The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • NFF’s waste of cash (2)

    NFF’s waste of cash (2)

    The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) officials are confused people as epitomised in the ridicule surrounding the minutes of the body’s Annual General Assembly (AGA). Thrice, the communiqué released stating what transpired at the meeting had to be corrected with no significant change noticed. What it showed clearly was that anything in that communiqué wasn’t cast in stone – typical of all the decisions by the Federation in the past.

    Dear reader, how best can anyone describe wastefulness than with these examples. A few federation chieftains knew that even with a loss to Sao Tome (God forbid) Nigeria had already qualified for the next Africa Cup of Nations slated to hold in Cote d’Ivoire in January. Yet, the federation’s members watched with mouths agape as a Coach insisted on inviting 23 foreign-based players for a game against Sao Tome.

    Here is the waste in this decision. Having beaten Sao Tome at home in the first leg by 10-0, it was obvious that we were no mates and that was the need to field the country’s Team B players largely populated with home-based players with our best six foreign-based players. This federation didn’t think so. It allowed a journeyman coach to fly in 23 professionals from Europe on business class. Besides, each of these players would be paid $200 daily allowances. For beating Sao Tome 6-0, each of these players went back with $5000 as winning bonus. Please don’t do the arithmetic because it would run into between N360 million and N500 million at the going market rate of the dollar, likely at N900 per dollar? What else to do we call these kind of expenditures if the federation had the option of inviting 20 players who wouldn’t spend up to N8 million as their return tickets to save cost.

    Is the federation saying that Sao Tome would have beaten our home-based players with what they displayed in Uyo last Sunday? Tell any home-based player that he would be paid $5,000 after 90 minutes, he would grab his telephone and multiply N900 by $ 5000. He will die on the pitch knowing how his life would be transformed after the game. What a country where wasting cash is a way of life.

    NFF chieftains shortly before the commencement of the last Women’s World Cup roundly condemned the head coach of the Super Falcons Randy Waldrum and recommended the immediate sack of the American tactician even after the country exited from the competition. Forty-eight hours after the federation’s Annual General Assembly (AGA), the NFF members woke up from their slumber and suddenly realised that the Super Falcons had an Olympic Games qualifier against Ethiopia. What shocked many were the praises showered on Waldrum which put a lie on what was written about him on Sunday to the consternation of followers of the game.

    “We have given the Technical Committee the go-ahead to hold talks with Randy Waldrum as we consider an extension of his current contract with the NFF. They have to do this quickly as the team has a Women’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match next week.

    “The man has done well by leading the team to an impressive outing at the FIFA World Cup,” NFF President, Ibrahim Musa Gusau, said on Tuesday. Really, Presido. When did you realise these attributes about Waldrum? Dear President, would be fair to credit Waldrum with the changes in the Super Falcons without acknowledging the technical savvy and support Dr. Terry Eguaoje brought into the team. Until Eguaoje joined the Falcons, they had acquired the losing toga, having lost their last seven games. Eguaoje has double Doctorate degrees in Education. He is an Adjunct Professor at Universities in America and is currently, the Technical Director of Coaching Education for the Pennsylvania West Soccer Association – State FA to US Soccer Federation. He also is a Coach Educator and Instructor Educator for the US Soccer Federation – basically, he trains the coaches. Hello NFF, flaunt what Waldrum has? Currently NFF Consultant on Coaching and Development. He was the Super Eagles- Assistant coach and Match Analyst during AFCON in Cameroon.

    At the Women’s World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, Eguaoje functioned as the Super Falcons – Assistant coach and Match Analyst.

    Except the NFF men are economical with the truth, they know that Waldrum didn’t want to see his Nigerian assistants and told them to their faces. The drafting of Eguaoje did the magic because Waldrum knew his abilities and capacity to train soccer teams having been taught by Eguaoje in one of the coaching courses at the American Soccer Federation

     What would they tell Waldrum who is still being owed at least some months’ salaries and didn’t benefit from the $10,000 largesse from the First Lady who would have gladly rewarded the American if he was at the State House in Abuja? A coach your federation described as incompetent. The coach insisted that the federation should account for how they spent FIFA’s $960,000 meant to prepare the Super Falcons for the last Women’s World Cup competition which was co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

    Like Nigeria, England had problems with their players, coaches and officials who were being owed some cash. They have sorted the mater. Not so, with federation members who lost the biggest chance to get the top players who were still in the country to meet with the First Lady Distinguished Senator Oluremi Tinubu at a scheduled meeting with the girls. Instead, NFF chose to allow the big girls such as Assisat Oshoala, Rashedat Ajibade et al to meet their state governors to avert any drama which the girls could have caused.

    The hierarchy of the federation would have used that reception to get the girls to reveal all their problems to the First Lady who would quickly resolve their problems and set a workable template which would have prevented a recurrence of such problems in the next eight years.

    NFF missed the biggest opportunity to establish a direct link to the First Lady who would have taken adequate steps to get most of her friends, the public and private sectors to key into the women’s football crusade for the good of the game. The NFF chose to populate the reception with members and their staff, leaving the main actors in their different states.

    A fundraiser spearheaded by the First Lady would have reinvigorated the beautiful game for the girls, especially at the 774 Local Government Areas in the country. The cash realised would have been used to create women’s football leagues and raise awareness among parents to allow the girl-child to play football, using the girls in the Super Falcons as the point of contact for change. Whenever the girls played at the Women’s World Cup Nigerians stayed awake to watch the girls. What the women’s game needs here in Nigeria is a credible face to convince the corporate world to identify their goods and services with the game by way of sponsorship. Pity, NFF has wasted this golden chance.

    Sport is a big deal. It unites nations and enchants people. Besides, it has a global appeal, pulling fans and sponsors in a unique force that impacts positively on businesses and health. These positives can best be evaluated when the government has a template that makes it possible for businesses and philanthropists to key into the nation’s vision for sports.

    Governments of sports-loving nations entice businesses with relief packages, such as tax rebates on their investments in sports. Given sports’ global appeal, governments effectively utilise the platform as their public relations tool to change people’s perceptions of their entities.    Grassroots development can be actualised through the hosting of international and continental sporting events. Most countries use these big competitions to woo the blue-chip industries to identify with sports. Besides, these competitions open up the hinterland with the facilities constructed creating jobs in the locality. The facilities would attract the villagers to learn the games and, inadvertently, improve their health.

    Big sports competitions generate revenue, create jobs, improve financial bases and provide the best opportunity for foreigners to have first-hand interaction with Nigerians. Such competitions improve tourism, a sure money spinner. Need I state the benefit that business concerns will gain from the volume of foreign exchange during such competitions?

    It, therefore, aches to note that we have hosted big competitions in the past and have been unable to convince the corporate world about the gains of such events largely because no government has bothered to ask the organisers what went down and what we gained – this is what economists call Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA). Facilities built for such competitions are rotting away. In some cases, the equipment has been vandalised with nobody made to pay for it.  The exit of one minister sparks off fresh crises from losers in the last administration. That has been the trend. This setting makes it impossible for the corporate world to identify with sports since no one would want to associate its products and services with people who are not credible.

  • That Rwandan retreat by Nigerian governors

    That Rwandan retreat by Nigerian governors

    The United Nations (UN) through its many agencies continues to play very significant roles in global development. It does seem that developing nations get the lion share of the global interventions. Whether the developing nations maximally utilize the grants, research and information from UN agencies depends on the various tiers of leadership in such countries. Every individual is a global citizen but each country through its governance structures determine what steps they must take in addition to the contributions from UN and other development agencies in the world.

    Nigeria has over the years benefitted in no small measure from UN interventions through UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women,  UNESCO, MDGs and other agencies. These holistic interventions have great impacts on the different human demographics and institutions of state. However, the impact of the interventions depends so much on the human factor buried in the leadership and the people.

    The leaders in the various tiers of government have their constitutional roles in governance and articulation of policies and their near-perfect executions determine which countries develop and which ones would temporarily or permanently bear the ‘developing’ or third world tags. The UN agency interventions cover all strata of society from conception, childhood, school age, adolescents, youth, men and women and even immigrants and refugees. The role of the leaderships and government institutions in the success or failure of UN interventions often depends on the vision and mission of the various leaders in the society.

    The Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) recently attended a UNDP Executive Leadership three-day retreat in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Of the 36 governors in Nigeria, 15 and three deputy governors attended.  According to the UNDP, the purpose was to avail  them the opportunity to, “re-imagine Nigeria’s leadership to achieve transformation and nationwide sustainable development”.

    The governor of Anambra state, Prof. Charles Soludo in a TV interview after the retreat was asked how much his government spent on the trip given the paucity of funds affecting the country. He claimed that he only travelled with one aide and that he just walked into the aircraft and went to Rwanda and came back. He did not overtly say that the trip was an all-expenses paid trip by UNDP but he went ahead to say that the only possibility of any money spent by some of the attendees might have been at the Rwandan Genocide Memorial where the management urged any of their visitors that wanted to drop any token as they depend on the goodwill of visitors to run the memorial building to run the project.

    From investigations, the choice of Rwanda was deliberate. The country has become an investment and tourism hub in Africa. It has started attracting the attention of a world that appreciates order and progress. The second reason even if laughable was the fact that the country is far from home and would enable the governors to be focused and face the process with possibly zero distractions. Really?

     It would offer them a sample of how far Rwanda seems to have come since the 1994 genocide that claimed the lives of close to a million Rwandans from a senseless war sparked off  by the instigated tribal bigotry that possibly had its origin from the colonial era. The physiological ‘differences’ between the Hutus and the Tutsis were allegedly highlighted by the colonialists in their divide-and-rule game and taken up by subsequent political elite.

    The Roundtable Conversation finds the retreat and the venue very apt. Even if the governments of each state picked the bill, it is still worth every dime. Nigerian leaders need to be in Rwanda. It is a joy of every African to notice how the world has been gravitating towards Rwanda simply because the leadership has worked for the people using the best development input in the world – the people of Rwanda. There was a deliberate effort by the President Paul Kagame-led leadership to reposition the country using the best of its citizens.

    He banished the tribal bigotry that led to the devastating war in the first place. He made the citizens realize that no one or country can make Rwanda functional except the citizens. He closed down many churches that had hitherto distracted the people with false narratives. He mandated everyone who desired to open a church to go get a theology degree and apply for license. That was a masterstroke in a continent where  some shady individuals have been validating the words of the iconic Karl Marx that, “Religion is the Opium of the Masses”. Africa has more religious houses than industries and the people are some of the poorest and least developed of all continents.

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    In Nigeria, politicians are notorious for profiting from the exaggerated religiosity of the people.  Most of the governors at the retreat and those that  were absent use religion as a divisive tool. It is good they went to see Rwanda after President Paul Kagame tried to streamline issues about religion. Most of those governors during the electioneering campaigns tried to influence the choice of the people with even intra-religious sects/enominations and it did not matter if they are Christians or Muslims. In states where the population is almost 99% Christians, politicians often exploit denominations and set the people against each other.

    The Nigerian governors are part of the political class that exploits tribal differences to set the people against each other.  The last elections in Nigeria had most of the violence instigated by tribal bigotry on all sides but it was quite bloody in some states and lives were even lost. This form of bigotry has set the country on edge and even after the elections, the wounds are yet to heal. The citizens seem to be remarkably polarized along ethnic/religious lines due to political intrigues and horse-trading. The Rwandan Genocide Memorial should be imprinted in the psyche of those governors that attended.

    The Nigerian political class revels in exclusion at all levels, women, youth, rural communities etc. do not often get full representation.

    Rwanda has the highest number of women parliamentarians in the world at more than 61%. Understandable as the circumstances are, Nigerian political space in contrast has one of the world’s least gender/youth  inclusion. There is no female governor in Nigeria. Even though women like late Margaret Ekpo, Gambo Sawaba and Funmilayo Ransom Kuti and other remarkable women are known for their roles in the fight for the country’s independence, there is only reference to Nigeria’s ‘Founding Fathers’.

    The gender exclusion in Nigerian political space has dire consequences on the development of the country. Most governors have fewer than three women in their cabinet. Some states have no women in the Houses of Assembly, the legislative houses that make laws that affect women and others.  The country has 133million people living in multi-dimensional poverty and 4million was added in the first quarter of 2023. More than half of the poor and disposed are women.

    The governors might attempt some puerile defense of the gender inequity as not being wholly their fault but we also know that they all belong to different political parties and in Nigeria, governors through their Governors’ Forum, regional governors’ forum and other self-preservation associations wield tremendous influences in their political parties so they all have the capacity to change the narrative but might never due to selfish interests. It is good they saw the difference women in leadership can bring to a country.

    The governors met President Paul Kagame, they interacted with him and the hope is that they might have been humbled by his stellar achievements in leadership. Say what anyone will, he might not be perfect being human but he is today the global leadership icon coming from Africa. The Rwandan economy speaks to a global investment/tourism  community. He is not one to bend to neo-imperialism that most African leaders at all levels have seen to be suffering from.

    The sense of leadership of the president is as productive as it is admirable. For a country with fewer natural resources than some states in Nigeria, it is amazing how much he has invested and developed human capital.  While most educated and talented young people are leaving Nigeria in their millions for greener pastures even in some other African countries in the now infamous ‘jakpa’ syndrome, graduates and skilled Rwandan youths eagerly return to Rwanda after their education from anywhere in the world.

    Did the governors find out why the young people are so eager to work for their country? The leadership of Rwanda understands the value of human capital to development. Nigeria has more than 20million out-of-school children, in a global environment where ideas and technology uplift countries, how many of the governors understand the value of education? How many are investing in the children of their states through basic education programmes?

    Rwandan Air is helping Rwanda tell the world of the viable economy through aviation. Did the Akwa Ibom state governor attend to tap from this idea so as to grow Ibom Air that seems to be doing well locally? Aviation is a global business and given the place of Akwa Ibom in the Nigerian oil sector, investing in aviation by learning from Rwanda won’t be a bad idea.

    Nigerian political class love summits, conference, talk-shops and retreats. The problem is that the time and money invested in such verbal jamborees often have nothing to show in practical terms. It seems that many people in the Nigerian political sphere care less about patriotism and leadership excellence rooted in well-thought out policies that are achievable through better planning.  The Roundtable Conversation is waiting to document the achievements of the governors realizing that UNDP and the world are watching.

    ●The dialogue continues…

  • Unity Schools for the rich

    Unity Schools for the rich

    All across the federation, the motto Pro Unitate rings all over the Nigerian Federation, for years it has served as one of the nation’s  experiments in the attempt to foster unity among Nigerians following the end of the Nigerian/Biafran War.  These Federal Government Colleges have  been the melting points for all Nigerians of various ethnicities as well as from all walks of life, giving their children and wards not only a qualitative form of education  enabling most of its students to not only fully develop  as well as harness social, emotional, cognitive, and communication skills

    but also acquire a viable form of experience of the Nigerian way of life and it’s rich diversity.

    Though the colleges have long clambered down from their Olympian heights owing to the decay in the infrastructure within such schools as well as the slip in the quality of teaching there, the Federal Unity Colleges have not drifted much like their state and missionary counterparts.

    These federal  government colleges have served as educational models for educating the Nigerian child with its students going on to excel in all spheres of life.  Most parents and guardians wanted their children and wards in them as its studentship was almost a guarantee for top notch education for such children.

    Sadly today,  the government of the day seems intent on removing from millions of Nigerians the opportunity to provide such quality education to their children as without any prior notification jerked up the fees of such schools from N45,000 to a N100,000, a whooping 122 percent increase.

    The increase which was somewhat gleefully announced via a memo from the Federal Ministry of Education directed all Principals of Federal Unity College on the new school fees.

    Such an increase bears the idea that it will cater for the already known aspects of the Unity Colleges, including tuition and boarding fees, uniforms, textbooks, deposits, exercise books, prospectus, caution fees, ID cards, etc.

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    Now, while it is unambiguous that with the recent removal of subsidy as well as the floating of the Naira, the prices of most goods and services ( Including educational services) will rise for the time being, I still cannot fathom why the ministry of education will have to jerk up the fees by such an alarming percentage.

    What then becomes the fate of so many bright   Students who’s parents cannot afford such a steep rise in the fees presently demanded . It means that a parent will cough out per session the sum of N 300,000 for a ward, an amount higher than what a number of Federal and State universities are charging now! Imagine the situation of a parent with four children in these colleges? This is outrageous and should be immediately suspended. Why on earth should a secondary school like the Federal Government Colleges  charge higher than a federal or state university student who has the option of seeking a student loan? Or is a case of “to your tents and with your fledglings oh Mama Etembom, Iyobosa, Sikiratu, Anayo and Bashir” children of the lumpen proletariat!

    Are Federal Unity Colleges now for the rich? After all, one man once told Nigerians that the poor man had no business owning a telephone in Nigeria, perhaps maybe the government mandarins, silly persons behind such a policy have adopted Senator David Mark as a sterling model!

    As a one time student of a Federal Unity College, I am aware that the federal government pays annual subventions to these colleges. What will then happen to such? Is the Federal Government going to shirk away from its responsibilities and allow such be borne by the rich and a very few poor people. Come to think of it, at a time when the Federal Government now has immense funds from the removal of subsidy, should the government not now fulfill its promise of channeling such funds back to a number of sectors including education and the funding of these colleges?

    Pray, was this the  brain wave behind the  now popular phrase of President Bola Tinubu’s “ Let the poor breathe”? No, such dissonance would be unpresidential and portray the Tinubu presidency in bad light:

    Thankfully, the policy did not originate with the Tinubu administration, though many would readily point out that the removal of subsidy too didn’t originally have his imprimatur. This leaves Tinubu and his new set of ministers for education the wriggle room to review this policy for the sake of these children and their parents.

    It was Horace Mann who once stated that “ Education, then, beyond all other divides of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of man-the balance wheel of the social machinery. For me, the Federal Government Colleges serves as one of such balance wheels.

    Was it not the same President Tinubu who announced to Nigerians that education was Nigeria’s foremost tool against poverty? How then can we achieve such when we discourage such children from such opportunities with such an ungodly increment?

    God help us…

  • NADECO, where are you? (1)

    NADECO, where are you? (1)

    Last week, I had the honour of visiting Dr. Amos Akingba, a chieftain of Afenifere and National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), in his Ode-Irele, Ondo State country home. Akingba, who turned 85 last March, relocated to his hometown about two years ago.

    Since home is for rest, the elder statesman is back home to savour the serenity of his ancestral birthplace, but this time, the octogenarian is retiring to a community that has been without electricity since 2014. Ode-Irele is headquarters to one of the four Local Governments – Irele, Okitipupa, Ilaje and Ese-Odo – that have been subjected to ‘uninterrupted darkness’ for close to two decades. Yet, these communities turn out massively to vote at every election cycle! So, where are the Jimoh Ibrahims, the Agboola Ajayis and the Yele Omogunwas of Ikaleland and what have they been telling their friends out there? Anyway, this is a topic for another day; and it won’t be long!

    Back to the meat of the matter, Akingba was among the few Nigerians who risked their lives for the survival of dear fatherland during the sad phase of Nigeria’s political advancement. Adekunle Ajasin, Anthony Enahoro, Alfred Rewane, Adeyinka Adebayo, Bola Ige, Alani Akinriande, Ebitu Ukiwe, Cornelius Adebayo, Lawal Dambazzau, Bolaji Akinyemi, Kayode Fayemi, Labaran Maku and Wale Oshun! Abraham Adesanya, Reuben Fasoranti, Ayo Adebanjo, Olu Falae, Ndubuisi Kanu, Segun Osoba, Dan Suleiman, Ralph Obioha, Bola Tinubu, Yohanna Madaki, Dele Momodu, Jonah Jang, Lloyd Ukwu, Akingba and many others! While some of the NADECO and other members of the pro-June 12 forces were driven into exile, others managed to remain in Nigeria to give the Sani Abacha-led junta a run for its money. It was a risky and deadly struggle but it eventually paid off. On June 8, 1998, Abacha died at Aso Rock Villa and, on May 29, 1999, democracy found its way back to Nigeria.

    The 4th Republic is now 24 years old; and a time like this calls for a good review, especially, by one of the men in the eye of the storm.

    On NADECO, Akingba said that the Coalition is either dead or asleep. According to him, “most of the people who were there before are no longer there – by words, deeds and actions. We were very close; maybe, still close, to be able to know one another. We knew those who were hungry and came to NADECO only to eat. We knew those who joined because of their love for dear fatherland. As it was in the church, so it was in NADECO: it comprised all kinds of characters. There were experiences of betrayal. There were members who were operating under the influence of Abacha. There was even a time Abacha sent assassins after us and we escaped only by the whiskers. In the end, the truth prevailed. When those of us who were driven into exile came back to Nigeria, there was no continuation. Evidently, many of our leaders had different motives.”

    Hear Akingba on President Tinubu: “For me, Tinubu is better than most of the contestants. But he is just one individual, whereas leading Nigeria is a collective effort. Before he takes a decision, he has those he consults. He must have even researched it, because he doesn’t own Nigeria. It therefore depends on who our president is listening to and who is at the helm of his affairs because he cannot take a decision by himself. Tinubu can listen to history, that is, historical events a la where he is coming from. He can also listen to current affairs and his appointees, not only his ministers but also security operatives. However, our problem as a country is structural. Nigeria cannot be run successfully as a unitary country. We have run it and we have failed woefully. Former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and others have been there but it’s not their fault that they weren’t successful. It’s because Nigeria has been running a unitary constitution.”

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    He continued: “Nigeria has gone backward. Of course, when a country is going backward, all its citizens will partake of whatever becomes its lot. We no longer have a functional Police Force. The current system whereby all the state commands report to the Inspector General of Police cannot work. There will be corruption; and there’s corruption. Our institutions are not working. Our education system has failed. These days, a graduate cannot write correct letters. School certificate holders, who used to be the backbone of the civil workforce in the past, are even worse. In our very eyes, religion is now big business. Industries are gone. The roads that were constructed when Local Governments were worth their mission can no longer be maintained, even with more money and more people. Obviously, the Western world cannot be exonerated from Nigeria’s challenges. That’s why the president must be careful to do the right thing or not to do the right thing.”

    As a way out of the country’s predicament, Akingba canvassed a return to the 1963 constitution. He warned against racial injustice and domination if Nigeria is not to self-destruct. In his words, “the same gun that is used for gaming can also be used to kill a human being. So, the world must go towards self-management, that is, democracy. Our leaders, once they get into office, the office gets into their heads, thereby forgetting where they are coming from. We have seen friends who assumed office and became elusive. Now that they have left power, it’s difficult for them to access the base ladder which they once despised.”

    Akingba told a story of how, not once, not twice, he went to his polling unit at Opebi in Lagos to vote only to be told that somebody had already voted on his behalf; and the man in the former university lecturer and pro-democracy activist became ideologically detached.

    That’s the vintage Amos Arogundade Akindasa Akingba, aka ‘Triple A’.

    From Akingba’s account, there’s actually a puritanical angle to NADECO: the fact that we have a democracy still does not mean that we have a democracy; and Tinubu as a democrat should know that! So, we can begin to investigate the democracy that we have that allows for certain things and disallows others. Presently, what’s Nigeria as a nation state struggling with, democratically? Well, we may begin by interrogating the workings of the intergovernmental institutions, that is, the flow of the relationship between the arms of government on the one hand and states and the intergovernmental agencies on the other. Fortunately, from Akingba’s account, individuals who served as pillars behind the movement had other personal motives and, given the outcome of the objective platform, everyone cherry-picked the benefits as per the personal desires. Essentially therefore, the political gladiators describe the end as justifying the means. But then, in whose objective interest is the end justifying the means?

    NADECO was founded to call attention to Nigeria’s socio-political problems: pervasion of justice and imposition of injustice. But, considering the situation of things in Nigeria, have those issues been ultimately dealt with by society and can we say that the goodness of May 15, 1994 has rested, or been rested, for good and that there’s no need for it again? Once upon a time in Nigeria, NADECO was the new bride. As it is today, are we done with it and is its mission completed for good? Interestingly, apart from Tinubu’s huge investment in the struggle, he and others were running around the globe to see that the institutionalization of democracy and Federal structure in Nigeria became a reality. So, 24 years after, is ours a position of ‘uhuru’ or that of patching up?

    To be continued.

  • Limitless blackmail

    (Although this piece was first published on Saturday, August 11, 2023, before the PEPT’s judgement of September 6, its contents are still continuing to be relevant as the social media and sections of the traditional media as well as some intellectually fraudulent political actors are unrelenting in their sustained efforts to discredit the judiciary as an institution and taint the credibility of the presidential election. These ultimately futile efforts are obviously likely to continue as the Supreme Court prepares to consider appeals against the judgement of the PEPT)

    The allegations are not only scandalously outlandish and far-fetched, but they have been made by an identifiable individual, one Jackson Ude, on social media and without the slightest scintilla of evidence to back up the outrageous assaults on the reputation, integrity and character of two eminent members of the public. Ude, on his Twitter handle, had alleged, firstly, that Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), a former governor of Lagos State and immediate past Minister of Works and Housing, and some lawyers working for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), were currently drafting a judgement favourable to President Bola Tinubu to be handed over to the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) for delivery. The accuser provides no sources. He offers no details. All we have from him is a brazen allegation made with reckless impunity which he calculates gullible members of the public will swallow hook, line and sinker. And a cursory perusal of his Twitter handle indicates that a not-inconsiderable number of persons have fallen for his bait.

    Not content with his odious attempt at tainting Mr Fashola’s character, Jackson Ude posted another tweet in which he made manifestly defamatory allegations against a retired jurist of the Supreme Court, Justice (Mrs) Mary Peter-Odili, claiming that she was also involved in trying to influence the PEPT to give judgement in favour of Tinubu. He claimed that Justice Odili is “currently negotiating a pathway for Bola Tinubu” and that “she meets regularly with Appeal and Supreme courts” for that purpose. Again, all we have here is Jackson’s claim with no attempt at a logical and empirical corroboration of his story. We will recall that during the protracted election petition case between Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola over the governorship of Osun State, for instance, allegations of bias against some members of the tribunal were backed by extracts of telephone conversations which led to at least two of the judges being retired from the judiciary prematurely. In Jackson’s case, all we have are allegations with no attempt at credible corroboration.

    Of course, both Mr Fashola and Justice (Mrs) Odili have understandably not taken the allegations lightly. They have issued strongly worded rebuttals and petitioned the Nigeria Police and other security agencies to investigate the allegations with a view to ascertaining the truth. These latest wild allegations are obviously part of an elaborate and coordinated effort to intimidate, harass and blackmail the judiciary as regards the handling of the petitions of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr Peter Obi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), respectively, against President Tinubu’s election. It will be recalled that even before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) began sitting, there had been fake news on social media that the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kayode Ariwoola, had secretly met with then President-elect, Bola Tinubu, in London. It turned out to be patently and scandalously false.

    A few weeks ago, another fake news was peddled to the effect that the CJN had engaged in telephone conversations both with President Tinubu and some of the judges handling the presidential election petitions with a view to influencing the judgement. Again, the Supreme Court unequivocally denied the report and those who made the allegation were not forthcoming with validating evidence. Obviously they had none. And about two weeks ago, a member of the five-man PEPT was reported to have unprecedentedly resigned in protest against alleged attempts to influence judgement in favour of President Tinubu. This turned out to be another reckless fake news.

    The PEPT has since adjourned and reserved its judgement for a date to be duly communicated to parties in the various petitions. It is not unlikely that attempts to blackmail the judiciary and destroy the integrity of judges hearing the petitions will intensify in the days ahead, especially from petitioners who are aware they did not present a compelling, cast-iron case before the tribunal. To be fair to Alhaji Atiku and his counsel, they have presented their case before the tribunal and refrained from undue sensationalism even though the PDP came second in the election. It is rather Mr Peter Obi and his ‘Obidient’ mob who have strenuously tried to blackmail and intimidate the judiciary threatening mayhem if judgement does not go their way and this despite the LP coming a distant third in the election.

    We will recall Peter Obi’s vice-presidential candidate, Mr Yusuf Baba-Ahmed, breathing fire on national television and warning of dire consequences if judgement does not go his party’s way. In a similar vein, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC), Mr Joe Ajaero, had warned ominously that the Congress would shame judges who did not deliver Justice in the election petitions. Apart from the NLC understandably giving institutional support to the LP, Mr Ajaero, an Igbo, on a personal level is a fanatical Peter Obi supporter largely for ethnic reasons. He seems to have retraced his steps from threatening the judges, possibly realizing that he is in no position to determine whether a given judgement is just or not.

    It is ironical that the 2023 presidential election, easily the freest, fairest and most credible since the commencement of this dispensation in 1999, has also been the object of the most intense, limitless blackmail in Nigeria’s electoral history particularly from Mr Obi and his ‘Obidient’ social media army. Attempts to manipulate public opinion as regards the elections began long before the actual polls with mostly dubious opinion polls of scant scientific validity projecting a landslide Peter Obi victory.

    When the reality of the election’s outcome did not tally with the predictions of the fictional pre-election opinion polls, Peter Obi and the ‘Obidients’ cried foul and persisted in branding the election as the worst ever in Nigeria. Atiku and the PDP have also challenged the credibility of the elections even though the logic of the outcome is so evidently clear. The PDP broke into three factions and faced the ruling and largely cohesive APC as a fragmented party even though the latter was electorally vulnerable given the policy failures and self-defeating politics of the former President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    Peter Obi quit the PDP to join the LP and swept the votes in his ethnic Igbo land as well as substantial parts of the South-South which used to be traditional PDP strongholds. Similarly, Mr Rabiu Kwankwaso jettisoned the PDP to form the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and took away substantial votes from the PDP in Kano State. Even within the remaining rump of the PDP, five governors, the G5, did not campaign for Atiku and the latter did not win any of these states. What then could have been Atiku’s pathway to victory?

    The case of Peter Obi is not substantially different. He won massively in the five states of the Igbo South-East scoring over 95% of the votes in the region. He also won significant votes in the South-South as well as states in the North-Central like Plateau and Nasarawa with substantial Christian votes. He also won in Lagos and Abuja where you have large clusters of Igbo votes. However, Obi’s campaign which deliberately focused on Igbo and Christian votes also alienated him from large numbers of Muslim votes and he did not secure the majority of the votes in any of the Northern zones – North-West, North-East or North-Central. Obi simply had no pathway to victory. The requirements for victory in a presidential election have been so designed constitutionally that the winning candidate must secure victory in at least three of the six zones of the country. Neither Atiku nor Obi met this requirement.

    Ironically, the losing candidates accepted the validity, credibility and integrity of the elections in places where they won but queried the conduct of the exercise in areas where they lost. This was an election in which the sitting President, Buhari, lost his home state, Katsina, to Atiku who also won in other key northern states including Kaduna, Bauchi, Sokoto, Yobe, Kebbi, etc. Atiku also won Osun in the South-West. Not only did Obi win stupendously in the South-East, he also achieved victory in Tinubu’s stronghold, Lagos, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Edo, Delta, Akwa-Ibom and Cross River in the South-South as well as Plateau and Nasarawa in the North-Central. It was an election in which no less than six sitting governors lost their bid to be elected Senators. Furthermore, the presidential and National Assembly elections were held simultaneously and the APC replicated its victory in the presidential election at the legislative polls winning a majority of seats in both the Senate and House of Representatives although the opposition parties combined have a larger number of legislators in the latter – another pointer to the credibility of the election.

    The 2023 elections reflect the presidential election of 1979 in a number of ways. The NPN won in 1979 because it had the widest support base across the country just as the APC was triumphant in the February 25 presidential election because it secured the widest spread winning in the South-West, North-Central and North-West. In 1979, Chief Obafemi Awolowo swept the South-West states of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and Ondo states while also winning in the then Bendel state and performing well in Kwara and Gongola states. Just as Peter Obi scored over 95% of Igbo votes this year, Awolowo secured the overwhelming majority of Yoruba votes in 1979. But just as Igbo and Christian votes were insufficient to guarantee victory for Obi this year, Yoruba votes could not propel Awolowo to the presidency in 1979.

    Interestingly, just as most Nigerians of South-East extraction believe that Peter Obi won the 2023 presidential election but was rigged out, most Yorubas in 1979 believed that the presidential election was rigged against Awolowo. But the truth of the matter is that Awolowo lost the 1979 presidential election free and square just as Obi clearly came third in this year’s election. Just like the Igbo are doing now, the Yoruba lived in denial after the 1979 elections with the late Dr Tai Solarin running a series of articles in the Nigerian Tribune at the time titled ‘The Stolen Presidency’. In reality, no presidency was stolen. Shagari won an unequivocal victory.

    I remember watching an NTA Ibadan panel discussion programme featuring five lecturers from the University of Ibadan, all Yoruba, on the eve of the 1979 presidential election. Asked to predict who they thought would win the presidential election, they all predicted an NPN victory. They were only being realistic and their predictions were validated. Awolowo inexplicably picked his running mate, Mr Philip Umeadi, a Christian from the South-East and yet expected to win a national election with substantial votes from the vast Muslim North. Peter Obi not only picked a politically inconsequential Yusuf Datti-Ahmed from the North as his running mate in this year’s election, he made church tourism the central feature of his campaign and expected to reap substantial Muslim votes even as he condoned incendiary rhetoric of many Christian clerics against Muslims in overreactions to the APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket.

    Just as is happening now with the petitions of Atiku and Obi soon to be adjudicated by the PEPT, the judiciary was the final arbiter in determining the final outcome of the 1979 presidential election. The court controversially gave Shagari victory on the ground that twelve two-thirds and not 13 constituted 25% of each of at least two-thirds of the then 19 states of Nigeria, which the victor was required to win to become President and the heavens did not fall. In 1979, there were no dark threats against the judiciary; no attempts to blackmail or intimidate the institution.

    At the commencement of the sitting of the PEPT, counsel to Atiku and Obi had sought the consent of the tribunal for live transmission of proceedings, a request that the panel rightly turned down. This was in itself a subtle questioning of the integrity of the judges. The insinuation was that they could not be trusted to ensure Justice unless the proceedings were in full view of the public notwithstanding that large numbers of the viewing public would most likely be unable to appreciate the technical details involved in the cases. Surely, court proceedings cannot be turned into the equivalent of premier league football matches with victory awarded to the side with the loudest cheering spectators. The ongoing limitless blackmail of the judiciary and the attempt to psychologically coerce the PEPT judges to give judgement in a predetermined direction is unprecedented in Nigeria’s history. This is why Jackson Ude’s feckless allegations must be thoroughly investigated and treated with utmost seriousness. More importantly, he should have his day in court to prove his allegations.

  • NFF’s waste of cash (1)

    NFF’s waste of cash (1)

    Today September 9, 2023, is my 63rd birthday and I thought of reminiscing on the past six decades or more. I also thought of celebrating my big uncle (he will crucify me if I mention his name here) and I also thought about writing a few words about my late mother Dame Abigail Isevbua Ojeikere who shared my birthday with me. My mother would have been 89 years old today. But I’m a very quiet person and I have chosen to write today’s column normally by discussing the barefaced waste of cash by chieftains of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

    Why NFF chieftains have religiously stuck to this wasteful venture under the guise of building a very strong Super Eagles falls flat on its face when we either perform woefully at the senior World Cup or miss attending the Mundial as we did in 2022 in Qatar. Each succeeding NFF board always drink from this poisoned chalice. Happily, a new sports minister has assumed office and one hopes he can read this article to see how the NFF members walk into trouble with their eyes wide open.

    For the NFF members, it translates to an act of witchcraft if you dare ask after the wages of any Super Eagles chief coach. When coaching positions become open, those likely for the jobs are with contractual details in the public domain after accepting the job unlike Nigeria’s where monetary details are never disclosed. We only get to know some semblance of how much the coach earns when such a  foreign manager is being owed annual wages running into one year. The secrecy surrounding how such foreigners are recruited leaves room for a lot of suspicion with many instances suggesting a one-man show in the recruiting process.

    In other climes, the recruitment of coaches is done by such a country’s Football Association’s Technical Committee by a process or such a new manager would be headhunted. A ready case in point is England where the incumbent manager Gareth Southgate is slated to quit the job next year. The English soccer chiefs are not leaving the process of replacing  Gareth Southgate to chance or any form of lottery. Rather the English press is awash with stories of the thinking of the FA men on likely replacement for Gareth Southgate.

    According to one of the English tabloids Daily Mail Tuesday: ”FA chiefs are conscious of the uncertainty and taking seriously the possibility that Southgate will saunter into the sunset after next summer’s European Championship in Germany.

    ”There were similar vibes before last year’s World Cup when Eddie Howe, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino were all considered in the event of Southgate standing down. The dream appointment of some at the FA is Pep Guardiola — an option officials are open to exploring.”

    Pray, this is a football body that has thinking members. They have situated the recruitment process to Englishmen who handle clubs in England, the successful ones and those foreigners whose methods suit what they desire for the Three Lions. It isn’t rocket science.

    Honourable Sports Minister, please urge the NFF to tell Nigerians how much Coach Jose Peseiro now that he has accepted a pay cut from $70,000 monthly. It would make no sense for Peseiro’s new wages to be $50,000 which is what he got when he first assumed duties as the Head Coach for the Super Eagles. Indeed, it is a rape on our commonwealth for any group of people to pay Peseiro $50,000 monthly. Honourable minister, NFF needs to tell Nigerians the tenure of this new deal which shouldn’t be too far away from the end of the 2024  Africa Cup of Nations slated to hold Cote d’Ivoire. The shocking revelation that Peseiro $45,000 per month shows that federations aren’t sensitive to the near global recession.

    To pay Peseiro $45,000 is unacceptable for a man who barely spends close to six unbroken weeks in Nigeria. The coach resides in Europe and monitors our players in the foreign legion by watching television which can easily be done by our domestic coaches. Peseiro’s repeated choice of between 23 to 28 foreign-based players is his uncanny way of de-marketing the domestic leagues and their players. Why is there a professional league in this country if its products aren’t good enough to play for Nigeria against a country which our big boys beat by 10 -0? Whispers seem to authenticate the fact that Peseiro’s revised monthly wage is $45,000 from the earlier $70,000.  Ridiculous figures are being bandied without telling how the man’s wages would be paid, although the easiest option would be to use FIFA’s grants. Are the grants meant to pay our coaches or to settle institutional debts? Is this what other countries do with FIFA’s money?

    Honourable sports minister sir, don’t be deceived by NFF’s cheap talk that they have reduced the number of support staff Peseiro can have. Did NFF in justifying why Peseiro should be paid $50,000 initially and $70,000 not say that the Portuguese would be paying his Portuguese assistants from this bogus wage? How does that translate to saving cost after the manager’s wage was reduced except they are being economical with the truth? Indeed, if Peseiro can’t work with his Nigerian assistants, then he should be asked to go.

    One would have thought that NFF’s penchant for recruiting foreign coaches when there is the need for rebuilding the team after any woeful outing is one of the parameters for preparing a Nigerian to take over from such foreigners. If NFF men are serious, Peseiro’s contract shouldn’t be renewed irrespective of what the team achieves at the next Africa Cup of Nations slated to be held in Cote d’Ivoire. If we don’t give our qualified domestic coaches the opportunity to learn on the job whilst prosecuting matches, they would never grow nor would they acquire the desired experience we always aim for in foreign coaches.

    If Peseiro was world-class, Portugal wouldn’t have gone for a foreigner as manager. Peseiro would have been their only choice. NFF showed their lack of vision by giving Peseiro a semi-final target at the Africa Cup of Nations in spite of our armada of stars painting Europe with goals and showcasing breath-taking soccer skills to the admiration of football fans across the globe.

    Honourable minister sir, don’t be carried away by the number of goals the Super Eagles would score against Sao Tome on Sunday, having trounced the visitors 10-0 in the first leg. Instead, sit with the players to tabulate how much they are being owed and for which matches or international competitions. It would be preposterous if the players are being owed any amount for an international friendly match going by its tradition. International friendly matches are either at the behest of the organisers or at the instance of host the nations. There are ways in which monetary rewards are paid to the players as appearance fees. Hotel accommodation fees, feeding, transportation and other logistics are handled by the organisers, most times done by experts in the field.

    Honourable minister, if the NFF owes the Super Eagles, the fault is theirs because the cost of assembling between 23 and 29 players for a game is too heavy and unnecessary since payments are done in hard currency. Only 16 players can participate in a game, so why invite 23 or 29? To do what? The disturbing aspect of this invitational style for players, is that the coaches always insist on having all foreign players. A prudent soccer federation worthy of its onions would insist on having at least nine home-based players.

    What it means is that the cost of ticketing for foreign players would be reduced by half. Equally reduced would be the overhead cost of prosecuting games with 29 players. There is a need to find out how much the state governments which host the Super Eagles contribute. Do they pay for the players’ winning bonuses? Those large sums given to the team’s captain for the players are for what? You tell me.

    Read Also: West Ham fan travels to Ghana to watch Mohammed Kudus

    Today September 9, 2023, is my 63rd birthday and I thought of reminiscing on the past six decades or more. I also thought of celebrating my big uncle (he will crucify me if I mention his name here) and I also thought about writing a few words about my late mother Dame Abigail Isevbua Ojeikere who shared my birthday with me. My mother would have been 89 years old today. But I’m a very quiet person and I have chosen to write today’s column normally by discussing the barefaced waste of cash by chieftains of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

    Why NFF chieftains have religiously stuck to this wasteful venture under the guise of building a very strong Super Eagles falls flat on its face when we either perform woefully at the senior World Cup or miss attending the Mundial as we did in 2022 in Qatar. Each succeeding NFF board always drink from this poisoned chalice. Happily, a new sports minister has assumed office and one hopes he can read this article to see how the NFF members walk into trouble with their eyes wide open.

    For the NFF members, it translates to an act of witchcraft if you dare ask after the wages of any Super Eagles chief coach. When coaching positions become open, those likely for the jobs are with contractual details in the public domain after accepting the job unlike Nigeria’s where monetary details are never disclosed. We only get to know some semblance of how much the coach earns when such a  foreign manager is being owed annual wages running into one year. The secrecy surrounding how such foreigners are recruited leaves room for a lot of suspicion with many instances suggesting a one-man show in the recruiting process.

    In other climes, the recruitment of coaches is done by such a country’s Football Association’s Technical Committee by a process or such a new manager would be headhunted. A ready case in point is England where the incumbent manager Gareth Southgate is slated to quit the job next year. The English soccer chiefs are not leaving the process of replacing  Gareth Southgate to chance or any form of lottery. Rather the English press is awash with stories of the thinking of the FA men on likely replacement for Gareth Southgate.

    According to one of the English tabloids Daily Mail Tuesday: ”FA chiefs are conscious of the uncertainty and taking seriously the possibility that Southgate will saunter into the sunset after next summer’s European Championship in Germany.

    ”There were similar vibes before last year’s World Cup when Eddie Howe, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino were all considered in the event of Southgate standing down. The dream appointment of some at the FA is Pep Guardiola — an option officials are open to exploring.”

    Pray, this is a football body that has thinking members. They have situated the recruitment process to Englishmen who handle clubs in England, the successful ones and those foreigners whose methods suit what they desire for the Three Lions. It isn’t rocket science.

    Honourable Sports Minister, please urge the NFF to tell Nigerians how much Coach Jose Peseiro now that he has accepted a pay cut from $70,000 monthly. It would make no sense for Peseiro’s new wages to be $50,000 which is what he got when he first assumed duties as the Head Coach for the Super Eagles. Indeed, it is a rape on our commonwealth for any group of people to pay Peseiro $50,000 monthly. Honourable minister, NFF needs to tell Nigerians the tenure of this new deal which shouldn’t be too far away from the end of the 2024  Africa Cup of Nations slated to hold Cote d’Ivoire. The shocking revelation that Peseiro $45,000 per month shows that federations aren’t sensitive to the near global recession.

    To pay Peseiro $45,000 is unacceptable for a man who barely spends close to six unbroken weeks in Nigeria. The coach resides in Europe and monitors our players in the foreign legion by watching television which can easily be done by our domestic coaches. Peseiro’s repeated choice of between 23 to 28 foreign-based players is his uncanny way of de-marketing the domestic leagues and their players. Why is there a professional league in this country if its products aren’t good enough to play for Nigeria against a country which our big boys beat by 10 -0? Whispers seem to authenticate the fact that Peseiro’s revised monthly wage is $45,000 from the earlier $70,000.  Ridiculous figures are being bandied without telling how the man’s wages would be paid, although the easiest option would be to use FIFA’s grants. Are the grants meant to pay our coaches or to settle institutional debts? Is this what other countries do with FIFA’s money?

    Honourable sports minister sir, don’t be deceived by NFF’s cheap talk that they have reduced the number of support staff Peseiro can have. Did NFF in justifying why Peseiro should be paid $50,000 initially and $70,000 not say that the Portuguese would be paying his Portuguese assistants from this bogus wage? How does that translate to saving cost after the manager’s wage was reduced except they are being economical with the truth? Indeed, if Peseiro can’t work with his Nigerian assistants, then he should be asked to go.

    One would have thought that NFF’s penchant for recruiting foreign coaches when there is the need for rebuilding the team after any woeful outing is one of the parameters for preparing a Nigerian to take over from such foreigners. If NFF men are serious, Peseiro’s contract shouldn’t be renewed irrespective of what the team achieves at the next Africa Cup of Nations slated to be held in Cote d’Ivoire. If we don’t give our qualified domestic coaches the opportunity to learn on the job whilst prosecuting matches, they would never grow nor would they acquire the desired experience we always aim for in foreign coaches.

    If Peseiro was world-class, Portugal wouldn’t have gone for a foreigner as manager. Peseiro would have been their only choice. NFF showed their lack of vision by giving Peseiro a semi-final target at the Africa Cup of Nations in spite of our armada of stars painting Europe with goals and showcasing breath-taking soccer skills to the admiration of football fans across the globe.

    Honourable minister sir, don’t be carried away by the number of goals the Super Eagles would score against Sao Tome on Sunday, having trounced the visitors 10-0 in the first leg. Instead, sit with the players to tabulate how much they are being owed and for which matches or international competitions. It would be preposterous if the players are being owed any amount for an international friendly match going by its tradition. International friendly matches are either at the behest of the organisers or at the instance of host the nations. There are ways in which monetary rewards are paid to the players as appearance fees. Hotel accommodation fees, feeding, transportation and other logistics are handled by the organisers, most times done by experts in the field.

    Honourable minister, if the NFF owes the Super Eagles, the fault is theirs because the cost of assembling between 23 and 29 players for a game is too heavy and unnecessary since payments are done in hard currency. Only 16 players can participate in a game, so why invite 23 or 29? To do what? The disturbing aspect of this invitational style for players, is that the coaches always insist on having all foreign players. A prudent soccer federation worthy of its onions would insist on having at least nine home-based players.

    What it means is that the cost of ticketing for foreign players would be reduced by half. Equally reduced would be the overhead cost of prosecuting games with 29 players. There is a need to find out how much the state governments which host the Super Eagles contribute. Do they pay for the players’ winning bonuses? Those large sums given to the team’s captain for the players are for what? You tell me.

  • Judiciary and electoral democracy

    Judiciary and electoral democracy

    The Judiciary is not for or against any political party that participated in the February 25 presidential election. In the final analysis, the temple of justice is for the people of Nigeria and democracy.

    That was the essential message from the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Wednesday. The verdict affirming the victory of President Bola Tinubu and his deputy, Kashim Shettma, was long, thorough, well researched, objective and instructive. A standard was set in the adjudication of a presidential dispute.

    The verdict underscores the triumph of the rule of law and natural justice, which has ultimately rekindled the people’s hope in the court as the last hope for resolving disputes. It bears eloquent testimony to the popular mandate conferred on the president by majority of Nigerians in this year’s presidential poll.

    It is also an affirmation of the legality and legitimacy of the electoral process that produced the current administration.

    Ahead of the judicial pronouncement, the judges were subjected to blackmail and intimidation. They were threatened by social media gangsters and other shadowy characters who decorated some streets in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with banners containing warnings to the jurors about the risk of not dancing to their tune.

    But the honourable men and women, who are now legends and giants of the Bench, took the path of honour. They did not just deliver a judgment; they robed the judiciary with an immaculate garment of integrity, the type of which the nation had not seen before. The jurists painstakingly elevated that arm of government to a new level and wrote their names in gold. It was evident to all that those men and women were determined to rebrand the judiciary; and they did.

    What happened at the tribunal was unprecedented. World attention was on the most populous country in Africa. The proceeding was broadcast live on television and some radio stations for the home and international audiences. There was nothing to hide, and the truth stared all and sundry in the face.

    Armchair critics domiciled in city beer parlours were jolted to life, from their delusion. Facts were separated from fiction by the five-man panel of jurists, led by Justice Tsammani. For 12 hours, the court justified its judgment, which was hard on both petitioners and respondents in varying degrees. The learned jurists threw more light on the danger of acting before thinking by lawyers to desperate candidates.

    Never in the history of a presidential litigation has any tribunal held the nation spell-bound with a rigorous rendition of judicial pronouncement. At the end, the verdict contributed to the deepening of democracy and drove home the need to avoid filing frivolous petitions.

    Novel cases of electoral claims could arise under un-imaginary situations and upon strange facts. Although the tribunal agreed with respondents on almost major issues of disputes before it, its elaborations on the reasons for upholding the counter-claims also opened the eyes of counsel, not only to the candour and objectivity of the judges, but to their depth of knowledge, experience, skill, cour age, commitment to truth and time-tested reputation as the last hope in any dispute.

    As facts were separated from fiction at the tribunal, the weight of evidence, the allusion to sound and settled legal principles, and the demonstration of knowledge and depth by the eminent jurists, as exemplified by the rigour of judgment, represented a major contribution to the growth of jurisprudence in Nigeria.

    The battle for Aso Villa had been tough. It was a long chain of fights along each step till the election was won and lost. It shifted to the tribunal out of malice and frivolity, to a large extent, as the outcome of the case has shown.

    The lessons are instructive. Those who indulge in street gossips do not know the judiciary well. It has now dawned on everyone that the arsenal of the law encompasses facts, evidences, proofs, findings, settled legal principles,  judicial precedents, the statute, rules, guidelines, legal interpretations, linguistic understanding and circumspection, logic and commonsense.

    Read Also: Stop disrespecting Ondo people, PDP tells Akeredolu

    What apparently agitated the minds of the jurists was that the critical elements unleashed on the social media were virtually absent in the claims and prayers of the petitioners. Therefore, there was a deep hollow in their claims.

    The candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, went to stage an inexplicable drama. Politically, Atiku started losing the election months to the poll when he could not put his house in order. He was preparing for the electoral battle while he was losing the war that ravaged his divided, polarised and fragile party.

    As five governors of his party were up in arms against him, he hung on to a paper-weight party chairman, with a diminished electoral value.

    If the PDP was not balkanised and its followers were not in disarray, the main opposition party might not have lost so much ground. Just maybe.

    The main element of the drama was that while Atiku, who came second at the poll, consistently maintained that Obi never won the poll, the former governor of Anambra State, who placed third, never raised any objection to Atiku. From his third position, Obi demonstrated that he only had an axe to grind with Tinubu and the APC.

    However, Obi/LP only relied on hearsay and the torrents of vituperations on the social media by his disorganised, exuberant followers who he mistook for a solid bloc behind his “structureless” platform. Having approached the tribunal based on the advice of his Ahitophelian advisers, he failed to be meticulous.

     Instructively, when Obi, then of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), reclaimed his stolen governorship victory from Dr. Chris Ngige, then of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra State, he won by tendering witnesses and proofs, including figures that could not be faulted. The interpretation is that the wisdom that permitted him to have a successful outing at the Awka tribunal deserted him at the Abuja court.

    The LP failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Tinubu lacked academic qualifications to vie for the number one position; that a criminal case was hanging on his neck in the United States; and that Shettima was a product of double nominations.

    However, it turned out that all these amounted to fabrications and concoctions by bitter opponents.

    The judgment was an eye opener. It has re-established the reality that in matters relating to nomination of candidates by a political party, candidates of other parties should just be on-lookers.

    But, if the interlopers have any cause to poke their noses into other people’s personal affairs or they think that the activities of other parties may undermine their interests – which is now a figment of hyperactive imagination – they are at liberty to approach the High Court before the commencement of the election, because this is clearly a pre-election matter.

    According to the verdict, if they fail to do so before the poll and bring their self-imposed troubles to the tribunal, it would be an exercise in futility.

    Also, while the reality of Abuja as a semblance of state was affirmed, the fallacy of superiority of the FCT voting public was condemned by the tribunal.

    In fact, it is noteworthy that the tribunal decried the insinuation that a presidential candidate should get 25 per cent of Abuja votes. Chiding those behind the falsehood for unjust manipulation of the constitution, the tribunal ruled that equality of votes from all states of the federation and FCT is the reality.

    It may be argued that the aggrieved have the inalienable right to go to law, up to the apex court, if they feel injured on poll day. But, it is not important that an attempt should be made all the time to distract symbols of legitimate mandate from governance through unnecessary law suits.

    Losers should be patriotic and courageous to concede defeat, even after a bitter contest. It is the hallmark of maturity.

    This is one perspective. But, another perspective is that judicial pronouncements after legal battles are not in vain. It categorically separates the winners from losers. Besides, it judgment become law, or judicial precedents, which increases the knowledge of the wise and enriches our understanding of the constitution.

    There is need for electoral reforms that will reduce the cost of political participation and electioneering, from the primary through the tedious and expensive campaigns to general elections. If the cost is not high, may be, losers will not have a sense of double tragedy arising simultaneously from the loss of power and political investment.

    In Africa, many people gravitate towards winners while losers are perceived as liabilities. It is a major contributor to political desperation.

    There is, indeed, a correctation between the desperation to win and the huge electoral expenses by certain politicians who lack the capacity for self-assessment and realistic appraisal of their chances.

    Congratulatory messages have poured in for Jagaban. But, as the president has put it, this is a victory for democracy.

     The verdict should further spur President Tinubu to rededicate himself to the cause of democracy and good governance.

    The judgment should also be an energiser for him and his team to sustain the tempo of national healing and unity as he continues to mobilise vital human and material resources for the implementation of his administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda, which has resonated with the populace as the key to national survival, development and progress.

  • The odds with Fayemi’s alternative politics

    The odds with Fayemi’s alternative politics

    Former Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi is one Nigerian politician after my heart. A rare breed, he is the combination of an intellectual and statesman in one mould and has repeatedly demonstrated this wherever life’s moments have placed him.

    An authority on issues, Fayemi reminds me of Plato’s description of the Philosopher Kings, men to whom Plato suggested that matters of state be handed over to, leaders who would combine the vast knowledge of the philosophical with statecraft, it is therefore alarming that even with his likes, the Nigerian State has continued to totter where it ought to be sprinting towards development.

    I however must disagree with Fayemi’s latest contribution to the national conversation. Recently , the former Director of Radio Kudirat has made calls for the proportional sharing of offices after every election based on the proportion of votes garnered by the individual parties in such an election. Stating this while delivering a key note address in a discourse celebrating the 60th birthday of Dr. Udenta Udenta, Fayemi argued that the situation where the existing structure allowed for one party to control all government structures alone despite chalking up a meager percentage of the general votes was not healthy and needed a proportional sharing of political offices by all parties based on their performance at the polls.

    Simply put, Fayemi wants to put an end to the former “winner takes it”  where the party victorious at the polls takes up all the “spoils” in governance while keeping the other parties at bay and in opposition mode for a spate of four years in which another election will take place. Fayemi however offers that power should be shared among all political parties based on their performance during such polls arguing that it is not fitting for one party to score 21 per cent of votes and wants to rule 100 per cent. Rather, a party scoring 21 percent should take 21 percent of the slots and allow a party that scored one percent to take its own one percent.

    My knowledge of government and basic politics indicates that Fayemi is hinting that we adopt the Proportional Representation type of electoral system  (PR) in which subgroups of a society’s electorate are reflected in numbered proportions in the elected body. The crux  of such a form of electoral system  applies mainly to political divisions among voters in which all votes casted help contribute to the result and not the basic plurality.

    PR electoral systems are basically proportional to both population (seats per set amount of population) and vote share (party-wise).

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    Fayemi further argues that such a process will help reduce the level of adversarial politics which has ensured that the nation remains divided along party lines.

    What Fayemi has not considered is the fact that such a system cannot be implemented within the Nigerian political environment. For example, the Nigerian political system is quite different from what Fayemi is tinkering with. First, how do we share such positions among the various parties? Let’s take three parties and allot 40, 35 and 25 percent of the votes in an election, how do we ensure what percentage of government we assign to them? Asides number of slots, how do we ensure that the other parties with percentages are allotted meaningful cabinet positions? Since it’s all politics what informs Fayemi that the average Nigerian politician will allot to the opposition juicy positions in government in which such a party could push its agenda and use such to earn the votes of the electorate in subsequent elections?

    Second, would such a process not even bring much more adversity in the polity invalidating Fayemi’s major reason for its proposition? Since these parties possess much different manifestos and ideology, what’s to say that there wouldn’t be policy clashes in governance? Since Party A may have promised quality education whereas Party B may present a template for free education? How would such be reconciled and isnt this why many parliamentary governments are naturally unstable? Particularly  those that form alliances with each other but fail to agree on what set of agenda to implement given the fact that such  parties have basically different set of agenda?

    The process could also have  adverse effects on the quality of opposition ,imposing a tyranny of sorts  on the nation, since all a party would then need to do is to secure a percentage of votes to get in to the next government. Parties may  even choose not to campaign outside their various strongholds which in turn would create or enhance the allure of regionalism or ethnic politics to the average politician a reason we jettisoned the parliamentary system in favour of the presidential system.

    History itself has shown that the concept of power sharing in Nigeria has much beeng the death knell for most opposition parties! Many will recall what happened to the 2nd Republic when the NPP and the NPN could no longer continue their marriage under the Accord Concordia arrangement of 1979. The same thing happened to the opposition parties that went into the government of national unity in 1999 and 2007 in which government positions were used to whittle down and decimate the opposition. It is instrumental to point out that the refusal of the Action Congress to take up such an offer led to it becoming the major opposition party in Nigeria eventually building a coalition into a merger that ousted the PDP from power.

    What the Nigerian political system really  needs is simply the existence of quality institutions and the removal of whatever allure political offices hold, Fayemi may mean well for Nigeria but his prescription will only gift Nigeria a Tower of Babel’s bedlam in the near future.

  • IBB’s legacies of contrasts

    IBB’s legacies of contrasts

    The last two weeks have seen Nigerians from all works of life either celebrate or bash the former military ruler and self styled “Evil Genius”, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babaginda as he clocked 82 years of age on this planet.

    Newspaper adverts, articles and even a TV sponsored program, The IBB Legacy Dialogue in which a number of Nigerian intellectuals including two of my Ogas in the persons of Kaseem Afegbua and Tope Fasua sat down to analyze the Babaginda years as military ruler.

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    It is not in doubt that the IBB years as Nigeria’s numero uno citizen or president as he styled himself were filled  with legacies and imprints of one who had the trapping of a Hero Statesman, he but for one or two reasons may have been described as the most successful Nigerian leader since the nation’s independence, arriving the nation’s leadership on a crest of enormous goodwill from both the Nigerian elite and the lumpen proletariat, a rather rare occurrence for any Nigerian leader.

    IBB also started well, he had the grace of a Gamal Abdul Nasser, easily winning over new friends both domestic and foreign to his administration’s purported ideals, he pretended to be different from past military rulers initially doing away with the repressive Decrees 2 and 4 which had initially been enacted by his predecessor as means to gag the Nigerian press as well as disbanding the Nigerian Security Organisation, NSO which had harassed innocent Nigerians, splitting them into the  State Security Service (SSS), Directorate for Military Intelligence, DMI and the National Intelligence Agency, NIA.

    That was not all, he released all political prisoners and promised that never again would Nigerians not be hounded in their own country, the nation happened to buy such an assurance but not for too long.

    Here’s the twist, the same IBB was to shut down newspaper publications, expel a foreign journalist by name William Keeling for reporting the Babaginda administration’s failure to come clean on its earnings following the Gulf War 1.

    In addition to this, the administration which had earlier frowned on the incessant arrest of political opponents and activists by its predecessors was to jail the likes of Gani Fawhehinmi, Balarabe Musa, Femi Falana, Shehu Sani and Omoyele Sowore as well as numerous members of the academia and student unions. The same man who told the world that his administration would uphold academic freedom because he in his own words “regards academic freedom as an indispensable ingredient of all the freedoms” did everything in his power to whittle it down.

    IBB came to power in a post-civil war Nigeria suffering from the divisions foisted upon the country by the politics of the first republic and the scars of the civil war. His appointment of Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe as his Chief of General Staff and number two man suggested that his was going to be an inclusive administration, sadly IBB succumbed to the politics of Hausa -Fulani feudalism, firstly humiliating Ukiwe by siding with General Abacha who was then the Chief of Army Staff, and was reportedly engaged in  superiority battle with Ukiwe as CGS. IBB was to later relieve Ukiwe of his office  on the account of Ukiwe’s refusal to lend support to Nigeria’s attempted membership of the Organization of Islamic Countries, OIC.

    He offered a new political order and did experiment much with his many ideas while returning like an expert juggler to an original position after wearing out the crowd with amazing ,weird and naive juggling positions. For example, he toyed with the banning, unbanning and re-banning of several politicians in a space of six years. He encouraged the formation of political movements all over the country before dissolving these movements and the creation of a two party system, namely the Social Democratic Party, SDP and the National Republican Convention, NRC. He also tinkered with dates, promising to hand over in several dates before the annulment sham of 1993 and his forced exit in that same year.

    Dan Agbese, veteran journalist and co founder of Newswatch in his book ‘Ibrahim Babaginda ‘ characterized the IBB transition programme as possessing the regular features of shock treatment. IBB in his desire to leave Nigeria as a model for democracy in the third world kept shocking the nation until his annulment of the June 12 elections, a shock that roiled a nation into blood letting chaos and a reversal of every gain such a distorted transition programme was meant to achieve.

    Till date, IBB is yet to offer this nation and generations to come cogent reasons for such an annulment of an election reputed to being the nation’s freest and fairest election, now despite his many legacy contrasts, the June 12 elections offered IBB the chance to leave his indelible mark as the nation’s Hero Statesman, sadly he jettisoned such an opportunity for a number of ungodly reasons which until this very day remain speculative.

    What about his economic policies? One that saw the nation move more towards the capitalist bent via the deployment of the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP as an economic tool for his numerous economic reforms which began the phasing out of the   the nation’s middle class and changed the Nigerian economic structure from a three class zone into two, the extremely rich and the extremely poor!

    Indeed a couple of other legacies surely exist and are untainted by his Machiavellian contrasts, such legacies can be seen in the nation’s foreign policy under his watch in which the nation projected strength as a regional player on the African subcontinent of West Africa. This saw Nigeria involve and at least attempt to pursue its foreign policy goals via its interventions in both Liberia and Sierra Leone.

     This as well as the creation of a number of timely institutions, agencies and departments that were needed to enhance the quality of life of the average Nigerian citizen. Sadly though the Wushishi born general failed to score high points on issues that really mattered preferring  to readily succumb to these contrasts while he held sway as President!

  • Paris Olympics: Before we clap for our opponents

    Paris Olympics: Before we clap for our opponents

    I had wanted to talk about something else today before I saw the photograph of the new Sports Minister, John Enoh, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja at 12.08 am physically receiving the country’s ambassadors to the World Athletic Championships held in Budapest. I shouted Eureka! Knowing that the minister wasn’t approaching the tasks of fixing our sports with blindfolded eyes. Enoh should have an interpersonal relationship with our sports ambassadors, especially the medal-winning sportsmen and women. Enoh’s first assignment is the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

    Whereas those countries expected to participate at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games would at the snap of their fingertips tell the world how many gold, silver and bronze medals based on time-tested indices that they have adopted as part of their respective countries’ sports cultures. In Nigeria, it is a guesswork largely because we have sports administrators who are mostly disorganised, with due respect to a few who truly know their onions.

    If Enoh wants to succeed in this job, he needs to see things for himself as they happen and not rely on the claims and/or counterclaims of our sports administrators who have developed a penchant for getting into the different sports federations in the country only to contest elections at the international platforms of such federations. These Nigerian administrators know that membership of international bodies in their different sports guarantees them relevance and a place in the next election even if their sport in the country is literally lying in the morgue.

    They couldn’t be bothered about the routine activities of our athletes, especially the star performers such as Amusan, Ese Brume et al who are already world beaters, whose preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games should be topmost priority till after the multi-sports competition. It didn’t come as a surprise when Amusan was initially suspended from the World Athletics Championships held in Budapest. Instead of Amusan concentrating on her strategies of retaining her 100-metre hurdles title, she busied herself stating why she would come out clean of loading her system with steroids.

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    This tedious expedition for athletes who didn’t take the mandatory three out of competitions; drug tests being cleared looked more like an attempt to climb a greasy pole. Much of the argument to prove her innocence came from Amusan with the federation’s chieftains keeping sealed lips to the consternation of followers of the sport.

    The lesson from this unfortunate incident is that both the athletes and the federation’s members should make it a point of duty to know the rules of their sport. The federations must allow their sub-committees to function. If the AFN has functional medical committee, the members ought to have known those who have undergone the Out of Competition Test (OCT) and those who haven’t. That way, the technical committee would be effectively guided when picking athletes to be invited for trials. The AFN in conjunction with the federation’s medical team ought to have done due diligence on the athletes selected to represent the country to know those eligible and those who aren’t.

    The current AFN board should ensure that these new kids on the block are monitored, retrained, and given the best treatment in terms of their welfare packages, training grants, and those things others do to motivate their fresh kids on the tracks. The next Olympics is in Paris in 2024, meaning that the federation has barely one year to institute programmes that would make the kids winners again at the Olympics in the proverbial city in France, which anyone sees and dies. Good to know that something can come out of Nigeria that is good for the world to celebrate. I cherish listening to Nigeria’s anthem being sung at victory ceremonies. It has always been my best moment outside this country covering sporting events.

    However, the honourable sports minister, winning laurels at big events is a project structured on workable models used by renowned sports polities. Most of these models are anchored on sports institutes that train coaches and sports managers. It also provides systems which are adopted by these countries’ teams during competitions. It is the reason we see certain countries play the same way with a few adjustments informed by how the opposition plays.

    Countries such as Australia, America, Britain and recently Jamaica have models that developing countries like ours can adopt if we genuinely want to make the industry the business that it is in other climes. Our administrators made so much noise about adopting the Australian model after the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. They were particularly fascinated by the feats achieved by the Australians. Several visits were made to Sydney to study the system. Some Australians came here. Our administrators raised hopes that the National Sports Institute (NIS) will be redesigned with the Australian model in mind. It never happened, largely because of the policy summersaults.

    Of course, with a government that pays lip service to corporate sponsorships for sports, the blue-chip firms are not inspired to take the initiative. Even the few sports federations that seek sponsorship from these firms are unconvincing to a prospective sponsor when asked what a sponsoring company stands to gain from such investments. This will even be worse now considering the tightened noose on the economy’s neck a development that has left many firms rethinking their spending portfolio. And for such firms, every kobo for sponsorship must be worth its while for the return-on-investment.

    A blueprint is sacrosanct for sports to thrive and it must be anchored on the desired need to resuscitate moribund grassroots competitions that engage the youths and take them away from the vices in the society.

    The emergence of a sports policy endorsed by the government will create jobs such that this industry could in the next 10 years become the highest employer of labour.

    The policy should challenge local government chairmen to build at least four mini-sports centres that would serve as playgrounds for their constituents in the absence of such structures in the schools in the 774 local government areas.

    The beauty of sporting events is that there are markers to determine the winners quite distinct from the losers. This index rings true with the performance charts of the sporting federations in the country. Those Olympic Games regulars in the past for Nigeria such as boxing should quietly walk away. Those federations where members have served more than two terms should bow out. they cannot offer anything different from what they had exhibited in the last four years.

    The diabolical way in which some people remain in the federations simply because they are members of their international federations is unacceptable. They were able to contest for such positions because Nigeria made them members of her federations where they sought and won elections. Sports cannot be lying prostrate while those who volunteered to revive the industry sit tight in the place on the altar of being international federations’ officials.

    If the athletes aren’t competing for laurels in sports, there can’t be officials. So, if the officials have outlived their usefulness by failing to discover, nurture and expose our athletes to represent Nigeria in big competitions, they should go.

    In other climes, government has incentives for firms that support sports such as tax holidays and/or rebates. Most of our federations are handicapped by the kind of members they have who are mainly self-seekers, craving to get into their federations’ international bodies. It doesn’t matter if the sports they superintend don’t organise one competition in their four-year tenures.

    Are sports truly “play play” as one former governor once described it? Who will challenge us to see sports as a  platform to bolster the country’s revenue? Doesn’t the government know that sports is the best vehicle for massive employment? You tell me.