The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • The road to Brazil (2)

    If you wake up George Opong Weah

    wherever he is today, he will tell you

    that his best of times were those periods he played soccer for several European clubs across the globe. Weah will show a rich wardrobe of laurels (individual and team efforts) he acquired thrilling the world with his sublime skills that held fans in capacity-filled stadia spell bound.

    Weah was unmistakeable on the pitch. From his intimidating height, deft touches on the ball, his decoy runs to his great goal-scoring dances for his club mates and his ferocious shots at goal, Georgie, as he was called then, was the closest player to the renowned Brazil great, Pele. Weah won the prestigious European Player of the Year Award. He is among the league of players who were voted European Footballer of the Year and World Footballer of the Year in the same year (1995). Such was Weah’s prowess in football that his face graced the cover of major foreign newspapers, magazines etc celebrating an African from a country enmeshed in civil war. Weah was the proverbial silver lining on the dark skyline of a war-torn Liberia.

    This writer interviewed Weah in 1999, as the Sports Editor of Thisday at the Eko Hotels and Suites in Lagos, shortly before the Taribo and Friends game at the National Stadium. He was a delight to interview.

    Being with Weah inside his room was a little dream for me. What bowled me over was his capacity to provide succour for some of his countrymen and women who fled from Liberia and waited to speak with him at the hotel. Weah broke the security network provided for him to feel his people. He talked with them, reassuring them of better days for Liberia. He gave out cash, boots and anything anyone of them wanted that he could give. No exaggeration about Weah’s love for his Liberian brothers and sisters.

    Watching from a close distance, because he held my hands intermittently, I got emotional and wished that Nigerian players could emulate him.

    Once he was done with his people, he pulled me and said “me men, Liberian people are good people o! O, my people are dying o! One of them there, my men, e be big man. Big shops, big money o! But you see am, I cry o! Such a man, beg small Opong for money. I cry o! My men, Liberia will be good o!”

    Suddenly, he realised that I was eager for the interview and took me to his room. Inside his room, he showed me a lot of things he was doing to guarantee his future after quitting the game. He wished he was a Nigerian or any other African whose country was not in turmoil he could help get qualified for the World Cup, having seen it all at the club level in Europe.

    Weah is a proud Liberian. Even with the turmoil in Liberia, he didn’t contemplate changing his nationality for soccer’s sake. Weah is an enigma. You only need to spend time with him. This writer asked him what his biggest regret would be if he quit soccer. Weah was speechless. He tried to summon courage to talk. He only succeeded in mumbling some words. Yes, Weah wept. If it was this time of GSM, that picture would have remained in my memory for life.

    Weah pleaded that we continue the interview but said that he craved for the opportunity to play in the World Cup qualifier wearing Liberia’s colours, whether or not the country qualified.

    Weah said he would cherish moments his people will throng the Liberia Stadium, stand to sing the country’s national anthem in unity, seeking to use football to change the world’s perception of a war-torn Liberia. For Weah, it didn’t matter if his countrymen were not as talented as he was. What he wanted to witness was for his countrymen and women to drop their guns and head for the Liberia Stadium in an international World Cup qualifier.

    Whilst gesticulating in the room what he looked forward to, he explained why he always wore the wrist-band in Liberia’s colours, insisting that it was the only thing missing in his football annals. Weah truly loves his country. He bankrolled Liberia’s World Cup campaigns until Nigeria stopped them in 2001, the closest Liberia has ever gone in World Cup qualifiers.I wish I could continue this narration, but I must stop now and I would situate the Weah examples that our players must emulate. They are virtues that come with good upbringing, which cannot be bought with money. Weah isn’t the son of a rich man, but he imbibed good virtues from living with his mum.

    However, the new dawn for our players should start with the enforcement of our Code of Conduct to be in tandem with what others do. It is for this reason the decision by the Bosnia FA chiefs to pay their players N35 million (the equivalent of $200,000) to each player for the group games should be shown to the Super Eagles players. What it clearly states is that there is no provision for match bonuses of any toga nor is there any reference to daily allowances. It is instructive to also stress that Bosnia is in the World Cup for the first time.

    FIFA is paying each of the 32 countries $8 million qualification bonuses, which will come after deductions at the end of the competition. Bosnian Football Federation President Elvedin Begic said: “There are no secrets. FIFA will publish on its website what goes to each team.”

    “Prior to the start of qualifying, it was agreed that the distribution of the players is 50 % players. 50% for the union (FA), if we get to the Mundial,” Begic told sportsport.ba on Monday. The arithmetic is simple. Worse case scenario: if the Dragons, as they are fondly called by their admirers, fail to qualify for the knockout round like the Super Eagles have done in the last two editions that we have attended, each player will get approximately $206,000 (the equivalent of N35 million). Surprisingly, the Bosnia FA has not factored the team’s technical crew in this arithmetic of the qualification bonus. I just hope that the NFF will do so, except FIFA expressly states that it is for the players.

    The beauty of the Bosnian arrangement is that the meeting was held before the qualifiers. What it means is that, henceforth, Nigeria should never embark on any soccer campaign without setting out rules with all parties involved in the negotiations. I wonder why we didn’t do ours until now, having participated in four World Cups before the 2014 edition

    One is a little worried that it is taking the sports minister’s January 6 meeting with the NFF and the Eagles chief for both parties to submit a plan that will capture what we need to expect from the team in Brazil. This setting raises the question of who the coach submitted his plans to. If he did to the NFF, why couldn’t they invite the coach to harmonise the two plans to produce the document of hope.

    One is sure that the minister’s intervention will only paper the cracks between both bodies, thus postponing the evil day. The minister should please ask the coach who he submitted his plans to. This January 6 meeting should be the minister’s last with the two bodies. He must direct them to work together lest we end up with the worst World Cup outing, despite the silver lining occasioned by our being African champions.

    Perhaps the minister’s meeting should address coaches’ salaries. My humble suggestion is that they should be paid upfront till June 2014. Not a tough task for Abdullahi to surmount, given the hoopla anytime the coaches’ salaries are unpaid.

    What is the figure for an upfront payment of the coaches’ pay? N51 million solves it. The minister could direct that they are paid till February ending; the balance can be paid by the end of March. This idea of our coaches taking their plight to the Senate President, the Minister of Aviation, for instance, and indeed governors isn’t good for our image, especially as these stories get into the media. The coaches are the ones who stir up the controversies. They should be paid promptly so that they can concentrate on their job.

    Those drafting the Code of Conduct can insert a clause which bans coaches from taking their case to outsiders. There should also be sanctions on the NFF if they fail to meet their obligations to the coaches. It is laughable for anyone to think that the NFF will offer the players $10,000 as appearance when such details are spelt out by FIFA and not at the discretion of the federation. Any medium spread this untruth is among the enemies of the game. Such lies precipitate the rift between the NFF and the players. I hope the players won’t believe this lie from the pit of hell.

    The good news is that Abdullahi will not behave like his predecessor, who wrote FIFA not to release the country’s World Cup qualification budget to the federation. What this simply means is that the NFF can source loans from banks to facilitate early preparations for the Mundial, using the $8 million (N1.36billion) FIFA largesse as collateral. From this seed money, the NFF can pay for the camp site, training facilities and hotel accommodation. Daily allowances and, who knows, coaches’ wages can also be paid upfront before the Federal Government releases funds.

    Abdullahi has the biggest opportunity to leave his mark as minister if he gets the NFF to secure a business plan for our football. And this could start with this relationship with a bank(s). Invariably, we would have evolved a template into which government can commit its cash. This initiative will enhance accountability and force our administrators to be frugal with government money.

    Nigeria attends the World Cup for a jamboree? No more. That era should stop with this 2014 edition. This is to wish you dear reader, Happy New Year. Like the Edos will say Oba Khato Okpere, Ise.

  • 2013 Person of the Year-Between Putin, Obasanjo and Snowden

    2013 Person of the Year-Between Putin, Obasanjo and Snowden

    It is always a fascinating challenge to me to pick my man of the year for any year, not to talk of a difficult year like 2013, with its superstitious albatross of the no 13 being an unlucky number. Superstition aside, however, 2013 has lived up to its billing of being an entirely nasty year and one that most people in Nigeria, South Sudan and the Phillippines would wish good riddance and goodbye to bad rubbish. All the same, the simple chore for us here is to sift through the year’s massive luggage of political and socio economic actions and inactions to pick a person, who has in 2013, influenced world events for good or bad. Unbelievably, it has not been that difficult for me to pick a 2013 ‘person of the year’ – and this is particularly true of my choice of Russia’s Vladmir Putin as the first in my pick of the trio I have listed above. The Russian strongman was always in my sight through out the year, in the way he ‘outsmarted‘ the US in diplomacy and world politics, even long before Forbes Magazine picked him as the most powerful man in the world in 2013. Edward Snowden was an ambivalent choice, albeit a durable one, in terms of the massive size of his revelations on US Surveillance of friends and foes alike, and their importance to the management of information, communication and global governance, in all ramifications. The former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was a late comer to my list, as he wrote his famous letter ‘Before it is too late‘ to Nigeria’s incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan in December 2013. All the same, President Goodluck’s response and his charge that the former President had breached National Security and was whipping up ethnic hatred against his government earned Obasanjo the accolade of ‘Man of the Year‘ for his bravery, candor and patriotism which even Jonathan did not question in his apologetic response to OBJ ‘s letter. Let me state that I have picked my persons of the year with a great sense of responsibility and concern for world peace, order and prosperity. I have been guided by the same principles used by Time Magazine which yearly identified those it said have influenced the world‘ for good or bad‘ in the year of their choice. This year the Magazine picked Pope Francis for his concern for the poor. It also picked as runner up Edward Snowden and next Edith Windsor, a long term gay activist for her activism in actualising equal rights for gays in the US and I am nauseated by such choice. But then the magazine was keeping to its time honoured tenets and traditions. When I remember that Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was selected as Man of the Year by Time in spite of the Iran Hostage Crisis in Teheran, and before that even Adolf Hitler had the honor, then I concede the right of the Magazine to live up to its values and criteria, no matter the conflicting cultural values or concerns of its overall global readership. Let me now go about endorsing my choice of Russia’s President Vladmir Putin, Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo and American Spy Whistle blower Edward Snowden as my ‘three in one‘ Person of the year for 2013. I start with Vladmir Putin, by commending him and Russia under him, in returning the diplomacy to a bi- polar world, by seizing the initiative in the management and conduct of world diplomacy from the US. This was especially true in the way Putin used the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya as the benchmark to stop the use of ‘no flying zone‘ at the UN Security Council in any Middle East nation affected by the Arab Spring and street revolutions that dislodged tyrannical rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. The No flying Zone was used to cripple Gaddafi by the US and its EU allies, which obtained a UN Security Council resolution in this regard. Over Syria, Russia led China in the Security Council in putting down its foot that the UN could not intervene in anyway to save or fight the Assad regime fighting for its life in Damascus and Russia had its way. Even the face saving limited strike by the Americans was abandoned for the dubious policy of destruction of weapons of chemical weapons. Over Syria, Russia showed that it had a better grasp of modern diplomacy than the Obama administration and the EU, and while a Cold War could not be said to have resurrected, it was obvious that the US was no longer calling the shots on world order and power, the way it was acting when Obama made his Cairo Speech that set Egypt up on the wrong path to democracy- now with the benefit of hindsight. As at this week the Muslim Brotherhood that won the presidential elections in Egypt, in the wake of the Arab Spring, has been declared a terrorist organisation by the army backed government in Egypt, while its popularly elected president- Mohammed Morsi has been charged with treason. Yet a blood thirsty tyrant like Bashar Assad has been kept in power by all means because Russia wants the US to know that it is no longer calling the shots on world politics and diplomacy and that is the handiwork of only one man –Russia’s President Vladmir Putin. On the global cultural plain, the US and its US allies have been putting pressure on Russia over its stringent anti -gay laws, but the Russians under Putin have not relented. The US has gone on to nominate well known gays to its Olympic Committees on the Olympics slated for Russia, but that can only annoy the Russians more. This can only boost Putin’s credentials at home as standing up for Russian values in the wake of wild American liberalism and cultural imposition and intimidation. On this score Putin and Russia have the support of most African nations, who in spite of religious differences, are united in their fight against gay rights and gay marriages and have made laws to that effect. Lastly, Russia has given asylum to the US most wanted man Edward Snowden and there is nothing the US can do about it. Indeed it is like holding the American by the balls, as European media release intermittently, evidence of the US National Security Agency bugging friendly EU citizens like Germany and Spain and millions of their citizens. The US has been put on a lower moral pedestal in the way it has carried out its surveillance in apparent contempt for human rights and privacy and that is good for Putin and Russia whose human rights records have always been ridiculed by the West. In Edward Snowden’s Xmas message from his asylum in Russia he mentioned the book 1984 By George Orwell which I read at a time when one thought 1984 would never come. Now its gone. 1984 was about life in the former Soviet Union when Russian citizens had their lives watched by the Russian communist government and the book was quite popular then. Snowden said his revelations were spurred by the gory details of 1984 continued by the American government under Obama. Definitely the US government 2013 global surveillance surpassed the rich imagination of even George Orwell who wrote 1984 and that is very bad for the sovereign reputation of a leading global power like the US in the comity of nations. Again, one must commend Russia for giving refuge to a wanted man like Edward Snowden and again give kudos to Vladmir Putin. Next we consider Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian Head of State’s credentials for this award. That he is charged with threatening ‘National Security ‘by the nation’s Commander in Chief means he has spoken correctly on a most nagging issue and boldly too. For security is an open sore for the Nigerian security authorities, and not only the president. Even the Pope at the Vatican during Xmas 2013 mentioned Nigeria and asked the whole world to pray for Nigeria. Was the Pope breaching our security? Definitely not. Obasanjo has spoken out of deep concern and he remains relevant in Nigeria’s politics as the APC, the expected Salvation Army Nigeria’s politics in 2015 went to greet him even after his letter to the president. Obasanjo’s letter was not a cry of wolf where there was none. It was not a false alarm. It was a letter saying that no leader should go to sleep while there was fire on his thatched roof. Whether OBJ was in a position to build a house with corrugated iron when he lived there, as he did, rather than leave a thatched roof, is not the issue. The issue is that the president, the incumbent can not afford a wink while there is fire on a thatched roof on a house in his care. Nobody, but OBJ’s sense of patriotism has called him into an action – an action that he himself admitted could jeorpadise his personal security as under Abacha. That was a risk above the call of duty or self righteousness regardless of the language or manner of delivery of the letter For that clarion call OBJ like Putin has my kudos, again as a Person of the Year for 2013. Lastly, I wrestle with my choice of Edward Snowden, the ultimate whistle blower as part of this trinity of the Person of the Year 2013. Under normal circumstances, and in any nation and clime, Snowden should be condemned to death for revealing state secrets and thereby threatening state security. This, indeed was what the US had in mind in asking for his repatriation first from Hong Kong, a strong US ally and later Russia a member of the UN Security Council like the US. The response of both nations is now history and both negative. That Time Magazine almost made Snowden its Person of the Year, for good or bad, means the US is not sure what to make of Snowden, who in his Xmas message said that he felt that all that the US needed for information from anybody was to ask and not to spy on them. Yet the US values human rights and that goes with respect for privacy and truth. Snowden is a product of both and the US government after him cannot deny both or him. So Snowden to me has become the Galileo of the Information Age in 2013. Just as the Catholic Church intimidated Galileo, the Astrology sage into refuting the Copernicus theory that the world is round and not flat and that it revolves on its axis, the US Administration is pursuing Snowden for damaging revelation on equally damaging and unexpected surveillance of nations and their citizens. For daring to draw the line in the use of the Computer and Communications and using his technical skills to prod a sleeping world to an apparent misuse of power and technology, Edward Snowden has my commendation and endorsement as a Person of the Year for 2013.

  • Transformational power of Nigeria’s presidency

    Transformational power of Nigeria’s presidency

    I have contended more than once in this column that the Nigerian presidency is one of the most powerful offices in the world. Of course, there are those who oppose this view and argue that it is no more than building a myth around whoever occupies the office at any point in time. Yes, there are many ways in which the Nigerian state is pathetically weak. It is irredeemably weak in securing the lives and property of its citizens which is the fundamental reason for the existence of any state. It is hopelessly incapable of promoting and ensuring the greatest happiness for the greatest number of its citizens – their education, health, shelter, food employment and other indicators of well- being.

    But paradoxically, the Nigerian state is also exceedingly powerful. It is practically unhindered in its ability to trample on the rights of its subjects, sorry people. It is a veritable Leviathan with no notion of right, wrong or justice. Its capacity for corruption, material and moral, is legendary. The Nigerian presidency is the most potent, visible and vicious arm of the state. In fashioning the Nigerian presidency, its architects deliberately wanted a powerful institution whose occupant would be a symbol of national unity. The personality of the president would symbolise the institutional integrity and psychic essence of the Nigerian state.

    The American presidency was clearly the model in the minds of the architects of the Nigerian presidency. The American state is by far the most powerful geo-political entity in the world – the lone global super power. On the surface, the occupant of the American presidency is the most powerful man in the world. He is the Commander-In-Chief of the most lethal military machine in history. But in reality, his immense powers are checked by vigorous, functional institutions – a virile legislature, a vibrant and independent judiciary, a vigilant media, a professional security architecture that places premium on the national interest over the whims of transient occupants of public office and a vigorous civil society. It is the absence of these institutional checks that is at once responsible both for the ‘overdevelopment’ of the Nigerian presidency and the concomitant ‘underdevelopment’ of the Nigerian state as regards its capability to effectively discharge the functions of a state.

    It is unlikely, for instance, that an American President would be able to sweep the scandalous procurement of two armoured cars at the inflated cost of N255 million the way the Jonathan presidency is so obviously doing. Such contempt for public opinion would most certainly have dragged an American president down. He would dare not contemplate any such cover-up. Of course, one of the problems of the Nigerian society is that occupants of public office can play on primordial sentiments like ethnicity, regionalism and religion to divide the people and get away with the most heinous crimes.

    In some of his recent interviews on his political travails, I find a very interesting tension between Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s views of Dr Goodluck Jonathan as a person and his role as President of Nigeria. As a person, Amaechi speaks of Dr Jonathan as humble, modest, well-meaning, decent and good natured. When he speaks off the cuff, not minding his frequent factual and logical gaffes, Dr Jonathan comes across as a man who has the best of intentions and cannot hurt a fly. How then can we reconcile this easy going, with the President who sanctions the lawlessness and outright brigandage of the Rivers State Commissioner of Police?

    How can we reconcile our gentle, mild-mannered President with a presidency that recognises the minority of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) as the majority without batting an eyelid? How does Dr Jonathan who sermonises with so much passion and conviction on church pulpits reconcile his Christian conscience with support for minority of members of the Rivers State House of Assembly intent on impeaching the Governor with just five out of a 32 –member House? How does a President who wasted no time in removing the hard working and achievement-oriented Professor Barth Nnaji from his cabinet for alleged conflict of interest yet is inexplicably incapacitated from taking decisive action on the far more morally compromised Ms Stella Oduah?

    The problem is not in my view that of Dr Jonathan. It has to do with the transformational power of the Nigerian presidency. Dr Jonathan no doubt means well as regards his much-touted transformational agenda. Virtually every occupant of the Nigerian Presidency has sought to leave a legacy of transforming the country. They have all uniformly failed to achieve this objective. It is certainly not for want of trying. It is simply that the enormous powers of the Nigerian Presidency transforms its occupants, divorces them from reality and renders all their efforts at national transformation nugatory.

    President Shehu Shagari was a simple and well-meaning man who could not hurt a fly. The Nigerian presidency transformed him. He ended up appointing illegal Presidential Liaison Officers to undermine state governors in non-NPN-controlled states and ordered the deportation of the majority leader in the Gongola State House of Assembly, Alhaji Abdulrahman Shugaba, to Chad. In his second coming as elected President, General Olusegun Obasanjo was a born-again Christian who was always quoting Bible verses. Prison had clearly tempered the rather boisterous ex- soldier. The Nigerian presidency changed all that. Not only did he mercilessly use institutions of state to hound his political ‘enemies’, he even futilely sought a third term in office.

    President Goodluck Jonathan delivers the most moving speeches on the responsibility of power and the morality of politics. Yet, like his predecessors, he uses the immense powers of the presidency to harass his political opponents, rub justice in the mud, treat corruption with kid-gloves while pretending all the while that some national transformation is being undertaken. Nothing could be more illusory. Until we tame and transform the Nigerian presidency, there can be no realistic national transformation in Nigeria.

  • The road to Brazil

    Super Eagles’ team is not a casino where gamblers revel in pulling the one-arm bandit machine for a bountiful harvest. The act of gambling is not as easy as just pulling the machine’s arm.

    There are gambling rules. If you don’t have the machine’s playing dice, “nothing for you.” You cannot dip your hands into the wallet and insert any coin. It won’t work.

    Each player and coach in the Super Eagles must be told what they will earn at every stage of the Mundial to avoid the show-of-shame that happened in Namibia during the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

    Curiously, the scene in Windhoek, Namibia, where Eagles stars refused to board the aircraft secured for Nigeria by the Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) to fly the players and officials to Brazil for the 2013 Confederations Cup arose when the players insisted that they must be paid $10,000 for beating Namibia, through a nail-biting 1-0 victory.

    The Federal Government constituted a panel headed by Segun Adeniyi to draw up a Code of Conduct for the Eagles to avoid a repeat of the shameful incident. The Adeniyi-led committee has submitted its recommendations, which Sports Minister Bolaji Abdulahi has handed over to the NFF for implementation.

    Match-winning bonuses have been a contentious issue since the 1998 World Cup in France, where our players met with NFA chiefs for three days, negotiating how much they should be paid before the game against Demark, which the Danes won by 4-1.

    Indeed, the players were paid $15,000 each before the game against Denmark, largely because they had envisaged that Nigeria will whip the Danes and meet Brazil in the quarter-finals. Pundits had tagged the match that never was a revenge tie, following Nigeria’s U-23 side’s 3-2 semi-finals victory over their Brazilian counterparts in one of the soccer matches at the Atlanta ’96 Olympic Games.

    Why have we found it difficult to present a package to the Eagles for them to either accept or reject? After all, the other 31 countries take part in the World Cup without rancour and where they exist, punishments are meted out to the culprits based on written agreements before the Mundial begins.

    For us to understand why other climes transit from one World Cup event to another irrespective of their results, there is the need to state that their leagues serve as the launching pad for picking most of their players, although with a few big ones coming from other developed leagues in Europe. With this setting, there are no big names. No idols. And such World Cup camping serves as a platform for the discovery new of stars.

    The reverse is the case with Nigeria. The domestic league is in dire straits, except for the innovations which the Nduka Irabor-led League Management Committee ((LMC) has introduced in the last one year. The Super Eagles is not a reflection of our local league. This unfair tilt makes Europe-based players feel as if they are doing Nigeria a favour while playing for this great country. Besides, they always give the impression as if their career didn’t start on Nigeria’s dusty streets.

    It is, therefore, heartwarming that the Namibia incident has produced the Code of Conduct document where all issues are addressed and decisions taken. Our players are used to rules in their European clubs. So, there is nothing new in this.

    But the clincher in the Code of Conduct is that the players will be told that they will earn $5000 winning bonus. Will the players accept this? Interesting. But that is the reason for the dialogue between them and the NFF.

    Happily, the Aminu Maigari-led NFF has chosen to go the way of others where intricate matters are documented after decisions have been reached by the contending parties. And it is a welcome development. One hopes that our nosey bigwigs in Abuja do not jeopardise the code when the Eagles start to dazzle the world. What one is saying here is that no highly-placed person in government should lead any delegation to Brazil and try to lord it over the NFF. When that happens, the powers of the football chiefs are whittled and indiscipline creeps in because the boys know who to run to.

  • Is it not too late?

    Is it not too late?

    A letter of appeal to President Jonathan: Before it is too late’. That was the title of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s 18-page missive to President Goodluck Jonathan, his adopted political son in whom he was once upon a time well pleased. Things seem so obviously to have fallen apart between the two that the exchange of public brickbats has become characteristic of their relationship.

    You may honour him or hate him. You may venerate him or vilify him. You may seek to canonise or demonise him. Some try to deify him. Others may wish to demystify him. But one thing is certain. You cannot afford to take General Olusegun Mathew Aremu Obasanjo for granted. Anyone conversant with this column will know I am no fan of the Owu turned politician and farmer. But when he is right, intellectual honesty demands that we acknowledge it.

    Some people have wondered what gives Obasanjo the temerity and audacity to lecture Jonathan on political morality, corruption or even good governance. They contend that Obasanjo has no moral right to pontificate to anybody given his own sordid record in office as President. Moreover, they argue, was he not the one who virtually imposed an ailing Umaru Yar’Adua and untested Goodluck Jonathan on the country in 2007? Why should he now cry over spilt milk?

    Of course, I can understand these sentiments and they are quite pertinent. However, are there any truths in the grievous allegations made against Jonathan in Obasanjo’s treatise? That for me is the crucial question. I care less about the messenger. What matters is the message. In this case the content of the message is so volatile and inflammable that the presidency cannot afford just to dismiss it casually as if it is of no significance.

    For instance, Obasanjo cites the menace of corruption that has reportedly assumed unprecedented dimensions under President Jonathan’s watch. OBJ stated bluntly that if Jonathan is not ready to “name, shame, prosecute and stoutly fight against corruption, it will be hollow; it will be a laughing matter”. The Owu farmer prayed further “May God grant you the grace for at least one effective correction against corruption, which seems to stink all over you and your government”.

    Specifically, OBJ wanted President Goodluck Jonathan to clear the air on the alleged non-remittance of about $7 billion from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to the Central Bank of Nigeria as recently detailed in a letter from the CBN to the President. Surprisingly, Obasanjo did not bring up the issue of the Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah, who approved the procurement of two bullet proof jeep vehicles for her personal use at an inflated cost of N255 million through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority. With all the facts already in the public arena, thanks to the House of Representatives public probe, the President set up a three member administrative panel to investigate the issue. Weeks after the report was submitted to Jonathan, nothing has been heard of the matter again.

    Perhaps the most damaging allegation in OBJ’s treatise to Jonathan is that 1000 persons have been placed by the incumbent administration on political watch ahead of the 2015 election. If this is true, we can readily see how scarce human and material resources as well as time and money in the crucial security sector, are being dissipated in the wrong direction and for the wrong purposes. And this at a time when the country faces serious security challenges from diverse fronts.

    Nigeria is transiting slowly, imperceptibly but steadily from a pseudo democracy to a full-fledged police state. The number of security agents diverted from their normal duties to safeguard the collective safety of all but are now deployed to protect the lives of a minority of people who made it impossible for the country to have a viable security architecture in the first place is simply mind-boggling.

    Even more dangerously, Obasanjo has alleged that a squad of killers and snipers are being currently trained in preparation for the 2015 election. According to the former President, these killer squads are being trained in the same location where Abacha’s killer gangs were trained. The implication is that the most important and politically influential on the list of 1000 persons, reportedly under political watch, will most likely be the targets of the trained snipers and killer gangs.

    Now, Obasanjo is no saint. Like all great men, he has virtues and vices aplenty. But even his most inveterate critics will tell you that he does not speak frivolously. Obasanjo is a soldier. He still remains venerated in that institution even though he retired decades ago. The same thing goes for General Ibrahim Babangida, General Abdulsaam Abubakar, General T.Y. Danjuma, General Muhamadu Buhari and several others. It is thus not unlikely that these ex-military leaders will continue to receive a stream of intelligence as regards goings on within the security sector.

    It is instructive that Obasanjo’s letter dated 2nd December, 2013, was copied only to General Babangida, General Abdulslam Abubakar, General T.Y. Danjuma and Dr Alex Ekwueme. However, President Jonathan’s unrestrained speech at the memorial service in honour of Nelson Mandela at the Presidential Villa, Aso Rock, must have prompted the public release of the letter. On that occasion, Jonathan had berated those he called boastful leaders who seek to intimidate others and behave as if Nigeria is their bedroom.

    The necessity to write this letter to the President and even go ahead to make it public, shows that there is insufficient communication between the incumbent in the country’s highest political office and his predecessors. Yes, Obasanjo has his faults aplenty – one of which is foisting incompetent and unprepared leadership at his departure in 2007. Again, he introduced this whole idea of the President as being leader of the party, an initiative which greatly subordinated the party to the whims and caprices of the president – a system which he decries today.

    But in going public with the alleged misdemeanours of the Jonathan administration, Obasanjo is intelligent enough to know that he would be under intense criticism for supporting a candidate with no outstanding record of sterling performance in public office. His public letter thus suggests to me to be some sort of atonement – a subtle admission that he made a mistake in helping to prop up the career of Jonathan and that he is willing to join other forces to win power and bring about a fundamental change in the country come 2015.

    But then, only the simpleton would eat with OBJ without an extra- long set of cutlery. For he could dine with you tonight and tomorrow be quite at home joining in the electoral victory of your supposedly common opponent.

    Obasanjo says he wrote to Jonathan before it is too late. But is it not too late already? The die is cast. Whatever his current posturing, Jonathan will run. Without a credible record of performance, he will have to rely on primordial sentiments as well as the collusion of INEC and security officials to win. If the electoral outcomes announced by INEC do not reflect the will of the majority, we may well begin to sing the NUNC DIMITIS of Democracy in Nigeria.

  • Which Super Eagles?

    Which Super Eagles?

    Every Nigerian is a football expert. It doesn’t matter if he or she has not kicked the ball before. He is quick to regale you with his exploits while playing the game with bare feet. If you have played it, then you will know that it is a different ball-game kicking the ball barefoot and playing it with boots on. It is even a tougher task running with it, if you are wearing the boots for the first time.

    But don’t blame the pundit; that is the universal nature of the game. The people are passionate about it. For us, it is next to our religion. It unites us in our diversity. Everything stops when Nigeria has a game. It gets worse the next day, if the Nigerian team wins. The analysis is compelling. Everyone is involved in the discussion. When the team is defeated, it is a different ball game. Let me save you the ordeal of going through reactions to defeats.

    The loser is an orphan. This is my message to Super Eagles’ chief coach Stephen Keshi as he ponders over the calibre of players to take to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup. We must parade our best, in terms of performance, not loyalty. Keshi must stoop to conquer, if he wants to be the toast of the World Cup in Brazil. He must open his heart to tolerate his players’ idiosyncrasies. He must learn to use the finer qualities of his players to achieve success. He will be alone in Brazil, if (God forbid) the Eagles don’t dazzle the world. He will be shocked to read comments of some of his friends. But that is the Nigerian fan for you (a fair-weather friend).

    For Keshi, these are his most difficult times. I must remind him to guard against any form of fixation in his selection for the World Cup. Those who were in South Africa have been duly rewarded with cash, houses and national honours. Going to Brazil should be done on a clean slate. Merit, not sentiments, should form the basis of picking the players. The team is no cult. It also shouldn’t be a rehabilitation centre or a platform to expose weaklings for mercantile purposes.

    Shutting out those who didn’t participate in the qualifiers is bunkum. Players’ match forms are not static. If anyone isn’t fit enough to give his best in Brazil, he should be dropped, even if he scored all the goals that earned us the ticket. We must not find ourselves in the 1998 setting in which holidaying players were invited to join the Eagles squad for being stars in the 1994 edition. It was our worst outing. Most of the players were either recuperating from injuries or were not fit. They shamelessly refused to decline the invitation, perhaps because participating in the World Cup is any player’s dream.

    The transition of the Eagles squad that clinched the Africa Cup of Nations to the team that secured the 2014 World Cup ticket smacked of malice, which was couched in the garment of discipline. Yet, concerted efforts by the technical crew to render some of the dropped stars otiose have fallen flat on their faces. Some of the positions where these dropped stars excelled in the past are the team’s albatross. They must exploit the window that the World Cup preparations offer to re-invite these players to fight for shirts.

    Club form should be the first parameter for picking those who will play in Brazil. This point presupposes that such players are talented, committed and disciplined. Otherwise, they won’t be in Europe, Asia or even the Americas, pursuing professional careers. The exploits of foreign based players have been this country’s biggest public relations tool to change people’s perception of Nigeria.

    Indeed, our players have been worthy ambassadors of our country. They have conducted themselves remarkably, culminating in the splendid performance with global applause. Rather than tag those players as undisciplined, it would help the coaches if they could hear their grievances and attempt to resolve them for the good of the team.

    Consider Victor Anichebe’s refusal to play for Nigeria again after being dumped to take care of an injury sustained while playing for the country. One was miffed reading the clarion call by Delta State’s executive chairman of the Sports Commission, Pinnick Amaju, admonishing Keshi not to invite Anichebe to the World Cup camp. Perhaps, one needs to ask Amaju if it is right to jettison a player who sustained injury playing for Nigeria. Again, Amaju should tell us if he would act differently, if he was Anichebe? We must learn to treat our players as humans, whose welfare should interest us as much as we monitor their weekly performances before inviting them to play for us.

    Indeed, those who campaigned against Shola Ameobi’s invitation after Newcastle FC of England’s manager stopped from playing for Nigeria at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations on grounds of contractual agreement with the Barclays English Premier League side have eaten their word, with Ameobi’s sterling show against the Italians last month.

    One is sure that Kelvin Boateng would have played for Nigeria, having resigned officially and shunned us when we needed him to stay with the team. Not so for the Ghanaians. They went to Boateng to resolve what his grievances in his European club. Boating played in Black Stars’ second leg game against Egypt and scored the only goal in their 2-1 loss. This is in spite of the fact that Ghana won the first leg game resoundingly 6-1 in Accra. This is what we need now. Again, the story of how the Ghanaians went back to convince Michael Essien and Sully Muntari to return to the Black Stars explains why they are in the train to Brazil. The act of forgiveness is divine. Our coaches must take a cue from the Ghanaian examples.

    The Eagles coach should also return to those players he wanted to convince to play for Nigeria, if their inclusion will strengthen the squad. I’m sure he won’t wait for Bayern Munich’s Nigeria-born left wing back David Alaba to call him to say that he wants to play for Nigeria, if he was still available. Alaba is easily the best left wing back in the world. It is also being said that he is versatile. He can play in any position from the defence to the midfield. We are in dire need of such utility players at the World Cup. Allowing the players to show interest in playing for us before going to them is far-fetched. Most of these players have never been here. Their resentment rests more on what they read and hear about us in the media. There are also the weather, the food and how they would relate to their mates. The Eagles coach, given his pedigree in the game, should sit with them to change this mindset. His players can do this. After all, Emenike reminds us that Joseph Yobo convinced him to play for Nigeria. Anichebe played for Nigeria too because of Yobo’s persuasion while both of them played for Everton.

    Before our fifth sojourn to the World Cup, bookies reckon that we will be the best of the five African qualifiers. But we flop; largely because of the divided house we represent during the competition. The crack in the Eagles starts from the selection of players with those dropped telling tales of the unexpected. Interference in the team’s selection has been the Eagles’ albatross, although we only get to hear of such devious acts after the competition. The coaches must state their problems before the World Cup and not after. No sour grapes. But with a technical crew comprising ex-internationals, can we field an Eagles side devoid of past mistakes? I doubt it, given all that transpired after Nigeria regained the African crown on Februarys 10, 2103 in South Africa. Accusations were thrown across all the segments of the team to such an extent that there was celebration within the rank and file, when Nigeria grabbed a 95th minute equaliser against Kenyan in Calabar.

    Need I recount the coach versus NFF brouhaha over unpaid salaries? Or should one recall the cross of swords between top players and the coach? Let’s not even talk about the resignation announced in a South Africa radio station to the consternation of the sports minister.

    What we have now is an Eagles side lacking in some key positions. It is expected, given the rebuilding. With only one FIFA-free window available to all participating teams, one cannot fathom how Eagles coaches will fill the team’s weak link. It is their job, yet they must readmit some of the sidelined stars, if they can help strengthen the team. Forgiving erring but fit players should, however, not foreclose the search for younger players so that we don’t do a fresh rebuilding after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

    Having enforced discipline in the team, the coaches should embrace reconciliation, if the out-of-favour players show remorse, especially those who have openly apologised. That Nigeria qualified for the 2014 World Cup tourney without them underscores the fact that no one is indispensible.

    The biggest lesson from the Eagles’ outing at the Confederations Cup in Brazil was the lack of quality players on the bench. Victor Moses, Nnamdi Oduamadi, Oguenyi Onazi, Godfrey Omeruo, Emmanuel Emenike et al were injured. The first answer the list for the 2014 World Cup Eagles’squad should provide finding capable replacements for Moses, Oduamadi, Onazi, Omeruo and Emenike as well as such sure bets as Vincent Enyeama, John Mikel Obi, Godfrey Obaobona, Elderson Echiejile and Ahmed Musa.

    This article is not trying to do the coach’s job. But if our parameters for picking good national teams are akin to what operates in other climes, it goes without saying that some of the issues raised will guide the coach to pick his squad.

    The Eagles can prove the bookmakers wrong in Brazil. But it should all start with fairness in team selection. Sometimes, one wonders what the Eagles ask God for when the team’s selection is flawed by unethical practices. No wonder they earned the sobriquet “Super Chicken.”

  • Mandela’s legacy, Obasanjo and Jonathan

    Mandela’s legacy, Obasanjo and Jonathan

    Tomorrow in S/Africa , Madiba Nelsonn Mandela , whose body has been lying in state in the Government Building in Pretoria for three days will be buried in his home town. This week 91 heads of state attended a memorial service for the former president of S/Africa as if the UN General Assembly has shifted base to S/Africa to honour the man who served a prison term of 27 years in defiance of the system of apartheid that discriminated against the majority blacks of S/Africa for decades.This was before former President de Klerk called a truce and released the world’s most famous prisoner from prison in 1990. Mandela went on to become S/Africa’s first elected black president in 1994 and refused to serve a second term after his single 5 – year term ended in 1999. This was a man who could have been life president of his nation for the asking but instead he stepped aside to give the younger generation an opportunity to prove their mettle at political leadership. With a single act of denial Mandela showed African leaders that it is not mandatory to cling tenaciously to office and that it is more honorable to quit while the ovation is loudest. For Mandela the ovation was louder out of office and loudest at his Memorial Service this week. Today I pay tribute as a Nigerian to Nelson Mandela and it is not an easy task for me .This is because I have a lot of admiration for the great S/African leader whose body will be interred tomorrow and I hope I will be able to do justice now to my self given undertaking. In truth, I acknowledge that Mandela’s life, sacrifice and leadership evoked in people emotions of guts, courage, defiance and a dogged commitment to principles in the face of overwhelming odds. To many Africans and even to the whole world, as President Barak Obama attested at the Mandela Memorial Service this week, Mandela inspired a global audience to stand up for human rights and dignity without counting the costs, no matter the odds. Today I salute Nelson Mandela, the tall man with the winsome grin, the dancing, arms shuffling S/African leader with the trade mark three piece suits as president. Later, in retirement, Mandela wowed the world with the famous, flowery Philipino shirt which he wore and with which he gave joy and pleasure to the people of the world in the way he carried himself, as if 27 years of incarceration on Robben Island was an ordinary event – when indeed the world is yet to recover from the incredibility and amazement of his surviving such long punishment , even as he makes his final journey to immortality tomorrow . In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Mark Anthony said that ‘ the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones ‘. Mark Anthony might have been speaking of Mandela in Ancient Rome although in different terms as he mourned the great but fallen Julius Caesar in the great Roman Empire then. For unlike Julius Caesar Mandela’s good deeds lives after him while his lapses are easily forgotten. But then, Rome was at the center of the civilised world and this week, and God willing tomorrow, the world will stand in awesome salute of respect and love as Mandela’s body descends for ever into his hallowed grave. As Mandela returns to Mother Earth tomorrow he goes with the fanfare, pomp and pagaeantry reserved for the Emperors of Ancient Rome in those days of yore. For in life as in death, Nelson Mandela bestrode our world like a Collosus just as Caesar was said to have done in his time. Indeed Mandela was our modern Ceasar who represented human dignity, honour and respect and we must thank him profusely for coming this way and leaving us with such pleasant memories of his sojourn of 95 years, albeit with 27 of them in prison, in our midst. We take consolation however in the fact that the spirit of Nelson Mandela like that of ‘Johnny Walker at 120, keeps matching on’ and this time not only globally but very much so in Nigeria. Last week I invoked the spirit of forgiveness and tolerance inherent in Mandela’s life to prevail on ASUU and the FGN to end the strike in our universities and it is nice to see that this week, the two have resolved their differences and signed an agreement which means that studies can resume in our universities. We thank the two bodies for their positive response and resolution of the crisis and wish them the best in their future endeavors. My concern today however is with regard to correspondence between two Nigerian leaders who attended the Mandela funeral but came back at loggerheads from the event. The two are former President Olusegun Obasanjo and incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. I do not think their disagreements started at the funeral. If so, they will not be alone in that as S/Africans seized the opportunity of the Mandela Funeral to give their President Jacob Zuma a piece of their mind by booing him before an audience that included 91 heads of state. Obviously Zuma must belong to that category of leaders that US President Barak Obama castigated at the funeral for praising Mandela publicly while not emulating his virtues of forgiveness and tolerance in their leadership style at home. More embarrassing for the S/African authorities was the fact that a sign interpreter who was prominently working alongside heads of state as they made speeches at the Memorial was said not to be qualified for the job and has gone missing since the assignment, as the S/African authorities are said to be looking for him. Which sadly showed the state of porous security and corruption in S/Africa and coming with the booes for the S/African president, clearly showed that the ANC government in power in that nation needs to put its house in order urgently, now that the holding presence of Nelson Mandela on the masses is gone. In Nigeria again the spirit of Mandela was manifest in a letter written by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to President Goodluck Jonathan titled ‘Before it is too late‘. The letter as its title said was a desperate call by an equally desperately concerned former head of state to a sitting president that the ship of state is desperately floating rudderless towards a dangerous rock. Given tha OBJ said he was ready to die for what he has said and that he will speak the truth no matter whose ox is gored in the interest of the nation, you could call the letter his’ last testament‘. Also since the letter made gross accusations against the president in his handlingof the PDP crisis, his giving presidential reception to a murderer and using facilities by Abacha’s goons to train security personnel perhaps for the same purpose Abacha used them, then you could label the letter a’ suicide’ note. OBJ’s letter portrayed the president as a serial denier of his intention to contest the 2015 election and the former president said the incumbent president has failed in his imporimportant role in the five dimensions of presidential power that he identified. These are as party leader, as political leader of the nation, as head of government, as chief security officer of Nigeria and as Commander in Chief of the Armed forces of Nigeria. These indictment included the fact that the president was hobnobbing with a drug baron in the ruling party in Ogun State who had an extradition order on his head from the US, a fact he claimed had been ignored by the PDP overall leader. Of course it is easy to tell off the former president for washing the dirty linen of his ruling party in public which this time he has really gone out of his way to do. Even one can tell OBJ that in accepting that he fought and worked hard for those he wanted to succeed him he had opened another can of worms on tampering with the electoral process in Nigeria. Having said that however this missile from the Nigerian leader again showed his bravery and candor in the best spirit of Nelson Mandela , who respected OBJ immensely for Nigeria’s contribution to the anti apartheid struggle during his tenure as a military president and admired him for his courage in telling Abacha off and going to prison for that. Now OBJ in this his ‘testament ‘recalled that he was in prison in Yola where he was sharing facilities with inmates of an asylum nearby during his incarceration by Abacha and wondered what change of status was worse than that for a former head of state . Since OBJ himself is not a saint on the Nigerian political scene, having been twice president with 20 years in between a military and a civilian president when he served for 8 years, I am sure a lot of people will tell him that those who leave in glass houses should not throw stones. But that is for another day as here today we pay tribute to Nelson Mandela who was also a great friend of the former Nigerian president. We can therefore safely speculate that perhaps Mandela’s death opened OBJ’s eyes to Jonathan’s many iniquities and denials like Apostle Saul’s eyes were open on the way to persecute Christians in Damascus. Now OBJ has decided to make a clean breast of the mistrust and misdemeanor of his protege and in the process has opened a can of worms on the security and politics of Nigeria. Surely Nigeria’s politics has been given a big jolt by the OBJ letter and whether you like it or not, it cannot be business as usual. For OBJ has blown a whistle with a loud crescendo and the dogs of war in Nigerian politics cannot wait to make a kill. Like Tony Enahoro reportedly said in 1958 as he moved for Nigeria’s independence in Parliament – This is the beginning of a chain of events the end of which no man can predict. To me really, the OBJ letter is fighting for the soul of the Nigerian state and as he himself said – in a bloody fight no one knows whose blood will be shed last. So for now, we can say – every body for himself, God for us all. Amen.

  • What would Mandela do?

    What would Mandela do?

    The event had been expected all along.

    The icon was advanced in age. His health had deteriorated dismally. He had even been on life support for some time. But when Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s long and eventful journey through life reached its final terminus, the world received the news with shock and sadness. Yes, death is perhaps the most ubiquitous of human phenomena. It is the inevitable end of all sentient beings. But its occurrence never ceases to surprise. Every mortal harbours the illusion of endless longevity. But at the end of the day, the bell that tolls for one peals for all.

    But of course, Mandela had been different. He had come to terms with the ephemerality of human life decades earlier in his youth. He had thus averred his readiness to die if necessary for the cause of freedom for his people. He was sentenced to a living death; a prison sentence that wasted the best and most productive years of his life. But he emerged from captivity after 27 years triumphant and unbowed, a symbol of the resilience and amazing generosity of the human spirit.

    His jailers showed what depths of depravity and degeneracy man is capable of descending to. By repaying unspeakable wickedness with forgiveness and love, Mandela demonstrated what heights of grace and nobility man can soar to. Man can be vulture and feed on rotting flesh. Man can be Eagle and roam the skies in kingly majesty. Mandela chose the latter. Is it any wonder that mourning him has been a universal celebration; his death some sort of resurrection?

    Presidents and peasants, potentates and prisoners, saints and sinners, all were one in the canonisation of this secular puritan. Remember the words of Jesus: Unless a seed first of all dies, it cannot sprout and live. In life, Mandela died to self. In death he lives for the ages. What glory!

    Here in Nigeria, of course we have not been left out of the euphoric ‘Mandelamania’ of the moment. President Goodluck Jonathan did the right and proper thing. He organized a memorial service for Dr Nelson Mandela at the Presidential Villa chapel. Yes, in many ways Mandela was a Nigerian. This was one of the first countries he visited on his release from incarceration. This was an act of gratitude by the great man for the invaluable role Nigeria played in the struggle to liberate his country from apartheid. But, then trust Nigerians, we ended up doing the right thing in the wrong way.

    In his tribute at the Aso chapel service, President Jonathan spoke glowingly about Mandela’s humility, forgiving spirit and ability to unite people. Shouldn’t the President have stopped there? No sir. Apparently unable to forgive his critics and opponents or like Mandela offer any gesture of reconciliation on such a solemn occasion, Dr Jonathan went on the offensive. It was operation no mercy from the apostle of humility. He berated those unspecified Nigerian politicians who speak “as if Nigeria is their bedroom from where they make proclamations and intimidate others”.

    Jonathan said these Nigerian politicians (he certainly did not have Jonah Jang, Godswill Akpabio, Peter Obi or Seriake Dickson in mind) could not compare with Mandela as they threaten, boast and play little gods. It is not unlikely that his poisoned arrows were directed at a certain Owu farmer (no less vindictive himself!) when he described the still unmentioned politicians as tiny men who lack good character of leadership. The occasion was to honour Mandela. The President’s words sadly did not reflect that spirit.

    But then, Dr. Jonathan was right in a way. Our politics is tiny. Our leadership is puny. Our institutions, not least the presidency, are so terribly diminished. This was vividly demonstrated by the embarrassing anonymity of the Nigerian President at the state memorial service held for Mandela in South Africa. There is absolutely no reason on earth why Dr Jonathan should not have been listed to join the likes of President Barack Obama, President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Vice President Li Yuanchio of China, President Hifepune Pohamba of Namibia, President Pranab Mukherjee of India or President Raul Castro of Cuba to pay public tribute to Mandela. The South African authorities could not treat Nigeria that way if we got our acts right.

    In his book, ‘Nigeria: A Nightmare Scenario’, Professor Patrick Wilmot writes of how the Northern region government of Sir Ahmadu Bello gave Nelson Mandela a donation of 10,000 pounds to support the liberation struggle when he visited Nigeria in the first republic before his eventual arrest, trial and incarceration in South Africa. Mark you, this was in the 60s! So committed was Nigeria to the liberation struggle in the Southern Africa region that she was recognised as one of the frontline states of the region. General Murtala Mohammed’s famous ‘Africa has come of age’ speech at the OAU Heads of State Summit in Addis Ababa in January 1976 played a decisive role in shifting the balance of forces in support of the progressive movements for the emancipation of the region.

    In the conclusion of that historic oration, Murtala thundered: “Africa has come of age. It is no longer under the orbit of any extra continental power. It should no longer take orders from any country, however powerful. The fortunes of Africa are in our hands to make or mar. For too long have we been kicked around: for too long have we been treated like adolescents who cannot discern their interests and act accordingly. For too long has it been presumed that the African needs outside ‘experts’ to tell him who are his friends and who are his enemies…” Ah! Those were the days.

    One can therefore understand the anguished words of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) when he said “In a very cruel irony, history is being revised. The people who collaborated with the government that enthroned apartheid at that time are the people that are paying the greatest tribute now. But I ask myself: Is this not the time for reflection? I doubt if any African country expended as much time, as much money and as much commitment as the Nigerian government”. This is the sad truth.

    Yes, the peculiar circumstances of Nigeria may have precluded the emergence of a national leader with the towering stature of a Nelson Mandela. But Nigeria has produced great politicians of no mean intellect, vision and character. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s example inspired many African nationalists to fight for the liberation of their countries from colonial bondage. Ahmadu Bello by the force of his personal vision and charisma forged a remarkable commonality of interest among the disparate peoples of the north. Obafemi Awolowo led a government in western Nigeria which is still unrivalled in Africa in terms of its developmental attainments and administrative dexterity. Aminu Kano in terms of his ideological clarity and revolutionary fervour was surpassed in Africa perhaps only by Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Olusegun Obasanjo in his first incarnation as military Head of State was venerated as a global statesman for voluntarily relinquishing power to a democratically elected government in 1979.  One can go on and on.

    It is true that the quality of leadership in the country has steadily deteriorated over time. We have had a succession of hopelessly corrupt and venal leaders. They have annulled elections. They have sought to perpetuate themselves in office unconstitutionally. They have been administratively inept and famished of vision. They have subverted state institutions to intimidate and harass their opponents. They have been intellectual and moral Lilliputians. But Dr Jonathan has absolutely no reason to follow in the footsteps of such leaders. After all, he has the advantage of being able to learn from and avoiding the mistakes of his predecessors.

    One test Jonathan should always give himself is simple: would Mandela do this? Would a Mandela seek a second term at all costs even if at the expense of the unity of his country? Would a Mandela manipulate state institutions to undermine a legitimate government as is currently happening in Rivers State? Would a Mandela immorally support a minority faction of the Nigerian Governors Forum to declare itself the majority? If he honestly asks himself this question and acts as Mandela would, Jonathan may yet confound his critics, snatch victory from the jaws of imminent defeat and attain greatness.

  • Preparing for Brazil 2014

    Since the draws of the 2014 World Cup were made last week, one has watched in awe the way we seem to have “qualified” for the second round without kicking a ball. No problem with being optimistic, but that is where the Super Eagles’ wahala begins.

    Anytime the Eagles are tipped to win matches with aplomb, they totter. But when faced with daunting tasks, they excel. It is instructive to note the Bosnia-Herzegovina is rated 33rd in the world. It means they are better than us in FIFA’s ranking. We are rated ahead of Iran, yet the technical savvy of their coach Querioz is awesome, given the fact that he was deputy to the king-of-the-dug Sir Alex Ferguson. That is not to say that Stephen Keshi cannot match him since we have better players. After all, it is the players who will deliver, not the coaches.

    Visualising where we would be at the end of the first round in Brazil, my mind went to the forthcoming Glo-CAF Africa Footballer of the Year Award. I sighed, knowing that it offers the best chance for us to reinvent our football. In the past, the award could be termed our birthright.

    I saw Emmanuel Emenike being crowned the winner. I shouted ‘no’. What happened to John Mikel Obi? In figuring if I was in a trance or sleep walking, an inner voice asked what I would do if Vincent Enyeama is crowned the winner. Confused, I said: “Enyeama ke? How can that be? How can the Israeli league be pitched against the most popular league in the world? Shouldn’t exploits in the most prestigious UEFA Champions League and the Europa League rank higher than exploits in other competitions?” It dawned on me that I had no say in the matter. Voting is done by coaches, club captains and top football experts.

    January 9, 2014 will be a watershed for the game here. There will be dead pan silence when the compere opens his mouth to announce the 2012/2013 soccer season’s Africa Footballer of the Year.

    Pointers to who the eventual winner would be don’t favour the yearning of Nigerians to have their own mount the rostrum as the winner. If history is anything to go by, then Cote d’Ivoire’s Yaya Toure looks like the odds-on-favourite to nick. The 2012/2013 British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC’s) Africa Footballer of the Year winner is Toure. He was also shortlisted for the 2012/2013 Ballon d’Or Award, until the list was pruned to three. These feats usually translate to winning the Africa Footballer of the Year Award. I hope not this year. I digress!

    Picking a Nigerian from the four-man (John Mikel Obi, Emmanuel Emenike, Ahmed Musa and Vincent Enyeama) pack will serve as the impetus to drive others in the Super Eagles’ squad to produce their best at the Mundial.

    It would further boost our game, if another Nigerian quartet gets listed for the Glo-CAF Africa Footballer of the Year for 2013/14 season. We need to scratch our heads to remember the last time Nigerians made the roll call for the best player in Africa back-to-back. If that happens, then the rebuilding by Stephen Keshi would be worth the efforts to galvanise the Eagles.

    The Nigerian fights for his soul when he/she has his/her back on the wall. And it is this Spartan spirit that we need to become the first African side to qualify for the semi-finals. It must be said that at the semi-finals, anything is possible especially if the competition’s Cinderella team is not Nigeria. If this happens, it means that the world would behold a new winner outside the intimidation league of Brazil, Spain, Germany, France, Italy etc. Our football needs this fillip to measure our growth in the game as we prepare for the daunting but achievable task of shocking the world in Brazil.

    Going to the World Cup has been a hectic assignment for Nigeria but a piece of cake for others because of the inherent structures. Elsewhere, governance is a continuum, with everyone knowing what to do at the appropriate time.

    Here, we do things on our hunch. We are proponents of quick fixes, with most of our administrators thinking through their pockets. For others, anything without their inputs isn’t done well. And such has been the problem with NFF’s preparations for the World Cup. But it appears that the Aminu Maigari-led board solved this crisis when they decided that Keshi would pick the team’s training base and other ancillary needs for the Eagles. This is a brilliant move as it will keep Keshi et al quiet when the chips are down in Brazil.

    Such mundane talk of the propriety of the NFF picking the team’s training base ahead of the coaches would be far-fetched. The interesting aspect of this development is that we were the only country where the coach picked its training camp. In fact, among the five qualifiers from Africa, only Nigeria and Ghana’s coaches attended the event. It can’t happen here for Keshi not to attend FIFA’s World Cup draws.

    Indeed, Keshi has confirmed that he would get Nigeria the best facilities. So, the aspect of NFF cutting corners for such an arrangement with FIFA is forbidden.

    This approval given to Keshi shows that the NFF learnt from the 2010 experience where the imbroglio from the Hamshire Hotel ruined our preparations for the South Africa 2010 World Cup tournament.

    The furore from the Hamshire Hotel saga set the NFF against the Presidential Task Force (PTF), with the National Sports Commission (NSC) serving as the battle axe. Hiding under the obnoxious Decree 101, which gives the sports minister discretionary powers to intervene in matters of football that bother on national interest, the Hamshire Hotel ruse provided the platform to divide the stakeholders and even the players.

    PTF members saw themselves as having the powers to run our football. Former NFF President Sani Lulu, a stickler for the enforcement of the tenets of the FIFA statutes, ensured that the body did its job. While others were busy preparing their national teams for the Mundial, our PTF experts and, indeed, the former minister did several visits to FIFA, seeking to oust the NFF with the PTF. Things got so bad that the former minister wrote to FIFA, urging it not to release our World Cup earnings to the NFF. It was that bad. We became the laughing stock.

    Our situation was a clear case of a divided house; it fell like a pack of cards. FIFA chiefs were wondering how we opted to dig landmines for our team even before the competition began. Will the NFF cede the task of picking the hotel where the Eagles will stay to Keshi? What is wrong with that if that will prevent any buck passing, not forgetting that the location of the hotel where our players stayed in 1994 in the United States (US) contributed greatly to our exit, despite our superlative showing. Clemens Westerhof still feels that we could have qualified for the semi-finals, if our administrators had done his bidding to relocate the players from the noisy hotel in the US.

    The Maigari-led NFF can also cede the choice of hotel for the team to Keshi. The NFF will eventually pay; so, it doesn’t really matter. Such mundane things shouldn’t distort our preparations. If Keshi feels that it would further burden him, he should be made to put it in writing. It is good that we will be going to the Mundial as African champions. This feat is chiefly responsible for the absence of another PTF.

    Preparations for our trip to Brazil should be hinged on the lessons of the past. I always feel bad about Nigeria when teams arrive at World Cup venues in their country’s national carriers. My pain starts when countries start to paint the designated aircraft with World Cup insignia. It is always a thing of pride watching countries board the aircraft in their national dresses. It shows a sense of belonging.

    Airlifting the Eagles to Sao Paulo is another contentious issue. We need to fix this aspect. The government should assign an aircraft for this exercise. The African champions’ arrival in Brazil should be celebrated with ceremony. The last NFF board had issues with flying the Eagles so much so that an empty aircraft had to be flown from Nigeria to England to take the team to South Africa. It shouldn’t happen again.

    It is heart-warming that the NFF is considering an international friendly against England at the Wembley Stadium. Such high profile games will help the coaches to correct the flaws noticed. It would also help them in picking their players because the World Cup is not a tea party.

    Nothing can be better than the news from Brazil during the week that Maigari and Keshi agreed to work together. I believe them and I hope that they don’t listen to fifth columnists gained from the past rifts.

    History will remember Maigari and Keshi, if Nigeria plays in the semi-finals of the Brazil 2014 World Cup. The minister captured the new direction for our World Cup campaign by insisting that no target should be set for the team. Such targets are meant to witch hunt the players and coaches as well as oust the NFF board. Nigerians await the NFF board that would return after the Mundial. Would Maigari’s board break that jinx? Like the Edo people will say, Oba Khato Okpere, Ise!

  • Mandates, strikes and negotiations

    THE Federal government’s threat to sack striking members of ASUU and the digging in , of members of the union , in distributing food stuffs to its members in anticipation of government sack, are two sides of the same coin to me. Both are extreme actions just as alarming as the Boko Haram invasion of Maiduguri that had the Governor of the state wailing that no matter what, Boko Haram will not succeed in driving the people of Borno out of their land. It is my candid opinion that both the Federal government and ASUU want Nigerians to lament like the Borno state governor, before they realise that they are not at war, but are expected to oversee and manage university education in Nigeria, no matter the odds in their way in making a success of that assignment. The FGN and ASUU have no mandate to close down the University system in Nigeria for what ever reason .It follows therefore that Government’s insistence that it had deposited 200bn naira for ASUU in the CBN and ASUU’s food distribution to its members as if in anticipation of a long drought in Nigeria cannot hold water. Why I think along this line is what I intend to say here today, no matter whose horse is gored. I start with a conceptual analysis of mandates , strikes and negotiations with regard to both government and ASUU and proceed to draw conclusions in the light of the performance of both in the Nigerian context. Let me state that I have assumed that both antagonists have lost sight of the clear and ordinary meaning of these terms, or else they would not have reached the present unbelievable impasse and socially debilitating imbroglio. This is inspite of the ivory tower erudition, knowledge and expertise available to ASUU on one side, and the huge resources and experience in terms of helicopter view and huge responsibility expected of government in ensuring that the future of Nigerian youths and education are not derailed by any group of people in Nigeria. On mandates , the responsibilities of both parties are clear. The Federal government has the political mandate to rule Nigeria according to its rules and regulations, as stated in the Nigerian constitution. It is the FGN’s mandate to maintain stability and law and order and to prepare an enabling environment for all institutions to thrive and achieve the objectives for which they were set up. It is the contention of ASUU that the FGN has failed in its mandate to provide the enabling environment for members of ASUU to teach in the universities. But then what is the mandate of ASUU? The mandate of ASUU, as with that of any industrial union , is to look after the interests and welfare of its members . The union went on strike because it accused the FGN of not living up to its mandate of providing infrastructure for the lecturers to teach in a conducive environment in the universities. But then a conducive environment is relative and while certain provisions and conditions are basic, the enabling environment depends on the resources available to government as expected of any employer. No where in the world will employees dictate the type and quality of facilities the employer must provide for them to perform their functions. Similarly if employees see that their employer has the means to provide the wherewithal for them to function optimally, but is indulgent on wasteful spending on other non productive ventures, they can proceed to call the employer to order through a strike as ASUU has done to the FGN. Yet a strike is an instrument of negotiation to call employers to order within a given period. When a strike is ad infinitum then it becomes a weapon of war of attrition, as it is being used by ASUU for now. In European history it was Attila the Hun on invading the ancient Roman Empire who famously said that – ‘ there where I have passed, the grass will not grow again’. I hope this is not the motto of ASUU on university education in Nigeria given their fight to finish approach to their demands on the Federal government and the insistence to be paid arrears before resuming. Similarly I hope the FGN is not being advised by modern Attilas who do not give a dime about university education in Nigeria as they got their appointments in Nigeria because they went to the best universities overseas. Such government advisers should be reminded that ASUU has better qualified products in its ranks who went to ivy league universities overseas and there was no need for the apparent contempt and arrogance with which these government officials have handled negotiations with ASUU on the present impasse. It is my candid opinion that both government and ASUU should always leave opportunities for negotiations open and unending. This is to allow for new ways at looking at issues and reolving them instead of issuing deadlines and ultimatums which lead to confrontations , and recriminations. This is especially necessary as ASUU is fighting for the future of our youths which is entwined in such youths getting the best education in our universities here in Nigeria rather than overseas. The FGN too has to be seen as living up to its mandate and willing to fund education. A nation whose legislators are about the highest paid in the world becomes a laughing stock of the international community when its universities are shut for years, because those teaching there are on strike because they dont have facilities to teach their students. That really is a massive shame on all Nigerians and not only the FGN. Perhaps a story on an ancient feud can still move either the government and ASUU to resume negotiations and open the universities for teaching of students as expected. It is the story of Sultan Saladin the Muslim ruler of the Middle East during the Middle Ages who resisted European Christian warriors and Kings sent by the Pope during the Crusades to capture the Holy sites in the bible in the area . Richard the Lion Heart was a prominent English king who had several battles with Saladin and both grew to respect each other’s fighting skills and prowess. According to the story, Richard had an illness peculiar to the area and could not lead his men against Saladin who asked captured soldiers of Richard where their leader was. On being told he was sick Saladin sent medicine to his foe who took it in good faith, in spite of the forebodings of his aides, and was healed and the two leaders continued their gallant battles, now the legend of history . Both government and ASUU leaders have a lesson to learn from this story in terms of trust and mutual respect. These are the basic basis of negotiations both ancient and modern . In addition, the leaders of Boko Haram should be reminded of the gallantry and heroism of Saladin who cured a Christian king with whom he was at war. Boko Haram’s burning of churches and mosques and the slaughtering of human beings is against every thing, especially the peace that Islam stands for, and should be condemned by all right thinking people all over the world. More importantly it is necessary to remind actors on the industrial relations divide of this ASUU strike that no nation enjoys stability while it youths are idle and unemployed because of crisis in its teaching or education sector. The US, UK and Western Europe from where our present crop of leaders got their glittering array of degrees that have landed them their plomb jobs placed a premium on education and devoted a massive chunk of their state financial resources to develop their universities. That is why we have today the high technologies and communications facilities that have improved the lot of mankind globally today. These nations did not cut corners to give edication to their youths and they never had the sort of money Nigerian leaders are managing and mismanaging today at the expense of the larger Nigerian society especially our youths who are willy nilly the future of this great nation. Without mincing words the way out is for the FGN to review the sack order in the interest of the Nigerian students and undergraduates. For ASUU it should pull back from the brink and ask its members to resume work while it negotiates the payment of arrears. Industrial relations is always work in progress and gains should be gradual and beneficial to all parties and not treated like a once and for all bounty of war. Anything short of this is like saying like the French– apres moi la deluge –which is, after me, destruction- to which I say – God forbid As this piece was ending the news of the death of the great Nelson Mandela broke and old as he was at 95 the news broke the heart of millions all over the world and not only in S.Africa. We mourn Mandela but we shall find time later to pay homage to the global symbol of freedom, dignity and accomodation. For now we urge the FGN and ASUU to pay tribute to Mandela’s memory and Nigeria’s immense contribution against apartheid which led to Mandela’s freedom from Robben Island after 27 years of incarceration. Mandela suffered in prison but came out of it unembitterd. He drew his enemies to himself in reconciliation and did not keep his friends far behind. His life and leadership was a lesson in perpetual negotiation and accommodation that created the beautiful rainbow nation that has survived him. ASUU and the FGN can raise their act to a higher positive level by borrowing a leaf from the book of the departed icon of human dignity and accommodation. It is not too much of an act to follow. Even in Nigeria. Amen