The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Salute to all our soldiers

    Salute to all our soldiers

    We remember our fallen heroes

    Nigeria remembers you

    You laid your life for a truly just cause

    Nigeria remembers you

    We salute you for all that you have done that Nigeria May be one, strong and united sovereign state,

    Nigeria remembers you

    As a child, this song or sort of infomercial was aired regularly during the nation’s Armed Forces Remembrance Day, a day set aside in our nation to honour and remember our soldiers both retired  and in active service  including our fallen heroes who paid the supreme price for the peace, stability and unity of the nation.

    Even today, the efforts of military men and women in the various theaters of war both past and present, cannot be appreciated enough, even with her numerous shortcomings , such as its interventions in the  nation’s politics and the numerous crimes committed by officers who were supposed to be sworn gentlemen , the Nigerian Armed Forces remains one of the nation‘s  set of pride institutions.

    From its heroic efforts in the first and second world wars, in which the immortality myth of the white man was basically shattered in battles where our troops carried  out exploits more heroic than Alfred Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade to its exploits in Congo Kinshasa(Presently called Congo) and then to her role in the civil war which was allegedly fought to keep the nation one.

    Our heroics continue into the lands of Liberia and Sierra Leone where our soldiers died that peace and democracy might reign in such nations. Today, it is the in fight against terrorism, a situation where many of them have continued to die so that bloody civilians like us may go about our business.

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    Now, it is not only in the bloody business of war and peacekeeping that the jackboots have left legacies. It will be instrumental to note that these Khaki boys much helped propel the nation’s diplomatic overtures. We are reminded of Murtala Mohammed’s Africa has come of age speech which ushered an important epoch in the nation’s diplomatic posturing. Matter of fact, I still argue that the glory days of the nation’s international forays were during our military days spanning from Murtala’ s era to Ibrahim Babaginda’s regime.

    Now just as there are a number of positive legacies left by the military, it also has left on the Nigerian people its legacy of pain, shame and suffering. The two coups of January 15th 1966 and July 29th, 1966 are among such legacies. The pogroms that followed under the supervision of the military and the senseless massacres of civilians that occurred in Asaba, Odu and Zaki Biam respectively will forever remain as stains on its legacy.

    Again, it’s repeated trampling on the rights of Nigerians which saw it arbitrarily send many to its gulags under the most undignified of circumstances as well as its assault on the collective psyche of the Nigerian citizen by engaging in brazen acts such as the attack on Fela’s Kalakuta Republic, the killings of students in Ife, . Events such as the annulment of June 12, the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa Panel and a number of published works have given much elucidation to the military’s role in the suppression of the rights of numerous individuals. The tales of massive corruption and stories of indiscipline, nepotism amidst its lack of professionalism have also undermined the army’s reputation as brutes in the nation’s colours. Kindly note that the institutionalization of corruption was also endemic in the military era.

    Enough said about the double edged legacies, we obviously know that we do not throw away the baby with the bath water and the Nigerian Armed Forces for all its flaws, misdeeds and inactions will indeed continue to have its place in our nation’s history, particularly now that it has been near 24 years since it returned to the barracks and has shunned all temptation to announce to Nigerians those dreaded two letter words “ Fellow Nigerians” interrupted intermittently with the rendition of high charged martial music.

    Now while many seek a professional armed forces, one where meritocracy and professionalism are the order of the day, favorably equipped and serving as a deterrent to any nation thinking of violating any aspects of our sovereignty we must also ask if we have treated these men and women who have slugged it out on the battlefield with the dignity that comes with such service to the nation?

    Today we have ex service men begging for their pensions, their families living from hand to mouth and their only sin was that they gave their time, limbs and sometimes their lives in service to the country. Even now as we speak , what are the conditions of those in active service? Dismal, at the front there are tales that border on poor morale for the soldiers, how these soldiers are denied their operational allowances and live in squalid makeshift arrangements. I even came across a story of how a number of these officers had been denied their entitlements such as their disability compensation and even how civilian patients were given preferential treatment to their military colleagues. So tell me how do we expect these officers to give in their optimal best at these war fronts? Now, if they can be treated this way, imagine what fate awaits them should they die in active service or retire.

    Prior to the incidence of corruption happening to us, we saw examples of military officers who died with near  empty account balances. That is before the entrance of thieving generals and their accomplices. It took a Sani Abacha to build a house for the late widow of General Aguiyi Ironsi, while it took a Bola Ahmed Tinubu to do same for Ayo Fajuyi’s widow? If Nigeria could happen to the legacies of these fine officers, what then should we expect for the poor bloody lads who have no special epaulets on their shoulders?

    The Nigerian service man deserves more for his bravery and his commitment to duty, chivalry and preservation of the nation. One then urges the military authorities and their civilian counterparts to do their utmost best in ensuring that the Nigerian Armed Forces are not only properly equipped but also highly motivated that in their service of today for the assurance of our tomorrow that the gratitude shown by us will reverberate with them and their children for years to come! 

    This article was initially written last year but has been republished in honour of the 17 soldiers killed in Okuama, Delta State.

  • Reconciliation in APC

    Reconciliation in APC

    There is no political party in the country that is insulated from a crisis. It is the degree or dimension of hullabaloo that differs. But the impact is usually, more or less, identical.

    Currently, each of the three main parties is waging a war against itself. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is yet to recover from its internal contradiction. There is no meeting point yet between Northern PDP and Southern PDP. The bone of contention is still zoning, of either the national chairmanship or the presidential ticket.

    The leading opposition party is doing introspection. Those investigating its 2023 electoral loss would find out that lack of equity, fairness, and justice heralded its fall.

    Also, the Labour Party (LP) ran into turbulence, even before last year’s election. Julius Abure and Lamidi Apapa spent more time in the court than at the party’s secretariat and rallies. Now, it is Abure versus the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which is claiming ownership of the party.

    The setting up of reconciliation panels across the six geo-political zones by the All Progressives Congress (APC) implies that all is not completely well with the ruling party. It is dangerous for the party to carry on with arrogance, unmindful of the fact that its predecessor in power, the PDP, once boasted that it would rule for 60 years, only to be booted out by popular vote, after 16 years in Aso Villa, Abuja.

    The lesson in the axiom that pride goes before a fall is instructive. That is why the APC has to learn from it, avoid the pitfalls, and put its house in order.

    The very nature and character of politics is conflict-induced, competitive and antagonistic. In the game of politics, morality often takes a flight. In some instances, going into politics is akin to going into a war.

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    It is because of the hunt for power, which, as it is now understood, is not served a la carte. It may also be due to the political culture which wholly permits winner-takes-all. It may as well be due to the fact that as the winner begins to exercise authority or legitimate power, the loser is isolated, ignored, and neglected. Ultimately, he becomes or is perceived as a liability; a symbol of a ticket that could not fly.

    But he fights back within the party by undermining or subverting the platform. Other aggrieved losers defect and obtain what has eluded them in their former parties in their next point of call. Others engage in prolonged protest, drawing the party into protracted litigations. The cost is burdensome. It takes its toll on esprit de corps.

    Then, the party is divided, polarised, or factionalised and rival camps work at cross-purposes. It breaks into antagonistic caucuses that divide rather than unite. As the history of party politics has shown in Nigeria, intra-party squabbles sometimes tax the parties to the brim than inter-party electoral contest.

    As warring party leaders take their battle to the media, the conflict is amplified, sometimes blown out of proportion. The party wobbles on into the election as a divided house. The chance of victory becomes slim. Ahead of election, things would have fallen apart and the centre would be too weak to hold.

    Many parties have gone through these phases of bickering with their leaders dissipating more energy on crisis resolution than growing the party and fortifying its organisational structures. It is ironic that in most cases, reconciliation often hits the rock because those who created the crisis are saddled with the peace mission. A great feature of the Nigerian party system is the weakness of crisis resolution mechanism.

    According to the First Republic politician, the late Chief Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe, fondly called a ‘Man of Timber and Calibre’ by admirers, people often gravitate to winning parties. Therefore, the coast of the ruling party is enlarged. But the bigger the party, the bigger the headache. As defectors enter in droves, the platform gains a numerical strength. But a party can also be polluted by strange bedfellows if the defectors are not like-minded ideologues.

    Also, there is the problem of harmonisation triggered by the battle of supremacy across the chapters and the desire to control the party’s machinery by entrenched forces and interests.

    An element of the protracted rift is the acrimonious relationship between governors and Abuja forces; ministers, presidential advisers and National Assembly members. In some states, they do not see eye to eye.

    So debilitating also is the cumulative effect of godfather/godson imbroglio. When beneficiaries turn against their benefactors, they enlist behind themselves an army of fanatical supporters who fire salvos and heat up the chapter.

    The latest source of conflict in some chapters has to do with ministerial nominations. There are hues and cries over appointments into the federal cabinet and agencies. While the President is at liberty to appoint anybody into his cabinet under the presidential system, based on personal criteria, some party chieftains complain that some appointees representing their states never identified with the party’s structure and its power struggles.

    It is noteworthy that the current reconciliatory effort in the APC is the third attempt. The previous attempts were inconclusive. It smacked of hypocritical commitment to the vital assignment.

    A heavy responsibility rests on the shoulders of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, who is to reconcile aggrieved chieftains in the Southwest. He is neutral in the crises that have engulfed Ogun, Oyo, Osun, and Ondo states’ chapters of the party. The only seemingly peaceful chapters are Ekiti and Lagos. Even in Lagos, some party chieftains uncritically feel that they are left in the cold and become envious of those in power. When the House of Assembly Speaker can afford to go on air to attack the governor in a bid to demarket, when the list of commissioner-nominees is publicly sent back to the sender, and when notable party chieftains invade the social media to lodge complaints that could have ordinarily been placed before top party leaders and the elders’ forum for peaceful settlement, it is an evidence of repressed tension within the large political family.

    Those to be reconciled in Ogun are the camps of Senator Ibikunle Amosun, Senator Gbenga Daniel and Governor Dapo Abiodun. The three groups are not friends.

    Former Governor Amosun contributed to the growth of the party in the Gateway State. He is annoyed because his succession plan crumbled on two occasions. He had raised candidates from outside his party to confront the APC candidate in 2019 and 2023. That pattern of endorsing rivals is inimical to the growth of the progressive party.

    Last year, a crisis broke out between Abiodun and Daniel. Sources said the rift has to do with 2027, after the expiration of Abiodun’s two terms of eight years, when he will be eligible to vie for the Senate in Ogun East District, to the displeasure of Daniel, who may want to renew his senatorial mandate. Abiodun’s supporters are adamant that Daniel never supported the governor’s second-term bid, an allegation that the supporters of the senator have denied.

    In Osun, the two camps led by Blue Economy Minister Gboyega Oyetola and former Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola are locked in a war of attrition. The cost of division is huge. Apart from failing to retain political control in the state, the party also lost last year’s presidential poll to the PDP.

    In Oyo, there is a gulf between Mrs. Florence Ajimobi/Adebayo Adelabu camp and the group led by Senator Teslim Folarin.

    In Ondo, the party crisis has been worsened by the demise of former Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu and the scramble for the governorship ticket ahead of the November poll.

    The Rivers APC crisis is much more complex. Leading PDP leaders are supporting APC at the centre. At the state level, the Rotimi Amaechi/Tonye Cole camp and Senator Magnus Abe’s group are foes.

    In Kwara, many chieftains are up in arms against Governor Abdulrahman AbdulRazaq. In Kogi, there will be a need to reconcile former Governor Yahaya Bello and Senator Smart Adeyemi. In Gombe, there isfriction between elder statesman Senator Danjuma Goje and Governor Yahaya Inuwa.

    The list of camps and political dissents in the ruling party is long. But a resolution of the dissension among the gladiators is not impossible to achieve.

    The body language of the party’s leadership and the attitude of those saddled with the reconciliation would determine how easily APC can bring back peace into its fold. It would be nice for the reconciliators to avoid bias and approach their job with open minds. This might be difficult if those handling the assignment have vested interests.

    Besides, it takes a large heart to embrace a former foe and agree to work with him to enthrone peace and progress. The party’s peace negotiators could learn a lesson from former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, after the thirty months of the civil war. To avoid further blood-letting, Gowon announced that the pogrom had produced neither a victor nor the vanquished. That pronouncement calmed down the frayed nerves of the warring parties – the Nigerian and the Biafran sides. Years of national development followed.

    For APC, peace will return to the fold when party chieftains, especially, overlook the faults of either side and embrace peace. Clinging to the feeling of who did the wrong and should take the blame would prolong the resolution of the crisis.

    Peace is never a party to apportioning blame but a deft player at the game of seeing no evil and hearing no evil. Aggrieved members must let the feud of the past go away without further argument. They must open their doors for a fresh embrace of camaraderie to make this political family more united.

  • A peace mission and a massacre

    A peace mission and a massacre

    The Nigerian Army is bereaved. Indeed, the entire country is in a pensive mood. But the excruciating pain that followed the death of our soldiers in a Delta State community is felt deepest by the relations of the departed servicemen now called fallen heroes.

    Their fathers, mothers, widows, children, and associates are mourning. The faces of these family members that always lit up in joy whenever the soldiers were around them are now bowed in deep sorrow for the military men who died in active service. They never provoked their assailants. The killers are public enemies.

    The Okuoma/Okoloba incident has further depicted Nigeria as a country with a widening nest of killers, including civilians who willfully murder soldiers.

    There was no justification for the killing of 17 soldiers and officers on a peace mission to the two age-long neighbouring Delta communities that are now at daggers drawn – Okoloba and Okuoma. Turning your communities into lands of hate, acrimony, and blood is not the best way to show strength and claim supremacy.

    The dead soldiers include a Lieutenant Colonel, two Majors, a Captain, and 12 soldiers.

    Before responding to the call to duty, many civilians had been wasted on both sides, warranting the deployment of soldiers to halt the carnage.

    The death of the soldiers was devastating to peace-loving Nigerians. The circumstance of the killing would heat up the blood of any relative. It was not surprising that colleagues of the slain officers moved to avenge the deaths.

    It could be said that the aggressive community is paying a huge price for harbouring, aiding and abetting lawless militants and restless youths who ambushed and killed the soldiers. The incident was tantamount to the declaration of war on constituted authotities.

    It is doubtful if any of the perpetrators was caught in the retaliatory fire. They had reportedly fled the community, leaving their kinsmen and other vulnerable residents as casualties of official reprisal attacks and horror.

    The genesis of the hostility was the ethnic tension between Okoloba (Ijaw) and Okuoma (Urhobo). It was a replica of the communal clashes that unsettled Delta State over two decades ago when a coalition of tribes fought the Itsekiri.

    Okoloba and Okuoma communities were locked in violent clashes over what some have attributed to a land dispute. An account said it was a quarrel over a natural resource; another said the rift had to do with a fishing lake.

    As the crisis exacerbated, the traditional rulers of the two communities became helpless. The intervention of soldiers meant that policemen could not curtail the tension; so, the soldiers were drafted to the villages as reinforcement to restore peace.

    There is no evidence to show that the soldiers took sides or demonstrated bias while on the peace mission. Many of them reportedly did not have links with the communities. They were on an assignment to halt the carnage and restore normalcy.

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    Unfortunately, they became casualties of the protracted conflicts they were called to stop. The yet-to-be-identified killers of the soldiers are guilty of impunity. Reports said the officers and servicemen were given undignified death, thereby putting their families and relations in a state of psychological torture. It was also reported that the arms of the slain soldiers were carted by the killers who are said to be on the run. Thus, the military was provoked. The “bloody civilians” have murdered sleep.

    Twenty-five years after the restoration of civil rule, Nigeria is still grappling with the challenges of civil/military relations. The society is becoming more violent to the extent that policemen are not enough to quell riots. They are not only handicapped by numerical strength but also by tools. Warring communities can even defy the police when the battle is hot. Under such a circumstance, soldiers detest any form of resistance by civilians, which police can discountenance.

    However, when soldiers are killed by civilians during operations, trouble becomes a willing companion in the affected areas.

    Had the people of Okuoma learnt from history, perhaps, they would not have plunged their community into an avoidable disaster. A semblance of the Odi massacre of November 20, 1999 should have been prevented. If they had forgotten Odi, is there no elder in the community to remind them also about Zakin Biam?

    On November 4, 1999, an armed gang killed seven policemen at Odi in Bayelsa State. Later, five policemen were also murdered. Those killed included CSP Thomas Jokotola (Osun), DSP George Nwine (Rivers), St. Emmanuel Bako (Bauchi), CPL Ayuba Silas (Kaduna), PC Shaibu Zamani (Kaduna), CPL Elias Bitrus (Borno), CPL Robinson Obazee (Edo), Sgt. Alhaji Atabor (Kogi), PC Stephen Abu (Cross River), and PC Umoh Ukbo (Cross River).

    There was a public outcry. The then President Olusegun Obasanjo was enraged. He contacted former Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, asking him to fish out the suspects within two weeks and arraign them in court.

    It appeared the directive was taken with levity or the governor found it difficult to apprehend the killers. The visit and discussion of the Police Affairs Minister, Major-General David Jemibewon, and Senate President Chuba Okadigbo to Alamieyeseigha did not yield any result. The militants, armed robbers, cultists, kidnappers, and pirates allegedly responsible for the murders could not be found.

    Gen. Obasanjo said his administration would not ignore the atrocity. He declared a state of emergency in Bayelsa. Later, 300 soldiers stormed Odi with an instruction to dislodge the perpetrators of violence, restore law and order and apprehend the suspected murderers.

    The mission was code-named Operation Hakuri. The team was ambushed between Kaiama and Odi. Four soldiers allegedly died during the exercise. But, there was no turning back. The Navy ensured that no one escaped via the waterways. The police ensured civilian movement was contained. Within 48 hours, life deserted Odi; it became a ghost town.

    Only a few buildings, including a church, schools, hospitals and a bank building, survived the operation. Men and animals were wiped out. Human bodies littered the community. According to reports, no fewer than 375 people were killed during the military action.

    Okadigbo described it as “high handedness”; Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka called it “a callous overkill”; but the force commander said it was a “defensive action”. The then-president named it “the animalism of the military”.

    In 2013, Justice Lambo Akanbi of the Federal High Court ordered the Federal Government to pay the victims of the Odi Massacre N37.6 billion as compensation. On May 26, 2014, former President Goodluck Jonathan negotiated an out-of-court settlement of N15 billion, and the compensation was paid.

    Today, Okuoma community does not attract the kind of sympathy that Odi got. The dislocation, displacement and dispersion in the former are confounding. Families were scattered. Parents hardly remembered their children and other dependents as they fled from the carnage.

    Those who travelled could not return home peacefully; those at home forfeited their liberty in the face of military rage. Lives were lost and property destroyed. Houses went up in flames. Socio-economic activities were disrupted. Schools, clinics, churches and markets were deserted. The dispersed natives are still enveloped in grief. The community has become a shadow of its past days.

    Okuoma has nurtured some monsters, mainly non-state actors. Militias were bubbling with a curious capability to neutralise trained and experienced military officers and men. They exhibited an audacious barbarity by dehumanising the bodies of their victims. What the thoughtless devil’s disciples failed to consider was the dire consequences of their actions.

    During the week, the community became a military zone. Civilians, even policemen, were kept at bay. The current development has birthed a serious security job that carries a lot of weight and message for those who breach our collective peace with mindless haughtiness.

    The lessons of the entire scenario are instructive. The background was communal violence. That appeared to have taken the back seat now due to the dimension of the Army/militia confrontation.

    If the two communities had embraced dialogue, the conflict would not have escalated. Local security measures, and not a police action or military deployment, would have been sufficient to restore order.

    While the government needs to look at the causes of the communal conflict, it is essential to emphasise that recourse to a legally established process for conflict resolution, ventilation of grievances and redress of injustice is more profitable than some people taking the laws into their hands.

    Celebrating militancy should now be old-fashioned in the Niger Delta. What gave birth to militancy has been addressed, and is still being addressed, by the Federal Government. Many intervention programmes for the welfare of the zone are manned by indigenes across the six Southsouth states.

    Politicians and traditional rulers in the zone should know that the perpetually tension-soaked environment breeds more militants who are not fighting for the common good but for personal survival through nefarious activities, including oil bunkering, kidnapping, and other exploitative tendencies.

    For the umpteenth time and for the sake of law and order, it is expedient to ask: where do the hard guys get their guns? It has been suggested that many of them were armed by rival politicians during the electioneering. The recent Okuoma violence attested to a condemnable proliferation of arms in the region.

    The community owes it a patriotic duty to itself and the country to assist in apprehending the agents of violence, their collaborators and other troublers of public peace. No information should be hoarded about their whereabouts. They should face the wrath of the law to serve as a deterrent to persons with a similar violent disposition. Justice should be well served to placate the souls of the departed soldiers and the psychological torture suffered by their loved ones. Without doing this, the bereaved families will remain in endless agony.

    The atmosphere is still cloudy. The horizon remains blistering. But after the hullabaloo, there should be respite, sooner or later. The dust is expected to settle someday. But one thing is certain: Okuoma will not remain the same again.

  • Governors rising to the occasion

    Governors rising to the occasion

    When the Comrade Joe-Ajaero-led Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) recently organized a two-day demonstration against current economic hardships, which was, however, called off after the first day, the young and dynamic governor of Oyo State, Engineer Seyi Makinde, caused a stir by joining the demonstrators in solidarity saying he identified with their plight. This was in essence a member of the governing class who should be helping in finding solutions to the problem ironically protesting against himself. But the governor’s action only reflected and reinforced the widespread perception of the pains attendant on the removal of the fuel subsidy as well as the floating of the Naira as a problem created by the federal government and which President Bola Tinubu has the sole responsibility of resolving.

    True, the President had, during the campaigns, promised to remove the subsidy just like all major candidates -Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and Rabiu Kwankwaso – had said they would. The fraud associated with the subsidy had become so pervasive and the burden it put on the economy so suffocating that it was clearly unsustainable. It is of course easy and convenient for elements of the opposition to claim that, had any of the other three candidates won the elections, he would have put in place ameliorative measures before axing the subsidy. Mr Peter Obi, for instance, forgets that he promised severally on national television to remove the subsidy, which he described as an elaborate fraud, “on day one.”

    So what remedial policies would he have enunciated if he were to remove the subsidy on his very first day in office as he promised? But having taken the decision to implement these two cardinal economic policy reforms, which his predecessors lacked the courage to do, the resultant challenges are for the entire governing class across levels and arms of government to deal with collaboratively and not that of the federal government or President Tinubu alone.

    For crassly partisan political reasons, Joe Ajaero has abused his office as President of the NLC to focus solely on Tinubu as the cause of whatever problems afflict Nigeria today. Perhaps, the mutually destructive ongoing fight to the death between the NLC and the Labour Party (LP), which the former claims to own, will teach him and other Labour leaders some lessons about the dangers of mixing trade unionism with political partisanship, especially in a complex, multi-ethnic, cultural and religious polity like ours.

    From a concentration on the President and the federal government to provide succor to the citizenry, especially from the current punishing inflationary spirals, many more people have, in recent times, been asking what the state governments are doing to cushion the pains of their people. Perhaps the pressure would also have been on the local government councils which are closest to the grassroots but for the widespread perception that most of them are denied access to their full statutory allocations by state governors and thus largely incapacitated from making the requisite developmental impact.

    The obverse side of the acute inflation and astronomical rise in cost of living as a result of the fuel subsidy removal is the significant increase in Naira revenues accruing to the three layers of government. According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), in its latest report, a total of N10.143 trillion was shared among the federal government, states and local government councils from the Federation Account as statutory revenue allocations in 2023.

    While the federal government received N3.99 trillion (39.37%), the 36 states got N3.585 trillion (35.34%) and the local government councils received N2.56 trillion (25.28%). The NEITI report indicated that the improved revenue remittances to the Federation Account were driven by the removal of the fuel subsidy and the floating of the exchange rate. It would also be recalled that on the removal of the fuel subsidy, the Tinubu administration made a provision of N5 billion available to each state to be paid in tranches with a first phase disbursement of N2 billion to each state. This was meant to enable the states to provide palliatives to their people to ease the burden of the economic reforms.

    While some state governors with Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State being unquestionably the best example were active and prominent in the print, electronic, and social media, striving valiantly to alleviate the poverty of their people, it was difficult to see any visible effort in this regard on the part of many other governors. Television footage showed hundreds of residents of diverse communities in Borno and to some extent, Yobe states going away with full 25kg or 50kg bags of rice and other food items. In most other states no such activities were being showcased and in some cases what was handed over as palliatives were contained in small nylon bags that would most unlikely provide more than one or two meals for an entire household.

    During the Coronavirus epidemic that broke out in 2019, the Lagos State governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, emerged as one of the most outstanding public administrators who rose up to save the state from the rampaging, ruthless disease. Tagged the Incident Commander, Sanwo-Olu, along with his health commissioner, Professor Akin Abayomi, rallied health providers to work round the clock providing care to victims and he also marshaled resources, mobilizing the private sector in this regard, to provide palliatives to the vulnerable segments of the population in the wake of a near-total shut down of the economy to curtail the spread of the disease. In his administration’s response to the hardships inflicted by the fuel subsidy removal, Sanwo-Olu is proving that the dexterity he demonstrated in response to the COVID-19 threat was no fluke.

    Last Sunday, large numbers of residents of Lagos State trooped out to the food discount markets set up by the Lagos State government at 27 locations across the state. Tagged in local parlance as ‘Ounje Eko’, staple food items such as rice, garri, beans, bread, pepper, onion, and tomatoes were sold to members of the public at reduced prices. To ensure that a few people did not buy up the items on offer, the amount that could be bought by individuals was limited to two loaves of bread, 5kg of rice, beans, or garri, 1kg of pepper or onion, and 2kg of tomatoes. The large number of people who patronized the markets is an indication that the initiative is indeed meeting the needs of victims of the prevalent soaring rate of inflation in the country and the state.

    In a similar vein, the governor recently launched the pilot scheme of the Lagos Fresh Food Agro-Hub at Idi-Oro, Mushin. Products such as pepper, meat, vegetables, eggs, yam, garri, snail, palm oil, plantain, ofada rice, Eko rice and fruits are available for sale in a clean and safe environment at farm gate prices. The scheme is being replicated in other locations in the state to be launched in phases over the next six months. Lagosians are also eagerly awaiting the governor’s promise to open soup kitchens/bowls where the government is in liaison with food sellers and caterers to provide free food for 1000 people in each local government in the state.

    Other palliative measures being implemented by the Lagos State government include free healthcare for pregnant women during delivery including cesarean section in government hospitals, an increase in bursary payments to students of Lagos state origin, free health missions across the state twice weekly for the next three months and 25% reduction in transport fares for government-owned transportation schemes.

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    Another noteworthy example is Ogun State where the governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, has unveiled a N5 billion package of palliatives in diverse sectors of the economy to cushion the effects of the current socio-economic hardships. These include food palliatives for about 300,000 vulnerable households across the three Senatorial Districts in the state, an insurance package for 70000 residents including pregnant women, children, the elderly, market women, etc, and the offsetting of outstanding deductions to state workers to the tune of N500 million only.

    In addition, the Ogun State government is providing an N50,000 support grant for about 27,000 Ogun State students In tertiary institutions across the country, the provision of a minimum of five exercise books for all 850,000 students in public primary and secondary schools in the state, provision of a one-time N10000 education support grant for at least 100,000 pupils in public primary and secondary schools, paying N10,000 transport allowance to all civil servants for the last eight months and prenatal care for pregnant women and payment of an additional N5,000 per birth in the state hospitals and the primary health care centres across the state. The state is at the forefront of tapping the potential of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) as an alternative to fuel to provide affordable public transportation to large numbers of people.

    I earlier mentioned Governor Zulum who has been outstanding right from his first inauguration as governor in utilizing public office to ameliorate the sufferings of the vulnerable and adding value to the lives of his people. Hardly a month goes by without this governor announcing one initiative or the other to improve the lives of citizens in the health, transportation, education, and other sectors. Somebody wondered where Zulum was getting the money to do all that he is when there is nothing but silence from so many other states across the country. His passion for selfless service is simply unrivaled. Of course, I focus essentially in this face mainly on governors Sanwo-Olu and Abiodun only as examples. A number of other governors are also performing creditably in this regard but there is hardly space here to adumbrate on their efforts.

    The challenge is not only to overcome the pains attendant on the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the Naira but to permanently transcend poverty in the long run and launch Nigeria on the path of sustainable development. If that is to be achieved, not only must the federal government provide visionary and competent leadership, but the state governments must also utilize all available resources to develop human potential and infrastructure in their respective jurisdictions. There is no way that the impact of the state governments can be maximally felt at the grassroots if the local governments are not empowered to effectively deliver on their mandates to the people.

  • Super Eagles coach: Being Nigerian not enough

    Super Eagles coach: Being Nigerian not enough

    Nigerian coaches should be told pointedly that they haven’t done enough to equip themselves for the daunting task of deciding the future of the beautiful game in Nigeria. Having excelled at her debut appearance at the senior World Cup in 1994, and the remarkable contributions of our players in all the leagues in Europe and the Diaspora in the last 30 years, the country has no business parading squads that look like stools for misery in international competitions.

    It is a depressing citation in the 21st Century for Nigeria to be beaten at any level of football by Uganda, with no disrespect to the East African country. When such things happen in saner climes, the football authorities would silently revisit their trajectory in the game to find out where they have gotten it all wrong and retrace their path to glory.

    Indeed, Nigeria emerged as the fifth-best football nation in the world after her senior World Cup debut in 1994 in the United States (U.S), making it simply preposterous to conjure up that 30 years later, we still don’t know how to recruit a coach for our premier soccer team, the Super Eagles. Instead of recruiting coaches to handle our national teams based on the templates of how we want to play the game across our male and female teams, we allow primordial sentiments to becloud our sense of judgment. It is the reason the game doesn’t look beautiful whenever we play at big tournaments.

    Thirty years after our appearance at the World Cup, picking a coach for the Super Eagles should be like a walk in the park. If we aren’t headhunting a competent foreign coach based on his pedigree in the game, we are promoting a coach based on his achievements at the lower ranks of our junior national teams. It should never be an exercise of naming-dropping as it has always been here.

    Those rooting for the employment of a Nigerian as the next Super Eagles coach wherever such a fellow may be, don’t understand the dynamics of the game. It is the reason we totter during big tournaments because such a fellow won’t have the tactical savvy to compete against the best, with what we have at the senior World Cup. No stories. The World Cup isn’t executed either through prayers or is a lottery lot centre where anyone can walk in to operate the gaming machines. No. It is a platform to showcase excellence built over time and not a stage to exhibit mediocrity as we have always done in the past.

    Interestingly, a country’s growth in the game is most times judged by the number of home-grown players in their senior soccer teams at the World Cup, not by the seeking number of Nigeria-born lads discovered by other football nations. For instance, the English national team recently invited an 18-year-old player, Kobbie Mainoo from Manchester United for their men’s senior team to face football giants Brazil and Belgium in two epic international matches. That is showing great faith in their development system and when you look through the whole squad only one player ply his trade outside England and that is the Real Madrid midfield gem, Jude Belligham.

    Speaking about the emergence of Mainoo, Man United legend, Wayne Rooney said: “I think he’s incredible for such a young age, with the maturity he’s shown. When you see any young player come into the first team, they’re normally a bit raw or play off the cuff.

    “He reminds me of a young Bastian Schweinsteiger with how he plays, and he always seems to make the right decisions. He has a very bright future.”

    New kids at the bloc can’t come from myopic structures such as ours. Doesn’t it bother us that Nigeria won the FIFA U-17 World Cups in 2013 and 2015, yet these players aren’t the bedrock of the Super Eagles 11 and nine years after?

     The glaring deficiency speaks to the ages of the players who prosecuted the assignments just as it says a lot about the integrity of members of the two squads’ technical crews.  They’ve done a great disservice to the growth and development of the game here. This is the price cheating nations suffer when their football federations fail to recognise, standardise and empower their football nurseries to discover, groom, and expose their products through national and international competitions. Such coaches are now angling to become the coach of the Super Eagles. They should remain at the kindergarten level discovering kids until they update their knowledge of the game.

    The serious-minded soccer nations expose players from academies who also have the template to monitor those who did well and have juicy packages in big clubs in Europe, the Americas, and the Diaspora. These academies ensure that the players’ career paths are cut to fit their ambitions. Those of them eager to combine playing soccer with going to school are enrolled to be educated. They also have drawn up training schedules to suit their schools’ curriculum, knowing the importance of education when their career as soccer players is over. Nothing happens in such countries as an accident.

    Coaching at the senior level which is where the Super Eagles is essentially about man-management of the players and massaging their egos. Coaching is a function of hiring and firing depending on the manager’s successes, especially for inpatient employers. In fact, when teams are fumbling their fans wave the white flag calling for the coach’s sack, if the teams’ fortunes continue to dwindle. What stands the European clubs’ management out is the fact that they have organised and tested systems that throw up the next manager when anyone is sacked or should I say released mutually. Indeed, there are two types of coaches. Those already sacked,  and those waiting for their sack letters.

    The clubs and countries that sack their coaches have a list of managers whose patterns of play fit with their football philosophy, making their transition smooth whenever the deals are struck. These entities headhunt the coaches who meet their criteria on a scale of preference starting with their first choices. By the time they got to their third candidate, a decision would have been made. Names of likely coaches to replace sacked or released ones start with speculations. Nothing is made public by the prospecting club or countries until the unveiling day. Negotiations are done by those whose duty it is to conduct that exercise and the managers’ agents.

    Read Also: Military kills 106 terrorists, apprehends 103

    Spare me the thought, dear reader,  recall how Nigerian coaches destroyed the career of Sunday Mba after he shone like a million stars at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations held in South Africa which Nigeria won, beating Burkina Faso, courtesy of Mba’s goal in the semi-final and first. Mba has become another forgotten name in the annals of the game with the NFF oblivious of what befell a rising star as he appeared in South Africa, 11 years ago.

    There isn’t any problem with being agents but such agents should be able to identify good talents and expose them to bigger clubs. However, the new manager mustn’t be seen to perform the role of an agent while functioning as the manager of the Super Eagles. The ripple effect of this kind of unholy arrangement is that any discovery loses his position on spurious grounds if he is playing in positions where the manager has an interest. This conflict of interest on the part of the manager is one of the reasons why there is friction between the big stars who dare to question the presence of the better players around the country.

    Discussions on sports globally, especially football, highlight the future with the nurseries being the bedrock for growth. These nurseries discover, train, and retrain the coaches to be abreast with the modern trends of a dynamic sport – in this case football. Unlike in Nigeria where we engage the car in reverse gear and expect it to move forward. Simply put, Nigeria needs to work on her game to compete with the best at the World Cup.

  • Thoughts on The SouthEast Development Commission Bill

    Thoughts on The SouthEast Development Commission Bill

    Before I delve into the second and final series of this article, let me comment on some of the responses i received from my readers. One accused me of being anti-southeast because I had faulted one of the mandates which was  for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of roads, houses and other infrastructural damages suffered by the region as a result of the effects of the civil war.

    How my citing that such a mandate as incongrous with present day reality should then be translated to me being anti-southeast or anti-igbo bothers me! What is wrong with calling out such an incongruity?

    Another stated that I was rather being pessimistic about whether the bill would be signed into law or not! I merely pointed out that it was not yet uhuru, since the bill was yet to receive presidential assent. Likewise my assertion that owing to.the poor.performance of previous commissions recently set up, there was really nothing to expect from the creation.of the SouthEast Development Commission!

    What is wrong with such an assertion, particularly when it is backed with facts and figures? For example has the NDDC justified it’s receipt of over 15.3 trillion since it’s inception? Comparing such an amount to the level of development registered in the Niger Delta area is heavily dismal and in countries with an inclement tolerance for corruption a number of NDDC officials wouod have been frontline candidates for prison or death by shooting.

    Thus I have no apology for my pessimism, and would rather prefer not having a  SouthEast Development Commission than having one that would line up the pockets of a few persons at the detriment of the region.

    To the meat of this present series, I will dwell on some of the would be challenges of the commission to serve as a template or guide for the incoming commission, that is if the bill will receive Asiwaju’s assent anyway.

    What managerial structure would the SEDC operate with?  It is alleged that the proposed commission should have three executive directors, for Finance and Account, Projects and Corporate Services. It would also have other zones represented on commission, similar to what is obtainable within.other regional bodies such as the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and the North East Development Commission, NEDC. Would the leadership of the SEDC  be rotated amongst the states that make up  the region? What would be the structure of tenure, four, five or six years?  On what basis would such a rotation follow? Will it be by virtue of the year such a state was created or by alphabetical order?

    There is also the challenge of funding, no doubting with the perceived marginalisation of the region since the end of the civil war, the SouthEast Region is bogged down with infrastructural, ecological and environmental challenges and should require huge funding from the Federal Government. How will this funding come? What percentage of funds would come from.the FG? Would the component  states also contribute to such funding ?  If yes, what percentage would the component states make to the commission?  Would it emulate the NDDC model of 15 percent of the allocation of the nine states that make up the region and would.companies operating within the region also be made to contribute  to  the SEDC?

    How would a number of projects also.be funded, would the SEDC adopt the PPP model to ensure that it avoids the error of the NDDC and it’s number of abandoned projects littered over the Niger Delta Region?

    Read Also: Military kills 106 terrorists, apprehends 103

    There are also the challenges of monitoring projects approved and ensuring that such projects not only meet the standards required but are also delivered on time. What measures would the commission take to ensure that projects handled by it are projects that would contribute immensely to the resurgence of the region as the commercial nerve centre of the Nation?

    How would the commission also deal with issues of youth restiveness, one that has recently risen owing to the recent fervour for Biafra as well as certain aspects such as unemployment,  underemployment and a declining  values system? Would the efforts of the commission not also be hindered by such militants and crime groups? Would investors courted by the SEDC be willing to invest amidst such turmoil?

    Corruption as I had earlier mentioned remains another factor and I will not dwell much on it here but the commission must be ready to deal with it as a major threat to it’s success.

    As the former Deputy Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Nkem Okeke recently posited at a recent forum, the SEDC would attract a number of goodies to the region, now while I am not as optimistic as he is owing to the Nigerian way of doing things, it is my hope that the SEDC would be different and create an exception in the SouthEast, a model for development and rekindle the hope of the people of the region in a united, free and fair Nigeria.

    Ka Chineke mezuo okwu…

    May Nigeria Succeed!

  • Kidnappings and the tragedy of out- of –school children

    Kidnappings and the tragedy of out- of –school children

    Education is the best legacy parents and the state can give to any child. There is the informal and formal education which when combined effectively arms every individual for a lifetime of positive productivity. The informal education is the one given from the family the community, religious and traditional institutions where values, ethics and cultural norms are passed from generation to generation. An effective combination of the two often results in maximizing the productive capacity of individuals and this in turn engenders development.

    The way each nation manages the informal and formal education sectors of its citizens determines the difference between development and underdevelopment. Each society is guided by values and ethos they have in a way adopted to be their guide through life. That is why cultures and traditions differ as much as human physical features tell our differences from continent to continent, nation to nation tribe to tribe, community to community.

    Before the advent of formal education, humanity existed and there was a seeming peace even if development and globalization were not impacting the world. However, because humans have the capacity to dominate and impact (positively or negatively) on their environment, formal education has brought with it huge strides in education. Science and technology have positively impacted human lives. This value-adding aspect of formal education has been continually horned by advancement through education in technology through ideas that are fueling innovation and research.

    The difference in nations therefore is obviously dependent on the value they place on formal education given that the informal education seems to be a given. Nations where education is given high value are beacons for the underdeveloped nations saddled with poverty and its attendant socio-economic problems like insecurity, conflicts and other sundry problems.

    The global need for people to get maximum benefit from education is why the United Nations through its agencies like UNICEF and UNESCO emphasizes the need for education across the world through treaties that most countries have signed. Through education, inequalities and gender equality can be reached. That is why the UN Sustainable Development Goals are vigorously pursued . To the United nations,  education plays a holistic role in the lives of individuals and our shared global community.

    The idea for qualitative education is to facilitate learning, the acquisition of skills, values, beliefs and habits. The goal of UNESCO for instance is to contribute to the building of the culture of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.

    The UN has a minimum benchmark for countries to allocate to education in their annual budgets which is at least 26%. This is to ensure that the sector gets enough funding to give qualitative basic education to citizens. Sadly however, Nigeria has never reached that benchmark.  The budgetary allocation has never been up to 20% in the last 24 years.

    The result is not far-fetched, public schools have been on the decline and private investors in education have taken over. Sadly, not many parents can afford the cost of private education for their children. There seems to be little incentive for children to go to school because of a plethora of reasons. In the Northern region of Nigeria, illiteracy is very high because of the system of alternative education like the almajiri system which even though good  can still be effectively combined with western education in ways that the children’s potentials can be realized with through balancing.

       The long period of lack of qualitative and consistent but affordable education has many implications. Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children in the world at more than 20million and many of them are in the Northern region with series of security problems. The child -bride syndrome in the region makes it impossible for most of the young girls to be in school and as such many of them start bearing children early and the obvious implication is that the female illiteracy rate affects the children they bear. There are always chances of having too many children and the danger again of high maternal and child mortality rates.

    The country is saddled with more than 133million people living in multi-dimensional poverty. Their emergence cannot be divorced from the lack of qualitative education that can empower for productivity. The implication is the preponderance of uneducated, unskilled and frustrated young adults who in any case would strive for survival by all means including criminality. So it is not surprising that today, there are high incidents of terrorism in the country in such a dire level that at some point Nigeria became the third most terrorized nation on earth.

    The scars of insurgency, terrorism, banditry and sundry crimes like kidnappings and arson can be seen all over the country. The insecurity problems have reached monumental proportions in ways that even the Federal Capital Territory has been experiencing the audacious invasion of terrorists some of who even ambushed and killed some of the National Guard Troops during former President Buhari’s tenure. In the last few months, there have been series of killings and kidnappings of citizens either travelling or in their houses in Abuja.

    There is heightened insecurity and many are thankful for the efforts of the military and police but believe that more can be done to stem the tide of insecurity in the country. It is therefore very heartbreaking that the abductions of school children continues to be on the rise especially in the North West states of Kaduna, Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina and the North Eastern states of Bornu, Yobe and the ones in the North Central states of Nasarawa and Niger. Jos has been a theatre of war for many years and that does not seem to have stopped at all as killings happen frequently.

    Even though the Chibok girls abduction garnered international attention, the February 25, 2014 Buni Yadi massacre of 59 boys in their dormitory at the Federal government college in Yobe state preceded the Chibok abductions. Not much has been heard the perpetrators of that heinous crime from the security agencies.

    Read Also: Kidnappings: There’ll be no ransom payments, says Tinubu

    However, the kidnap of the Chibok girls in April 2014 seems to have opened the floodgate of school arson and kidnappings that now seems to have become a very lucrative business. About a hundred of the kidnapped Chibok girls are still unaccounted for. The lone hostage of the Dapchi School girls abductions, Leah Sharibu is still in captivity since February 18, 2018. More than hundred girls were abducted.

    About ,1,680 school children have been kidnapped in Nigeria as at August 2023, more than 180 school children have been killed, almost a hundred injured in about 70 attacks between April 2014 and December 2022. The School children are not the sole victims, some of their teachers are always abducted along with them and school buildings often destroyed or burnt down totally.

    It is curious that these North Western school abductions always involves hundreds of school children especially girls with no trace of the criminals.  In February 2021, about 279 female students aged between 10 –17 were kidnapped from their school even though later released. This was just few days after the Kagara kidnappings in Niger state. It is just futile recounting all the school abductions in recent times  but this year alone, school children and some of their teachers have been taken from Ekiti, Kaduna, Sokoto and Bornu states.

    Presently school children as young as 7 are in the kidnappers’ den and there seems no end in sight to the terrorist acts that seems to have turned a lucrative business and an agonizing ordeal for parents. However, the implications of this tragic turn of events are that the terrorists who vowed to discourage education seem to be succeeding. For a region with the least literacy rates in Nigeria, the prognosis is dire.

    What it means is that the school enrolments would continue to decline drastically  as any sane parent would rather have an illiterate child than an abducted, wounded or dead one. Most parents might be forced to withdraw even those they had enrolled earlier. Teachers might begin to migrate away from the danger zones in a way that even if some parents decide to brave the odds to send their kids, there might be no teachers willing to risk their lives.

    Education is the key to unlock the future, Nigeria must own the education of her children by making better efforts to defeat the terrorists. For a country like Nigeria on the poverty and illiteracy chats, there are no options than defeating those endangering the future. The children have constitutional and human rights that the state must protect. An illiterate population in a 21st century world is a ticking time bomb because that is a sure recruitment space for the social misfits perpetrating the heinous crimes on innocent and vulnerable children.

    Governments at all levels must work hard to invest in security, intelligence and communication technology. There is no country in the world that is crime free but every country invests in the security of its citizens through various sectors. The internal affairs and defense ministries must work harder to secure the borders of the country through intelligence gathering. An uneducated population in a country with millions in multi-dimensional poverty is the worst tragedy in a world rule by ideas and technology. We cannot let terrorists win.

    • The dialogue continues…
  • Thoughts on the Southeast Development Commission Bill (1)

    Thoughts on the Southeast Development Commission Bill (1)

    As news of the second passage of the bill establishing the Southeast Development Commission (SEDC) by the 11th Senate came through alongside the hoopla, many of Ala Igbo’s  children such as myself were largely not infused with the ‘Alleluia Joy’ mood owing to two things which I will express much later in this piece.

    As the bill suggests, the SEDC is a  federal government agency in Nigeria that will attempt to address the challenges of underdevelopment in the Southeast region of the country, a region that has since the end of the Nigerian/ Biafran War  long suffered from neglect and marginalization, resulting in poor infrastructure, high unemployment rates, and low levels of social services. The establishment of the SEDC was borne out of a desire to address these issues and promote economic development in the region.

    The Southeast region of Nigeria is made up of five states: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo. Despite being rich in natural resources and having a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit, the region has struggled to attract investment and create jobs for its burgeoning population. The lack of good roads, electricity, and other basic infrastructure has hindered the growth of industries and businesses in the region, leading to widespread poverty and underdevelopment.

    Read Also: Senate passes Southeast Development Commission Bill

    The bill to establish the SEDC was passed sometime in 2018 by the Senator Ahmed Lawan led National Assembly but was denied assent by the then sitting president , Muhammadu Buhari . It was again reintroduced into the 11th Assembly and was passed in the House of Representatives by December 2023 before the Senator Akpabio led Senate passed it recently for a second time.

    For me, the rejoicing will begin with an assent first, otherwise there will really be no reason to celebrate the bill. Now while it is true that one might believe that the chummy relationship between the leadership of the National Assembly and the presidency might make it’s being assented to a done deal, was the relationship between Senator  Ahmed  Lawan and  President Muhammadu Buhari, a  model for Executive/Legislative chumminess, the type sought in nation’s like the United States of America where political leanings have trumped governance hurting the ability of most presidents to deliver on their agenda.

    So if the bill could not excite a Buhari’s assent what is the probability that it would excite that of Asiwaju, at a time when the government is busy trying to implement the Oronsaye report and bring down the number of government agencies.

    Again, the bill seems to contain certain confounding issues in it, particularly in it’s set of responsibilities such as ” To receive and manage funds from the allocation of the Federation account for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of roads, houses and other infrastructural damages suffered by the region as a result of the effects of the civil war, as well as tackle the ecological problems and any other related environmental or developmental challenges faced by the South Eastern states of Nigeria and for related matters, 2024”. 54 years after the Uli Strip was overun by Federal troops while Brigadier Effiong formally surrendered to General Yakubu Gowon, a majority if not all reconstruction and rehabilitation work have long been carried out and concluded not by the Federal Government which payed much lip service to it’s 3Rs, but by the Igbo people themselves in their  ‘Mekaria’ attitude which naturally waits little for government interventions. For example, my grandfather’s house in Abagana was destroyed as it served as the Biafran Headquarters for that sector, my father rebuilt the house in the 80’s as did every Igbo man who survived the war, pray what will now be rehabilitated or reconstructed that has not been carried out in the past?

    I would rather have the first set of responsibilities thrown out except people can either show me for certain, these  roads or infrastructure still suffering from the war’s effects and then focus more on the developmental challenges faced by the zone as we asked the following questions.

    Can the bill if passed into law and the commission established act as a bulwark for the development of the zone’s economic and commercial potentials?

    Will the SouthEast Development Commission drive development into the region which is presently grappling with a dearth of basic infrastructure as well as youth unemployment and unrest? Is it the nation’s solution to the cries of marginalisation bellowed time and time again by it’s people and selfishly brandished by our leaders, particularly when they are not observing table manners?

    A cursory look into the history of past commissions and their dividends or contributions to the development of those areas will help answer in the negative. A good example is the the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC which has despite the billions sunk into it failed to deliver on it’s mandate! The North East Development Commission has taken the same trajectory, now except those who will pilot the affairs of the SouthEast Development Commission be saints, we may yet  get the same shambolism experienced from the initially mentioned commissions.

  • Babel in Labour Party

    Babel in Labour Party

    Labour Party (LP) looked like a promising party. That was during last year’s electioneering. It attempted to spring surprises. It upset some opponents in some states.

    Some believe that its future may still be bright. That is if it puts its house in order; if it can do a post-mortem of its fall in the last presidential election, engage in a realistic self-assessment, accept the reality of its health condition and stop fantasisisng.

    But, the party’s leadership tussle is its drawback. A party is as good as its ideas, its organisational structure, its leadership’s capacity to translate its ideas into actions, its ability to draw public support for its agenda to secure power and its determination and ability to effectively use power for the good of a greater number of citizens.

    Labour Party (of Nigeria) is projected as a national social democratic structure. But, its leadership is a pole apart from avowed theoretical radicalism. Its focus, like other parties, is power. But, it has not really attracted attention because it has not charted a clear alternative path to the resolution of grave national challenges.

    LP has failed in its aspiration to be the ruling party. Yet, it is not playing an effective opposition role. Its leaders seem to be facing adjustment difficulties after the Supreme Court verdict on the historic presidential litigations of last year.

    The party has rebuffed calls for collaboration or merger by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader and former presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. May be, it would reconsider its position when the next presidential poll is around the corner. For now, the attention of the split LP leadership is distracted and diverted by its self-imposed hullabaloo. No realistic future plan can be made until there is peace within.

    Two factions, or camps, are competing for the soul of the distressed party. The first caucus, led by Julius Abure, a lawyer, seems to be the mainstream camp. Abure is even a nominal leader there. The camp revolves around the personality of banker and businessman Peter Obi, a defector from the PDP, who suddenly became its presidential candidate in the last election.

    The second camp is led by warrior Lamidi Apapa, who has been firing salvos from Ibadan, the ancient city of street fight and war mongering that cannot be forgotten in the pre-colonial and colonial history of Yoruba land.

    Both factions are in court. That is the crux of the matter. A house divided against itself may not stand for long. But, a fatal fall can still be averted if reason prevails.

    Reconciliation has collapsed in LP. It is because interests do not align. Interest is a unifying factor in politics. Instead of promoting collective interest, much energy and resources are dissipated on the crisis. Only a few Nigerians return from the courtroom to renew friendships. They often return from litigation to prolonged malice, which takes its toll on their psychological well-being and the health of their troubled party.

    So far, Abure is winning in the temple of justice. The anticipated verdict by the Supreme Court has sent the two warring gladiators into anxiety. The judgment will be final as far as the court process is concerned.

    But, it may not be the end in party politics. The judgment will have implications for the party and the rivals in the dispute. The eventual winner will consolidate his grip on party machinery and rusticate the loser.

    The loser has three options. The first is to swallow pride and surrender with a bruised ego. The other option is treacherous. He may regress into pretention, stay on in the party, and undermine or subvert the platform, following undue influence by external forces. The third is to call it quits with the party and seek refuge elsewhere. But this is a costly option.

    The best option, which was omitted at the beginning, is reconciliation. With its weak crisis resolution mechanism, LP is incapable of mooting a peace deal. Therefore, even after the court cases, the crisis may not be over. It can only assume a new dimension.

    LP may become another Alliance for Democracy (AD), unless the promoters of intra-party wrangling pull the break. Where is AD today? It was torn apart by protracted crisis, right from its controversial inaugural presidential primary at D’Rovans in Ibadan, to the internal bickering in the Lagos chapter where forces loyal to former Governor Bola Tinubu, now president of Nigeria, and the late Chief Ganiyu Dawodu were permanently locked in a war of attrition.

    At the national level, Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa and his friend, Chief Michael Koleoso, the Babalaje of Oke-Ogun, fought to no end. The court ruled in favour of Akinfenwa, who presided over the carcass of a party. That is what a protracted conflict does to a party. By 2007, AD had lost relevance. It became a shadow of itself, deserted by its founding fathers who mismanaged its achievements on the slippery political field.

    Read Also: JUST IN: Ex-PDP lawmaker defects to Labour Party

    LP’s problems are not really identical with the challenges that dwarfed AD. LP is never a party in reckoning, until it becomes a borrowed platform during periodic elections to those in want of a party that can serve as a platform for contesting for public office.

    Fundamentally, it is supposed to be a party for the masses and the downtrodden. Although it is closely associated with Labour, the workers and the masses have not really gravitated towards its direction. Its leadership has always been its bane.

    However, LP has a way of surviving popularity tests in a few states, where aggrieved defectors from big political parties adopt it as a place of last refuge. An example was the Ondo State chapter, which saw a big catch in Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, who used and later dumped the party after consolidating his hold on the state.

    Mimiko won the poll, not on the strength of the LP, which can never withstand the PDP arsenal in the Sunshine State. In 2007, PDP only lost to PDP by subterfuge.

    A similar scenario is being enacted now in Abia State where, after his failed bid for governor in the PDP and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), eminent banker Alex Otti is now decked in the LP robe.

    Those who voted for Otti accepted him as the best candidate in the election and not because he ran on the platform of the LP. At best, running under LP was just an added advantage. The two factors in the governorship poll were Otti and Obi, and not LP.

    Instructively, there is no evidence to suggest that politicians who come to hibernate in LP understand the philosophical and political ideals that underlined its formation. If those electef  on the platform of LP are asked to explain the ideological basis of the party, they would give incoherently diverse answers. The party, to most of its members, is just a vehicle for seeking power. There is no proof of visceral commitment beyond the hunt for elective office by the power seekers using LP as a decorative cover. There is also no evidence of a strong emotional attachment to an alien platform. Again, the implication is that after climbing to power on its back, LP users seldom remember the platform.

    Last year, the party attempted to bounce into national reckoning. It was beyond expectation. Obi and his fanatical supporters with the sobriquet “Obedients” came to identity with the party, based on his presidential ambition.

    That was the dilemma. LP has been described by observers as a “structureless” party that surprisingly attracted votes from supporters who never knew whether a party office existed or not.

    The support for Obi may have been uncritically misinterpreted as the support for LP.

    There was a semblance of a huge support base for a party erected on a very thin foundation. The support was  also mainly along ethnic line. The transient partisan loyalty of fans was to the presidential candidate, and not to the party or party leadership that was not even known to the lousy, garrulous, and loose Obdients, particularly the social media warriors among them. It is possible that many youths who endorsed LP during the presidential election were not even conversant with the profile of its candidate.

    LP is not a party of strategy as such. Put succinctly, its tactics appeared faulty because while it largely appealed to emotion and sentiments based on ethnicity and religion, the party betrayed an understanding of Nigeria as a highly heterogeneous country where the tools of religion and ethnicity can as well be counterproductive in the quest for federal power, in certain predictable circumstances, and the quest for nation building, in general.

    If a politician appeals to tribalism, other tribes have to be on their toes. If a politician is scheming, based on religion, it also provokes vigilance: people of other religions will not go into slumber. Only a broad-based support, as exemplified in the cross-regional alliance of diverse geo-political zones in 2023 in favour of President Tinubu, can lead to the attainment of federal power in Nigeria. The import of all these was lost on LP during the last presidential poll.

    LP needs more exerienced politicians to teach its leaders the ‘art’ of winning without any recourse to propaganda and intolerance of opponents or rivals. Nigeria is a big country. No hero of a regional expression can realise aspiration for national leadership, no matter how legitimate, without the support of other geo-political zones.

    Training and retraining of party leadership will facilitate self-discovery, learning, and a change of style in LP. These are recommended to the LP leadership for the party to rise above being used as the last resort.

  • While I was away

    While I was away

    To the glory of God, I’m back at my workplace with a lot of pending issues of national interest to address. While I was away, the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations held in Cote d’ Ivoire, which the host won by beating Nigeria 2-1. Super Eagles’ loss wasn’t unexpected, given the patchy manner in which the coach, Jose Peseiro, set up the players to prosecute his obtuse match plans.

    How Peseiro succeeded in hoodwinking Nigerians with his team’s survival football set this writer thinking if Nigerians were content with the breathless displays of our team, just because they found ways of bulldozing their way into the opposition’s net. My angst at the way the team’s sluggish performance found satisfaction among Nigerians could be placed at the doorsteps of Nigerian journalists who hyped the team’s nervy movements through all the stages of the Africa Cup of Nations.

    Surprisingly, the Super Eagles’ tardy defensive football was likened to the uncanny way the Special One, Jose Mourinho sets up his team for top-of-the-bill clashes. It was irritating listening to media men and women celebrate mediocrity as if Mourinho’s sides don’t whip lazy teams silly with goals, including the big ones. The world wouldn’t have celebrated the silky skills and goal-scoring exploits of the Didier Drogbas of this world, if Mourinho’s style was as tepid as Peseiro’s was at the Africa Cup of Nations held in Cote d’ Ivoire with the Super Eagles. Mourinho won trophies with his kind of football, which essentially rested on counter-attacks. Need I mention strikers who excelled in their goal-scoring acts under Mourinho’s tutelage?

    Luckily, Peseiro is history with the Eagles. He could beat his chest to celebrate a silver medal outing for Nigeria, but he was bereft of new ideas to lift the Super Eagles over their Ivorian counterpart. Peseiro’s poor judgment arose when he opted for Samuel Chukwueze to start from the right flank using his left foot instead of allowing Simon to continue with his remarkable outings leading to the final game against Ivory Coast.

    Perhaps Peseiro didn’t observe in the semi-final game when he introduced Chukwueze that the AC Milan FC of Italy player doesn’t like to fall back into the defence to retrieve the ball from the opposition. This tactical deficiency which Chukwueze exhibited provided the Appian Way which Ivory Coast exploited to lift the trophy, instead of Nigeria.

    The man’s style of play was a huge disadvantage for Alex Iwobi and I doubt if he would’ve done the same if Wilfred Ndidi was available. The formation ensured that there was no creativity in the team and the Eagles failed to dominate against most opponents at the tournament. Perhaps it is important to ask Peseiro why he didn’t give Kelechi Iheanacho a first-team role during the competition. If he did, Iheanacho could have provided the defence-splitting passes to free Victor Osimhen from his tight-marking opponents. If Peseiro knew he didn’t need Iheanacho, he should have allowed him to remain in England to recuperate fully instead of making a jest of him with meaningless cameo roles which cost the team heavily.

    Watching the Eagles while I was away on vacation showed clearly that Peseiro wasn’t in charge of selecting players for the team. There appear to be hidden hands that remotely controlled those who played and who didn’t. It simply means that there wasn’t any basic rule to determine who got invited to the Super Eagles during Peseiro’s era.

    Indeed, Peseiro’s handling of Nigeria’s big six players (Osimhen, Lookman, Simon, Troost-Ekong, and Iheanacho) explained why Iwobi was marooned in the midfield with no other creative midfielder opening up space to receive passes to help the team’s attack shoot for goals. I wasn’t, therefore, surprised when Ekong revealed that he wasn’t on speaking terms with a confused Peseiro. Would you blame Ekong for keeping the distance from the Portuguese?

    Peseiro is gone and one must praise him for leaving the job without dragging the NFF to FIFA over his outstanding wages. This writer wants to credit President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for settling all the debts owed to the country’s sportsmen and women who brought honour and won titles from international sporting competitions across the globe.

    This gesture by Tinubu marked the first time in many years that Nigeria participated in soccer competitions without incidents that poured odium on the country. Tinubu crowned this masterstroke by rewarding the country’s contingent to the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations with national honours, cash, and plots of land and houses.

    Little wonder the Portuguese had kind words to say about the Nigerians he worked with in the last 22 months. Indeed, Tinubu changed the narrative from uncouth comments from foreign coaches to songs of praise as they bade goodbye to the job.

    Thank you Jose Peseiro, except that your exit has thrown up another storyline that could destroy what we gained from the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations unless the issue is handled with tact. Peseiro’s exit has created a vacancy that needs to be fixed without rancour. If the NFF feels that former Nigerian international and

     current coach of Enyimba FC of Aba, Finidi George, can do the job, having learned the ropes working with Peseiro, so be it. The Super Eagles is too big a job to be given to coaches without pedigree.

    As a matter of fact, coaches who ‘did well’ handling Nigeria’s age-grade teams in the past did a great disservice to the cradle of the game.  The question I always ask those rooting for these age-grade coaches is for them to explain why the products of the country’s feats of 2013 and 2015 aren’t the ones dominating the senior national team.

    I have seen the 10-man list of Nigerian coaches looking for the Super Eagles job and I feel strongly that there isn’t any need for another round of controversies if the NFF’s original intention of assigning Finidi George to work with Peseiro in the Super Eagles was for him to take charge with the Portuguese’s exit. Super Eagles is Nigeria’s premium brand among our football teams. It should not be left in the hands of coaches who in the last five years have been unemployed by any soccer club or national team. If they were such great coaches, they wouldn’t have been idle in the last five years.

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    Suddenly, those former players who made life for local coaches miserable with their attitude, insolence, and near gangster tendencies each time Nigerian coaches were in charge of the team, are scrambling to handle the Super Eagles.

    Suddenly, those top ex-internationals who openly canvassed for foreign coaches to handle the Super Eagles on grounds of their superior tactics and exposure to the modern tricks in the game, want the job they told the world local coaches were incompetent to handle.

    Suddenly, those who led the star trek of Nigerian analysts to England to interview foreign coaches for the Super Eagles are at the rooftops shouting their voices hoarse for ex-internationals who are Nigerians to be given the job. Just like that? These latter-day advocates for local coaches don’t mind if this thoughtless expedition would cost Nigeria the 2026 World Cup ticket.

    The new mantra for the insistence on having the local coaches handle the Super Eagles rests with the cliché that no country has won the World Cup using foreign coaches. They have forgotten that these countries’ football is being run on autopilot on time-tested programmes which are alluring.

    These soccer buffs won’t tell us how these World Cup winners have developed the game in their polities, such that the turnover of their local coaches is so high that they must move out in droves to practise what they learned.

    These naysayers have refused to tell us if these World Cup winners combed other parts of the world like Nigeria to look for their nationals in the Diaspora to play for the countries of their parent’s birth.