aircraft and  the French government – owned EDF France at first thought that Greenpeace  the anti nuclear, pro  environment,  global institution was responsible but Greenpeace  has vehemently deniedthis claiming that it is transparent  in all its activities and accusing the French  authorities of negligence on the matter. The buzzing have been reported  between October 5 and 20 but EDF said that the drones  were  of little sizes available commercially  and have little security threat. The  French  government has nevertheless started inquiries on the sighting of thebuzzing.

    Which really is commendable when  you realise that drones are the effective weapons being used  in Afghanistan and Pakistan against terrorist  groups such as Taliban  and Al  Qada and are an integral part  of the air strikes against Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and Kobani. I find the way Greenpeace  has reacted  fascinating, proactive  and thoughtful. Greenpeace saw the security implications of the buzzing clearly and the possibility or potential of its being wrongly  given a bad namein order to hang it,  if something nasty happens later,  givenits well known stance against the use of nuclear power to generate electricity anywhere  in the world because of its harmful effect  on the environment.  In blaming EDF so clearly and pointedly, Greenpeace  was also salvaging its imagethat it is not a terrorist  organisation  in its quest to preserve the environment globally. Anyway  the French  government has launched an inquiry into EDF negligence on the drone buzzing of the French  nuclear facilities.

    The implications of a blow up of French  nuclear facilities which supply almost all its electricity and power is better imagined than stated here but  are  nevertheless of concern to us today. This  enables us to look far and beyond the nuclear facility buzzing in France itself and to see role  of France especially in the war against terrorism  in Francophone Africa and the Sahel which the North East of Nigeria belongs andwhich is where  the Boko Haram is creating caliphates with impunity.  In a world in which a Malaysian aircraft  carrying over 200 people can literally disappear from  the skies and not be found till now, in spite all the modern technology  available, the drone buzzing  of the nuclear facilities in France should not be casually dismissed like the French power authorities did. Similarly the fact that the over 200 Chibok girls are still missing  should make us ponder on any strangehappenings in our global environment.

    This is especially pertinent and relevant,  given France’s role  in saving Mali from the  Tuaregs  and Islamist militants who invaded that nation and providing stability while ECOWAS leaders were not sure  of what to do to save Mali at the time. It is also significant that France still maintains close ties with its former colonies of which three  of them Niger, Chad and Cameroon  share  borders  with our troubled North  East. Indeed the news that the Chibok girls were to be freed this week centred  on negotiations going on reportedly  brokered by the President of Niger Republic  in the capital, Niamey. It therefore  goes without saying that France is a legitimateand potential target  from the perspective of Boko  Haram and their foreign partners and sponsors for an  attack, indeed anyattack, especially one that can cripple its electricity supply and wipe its people off the face of the earth with  nuclear bombast from hostile  drones. When  and if that happens to France,there  is no doubt that it will put its extra territorial concern for Islamist terrorists  at bay and put its house in order first as no one goes to sleep while its house is on fire.  Which definitely will give Boko Haram a free  rein  to establish more caliphates in our North East to strengthen the saying  that when the cat is not at home mice will play.

    We have looked so far to France so that we can see our position on the ground at  home very clearly over the management of the Boko Haram horror  and the peaceful conduct of our coming elections. So far I have illustrated strategy as a plan, a pattern, a perspective and a position using France’sEDF, Greenpeace  and France’s role  on terrorism  in Africa as convenient signposts. Now I want to use our leadership role in managing both Boko Haram and the 2015 elections as a ploy to give Nigerians peace of mind in making a success of both. To  me the recipe  is clear and that is to carry the fight toBoko Haram and finish it off  before the elections. Aggression is needed in this regard  both on the political terrain and the military front. All  hands need to be on board  including theopposition looking to wrest  power from the ruling Party as  a conducive environment is  needed if the competition for power is to be on a level playing field. Definitely the government cannot do it alone.

    I recommend  therefore, the strategy of the Israelis in the 1967 Six Days War  with the Arabs.  According to Moshe Dayan the famous Israeli war strategist, attack was the best form of defence. According to  Moshe Dayan – ‘We  had aggression flowing in our veins and blood. The Israeli air force pre emptively attacked the Egyptian air planes on the ground and crippled them successfully to win the war in just six days.Why can we not do the same in Six days to Boko Haram? This is really  what we need to do to really  believe what the Senate President  told the visiting EU delegation on our insurgency and elections. This is no wishful thinking . This is whatthe President and Commander  in Chief should order his troops to  do, to justify his not paying a kobo to get the form to contest for his party, while giving all of us a run for our money in terms of patience and security over the insurgency and the coming elections.

  • Who casts the first stone?

    Who casts the first stone?

    On the 27th of August, the widely read syndicated columnist, Mallam Mohammed Haruna, published an article on the public exchange of emails by two of Nigeria’s eminent intellectuals, Professor G.G Darah and Professor ChinweizuIbekwe (simply known more popularly as simply Chinweizu). The subject of their exchange was the then on-going Jonathan National Conference and the structure of the Nigerian federation. The tone and tenor of the exchange between the two men was particularly frightening bitterness against the far north and their advocacy for the polarisation of the country along North-South ethno-regional and religious fault lines.

    Chinweizu in particular urged Darah, who was a delegate at the conference, to help work towards a new alliance between the Christian South and Middle belt against the far north which he referred to rather derisively as ‘Shariya-land’. In his uncompromisingly incendiary words as quoted by Haruna “The main point is that we can’t afford to prolong our agony under Caliphate Colonialism. Our liberation requires that they leave Nigeria earlier and the sooner the better. If they are allowed to remain on any terms, even by return to 1960 federalism or Aburi, we’ll still have them polluting our polity”.

    If the iconoclastic and polyvalent Chinweizu – Africanist, teacher, author, journalist and devastating polemicist – has his way, he unrepentantly advocates the excision of the far north from Nigeria as attempted by the misguided Major Gideon Orkar-led coupists in 1992. Going by his logic, the north is the problem of Nigeria. Remove the north from the country’s geographical space and all the problems of Nigeria will presumably vanish.

    Professor Darah, the former Marxist and foremost theorist of oral African literature, apparently supports this position. No wonder the Urhobo-born professor is an ardent supporter of hisIjaw Niger –Delta kinsman, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, quest for a second term in office, notwithstanding the widespread perception of the administration’s lack lustre performance in diverse sectors. When some of our best brains can indulge in this kind of highly reductionist, overly ethno-centric and substantially misleading analyses of Nigerian politics, then what can we expect from those who do not endowed with their level of reasoning and rigorous intellection?

    In a certain way, Professors Chinweizu and Darah symbolise the new found political amity between the South-East and South-South. The South-East is one of the strongest support bases of President Jonathan today. Yet the relationship between the dominant political elites of the two geo-political zones is an unequal one. There was a time when the late eminent political scientist, Professor Billy Dudley, analysed Nigerian politics in terms of game-analytic permutations among three dominant power blocs – the Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani power blocs. The truth, however, is that the hegemonic Igbo political elite no more constitutes a coherent or effective power bloc in Nigerian politics. It has strangely opted to play junior partner to a new, emergent Ijaw power-bloc.

    The Igbo political class appears to have reached a strategic impasse. With the staunch support of leading Igbo politicians for Dr Jonathan’s second term, the once popular and emotive idea of a possible Igbo President is clearly in abeyance for the foreseeable future. Yes, many distinguished sons and daughters of Igbo land hold key strategic positions in the Jonathan presidency. But given the limited vision and competence demonstrated by the administration so far, this is unlikely to translate meaningfully into the radical transformation of the region or the revolutionary liberation of the unrivalled technological potentials of the Igbo people. Yet, most members of the Igbo political elite do not see the strategic sense of having a substantial presence in both major parties – the PDP and APC in order to more maximally take advantage of whatever opportunities may be thrown up for the political advancement of the region.

    However, like Chinweizu and Darah, many Nigerian intellectuals and other members of the political elite tend to create the impression that their respective ethnic groups or geo-political zones constitute some kind of super or superior groups, which would have made far more progress but for the constricting effects of a deformed Nigerian political structure. But then nobody is born a Nigerian. We are all first and foremost members of our respective ethnic groups before we are members of the more ‘artificial’ Nigerian house in which we are all accommodated. If the Nigerian house is in perilous danger of falling (apologies to Karl Meir), it is a collective responsibility of the country’s multi-dimensional elite that cut across all ethno-regional and cultural groups.

    I do not subscribe to the simplistic and misleading notion of amonolithic ethno-regional elite that is in dominant control of political power at any time just because one of its members occupies the apex of political authority. It is utterly delusional, for instance, to assume that there is any significant re-configuration of Nigeria’s power matrix in favour of the Ijaw or Niger Delta simply because an Ijaw man is president. The more things seem to change the more they actually remain the same. It was also this kind of reasoning which made the Yoruba political class across party lines to flock behind a non-performing President OlusegunObasanjo in 2003 with ultimately nothing to show for it.

    Power domination is a far more complex phenomenon to track. To discover its concrete content may involve a rigorous and scientific investigation of the actual ethno-regional composition of the various factions of the elite including the political elite, bureaucratic and professional elite, business and commercial elite among others. It may in fact be the case that actual and meaningful power is wielded by less visible but strategically placed operatives who are not in the public glare.

    Can any faction of Nigeria’s multi-dimensional elite summon the moral right to cast the first stone, lay the blame for our national perils at the feet of others and proclaim its innocence? I do not think so. For instance, northern leaders such as Dr Junaid Mohammed, Professor AngoAbdullahi or AlhajiAdamuCiroma sound offensive and haughty when they assert the right of the north to produce the president after Jonathan because of the 1999 zoning arrangement that was truncated by President UmaruYar’Adua’s unanticipated demise.

    But they cannot easily or persuasively discount the argument that the north has produced the country’s apex political leadership – civil and military – for the better part of Nigeria’s post-independence history and cannot dodge part responsibility for her present pitiable plight. Thus, rather than claim a right to the presidency, the north should be more subtle, humble and emphasise the positive values of its candidates.

    On its part, the Igbo political class still understandably smart from the tragic experience of the civil war particularly the genocide that precipitated the conflagration. They no doubt suffered a great historic injustice. But any sober analysis will situate the genocide in the north within the context of the ethnically skewed composition of the arrowheads of the January 1966 coup, the no less suspicious pattern in the killing of military and civilian leaders during the coup and the perceived ethno-regional predilections of theAguiyiIronsi regime.

    Professor Billy Dudley, who was teaching at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria at the time noted in his definitive study of political instability in Nigeria, that “Outside the university, the practice of Ibo men holding up Northerners to ridicule had become a common enough experience. Pictures of Nzeogu with one foot over the corpse of the slain premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello, symbolic of the ascendancy of the East and the Ibo, were to be found on sale in the markets of the north”. That was one of the indiscretions of the Igbos resident in the north that created so much resentment from their hosts in the region.

    And those Yoruba elite who cite the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election won by Chief MKO Abiola as a historic injustice are right. But a more nuanced reading of history shows that the annulment of the June 12 polls came after the earlier cancellation of the SDP and NRC primaries. The late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua had won a clear cut victory in the SDP while UmaruShinkafi and AdamuCiroma were headed for a run off in the SDP. The cancellation of the primaries and subsequent banning of the leading aspirants received enthusiastic support in the south and the wily Babangida had thus undertaken a successful dress rehearsal for the future annulment aimed at self-perpetuation in office.

    The point is that mistakes have always been made on all sides in the evolution of our political history and this reality should spur the various ethno-regional factions of our political class to discard self-righteousness and adopt a more accommodative spirit in the quest for political power.

  • Sports without a minister

    Sports Ministers are the problem with Nigeria’s football. They come with jaded mindsets about what is happening in the GlassHouse in Abuja. For most ministers, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is the most corrupt body in the universe. So, they always come for the jugular of its president, not minding if he is achieving results or not.

    Every new minister visits the NFF secretariat first, even when all the stadia are in ruins. Rather than ask National Sports Commission (NSC) officials where all the cash budgeted for stadium development goes, he listens to their advice and calls for a change immediately without following the due process.

    Ministers want to run NFF budgets, even as no NFF board has been found guilty of corruption. Since ministers deal directly with the President, they tell tales about what they see as the administrative tardiness at the Glasshouse. Our shambolic outings in the other 43 sports do not matter. Till date, the NFF is the most successful federation among the others, yet this is where the most bizarre changes are made.

    Many sports federations don’t attend major competitions as important as the Africa Cup of Nations and nothing happens. Members fight themselves and provide evidence of corrupt practices in their sports, but such incidents are treated with levity.

    Indeed, most ministers divide the ranks in our football anytime our male footballers raise any dust. The women understand why such things happen and win laurels. Super Eagles and ministers are the cancer in our football. Eagles have embarrassed us twice in Namibia and Brazil. Rather than disband the team, we are busy trying to smuggle the coaches, who couldn’t get the boys to travel back, into the team.

    For instance, majority of the countries at the World Cup have not received their appearance fees. Our Eagles have, alongside Cameroon and Ghana.

    Our girls’ teams (Falconets and Super Falcons) have shone despite these crises. The Eagles are struggling to qualify for the Cup of Nations – a competition in which they are the defending champions.

    It is the eagerness to remove everyone in the GlassHouse and install the minister’s men that has always set Nigeria against the constituted authorities in FIFA and CAF. Some 208 countries abide by FIFA’s simple rules; Nigeria won’t. Ministers see the window in Decree 101, which gives them the power to intervene at any time they feel that things are not going well with our football. Sadly, the Aminu Maigari-led NFF qualified for all FIFA’s competitions, earning the body accolades from the world football ruling body. Nigeria was the only country out of 209 – our country inclusive – to achieve that feat, yet our minister hounded that board out with ignominy.

    In a desperate attempt to remove Maigari, all manner of people were recruited and promised positions at the NFF. Perhaps, the minister thought he could muscle in Giwa. But the insistence on doing the election on the basis of the FIFA statutes scuttled an effort which would have sailed through in the past where the minister would have invoked Decree 101 to install Giwa. The minister’s tacit support in the kangaroo election that ushered in Giwa left much to be desired. Again, the swiftness in implementing the initial court verdict gave an indication about what the government wanted.

    Had the minister withdrawn from the illegal attempt to enthrone Giwa, especially when the legitimate NFF held its congress, first on the road and then inside one hotel in Abuja, maybe Giwa would have seen reason to give up his ambition in the interest of Nigeria.

    The spates of arrest of key functionaries of the NFF gave the now de facto group some hope that their dreams would soon be realised. Now that they are left holding the short end of the stick, they have no other option but to play the spoiler role or become the monster that could consume the minister, if he isn’t careful.

    The minister encouraged the charade at the court by immediately implementing the judgment. He appointed an interim secretary for the NFF – an action which negates the statutes. The Jos court ruling was unnecessary when the end of the Maigari-led board was less than 30 days away. Pundits wondered why the minister was in a hurry to sack a board on the verge of finishing its tenure.

    Had the minister listened to submissions from stakeholders and perhaps bothered to speak with FIFA men, he would have known that only the Congress can do what he had in mind. Besides, the minister also refused to deny the fact that he was supporting Giwa to replace Maigari. His body language gave him away and set other stakeholders against Giwa – if to prove to the minister that he is human after all.

    How the minister blew the chance to redeem himself still baffles this writer. He could have divided the Maigari-led camp than muscle them through needless harassment. The minister would have stopped the kangaroo elections, the moment some aggrieved people stormed out of the hotel to conduct their meeting in one of the streets in Abuja.

    Again, the second meeting should not have been in Warri, not Abuja. FIFA’s insistence on having Maigari to supervise the last congress ought to have shown the minister where the pendulum was swinging. It is, however late, in the day for the minister to do CAF’s and FIFA’s biddings, having allowed Giwa to spend money on the elections. No one will blame Giwa, if he tries to play the spoilsport, if that is what he needs to show that he cannot be taken for a ride. Again, had the minister being neutral in his disposition to the two sides in the impasse, he could have pleaded with Giwa to shift grounds, having known that the earlier arrangement would not be accepted by FIFA.

    Interestingly, it has dawned on the Nigerian government that FIFA can ban us, unlike after the South Africa 2010 World Cup when the defunct Presidential Task Force (PTF) advised the president to withdraw the country from all soccer competitions for two years for us to reinvent the game here. FIFA threatened a ban and the president, after reading the wise counsel from his Facebook fans, reversed his decision.

    CAF President Issa Hayatou said Nigeria has become an embarrassment to both FIFA and the continental body. Indeed, Hayatou revealed that he begged Sepp Blatter not to stop the final game between Nigeria’s Falcons and their Cameroonian counterparts stating that if he didn’t do that, he would have been accused of helping his country to lift the trophy without kicking the ball. That is true Hayatou. One hopes that Nigeria will utilise this window to get the illegal NFF off our backs in the interest of the youth who play this game to eke out a living.

    We are in this quagmire because certain key government men who dabbled in the peace moves earlier played politics with the matter. Rather than tell all the parties to abide by the tenets of the FIFA statutes, they were interested in stopping the previous board from staging a return. It will be sad if FIFA bans Nigeria. Falcons would have laboured in vain as they would be prevented from participating at the World Cup slated to hold next year in Canada. All our national teams would stop all their playoffs. We would be declared a pariah nation. Even the domestic games’ results wouldn’t be regonised because they would be handled by referees not recognised by FIFA. So, those rooting for the ban so that we can redefine our game must know that for the locust period, nothing would be valid.

    It would be sad if the government shuns this disturbing trend because many of our good players would seek new nationality in a bid to earn their living for the period when we would be banned. Thank God Giwa has withdrawn the case from court. I hope he won’t drag us back to it, if his demands are not met?

    Let’s boo these fumbling coaches

    The story of the return of the Super Eagles technical crew is laughable. In this crew is a man who told us before his sack that he had seven offers, now being asked to rescue an assignment that has placed our chances of defending the trophy we won in South Africa last year in the cliff hanger. Some say it is a presidential directive. Hmmm! Nigeria, we hail thee. Nigeria jaga, jaga.

    Change, ordinarily, is meant to retrieve something that has lost its course. Indeed, when changes are made, the best gauge to find out if the decision is good rests with how people receive the news. When the technical crew with jaded tactics was eased out of office, the ovation was very loud round the country. Till date, no player has openly supported the return of the technical crew. Their silence means consent and that is where the decision to recall these coaches may further ruin our chances of making it to the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. These Eagles don’t want to help these coaches to succeed because of what has befallen their colleagues who lost out after feuds with this vindictive technical crew.

    Besides, the person who persuaded the NFF to reverse its decision must stand up to accept that he made a mistake if we fail to get the qualification ticket. I also hope that the coaches would be made to sign a code of conduct, where they would be mandated to submit their team list to the NFF for scrutiny before it is made public.

    Part of the code of conduct for these coaches is the need to guard their utterances that have made Nigeria a laughing stock in the soccer polity. I hoped that the returning coaches know what they are doing because it would be foolhardy for them to complain about late payment of their salaries. Now is the time to reject the offer because I don’t see how this federation can pay coaches N5 million monthly, if Nigeria isn’t at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

    If Nigeria fails to qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, I hope that the coaches would resign honourably, now that our Ogas at the top have given them a lifeline to rescue the Eagles. I wonder what they would tell Nigerians when they return. What a pity. Let’s boo these fumbling coaches.

  • Jonathan again?

    Barring any change, President Goodluck Jonathan is expected to formally declare his intention to contest a second term on November 11.

    The announcement last Friday by the Chairman of the Presidential Declaration  Committee, Dr. Haliru Bello, has been long-awaited.

    President Jonathan’s interest to remain in Aso Rock had never been in doubt. The question has always been when would he make the  declaration? He probably would have done so before now but for the abduction of the Chibok girls which has remained a major albatross for his administration.

    To have embarked on any open political campaign when over 200 girls are still being  held by the Boko Haram terrorists would have been considered insensitive. It is therefore understandable why President Jonathan waited this long while his supporters, under various guises, are having a field day drumming up support for him and making him look like a reluctant candidate who should be persuaded to remain in office.

    Unlike other presidential aspirants in the All Progressives Congress (APC) who still have to contest for the ticket of their party in case the proposed consensus agreement fails, Jonathan has been adopted as the sole candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    As it is, the 2015 presidential election promises to be an epic battle between Jonathan and whoever is fielded by the APC.

    Based on the performance of   Jonathan’s government which has been generally scored low on various indicators,  I am one of those who believe that  it is time for Nigerians to vote for a change. We deserve more than the kind of lack lustre leadership we have endured under President Jonathan.

    Another four years under President Jonathan who does not seem to have a solution to the high level insecurity, economic decline, decay of infrastructure, unemployment, endless strikes and many other issues will not augur well for the country.  We are sliding on  all fronts and it is time to reverse the precarious situation we have found ourselves by voting for another leader who has what it takes to tackle the challenges confronting the country.

    The opposition definitely needs a formidable candidate to beat President Jonathan,  who, among other factors, has the advantage of being an incumbent with lots of resources to deploy for the presidential election.

    It is up to the APC aspirants not to allow President Jonathan to  fulfill his ambition by putting the interest of the party before their personal ambition. The election of the party’s candidate must be as rancou-free as possible.

    Those who fail to get the party’s nomination must rally round the winner with all available resources if  the ‘transformation to nowhere’  government of President Jonathan is to become history.

  • Sincerity, politics and religion

    TONY Blair was the Prime Minister of the UK from 1997 to 2007 and won three consecutive elections in 1997, 2001 and 2005 albeit with a reduced majority in the last one, when the British electorate was by then disenchanted with him in spite of his popularity.

    The reasons for that disenchantment as well as his reaction to it form the basis of our discussions here on this topic. Today, I use the benefit of hindsight on Tony Blair’s fall from political grace to grass and his struggle to preserve his legacy, singularly ruined by the invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the US President George Bush, to assess the use or misuse of religion to stoke the embers of resentment and prejudices which are really uncalled for in a normally or constitutionally secular state like Nigeria and the UK which incidentally was our former colonial master.

    Let me state categorically that I am an unrepentant admirer of Tony Blair and George Bush for their reaction to 9/11 and the subsequent global war on terror from 2001. I regard both as strong leaders that history, sooner than later, will vindicate even though the Islamist violence of beheading human beings nowadays could be traced to their actions and inactions on the manner they prosecuted the global war on terror.

    Today however I want to use the sincerity of leaders as a litmus test of their quality of leadership and performance by taking them up on their utterances and actions in such a way that one can see whether they mean what they say or are just taking their people or followers for a ride. Which in a way can mean that they are either talking from both sides of their mouth or are being deliberately fuzzy or ambiguous with their utterances and actions in order to befuddle their audience. I deal with three clear examples of what I have in mind on religion .

    First was the announcement that the President of the Republic has finally accepted the offer of the ruling party, the PDP to contest the 2015 elections but he would be proceeding to Jerusalem this weekend to perform a pilgrimage and would be back in the country by Monday. President Goodluck Jonathan’s intention to contest for re election must be the most open secret in Nigeria’s political history.

    Yet he called it an offer from the party for which he is grateful. His pilgrimage therefore is an act of gratitude to God in Jerusalem from where he will come back refreshed to face the rigors of a campaign which in its undeclared and unaccepted form had gulped up millions of naira in terms of funding for thousands of groups and caucuses that know ‘who the cap fits’ and media costs for banners, posters, bill boards that have heralded the much expected offer to a willing candidate seeking re election. The second example was the bold headline this week that said in some newspapers that Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state ‘supports‘ Jihad but ‘condemns’ Boko Haram.

    The initial reaction to this headline is that the Governor was involved in a war of ‘irreconcilable differences‘ as Jihadists are Boko Haram and Boko Haram are unrepentant jihadists. That the Governor was chewing much more than he could bite will be the impression you would go away with if you did not read the story but left with the impression created by the headline.

    The story however was a far cry from the headline. The story was that at a lecture series- the Femi Okunnu Lecture Series of the Law Students Society of the Obafemi Awolowo University – Governor Aregbesola defined the concept of Jihad as an Islamic concept that preached being at peace with God and that the concept has nothing to do with violence and killing and maiming of innocent people and children like Boko Haram had done and is still doing in Nigeria.

    This was a bold move by a Nigerian leader who has never hidden his Muslim credentials even when it diminished his political capital and goodwill in doing so at least in his state. That was glaring in the fierce and grim political battle he fought for his political life in the last election in his state. One wonders if more leaders in Nigeria especially from the North had come out to say what the Osun state Governor had said, what would have been the state of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria today?.

    Really such denunciation and conceptual analysis earlier on would have made Boko Haram a thing of the past in our national life by now. Instead, most religious leaders and adherents in Nigeria turned a blind eye to the rise of the Boko Haram horror as if it was unethical to condemn it, even when it was obvious it was bringing opprobrium on Islam in Nigeria and globally.

    Now the Osun state Governor has belled the cat philosophically, logically and conceptually and has separated the wheat from the chaff for Islam, even though his first calling as Governor is to be secular. But then as the Yorubas say, it is not who killed the snake that mattered but that the snake was dead. To me, Governor Aregbesola’s conceptual analysis of Jihad sounds the death knell of Boko Haram in Nigeria. That analysis should be sermonised and made to reverberates in all our educational institutions, mosques and churches in the interest of our collective security, peace and unity.

    The third example was the news item that said that the Federal government is not giving secret funds to PDP governors to run their states in the run up to the 2015 elections. The denials were from the governors of Nasarawa and Plateau states and given the usual religious divide in Nigeria one is conveniently from a dominantly Muslim state while the other is from a predominantly Christian one. Again a kite is being flown for a mischievous and undisguised purpose. Obviously the ruling party is suffering some political compunction given the way it has used federal might to run some elections in states it considered hostile turf in recent times.

    The governors even had the temerity to offer counselling to non PDP governors. It asked them to galvanize their internal revenue generation machinery instead of waiting for their state allocations from the Federal government in Abuja. As if this advice is not applicable to PDP states. Obviously there is a missing link of sincerity in this jigsaw puzzle of unsolicited advice from the zone of comfort that the PDP governors find themselves relative to opposition governors as we approach this watershed election of 2015.

    Let me round up with the Tony Blair analogy on the eve of his third election victory in 2005 when the Iraqi invasion and the non availability of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had turned the invasion into a huge lie and made a spin doctor of a hitherto credible Prime Minister. An analysis in the Economist at that time put Tony Blair’s fate quite succinctly.

    It noted that sincerity was the essence of success in any endeavour especially politics. Even if the sincerirty was faked success was still guaranteed. In Tony Blair’s case it noted however that the British public and electorate found out that he was deceiving them but justice was served nevertheless. This was because when he stopped faking and became sincere they never believed him again. Hence the much reduced parliamentary majority in the 2005 elections when the issue became when he would quit and hand over to his eventual successor Gordon Brown.

    Unbelievably the Tony Blair spin saga ended on a religious note. Having been discredited in terms of credibility by the anti Iraq invasion, anti war lobby in his nation and the EU, the former British PM had his own back in the corridors of power in the Vatican. Tony Blair, whose wife was a well known Catholic took his family to the Pope in Rome, Italy and converted to Catholicism.

    Thus turning his back as it were on the Church of England where it was unthinkable at one time to contemplate or consider any politician who was non Anglican for the high post of Her Majesty’s Prime Minister, a post he held for 10 years. That to me was vintage retribution to the anti war lobby for the image of spin which has stuck like a bug to the Tony Blair legacy ever since. That again sums up how sincerity in and out of office may affect political success especially where religion the timeless opium of the masses, is concerned.

  • Ekiti: A political economy of stomach infrastructure

    Ekiti: A political economy of stomach infrastructure

    If I am not mistaken, the term, ‘stomach infrastructure’, was first popularised, at least in the media, by the Lagos State University (LASU) based academic and journalist, Dr Dapo Thomas. After a visit to Ekiti state, Dapo Thomas had written about Governor Fayemi’s superlative performance in terms of provision of physical and social infrastructure but noted, rather light-heartedly, that some disgruntled elements would prefer Fayemi to cater for what they called ‘stomach infrastructure’ than his frenetic construction of roads, schools, medical facilities and other legacy projects.

    After the June 21 Ekiti state governorship election, in which the tempestuous and excitable Mr Ayo Fayose of the PDP unexpectedly recorded a landslide victory, the issue of stomach infrastructure was no more a laughing matter. It had become the focal point of myriads of analyses on the outcome of the polls. Fayose’s electoral triumph and fairy tale return to an office he was disgraced out of six years earlier was attributed by many commentators to stomach infrastructure. The Ekiti electorate reportedly preferred a morally tainted and ideologically vacuous Fayose to an urbane, brilliant, visionary and performing Fayemi simply because the former inundated them with bags of rice and fresh mint wad of Naira notes.

    Of course, this column has refused to identify with such superficial and utterly misleading analyses of Ekiti politics. Stomach infrastructure does not adequately explain either the outcome of the last Ekiti state governorship election or the political sociology of the Ekiti people. For one, the use of money or material goods to seek to entice voters was not limited to any political party. No one can claim sainthood in that regard.

    Again, it is all too easy for people to collect money or other forms of bribe from unscrupulous politicians and yet still vote for a party of their choice no matter how impoverished the latter. Thus, the late MKO Abiola’s massive injection of funds into the South-west in the second republic never translated into electoral success for his party in the region even though the people unhesitatingly partook of his financial largesse.

    In any case, the PDP was effectively in control of Ekiti in 2007. This was in addition to the party’s control of Nigeria’s resource-laden centre. The PDP was doubly in a position to deploy ‘stomach infrastructure’ to retain control of the state as it so desperately desired. Yet, a Fayemi who was not in office and had negligible means to compete with a sitting government in terms of ‘stomach infrastructure’ triumphed at the polls.

    It was certainly not because of stomach infrastructure that the people of Ekiti stood resolutely by Fayemi throughout his epic struggle in court to reclaim his stolen mandate. It was not stomach infrastructure that informed the massive support of the Ekiti electorate for the APC in the state and national assembly election in 2011. Even the resurgentAyodeleFayose who sought to be elected Senator on the platform of the Labour Party suffered ignominious defeat in the election.

    Yes, I agree with the Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka that Fayemi’s defeat in the governorship election remains a mystery. However, the mystery, for me is not Fayose’s victory. Rather, it is the APC’s inexplicable squandering of its goodwill in Ekiti such that the party lost in all 16 local government areas of the state without the slightest whimper from an electorate purportedly robbed of their votes through a certain mysterious creature christened ‘photochromic ballot’.

    I have no doubt in my mind that Fayose is a very vulnerable incumbent. He does not appear to have learnt any lessons from his past misadventure in office. Thus, his continuing rambunctiousness and combustible spontaneity make him prone to political self- demystification. However, the APC can only maximally exploit and take advantage of Fayose’s ingrained weaknesses if the party urgently undertakes a sober analysis as regards its severe setback in Ekiti,engages in a thorough soul searching and faces the future on the basis of reality and not illusions.

    Even then, can we situate the emergent phenomenon of stomach infrastructure within the framework of the political economy of Nigeria? I think so. Stomach infrastructure refers to the tendency to place excessive emphasis on satisfying one’s physical and material appetites even to the detriment of upholding more ennobling and elevating values. It refers to a penchant for instant gratification of one’s desires in the immediate even at the cost of more enduring long term benefits. In this sense, stomach infrastructure is likely to thrive within a context of deepening and pervasive poverty, ever widening inequality and the widespread perception of political actors across party lines as greedy, grasping, mindlessly corrupt and self- seeking.

    Despite the pejorative sense in which the term stomach infrastructure is used, the reality is that satisfying the need of the stomach, the imperative of daily sustenance is the very foundation of human existence. Although he never used the term, I am sure the late political economist, Claude Ake, must have something like stomach infrastructure in mind when he declared in his magnum opus, ‘A Political Economy of Africa’ that “To begin with, economic need is man’s most fundamental need. Unless man is able to meet this need he cannot exist in the first place. Man must eat before he can do anything else – before he can worship, pursue culture or become an economist”.

    However, Ake is quick to clarify what he means when he states further that “Just as economic need is the primary need, so economic activity is man’s primary activity. The primacy of work, that is economic activity, is the corollary of the primacy of economic need…In short, man must eat to live but he must work in order to eat…It is true that man does not live by bread alone. But it is a more fundamental truth that man cannot live without bread”. (By the way, I think Ake’s jibe at Jesus here is misguided. When Jesus says ‘man shall not live by bread alone’, he already implies that bread is a necessary condition for human existence but insists that satisfying the physical appetite is not a sufficient condition for a fulfilling life.)

    With the benefit of Ake’s insight, we can see the fundamental difference between Fayemi and Fayose’s approach to stomach infrastructure. Fayemi knows that man must eat to live but also realises that man must work in order to eat. He thus concentrated on aggressive and radical modernisation of infrastructure that can liberate the potentials of the economy, create jobs and boost prosperity through self-reliance.

    If he were of a more contemplative cast, Fayose would realize that there is really no viable alternative to Fayemi’s developmental vision for Ekiti. Rather than a wholesale repudiation of his predecessor’s legacy, he would continue with Fayemi’s legacy structures while taking steps to more concretely link the implementation of these projects with the local Ekiti economy.

    Unfortunately, Fayose creates the impression that he has the magic wand to provide food for the people ofEkiti without the necessity of work. He has thus promised his delirious supporters free rice and chicken at Christmas. He has appointed a personal assistant on stomach infrastructure for this very unproductive function of free food distribution. This is very insulting. The industrious people of Ekiti certainly do not want to be treated like children by a paternalistic state. They want a state that will create the environment for them to be productive and self -reliant.

    Fayose does severe violence to the image and psyche of the Ekiti people when he says the governor of their imagination is one who eats boli and drinks ‘agbojedi’ on the streets with them. No, Fayose should seek to measure his success as governor by how many of his supporters he is able to rescue from the drudgery, misery, indignity and dangers of selling boli and ‘paraga’ on streets, motor parks and highways.

    True, one can question Fayemi’s prioritisation of projects. But Fayose should realize that he stands on shaky moral ground to do so. For, the truth is that a N3 billion state house that belongs to Ekiti and is visible for all to see is infinitely preferable to a billion Naira fictional Integrated Poultry project that did not produce even one chicken with the money gone down the drain!

    Fayose has been given a rare chance for self- redemption. Time is of the essence. He cannot make progress piloting the affairs of Ekiti state with his gaze fixated on the rear view mirror.

  • Another age cheats squad? No please

    Our coaches have started again. Must Nigeria always win age grade competitions? How have these pyrrhic victories helped our senior national team like we see in other climes? Anytime Nigerian coaches throw age-grade camping open, they unwittingly surrender the exercise to unscrupulous agents who pressurise them to pick their wards. Besides, the coaches get confused, leading to wrong selection of players.

    What our coaches must know is that the NFF has since 2010 produced good U-15 lads who should form the nucleus of the country’s 2016 Olympic Games squad in Brazil. The others should come from our spectacular Golden Eaglets of 2009 and 2013. Those who were 14 and 15 in 2009 should be 21 and 22 in 2016. Of course, every member of the 2013 Eaglets is a potential member of the Olympic Eagles, if Samson Siasia is serious with this assignment.

    Siasia should never be allowed to pick players from the Nigerian leagues. I dare say that there is no 22-year old in any cadre of our leagues. We must stop our coaches from parading boys who present sworn affidavits to back their ages. If we cannot find the right players here, then we can head for Europe where Chelsea FC’s manager Jose Mourinho introduced a 17-year old Dominic Solanke to play for the Blues in their 6-0 whiplash of Maribor in Tuesday’s Champions League tie at Stamford Bridge. Arsenal has a lot of Nigeria-born kids who can help us stem the ugly tide of always playing old men in age-grade competitions.

    We must ensure that the bulk of players who make the Brazil 2016 Olympic Games squad should constitute the Super Eagles team to the 2018 World Cup in Russia. That is the way other football nations plan their Mundial. If we follow this route, it simply means that most of the players would have played together as a team for close to five years. I will suggest that the NFF, in constituting the Eagles’ technical crew, should find a role for Samson Siaisia and Gabra Manu in the Eagles. What this would do their teams is that they would know the playing pattern at the senior level and try it out with our junior teams. Scouting for players in our domestic leagues for a competition slated to hold in 2016 in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, is another fraudulent exercise of parading age cheats at the Samba Olympics.

    We have been Olympic Games gold medalists in Atlanta in 1996. We were runners-up to Argentina at the Beijing Olympic Games, losing 1-0, no thanks to Di Maria’s cheeky lob over the head of goalkeeper Ambrose Vansekin. We have nothing else to prove in that cadre. What haunts us like a sore thumb is the fact that not many of the products of our youth teams have graduated into the Super Eagles.

    Siasia has shown mastery of this cadre but he must spare us the thought of fielding players who would storm the camp with sworn affidavits to substantiate their ages. Siasia’s employers must tell the coach what they expect of him. We need to use our age-grade teams to discover and nurture school boys, not adults in our leagues.

     We have excelled at U-17 and U-20 since 2007, when the late Yemi Tella produced young boys who dazzled the world with their skills. Most members of that glorious squad have disappeared like ice cream under the scorching sun. Again, in the 2009 edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup which Nigeria hosted, we placed second, with many of those discovered playing in novelty leagues instead of competing with their contemporaries.

    We were U-17 champions again in 2013. It is only fair that Siasia makes the bulk of that squad the nucleus of his team. Many would argue that they should be left to graduate into the U-20 side. I have no problem with that, except for the fact the exceptional ones among them, such as Ihenanacho, should be allowed to play for the U-23 side and the Super Eagles, like the English are doing with young lads, such as Raheem Sterling.

    Siasia must hit the schools, polytechnics and soccer academies, such as the one run by Kashimawo Laloko, NFF’s youth team programmes and maybe some universities to find boys under the age of 23.

    The domestic league has been corrupted with ageing players who ask you which of the ages they belong when you ask such questions. It is easy for them to ask if you want their football ages or their real ones. Such pool cannot help our cause, if we must see players graduate to the Eagles and stay as long as Nwankwo ‘King’ Kanu did.

    Talents can be found in the grassroots. Our coaches must face the fact that some of them played for the Eagles while in school. That tradition needs to be sustained, if our coaches can be as adventurous as the likes of Alabi Aissien, Adegboye Onigbinde, Willy Bazuaye, Charles Bassey, the late Udemezue, the late Eto Amechina et al.

     We need young players to replace those showing signs of weakness, those who have been in-and-out of injuries and those who have retired. We must stop the recycling of players who have failed us in the past.

     

    Foreign coach for Eagles

    I’m a fan of foreign coaches for the Eagles. My support for these foreigners stems from the fact that Nigerian coaches don’t know how to manage success, except for Adegboye Onigbinde; not even Shauibu Amodu. Amodu ranks next to Onigbinde in the sense that he has upgraded himself by attending refresher courses. He accepts mistakes. Amodu’s biggest weapon rests with the fact that he doesn’t blame players openly when the team loses. He takes responsibility for any result, a trait many Nigerian coaches lack.

    Our coaches have refused to transit from being players to coaches. They manage the big players’ ego. Rather than take risks by playing fitter and younger players desirous to prove their mettle, they always err on the side of caution by parading our stars who have seen it all. The absence of a will to achieve greater things (motivation to excel) among the players is chiefly responsible for the sloppy style we have seen during Eagles’ matches.

    Most Nigerian coaches don’t watch matches involving our players either here or in Europe. They pride themselves in saying that they don’t read the local newspapers nor do they watch television. Little wonder, they goof in their selection by inviting injured players to prosecute our matches.

    Need I talk about their medieval times tactics which ridicule them before the players anytime they are asked to groom the Eagles? Our better exposed players mock them after training, having been groomed by experienced European managers. Our players have lifted their game beyond the mediocre level while our coaches still mark time with archaic styles. Europe-based players wouldn’t be able to replicate their club form with the Eagles until our coaches are at par with their European managers in terms of tactics and management.

    This is not to say that all European managers are good tacticians. We have failed to get good foreign coaches because we have anchored our search on some unscrupulous Nigerians and their cronies. In other climes, such an exercise is either advertised or the country head-hunts four coaches who are thought to have what they want for the Eagles, for instance.

    In picking these four, they have benchmarks and they are ranked based on their individual capabilities. They start by sounding out the best of the four until they get the right one. Indeed, all these processes are kept under wraps until the selected coach has agreed to all the terms for the job. We must learn to do things right to avoid controversies and ensure that the coaches take us seriously.

     

    Thank you Falcons

    I don’t hide my love for all our female national teams. They are magicians. When they win matches, I marvel because they barely play the game here.  Nigerian female players play the game on empty stomachs. They play for the love of the game. I always join the prayer group when they have their matches.

     I’m therefore excited that Falcons have qualified for the senior World Cup in Canada. I pray that many of the players secure better deals in Europe. Indeed, if they get lucrative contracts in Europe, they would serve as models to other parents to encourage their girls to play the beautiful game.

     In today’s final game against Cameroon in Windhoek, it is my wish that Falcons lift the trophy again. I want them to be rewarded for their efforts. These girls have been unfairly treated by our sports administrators. Imagine if it was the Super Eagles in the finals of the male version of the Africa Cup of Nations. The Sports Minister would have been resident in Namibia since the quarterfinals day. Government officials would have been roaming the streets in Namibia. The Presidency would have organised telephone interviews between the girls and President Goodluck Jonathan. Such is our sense of balance.

    Several governors would have been in Namibia today to support the girls, not forgetting the blue-chip firms struggling for spaces in the newspapers, radio stations and television channels to eulogise the girls.

    Lastly, those who ascribed the Super Eagles’ shambolic outing at the Africa Cup of Nations’ qualification matches to the crises at the NFF should, by now, accept that they were wrong, given what our girls have achieved in the continent and the world under the same circumstances. The Falcons have shown skills, patriotism and discipline. Without these, no team can do well. This is the lesson of our dearest girls’ feat.