The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • *Obi, the church and politics

    *Obi, the church and politics

    WHO exactly is Jesus Christ, the rock solid foundation on which Christianity rests? Some say he was a great man, a moral exemplar, an inimitable teacher or a gifted story teller among other perceptions. When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am?”, they replied that some said he was John the Baptist, others that he was Elijah or one of the prophets. However, when Jesus asked who the disciples themselves thought he was, Peter responded by saying that Jesus was the son of God and the expected Messiah of mankind. Impressed, Jesus said this truth could only have been revealed to Peter by the Holy Spirit.

    For those who perceive the Lord Jesus in mere human terms as morally good or as one of the great out of the many great personages of history, Professor Clive Staples Lewis, one of the brightest minds of the 20th century, a former atheist turned Christian, affirmed in his book, ‘Mere Christianity’, that “I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God’. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God or else a madman or something else…But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that door open to us. He did not intend to”.

    It is astonishing that with a substantial number of Nigerians still unreached with the message of the gospel of Christ, and many more ranking among the billions in the world who remain completely at sea as regards who the man of galilee is, many Nigerian Christian leaders are so obviously preoccupied with and distracted by partisan politics especially in the run-up to next year’s elections. But the prime and most critical mission of the church is to preach good news of salvation through Christ and win souls into God’s kingdom. It is in this sense that the Lord Jesus described the church as the salt of the earth. But of what use is salt when it has lost its saltiness, Jesus asked?

    Is the church losing its saltiness by descending into the arena of partisan politics? This appears to be the case sadly. But the church is not a political organization. It is first and foremost a spiritual body. A situation in which churches take partisan political positions and even some trying to corral their members to follow their choices by declaring on their altars that those who vote against a Christian candidate would go to hell, could have long run deleterious consequences especially because membership of churches comprise people of different partisan preferences.

    Perhaps the first distraction for the Christian church in Nigeria was the astounding prosperity with which God has blessed her. This has led to an obsessive materialism on the part of many church leaders that has made it difficult to distinguish the church from the world. Prosperity is not a sin and poverty is not synonymous with virtue. But the prosperity gospel can easily become a snare to the church if the emphasis is on the acquisition of wealth, the competition among church leaders to ride the best posh vehicles, fly in their personal private jets or live in the most majestic houses as well as build the most magnificent, sprawling houses of worship. I can recall the man of God who famously declared that he wished the COVID-19 pandemic could continue to rage because it was during the lock-down that he bought another private jet. Statements like this, breed distrust and discontent against Christianity and the gospel by many who believe that the Christian Ministry has become nothing but a money-spinning enterprise by men of God who have become desensitized to the poverty of many of even their members many of who, ironically, pay their tithes and offerings faithfully. But I digress.

    It is the pervasive and blatant political partisanship of many church leaders, particularly those of the Pentecostal persuasion that is the potential greatest danger to the credibility of Christ’s gospel and the integrity of the church today. The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has strived more than any other candidate in the run-up to the 2023 election, to play on the Christian religious card just as former President Goodluck Jonathan did during the 2015 elections, which he nevertheless lost. Earlier this month, Obi was at the annual Convention of the Winners Chapel, Ota, popularly tagged ‘Shiloh’, where, just like in the many other churches whose events and gatherings he has attended in what can only be described as politically opportunistic church tourism, he was introduced by colluding clergy in a way as to elicit excitable applause for him.

    Speaking on the occasion, the founder and spiritual leader of the church, Bishop David Oyedepo, claimed that what Nigeria needs now is not a leader but a deliverer. Unfortunately, he did not expatiate sufficiently on exactly what he meant by that distinction. Was he referring to Obi as his envisaged deliverer of Nigeria? If so, he did not state what the characteristics of a deliverer are and how Obi fits the bill. Was Obi’s performance as two-term governor of Anambra State so stellar that we can credibly rely on his record to conclude that he is Nigeria’s long-desired deliverer? It is not enough for a man of God, no matter how revered, to magisterially declare one candidate as the deliverer Nigeria needs without offering compelling logical and empirical reasons for his arriving at that conclusion.

    Or, could it have been a revelation from God? If so, will church leaders who take blatantly partisan positions and speak ex-cathedra from their altars in the name of God not risk bringing God to disrepute if such political projections turn out to be wrong and misguided as has happened a number of times in the past? Bishop Oyedepo told his congregation that he warned the nation in 2015 that the nation was headed for a disastrous crisis if his voice was not heeded on the election. At that time he was one of those Christian leaders rooting for Jonathan and the PDP. He gave the impression in his sermon that the challenges the country faces today started with the APC assuming power in 2015. The truth is that the problems of today have their roots in the venality, incompetence and lack of vision of the PDP’s 16 years in power although the APC ought to have done much better in confronting these challenges including insecurity and the management of the economy. Unfortunately, the Christian leadership was implicated in the massive corruption of the Jonathan years.

    It is difficult to understand how some Pentecostal pastors in particular are doing everything to influence their congregations to vote for a supposedly Christian candidate in the person of Peter Obi. This divisive campaign and its undisguised Christian religious undertone may swing a good number of votes in certain quarters to Obi but it may at the same not sway an also not inconsiderable number of Christians from voting for other candidates. On the other hand, Obi’s openly divisive campaign will definitely hurt the (LP) candidate grievously in huge Muslim voting blocs across the country.

    In any case, what has been Obi’s track record in terms of his relationship with Christian leaders and the Christian church before now that he is seeking to ride on the back of Christians to occupy the country’s apex position of authority as President? Did he attend these church gatherings before now that he religiously does now? Is it true that he marginalized Anglicans and favoured Catholics as governor of Anambra State? Obi’s supporters claim that he returned Christian schools taken over by government to their owners as governor. But there is nothing spectacular about that.  Asiwaju Bola Tinubu returned mission schools to their original owners as governor of Lagos State. In fact, though a Muslim, Tinubu returned more schools to their original Christian mission owners than to the Muslim missions. Again, Tinubu built a chapel at the Lagos State House at Marina to enable Christian members of staff have a convenient place to observe their religious obligations.

    Before Tinubu, there was only a Mosque at the State House. His wife is not just a Christian; she is a senior pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. Throughout his eight-year tenure as governor of Lagos State, the annual New Year thanksgiving service always held with the revered General Overseer of the RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, ministering. There is no evidence of Tinubu compelling members of his family to convert to his religion, which makes nonsense of the argument that a Muslim-Muslim ticket will lead to the Islamization of the country. In any case, how is that even constitutionally possible?

    True, the church cannot be indifferent to the social, political and economic milieu within which it operates. But on no account must she descend into the partisan arena as a participant. Nigerian Pentecostals in particular must learn the appropriate lessons from the experience of the Evangelicals in America who had passionately backed former President Donald Trump without restraint only for the latter to lose the election to Joe Biden this year. Some Christian leaders cite the Biblical aphorism in the book of Proverbs that when the righteous rule, a nation prospers to justify their political partisanship. But who constitute the righteous? Does bearing a Christian name, attending church or even having lofty Christian titles necessarily indicative of righteousness?  It is dangerous for man to seek to usurp God’s sovereignty in determining who the leader of a country or entity will be at any time even though Christians have a responsibility of using their votes and prayerfully.

    It is necessary to repeat that the primary and most critical mission of the church is to help save the souls of men through the preaching of the good news. In doing so, the church does not need to have men in high positions of authority such as President or Vice President etc. to achieve its goals. In his scintillating book, ‘Jesus: The Man Who lives’, the British journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge (1903- 1990), writes, “When he was approached by someone important like Nicodemus, it never seems to have occurred to him, as it surely would to any ordinary evangelist or promoter of good causes, that, such a man, with valuable contacts and influence, would be of service to his ministry. What he had to say to Nicodemus was precisely the same as what he had to say to the meanest beggar or the most disreputable tax collector – the equivalent, then, of today’s property-developer – that he must be reborn, and become a new man”.

    The Lord Jesus avoided the palaces and mansions of the rich and powerful while on earth. Anytime he accepted an invitation to the habitations of the rich and influential such as Mathew the tax collector, it was to speak words of truth to them thus leading to their salvation. He was completely aloof to the politics of the Roman Empire and the desire of the Jews for liberation from the bondage of Rome. Stressing that his kingdom was not of this world, He rejected any attempt to be crowned King of the Jews by those desirous of a secular Messiah. Yet, a small band of his disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit, turned the Roman Empire upside down and caused the behemoth to succumb to the message of a gospel spread by the most humble and lowliest of men.

    In his tome, ‘The Penguin History of the World’, Professor J.M. Roberts states that “Emphatically, Jesus rejected the role of political leader and a political quietism was one of the meanings later discerned in a dictum which was to prove to be of terrible ambiguity: ‘My kingdom is not of this world”. And Malcolm Muggeridge reiterates this point in his submission that “In his teachings, too, Jesus continually stressed the fallacy of looking to this world and its rulers for help and guidance in fulfilling God’s purposes…the profound distrust of power which Jesus inculcated has lived on in the hearts of those who have lost him most and served him best”.

    •This article was first published December 24, 2022

  • *’Women do not support women in politics’: The facts

    *’Women do not support women in politics’: The facts

    THE former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to a one year jail term over campaign funding during his second term bid in 2012.  His status as a former President did not shield him. This shows the beauty of the rule of law. That is democracy in action. It is a system of government that ought to be played according to the rules.

    The political party system that is a vehicle through which candidates emerge to be eligible to contest for positions are supposed to be run by laid down rules.  In most cases the parties take preeminence during elections. They often control the campaign funds unlike what obtains in some third world countries like Nigeria where individuals and groups often usurp party roles especially during elections.

    The jailing of a former President over illegal campaign funds beyond the legal limit is an example of a viable democracy. One of the major huddles militating against inclusive politics and a level playing field in Nigerian politics is money. Democracy is expensive because a lot needs to be done. However, the free run and the shaky political structures in Nigeria and most other developing nations affect the stability of democracy.  Lack of strong regulatory financial policies makes it possible for politicians across the country to take undue advantage of their own financial muscles or that of their supporters.

    Lack of financial power, some socio-religious factors are some of the reasons women do not even have the confidence to play politics and the few that venture in always come out bruised literarily. The fact that Nigeria has the lowest gender parity in politics has clearly shown that there must be structural changes to make the process more accessible to women and youths.

    One of the greatest blackmail of women in Nigerian politics is the flawed rhetoric being bandied by men that women do not support each other. They easily cite the case of Dr. Sarah Jibril who is the first woman to contest for Presidency in Nigeria.  They easily mock women for not ‘supporting’ their own.  They often triumphantly celebrate their erroneous conclusion that ‘women do not support women’ But the male politicians have carved a false narrative that somewhat masks their strategies aimed at monopolizing  the political space, qualified or not.

    The Roundtable Conversation decided to have a chat with the poster woman of female audacity at the highest level of political contest.  Dr. Sarah Nnadzwa Jibril is the first Nigerian woman to throw her hat into the ring of Nigerian Presidential contest.  Her political career started in her teenage years as a class captain and sports prefect at different levels.  She is a renowned and passionate educationist, a social and religious evangelist for a return to our human and moral values, a politician whose first foray into elective position was in 1983. She had contested the Senatorial seat in her native Kwara state.

    Her life story as a woman in a socio-religiously influenced environment is as instructive as it is noteworthy. Both the socio-cultural and religious nuances influenced her decisions. According to Madam Jibril, as a sports and dormitory leader in her high school, she had experienced leadership at that basic  level and had her eyes on education and leadership. Her vast education in the UK and United States in sports, comparative, social policy, sociology, comparative education, a bit of psychology and women affairs made her came to the realization that leadership was pivotal to the development of women and the entire country.

    Beyond these educational and human experiences, she grew up reading and observing female political amazons like the late Gambo Sawaba, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Margaret Ekpo and the likes of other women in most communities that took part in politics and gave the men a run for their money. She therefore realized  that if those women could step in to provide leadership, she too  with her exposure and education can do better in reorienting the Nigerian woman about the things that are possible given the value she had acquired through her parents, environment and education in Nigeria and abroad.  Education, physical and sycho-social stamina were the pillars that equipped her to seek a paradigm shift in leadership in ways that women can put in their nurturing skills. The welfare of women both in her native Nupe and her marital state made her make up her mind to take up leadership.   A particularly profound experience for her was what transpired during an election in Kwara state when one Madam AbdulRasaq  was allegedly rigged out in a Kwara election and all the women were shouting Alleluya and Allahu al ‘Akbar  in protest and insisted on a repeat of the election.

    The lesson for her was that the women were united despite religious differences. So women would always support each other if the men do not interfere with divide and rule. This in addition to a global experience of the roles women play as mothers who birth and nurture children who grow into men and women was a motivating factor for her to venture into politics. To her, there is a divine provision for men and women to play complimentary roles in politics and women must stand up and sit at the table and men must also  recognize the fact that the women shed blood to bring life and as such they must be part of leadership for the welfares of all.

    The Roundtable Conversation asked her  about  her political odyssey being an alleged metaphor for women’s lack of  support for fellow women to access leadership.  Dr. Jibril debunked that fallacy by maintaining that politics in a democracy is very expensive and the name of the game in Nigeria is money and the men are more economically empowered than women. In her political life, she had fought against the idea of making the political process very expensive especially during the military era all in her bid to make the political space accessible to most people willing to serve including women.

    However, as a developing democracy, the Nigerian political space is monopolized by the men who have the economic power but beyond that , both men, women and children are guilty of not supporting women to be leaders because the society and religion all groom people to feel that women must not lead.  The men surreptitiously use money to distort the process and both men, women and youth could be victims of myopia in this instance falling to the lure of money. So blaming only women for not supporting women is the men hiding behind a finger or playing the Ostrich. She is satisfied that more women because of her are now taking steps to dare to participate actively in politics. To her the trail-blazing experiences are so instructive and must be built on by generations. The fact is that men and women are ordained to play complimentary leadership roles and nothing will go right in the nation until both men, women and children act.

    She believes education must be more functional in ways that from the basic levels, we must begin to teach children  their roles. At secondary and tertiary levels, there must be an introduction or Gender studies for both genders.   We have a shared humanity that must be cared for together. Women must stop being seen as mere reproductive tools that can only be given tokens as welfare officers,  women should  become party leaders.

    Iyom Josephine Anenih (mni), a former minister of women Affairs and renowned woman leader and gender and development advocate is a contemporary of Dr. Sarah Jibril. The Roundtable Conversation asked her views on the mocking cliché of ”women do not support women” always used to taunt women by men in politics. She said that men would always use any rhetoric to blackmail and sometimes bully women out of the political space. It is to their advantage.

    Men pitch women against each other in ways akin to cock fights in the local parlance. Sometimes men instigate the cock fights that often results in the death of the weaker one as a sport. The men enjoy pitching women against each other so they take the space. Women must learn to be together, women are not each other’s enemies, the men are the common enemy.  No woman should buy into the male blackmail at any level.

    The question is, how many women kill each other for power both locally and globally? Women can have disagreements but not bitter political rivalries that often result in assassinations and all forms of life-threatening issues. If the men are sincere Iyom insisits, let them step down at certain points for more competent women to contest with each other. Why do they blame women for contesting against each other, it is a contest not a sign of hatred.

    Iyom Anenih believes that the needed tool is massive education from homes to make people unlearn and relearn the leadership structures that harness all the human potentials of every gender because leadership is not about gender but capacity and the wiliness to use that capacity to serve. The jinx must be broken. Teach children the capacity of each gender.

    On the part of women, they must be willing to step up and step out. Believing the male rhetoric is accepting to be underdogs which is not natural. Every human is created with capacity and leadership potentials. Women had always provided leadership in Africa before the colonialists came with their system and when they left, the men continued the monopoly which has taken Africa down the development ladder. It is time for women to begin to detoxify the socio-religious impact of cultural and religious dogmas that make women see themselves as less capable of leadership. All the women who are historical figures brilliantly rebelled against that and their societies became better for it.

    Dr Sarah jibril and Josephine Anenih believe that education and a recall of leadership history by women and for women would change the false narrative by men to bully women out of political contests. The world and our nation need the complimentary leadership by the able across genders.

    The dialogue continues…

    *This article was first published October 2, 2021

  • Logic of the February 25 polls

    Logic of the February 25 polls

     Having spent the best part of the last two to three years attacking, traducing, insulting, denigrating and hurling all kinds of weapons to demonize Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and derail his unhidden presidential aspiration, it is understandable that a not insignificant number of newspaper columnists, public analysts, social media influencers and electronic medium talk show anchors are investing considerable time and energy in trying to discredit the February 25 elections in which the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate has emerged as President-elect. To his bitter and apparently inconsolable adversaries, any of the other major contestants for the apex office emerging triumphant would have been preferable to Tinubu’s victory. It is not impossible that the often inexplicably fierce antagonism to his person and politics may have impelled divine forces to aid the realization of Asiwaju’s ambition even in the face of almost superhuman odds. Of course, those who oppose Tinubu for whatever reasons have as much right to their political choice and stance as those like this writer who have not disguised their support for and inclination towards the President-elect. Whatever line one takes, however, it is intellectually dishonest to seek to de-market an election and call vociferously for its arbitrary cancellation simply because a candidate of one’s choice did not emerge victorious.

    Let me quickly say that I have been in the place of those who feel bitter, disappointed and despondent that this election did not go the way of their favoured candidates.   As a teenager in the final year of secondary school, I was a polling agent of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the 1979 presidential elections in Kwara State. My support for the party’s presidential candidate was predicated on what I saw as his superior programmatic agenda over his co-contestants as well as his glorious and incomparable track record of performance as Premier of the Western Region in the First Republic, which I had copiously read about. There are a number of interesting parallels between the 1979 elections and those of last February 25. The dominant ethnic groups – the Hausa/Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba had key contestants in the race. Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) from Sokoto State, Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim of the Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP) from Borno State, and Mallam Aminu Kano of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) from Kano State were the northern candidates eyeing the presidential office. Dr. Nnmadi Azikwe of the Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) from Anambra in the South East and Chief Obafemi Awolowo of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) from Ogun State in the South-West were the contenders from the South.

    As was widely projected before the election, the candidates performed well in their various ethno-regional bases. For instance, Azikwe scored 82.88% of the votes in Anambra State, 84.69% in Imo and 49.70% in Plateau, the three states won by the NPP out of the then existing 19 states. He recorded a total of 2,822,523 of votes cast in the election. The Christian factor contributed to his victory in Plateau. Chief Obafemi Awolowo made a clean sweep of the South-West recording 85.78% of the votes in Oyo, 94.50% in Ondo, 92.1% in Ogun, 82.30% in Lagos and 53.20% in Bendel which used to be part of the old Western Region to win those five states. His party also performed relatively well in Gongola where it recorded 21.67% of the votes. While Aminu Kano won 76.41% of the votes in his native Kano State, his party won 31% of the votes in Kaduna although the PRP narrowly clinched the state in the governorship election but with the NPN, however, winning a majority of seats in the House of Assembly. The winner of the election, President Shehu Shagari, secured vic tory in nine states winning 62.48% of the votes cast in Bauchi, 66.58% in Sokoto, and 35.2% in Gongola in the core North.

    What secured overall victory for Shagari, however, was his victory in the ethnic minority states where he scored 76.38% in Benue, 64.40% in Cross River, 53.62% in Kwara, 74.88% in Niger and 72.65% in Rivers. Where Shagari did not come first nationwide, his party mostly came second thus having not just the highest number of total votes cast but also the widest spread of support across the country as required by the constitution to be declared victorious in a presidential election in Nigeria. It is interesting that while Shagari scored a total of 5,688,857 to win the election, Awolowo had 4,916,551 votes, Azikwe scored 2,822, 523, Aminu Kano, 1,732,113 votes and Waziri Ibrahim 1, 686, 489. But the NPN was the only party to meet the constitutional spread demand with 25% of the votes cast in 12 states and a substantial number of the votes cast in a 13th state, namely Kano. Despite the undisputed bias of the military superintendents of the transition, the General Olusegun Obasanjo regime, there is no way they could have handed over to any of the others and not instigated widespread instability and political insecurity. Yet, the opposition was vociferous in claiming that the election was rigged in favour of the NPN and the loudest in this regard was naturally the UPN whose candidate came a close second in overall numbers even while winning only in the five states of his home region.

    Incidentally, that was also my view for many years until much later with greater emotional detachment and dispassionate analysis it became clear to me that Awolowo’s UPN simply did not have the spread of support to have won the 1979 election. To make the UPN’s case worse, Awolowo picked his running mate, Chief Phillip Umeadi, from the South-East thereby ignoring the whole North yet his party performed abysmally in the South- East. Interestingly, in the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections, both Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) are vehemently claiming to have won the presidential election and to have been rigged out by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which allegedly manipulated the polls in favour of the ruling APC. A battery of public intellectuals including columnists and radio as well as television anchors and pundits have taken up the ‘rigged election’ battle cry with hardly any credi ble evidence or convincing logic to support this perspective.

    The Chief Ayo Adebanjo-led  Afenifere socio-cultural group has arbitrarily and magisterially declared that its preferred candidate, Peter Obi, won the election. No figures. No facts. No logic. Just like that! The ordinarily cerebral political scientist, Mr. Akin Osuntokun, DG of the LP campaign, claimed on national television that his candidate, Obi, won over one million votes in Lagos. These surely are claims which have to be proven in court but the opposition parties obviously do not want to go that route. They prefer an outright and legally baseless cancellation of the results and a recommencement of the process de novo.  But the pertinent question is whether or not there is a clearly discernible logic to the outcome of the election. I believe there is just as in 1979. For instance, in his South-East Igbo redoubt, Peter Obi’s LP scored 1,960,589 votes to the miserly scores of 127, 605 and 91,195 recorded by the PDP and APC. He recorded nearly 95% support in the region. Was that also a function of rigging or did the election manipulation take place only outside the South-East?

    Outside the South-East, is there not a logic to Obi’s victory in Lagos, Delta, Edo, and even Nasarawa and Plateau States in the North? Here, both the ethnic Igbo factor and the evangelical Christian vote, which he deliberately and consciously courted, worked in his favour. But then, there was a downside to this as the politicization of Christianity boomeranged against him in the vast North-East and North-West where Obi did not record up to 25% of the votes in any state. In the same vein, Atiku won key northern states in his base such as Adamawa, Yobe, Gombe, Bauchi, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna and Taraba as largely projected before the elections although Tinubu came a close second in these states thanks to the strong support he enjoyed from sitting APC governors in those states. As I stated last week, “The APC had a total of 1.7 million votes to PDP’s 1.4 million votes in the North Central. In the North-East, the APC scored a total of 1, 185, 458 votes to the PDP’s 1,741,845 votes thus coming second in the region. And in the North-West, APC scored 2,652, 253 votes to the PDP’s 2,329,540”. Thus, Tinubu came first in two of the zones in the North with Atiku triumphing only in his North-East region.

    Again, was this unexpected? The answer is most certainly no. As I put it last week, “Again, the PDP inexplicably went into the election as a divided house, especially with the grievances of the G5 governors – Rivers, Benue, Abia, Enugu and Oyo – not addressed by the party and its presidential candidate. The indifference of the governors to the Atiku campaign no doubt partly contributed to the loss of the party in all the South-East states as well as in Rivers, Benue and Oyo states”. In Kano, Rabiu Kwankwanso of the NNPP eviscerated Atiku’s hitherto strong electoral base winning the state with 997,279 votes to Atiku’s 131,716 votes. Meanwhile, Tinubu scored 517,341 votes in the state. Tinubu predictably had a strong showing in his South-West where he won Oyo, Ondo, Ogun and Ekiti but narrowly lost Osun and Lagos states to Atiku and Obi respectively. Just like the Shagari victory in 1979, where Tinubu did not come first in many states, he posted a close second thus winning the widest pan-Nigeria support base of all the aspirants. Outside his own zone, Tinubu won in Niger, Kogi, Kwara, Jigawa, Benue, Zamfara, Borno and Rivers. Another key factor in understanding the logic of the outcome of this election was the factor of young first-time voters to whom Obi no doubt had considerable appeal and boosted the performance of the LP.

    It is unfortunate that even seasoned columnists who are also respected academics would readily quote foreign newspapers and agencies in trying to discredit the election when an informed and unbiased local media ought to provide the most reliable and authoritative source of news on the polls for their foreign counterparts. Were the elections perfect and faultless? The answer is no. But there are no perfect elections anywhere in the world. The last American presidential election in the US, a country that has been practicing democracy for over two and a half centuries, is a case in point. That country is still trying to recover fully from the fallouts of that exercise. Millions of Republicans still cannot be convinced that the election was not “stolen” from Trump. The era of some countries giving others lessons in democratic practice should be over and should no longer be indulged.

    Some other analysts fault the election on the basis of the perceived low turnout of voters. They claim that the opposition party candidates combined had more overall votes than the President-elect. This is nonsensical. Did the constitution stipulate a given percentage of voter turnouts for the election to be valid? No. Were the votes cast for the opposition candidates jointly or for each party candidate separately? Did either of Atiku or Obi singly score higher votes than the proclaimed winner of the election? Again, no. True, Tinubu had 8,794, 726 votes but all 24,965,218 total votes cast affirmed their faith in the process and invested it with legitimacy in whichever party or candidates they voted for.

     In conclusion, let me quote a piece sent to me online during the week on the cavalier claims that the elections were rigged. It read: “All PDP and Labour Party senators-elect and House of Representatives members-elect went and collected their Certificates of Return from INEC without complaints. This is the same election, same day, and same polling units, by the same INEC, same processes, and same BVAS. And this was the same election that was rigged? They should have rejected their certificates in protest. Now PDP and LP have validated the election. You can’t eat your cake and have it”. End of discussion.      

  • Flying Eagles: not Nigeria’s best

    Flying Eagles: not Nigeria’s best

     Anything that isn’t good is bad. Indeed, the Flying Eagles players hoisting the country’s green-white-green shirts are certainly not the best crop of U-20 players available to national team coaches who aren’t thinking through their pockets. I’ve nothing wrong with picking the 23-man squad from a particular area or region of the country. They must represent our best arising from credible screening exercises which should be fair to every child. These players presently in Cairo belong to agents and club scouts raising the poser of how Nigeria plays professional or football should I say organise football at that level around the country.

    Any endorsement of the group of players and coaches presently in Cairo to represent Nigeria at the World Cup proper in Indonesia is the death knell of the game in the 21st Century. Nigeria would have once again lost a whole generation of players whose spaces are being filled with players who shouldn’t wear the country’s colours if we have a football culture worthy of emulation. This is one of the reasons players such as Obafemi Martins emerged due to his exploits with Inter Milan FC of Italy and not through any Nigerian club. Yet, he played the game on the dusty streets and playgrounds abound in Lagos. What a shame.

    The coaches who are with the Flying Eagles cannot give what they don’t have. So anyone expecting miracles from them in Indonesia should be told that the World Cup at any level is the podium to celebrate excellence and not mediocrity which is what this group would bring to the country at the U-20 World Cup later in the year. The argument that the time is too close to the junior Mundial is weak because those who would play for the serious-minded football nations would be playing with boys on the fringes of the senior teams over the last two years.

    If anyone allows these coaches to pick those to represent us in Indonesia, we would have wasted four years that other countries would use to groom their squads for the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games. In other football nations, their cadet teams graduate through the FIFA age-grade competitions to stardom. Nigeria picks coaches based on sentiments, not on their coaching track records, to handle our teams. They gather players at every age grade who cannot form the nucleus of other national teams, going forward. This is the essence of all FIFA age-grade competitions – growth – not arrested development which has been permanently enshrined in Nigeria’s soccer developmental plans. Doesn’t hurt our administrators that lads such as Chrisantus Macaulay, the best player in the 2007 U-17 World Cup melted like ice cream placed on table underneath the scorching sun when Toni Kroos who played for Germany in the same competition reached the zenith of his game?

    Nigeria has a mandatory three matches at the group stage of the U-20 World Cup which shouldn’t be prosecuted by half-bakes on the altar of continuity or that we don’t want to rock the boat. If we truly want good representation in Indonesia, we must disband the entire squad and sack the coaches. Coaching is about hiring and firing. A coach is as good as his last game. The Flying Eagles coach in Egypt is bereft of new ideas and his utterances bring shame to the country. Our domestic coaches don’t always pick our best players. It is the major reason many young boys sneak out of the country for greener pastures.

    Word is rife that a certain player (name withheld)who wasn’t part of the preparations for this tournament but he is in the squad. Like a sore thumb, he was fielded in Nigeria’s first game against the Senegalese where he was shown a red card. He again was fielded in the semi-final game against the Gambia, where he missed a penalty kick. Should such a boy make the team to Indonesia? Indeed, the coach changed the squad he used to win the WAFU Cup with as many as 13 boys. Which good coach changes a winning squad? Read my lips, please.

    This is what the Flying Eagles coach told the world press after Nigeria was beaten 1-0 by the Gambia in the first semi-finals. According to the coach: “We lost stupidly, we were naive from the start. We failed to take our chances and we also missed the penalty in the 86th minute of the game. I am very frustrated because we had the team go all the way. Football is cruel.

    “We didn’t measure up. I congratulate The Gambia for winning,” he added.

    My dear Flying Eagles coach, who picked the players? By your post-match utterances, you have shown yourself the team’s exit door. If you couldn’t use the last two years to assemble players Nigerians would be proud of, is it this short period you would use to decipher your folly? Who does that? Super Eagles manager Jose Peseiro is shopping for players to fill the void created by our injured players and those who are recuperating. He isn’t talking about the Flying Eagles even if the opposition is the Wild Dogs of Guinea Bissau as they are known.

    The Flying Eagles players representing us in Cairo at the U-20 competition play like robots. They are stiff and very unimaginative and they don’t play like a team trained by coaches with proficient knowledge of the game. You can always predict with confidence what they would do with the ball. Previous Flying Eagles players have played the game with flair. One thing which was always in the past squads was the dribbling wizardry, and intelligent displays, they played with zest and were a delight to watch. Not these ones in Egypt whose tardy performance lures one to sleep whilst watching them.

    These Flying Eagles have failed to improve their displays with every game even against countries that Nigeria had previously beaten by as many as nine goals. It shows growth on the part of those beaten countries over time. For us, the stunted growth continues.  It speaks to their true ages.

    Veteran sports journalist, Mitchell Obi captured the Flying Eagles miserable display in Egypt thus: ”As a group or individuals these Flying Eagles hardly inspire and like the Super Falcons, both going to the World Cups. There must be a drastic reengineering of the technical and playing crew. We are far from our minimum standard and expectation of yore and how it pains to think that the once despised minnows have caught up with us., interestingly in Flying colours..cry my beloved Nigerian game. !!”

    The problem with assembling any national team starts with the NFF’s arbitrary choice of coaches who are eager to be appointed knowing that the job would serve as their ATM. These coaches dare not ask for contracts to be signed with the NFF nor do we get to know how much they are entitled to monthly. It doesn’t matter if such coaches don’t get paid for three years for as long as they remain on the job. How would hungry and angry coaches deliver any qualitative service? The end result is a shoddy job with the teams.

    And with the federation yet to inaugurate their sub-committees, no form of crosscheck on the list of players taken for such critical competitions was done to weed out unqualified players.

    The choice is ours to either sack the coaches and disband the team or we allow them stay to further destroy the next generation of players. Each time we do well in major tournaments such as the World Cup, foreign clubs send their scouts to Nigeria to shop for raw talents who would come very cheap.

  • ‘Ajemonu’ syndrome rocks political space

    ‘Ajemonu’ syndrome rocks political space

    The expensive nature of politics is not in dispute anywhere in the world. From picking the ticket of a party in a primary election to mobilising supporters during campaign rallies and getting them out to vote on Election Day involves a lot of money.

    Most candidates contesting elections to become president, governor or legislator realise that much and are often prepared to dole out the cash to the electorate. Many if not most of them have, however, had to contend with the greed of their foot soldiers who are in the habit of shortchanging would-be voters by diverting the funds into their personal pockets. These foot soldiers see such disbursements as their entitlements and therefore pocket everything. In local parlance, it is called ‘chop and clean mouth’, but to the Yoruba, it is ‘ajemonu’

    The current electioneering dispensation has not been an exemption with tales of top officials of government and party executives sitting on huge sums dispensed by candidates for campaigns and the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.

    In many states, tales of such confiscation or conversion or misapplication have unsettled many public officials, party executives, community and opinion leaders, as well as mobilisers. Some people in privileged positions who knew what transpired said the disclosures were highly revealing.

    In Katisna State, for instance, two top officials of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have been dragged to court over alleged mismanagement and diversion of the sum of N2 billion assigned for the just concluded presidential and National Assembly elections in the state.

    In an ex-parte motion filed at the Katsina State High Court by the state and local government chairmen of the party, they are praying the court to compel the accused duo to account for the more than N1.05 billion of the N2 billion assigned by the party’s presidential candidate during the elections.

    The ugly phenomenon now tagged by concerned political observers as ‘ajemonu syndrome’ is by no means restricted to the PDP as many candidates across party lines have suffered the same fate with avoidable defeats as the ultimate consequence.

    Naira swap debacle:  Way out for banking public

    MORE than one week after the Supreme Court judgment extending the legal tender status of the old naira notes till December 31, there seems to be no end in sight to the suffering that the poorly executed naira redesigning policy has foisted on the citizenry.

    In spite of the apex court judgment that the old N500 and N1000 notes are legal tenders until December 31, most Nigerians are avoiding them like leprosy because the Presidency, the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, and the CBN have all refused to admit the judgment or even comment on it.

    Whereas in other climes the Supreme Court judgment would automatically translate to acceptance of the old notes as legal tenders, most individuals and organizations, including banks, are insisting that Buhari or Emefiele must pronounce them acceptable before they are regarded legal tenders.

    Sometime during the week, a reporter with a Lagos newspaper took some of the notes to a branch of a popular bank in Lagos to deposit in his account, but the bank’s officials refused and asked him to take them to the CBN. The reporter reminded the officials of the Supreme Court judgment extending their legal tender status till December 31 but they stood their ground.

    He then brought out his identity card, flashed it at the bank officials and told them that he would report in his paper their refusal to accept the notes and then sue the bank.

    On hearing this, the officials asked him to allow them consult their manager. Not long after, the manager invited the journalist, explained to him their constraints as bankers and urged him to bear with them. “You know we are being regulated by the CBN, we are under authority,” they explained. “l don’t care the authority you obey, constituted or otherwise. The Supreme Court has ruled; that’s now the law, “the reporter fired back. Seeing the no-nonsense disposition of the reporter, the manager then asked that the money be accepted and lodged in his account.

    Lesson: The banking public can compel compliance through the court since those who should act have refused to do so, and again contemptuous of the Supreme Court.

    Crack in OBIdient  movement

    THE presidential election has come and gone with the winner savouring the joy of victory and the losers nursing the pains of defeat. For the presidential candidate of Labour Party Mr Peter Obi and his supporters, signs of disagreement are beginning to show on the next direction of the party after the collapse of their dream for Obi’s presidency.

    Gathering a total of 6,101,533 votes in the election, Obi had come third in the election behind the winner, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who scored 8,794,726 votes and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who came second with 6,984,520 votes.

    As the parties prepare for the governorship and House of Assembly elections scheduled for next Saturday, however, the centre appears not to be holding for the Labour Party as some members appear to have made up their mind to dump the party’s candidates for others.

    One of the points of disagreement is the governorship race in Enugu State where Obi and a prominent supporter of Labour Party, Aisha Yesufu, have disagreed on their choice of governorship candidate. While Obi is rooting for Chijoke Edeoga, the governorship candidate of Labour Party in the state, Yesufu would not have any of that and has pitched her tent with Frank Nweke Jnr, the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), saying that her choice of Nweke was based on competence.

    In a post on his Twitter account on Wednesday, Obi had written: “As we pursue due process and defer to the rule of law, I urge all the OBIdients in the various states to continue campaigning for our candidates, namely Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour in Lagos, Chijioke Edeoga in Enugu…”

    But Aisha promptly responded saying: “God forbid I become what I want to change. I can never sacrifice competence for partisanship! Frank Nweke Jnr is the person for Enugu State. The people must be the winners and not individuals.”

    The development, SENTRY gathered, is already dividing the party into camps. In Rivers state, the executives have endorsed the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and directed those who voted for Obi on February 25 to cast their votes for the PDP candidate. The national executive of LP dissociated itself from the action and dissolved the Rivers state executive. The question many analysts are asking is: can Obi hold the party together post May 29?

    New vocation for Atiku’s man

    NIGERIANS woke up on Monday to the spectacle of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar leading a protest at the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Abuja against the result of the just concluded presidential election.

    Atiku, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the election, had come second behind the winner, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), gathering 6,984,520 votes against Tinubu’s 8,794,726.

    It has since come to light that the crowd that protested in Abuja was far from being a spontaneous gathering of aggrieved minds. SENTRY reliably gathered that the task of recruiting them was undertaken by a former senator.

    The ex-senator and associate of the ex-VP was said to have deployed his proficiency in Hausa language to recruit many of the protesters from the slums of Abuja for a token.

    Those who think the querulous senator would be jobless after Atiku’s failed project would be disappointed. He has returned to his vocation: recruiting crowds for special events. When one door closes, they say, another opens.

  • Battle for Lagos

    Battle for Lagos

    All Nigerians – Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa/Fulani, and indeed, other 246 ethnic groups – covert Lagos, the proverbial land flowing with milk and honey.

    That has been the situation from time immemorial. The state, which has 75 per cent water and 25 per cent land, attracts people from far and near seeking real and imaginary golden fleece. The ocean economy has been the potent attraction.

    Adventurous Europeans, who thought Lokoja and Calabar were safe havens, changed their minds when they got to the Lago de Kuramo. Since their arrival for commerce, colonialisation and politics, they have not really left. When the capital was relocated to Abuja, their envoys had to relocate to the new Federal Capital Territory (FCT) but retain a nostalgic feeling for the State of Aquatic Splendour.

    It appeared every nation, even before the nation-state of Nigeria was christened by Flora, wife of Lord Fredrick Lugard, wanted a piece of cake from the Lagoon.

    So it was in the pre-colonial and colonial days. Trade was booming in coastal Lagos. People from the hinterland were migrating to take advantage of trading activities. Lagosians were swimming in the pool of profit. Therefore, Ijebu, Remo and Egba grew with envy. They asked: How can we also savour prosperity by exploiting the Lagos advantage?

    The Awujale of Ijebu land, monarch of another enterprising and trading sub-Yoruba group, devised a business method. Tolls were erected, targeting travellers from Kwara, Kogi, Ekiti, Akoko, Ijesa and the combatant people of Ibadan, an Oyo Army camp. You dared the Ijebu tax collectors to your peril. Ibadan warriors suffered from blockage at the Ijebu boundary towns when they desperately needed ‘arms and a munitions’ to prosecute the Ekiti Parapo wars.

    Emulating their rivals, rulers of Egba confederation also devised a similar method, in a bid to enjoy the opportunity offered by Lagos. They erected their toll at Isheri, conscious of the geographical continuity between their boundary and Ikorodu, then a Remo town.

    Ekiti/Ijesa warriors, led by Obanla Ogedengbe and Prince Fabunmi, also indirectly leaned on their prosperous kith and kin resident in Lagos, particularly Gugere and Haastrup, who later became Owa of Ijesa land, for supply of weapons of war, when Ibadan forces turned the heat on them on the battlefield.

    Earlier, rulers of Benin Kingdom had invaded Lagos with their forces, led by Ashipa. Was Ashipa an Awori or Bini? It is up to historians. After him came King Ado and, subse quently, his descendants have continued to rule Lagos, indisputably a core Yoruba town.

    As Lagos became the capital of colonial Nigeria under the British interlopers, more attention shifted to the city. It became the seat of government and economic nerve centre. The sheer bureaucracy meant limitless job opportunities. Schools sprang up. Clinics were established. The story was told of how the celebrated Ibadan merchant, who normally came monthly to Lagos for medical treatment, decided to build a house in Lagos, just because of easy access to a hospital.

    Army regiment and police constabulary were established and people trekked from remote areas for days for recruitment. Then came Western civilisation in various forms.

    The oceanic advantage meant a business boom. Population grew. Many who migrated, particularly Hausa, Nupe, Igbo and many others from Yoruba sub-ethnic groups, never returned home. They lived with indigenous Lagosians in harmony.

    Early signs of ethnic tension started in the prime city in the late 1930s and early 1940s. That was during the nationalist agitations and scramble for relevance and struggle for supremacy among political parties.

    Two factors were responsible. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s statement that the gods had destined the Igbo to dominate the children of Africa infuriated other ethnic elite. Also, Zik’s wild criticisms of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, which was formed by Yoruba leading lights, generated bad blood. No Yoruba ever attacked Ibo State Union in those days.

     The battle shifted to the Nigeria Youth Move ment (NYM), whose leader and member of the Legislative Council, Kofo Abayomi, had resigned to pursue medical studies abroad.

    There were two aspirants for the vacancy in the Legislative Council. Zik supported Samuel Akinsanya, a Yoruba, who later became Odemo of Isara, and Awo backed Ernest Sissei Ikoli, an Ijaw journalist from the old Southeast, who won. A Yoruba supported a Southeasterner while and an Igbo supported a Yoruba. Yet, when Ikoli won, Igbo accused the Yoruba of tribalism.

    The battle graduated to that of premiership in Western Region. Yoruba voted for Zik to go to the House of Assembly at Ibadan. Later, Ebubedike, another Igbo, who later distrusted the House, represented Ajeromi/Ifelodun constituency. Few Yoruba who aspired in the East for elective positions were turned down. But, Ibiyinka Olorunmimbe, H.P Adebola, Adeniran Ogunsanya and Theophilus Benson mobilised for Zik. In those days, many newly elected Yoruba lawmakers contested on the platforms of township associations.

    Sir Ahmadu Bello was going to be premier in the North. Already, Eyo Ita Eyo was Leader of Government Business in the East. Zik and Awo competed for the same position in the West. Awo won because majority of the lawmakers aligned with the Action Group (AG) instead of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), founded by a Yoruba, Herbert Macauley, but later headed by Zik.

    The Igbo cried foul, accusing Awo of tribalism. That was in 1951.

    At that time also, federal parliamentarians were to be selected from the regional legislature. Zik, elected to represent Surulere Constituency, signified his intention. Adeleke Adedoyin signified his bid. Zik rushed to Sagamu, urging Oba Christopher Adedoyin, the Akarigbo of Remo land, to prevail on his son to step down. The monarch asked Zik: “Is the position you are talking about good?” Zik answered in the affirmative. Then, the king said: “If it is good, let my son go.” The message from the Kabiyesi was clear: the slot was meant for a native of Yoruba.

    Zik got the gist. He went home, wrestled the position with Eyo and won. He became the Premier of Eastern Region.

    That episode did not deter the Yoruba in Lagos from voting for seven Igbo councillors at the Lagos Town Council. But, the seven refused to vote for Oba Sir Musendiku Buraimoh Adeniji- Adele II, a councillor who vied for the council’s chairman. In his territory, the eminent oba was deprived. He resigned from the council.

    Igbo hostility mounted. In 1960, Zik preferred an alliance with Ahmadu Bello to become ceremonial president to an alliance with Awo that would have made him the prime minister.

    The Yoruba of Lagos love the Igbo. When Prof. Eni Njoku’s tenure as vice chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) expired, Yoruba youths protested and nearly killed their kinsman, Prof. Saburi Biobaku, the newly appointed vice chancellor. They pressed for Njoku to get a second term. At that time too, Dike, a great Igbo scholar, was vice chancellor of University of Ibadan. Yet, up till now, no Yoruba has served as vice chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).

    When civil war was raging and Nigeria was in turmoil, Yoruba solidarity was not in short supply. Unlike in Port Harcourt, there was no abandoned property in Yoruba land. The people of the Southwest gave Igbo landlords their accumulated rents at the end of the war.

    Yet, political understanding between the Igbo and the Yoruba has remained illusory. In 1979 and 1983, old rivalries were exhumed and the proposed collaboration between Zik and Awo was aborted by Igbo political elite.

    In 1998/’99, the late Chief Bola Ige lamented the long standing suspicion between the two ethnic groups. Other Yoruba leaders also canvassed mutual understanding, submitting that the Igbo dream of producing a president could be actualised if they collaborated with the Yoruba and with and other ethnic groups.

    From 1999 to date, the ruling party and government of Lagos State have extended a hand of fellowship to the Igbo resident in Lagos. The state has extended a hand of political accommodation and tolerance, which the Yoruba do not enjoy in the East. The Igbo, and indeed, the Hausa/Fulani have been part and parcel of governance structures at the state and local government levels. They are absorbed into the civil, teaching, local government and judicial services. There is no iota of discrimination. They own property across the metropolis and enjoy the full compliments of citizenship without let and hindrance.

    It is, therefore, distressing that some Igbo still brag around that they must dominate and displace the indigenes, claiming that Lagos is a no man’s land. What they cannot do in the North without severe consequences is what they indulge in Lagos, whose indigenes, particularly the Awori, have overlooked the excesses of some non-natives for decades but at dire results. The reality of their failure to protect their heritage and indiscriminate sale of ancestral lands and regression to rent collection have now stared them in the face with threatening consequences.

    Lagos is part and parcel of Yoruba land and Southwest’s fortress.

    There is demographic change or shift, but respect for the host by settlers can go a long way in fostering long-lasting relationship. Arrogance and boasting that non-indigenes or strangers can continue to lay claim to imaginary numerical superiority is not just daydreaming but also an invitation of the ignoramus to chaos.

    Lagos, and indeed, Yoruba land should wake up from slumber. They can continue to show accommodation and tolerance. It is their nature. But, they should also be more circumspect and strategic.

    Lagosians and other Yoruba sub-nationalities from the other five Southwest states and their kith and kin from Kwara and Kogi should realise that a siege is being laid to their common pride. They need to come out en mass to vote the performing governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), on March 18 to stop the  merchants of discord who don’t seem to understand the correlation between peace and pace, disorganisation and disintegration. Lagos would not have arrived at its current state of modernity if it had embraced babel. The jester who said, rather contemptuously, that Lagos was not working should be asked to provide statistics on life in the Centre of Excellence and her ancestral state. Lagos cannot be another showcase for the entrepreneurs of pandemonium.

    By using the ballot to send the invaders back to where they belong, the children of Lagos indigenes will not end up being treated as captives in the future in the land that God has mercifully given them and nurtured by successive administrations of the progressives.

  • X-raying 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections (1)

    X-raying 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections (1)

    Like every event in a nation’s history, the first  phase of the 2023 general elections came  and did witness  Nigerians trooping out to vote for their preferred candidate who was to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari as the nation’s substantive president for the next four years.

    Prior to this period, a number of persons who had been lucky to nick the presidential tickets of their political parties had begun to traverse the country seeking to share their narratives of how best they felt they would govern the nation should they be voted in. Another category saw other candidates both old and new, experienced and newbies vie to fill up the 469 seats in the nation’s bicameral legislature.

    Dday came and the elections true to the predictions of a number of political panjandrum, ( Not those tainted by sentiments and what I call by his spirit polling) saw a former two time Governor and National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC win the elections with 8, 794,726 votes as against his closest rival Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the  Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP who scored 6,984, 520 and 6,101,533 respectively.

    The electoral process as a whole , inclusive of the final results did leave different shades of taste in the mouths of millions of Nigerians who had immersed themselves with the electoral  process with a determination to vote a  candidate in tandem with their shared ideals.

    First of all the elections were  since 2015 the most keenly contested election in the nation’s electoral history, since its return to democratic rule. It should also be noted that since 1979 and 1983 general elections, Nigerians had not until the recently held polls witnessed a plethora of choices, that is in terms of numbers of parties or candidates vying for the office of President.  Nigerians moved from the regular recurring two horse race  to what I can perhaps call a four horse race which helped raise the stakes.

    Despite this, I still agree with the general consensus that the quality of campaigns, particularly those of the presidential candidates were quite below standards. The campaign on issues in this election took the back seat while Nigerians were left with the campaigns that for much of its time dwelt on personality attacks and the crude deployment of ethnic propaganda, most especially on social media.

    Religion was also a rallying banner in the polls, for while the Muslim/Muslim ticket of the APC was bound  to unsettle a number of people, majorly Christians, prevailing electoral realities could not  avail the President Elect to do otherwise. This however to his opponents was like a shark smelling blood in the sea and trust politicians they very much capitalized on it. Religion played a big role in this election and examples abound.

    We saw pastors and Christian clerics mount the podium to say vile things against a particular candidate while they carried out the beatification of another. Some took it a notch further by openly prophesying that a particular candidate would win, one now then wonders which God have these psychedelic pastors and clerics been calling upon. In the SouthEast, priests took it upon themselves to announce that any of their faithfuls who dared vote for any other candidate aside theirs would not receive certain sacramental privileges!

    Ethnicity and tribalism were also on the front burners as each of the four leading candidates despite their avowed pretensions to been nationalists all sort to play the ethnic card. This is the very reason why each save Rabiu Kwakwanso did so well in their respective regions. Even Obi’s surprise victories in Lagos ,Nasarawa and Plateau  alongside his strong showing in a number of other states can be tied to the huge population of Igbos living in these areas.

    One would have thought that the twin evils of thuggery and violence would have been relics of past elections , but from what was experienced that day, it is still a sore wound in our attempts to provide free and fair elections and thus needs to be surgically handled in subsequent elections. Visuals of  thugs manhandling people based on party interest should have been a thing confined to the First, Second and during the Obasanjo era of our experiment with democracy.

    Other issues such as that of logistics also gave INEC’s preparedness for the 2023 election a black eye somewhat. In a number of areas such a situation denied voters the opportunity to cast their votes at the appropriate time given by INEC, a number of voters had to wait long into the morning to cast their votes, in a number of situations neither voting materials nor electoral officials arrived at their polling units, thus disenfranchising millions of Nigerians.

    In a number of polling units where materials and electoral officials were present, there were issues of missing,non functional and wrongly assigned BIVAS machines , if this was not the case then perhaps the ballot papers assigned to the polling units were not adequate. All said,  the 2023 elections were a logistical nightmare.

    However, despite the challenges faced in the course of conducting the election, the process itself could be said to have met the standards for electioneering, particularly in this part of the world. So far, so good, the results collated are indeed a reflection of the will of the average Nigerian.

    A situation where the ruling party lost key traditional stronghold states to the opposition including Lagos, Kaduna, Kebbi, Plateau, Gombe, Kastina, Nasarawa and Bauchi  cannot be said to have been rigged .

  • For women at 10th Assembly it’s 96.5% to 3.5%: A disaster foretold

    For women at 10th Assembly it’s 96.5% to 3.5%: A disaster foretold

    The last Presidential and National Assembly elections in Nigeria has shown again that the most populous black nation on earth is still deeply rooted in patriarchal sentiments. None of the four major political parties had either a female presidential or vice presidential candidate.  Only the All Progressive Congress (APC as a major political party) has a female governorship candidate in Adamawa state. Even though the Labour party has a female governorship candidate in Rivers state, the active participation of the LP as a political party cannot be compared with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the APC.

    The National Assembly, the apex legislative body in the country has been in global focus due to the glaring near exclusion of women. Prior to the 2023 elections, the Nigerian House of Representatives of three hundred and sixty legislators (360) had only 22 women. The Senate of one hundred and nine senators had only seven women.  Nigeria has never elected any female governor. The only woman that had become governor was purely accidental as she was elected as deputy to Peter Obi in Anambra state but only acted as governor when her principal was impeached by the state house of assembly. Her name is Dame Virgy Etiaba.

    Of the 423 national assembly seat results that have been released by the Independent National electoral Commission (INEC) so far, only 15 seats have been won by women. This amounts to a paltry 3.5 percent  for the 10th national assembly. So the men as usual takes the greated portion of a whopping 96.5 percent.

    Of the already declared results, only three women have been elected as senators to the 10th assembly. According to INEC, 3,840 men contested for national assembly seats, 380 women contested for seats at the national assembly. Of this number, only 3.9 percent of the number of women who contested was successful. In the 9th national assembly, 6.42 percent of women were elected into the senate and 3.05 percent into the House of Representatives. 

    Nigeria trails behind most African nations less than 10 percent representation by women. Rwanda has the global highest with more than 60 percent, Ethiopia has 38.8 percent, Senegal with 42.79 percent, Namibia with 41.3 percent, Mozambique has 39.6 percent etc. Kenya just recently elected seven female governors, up from four in their previous election. This was achievable because of 2010 constitutional amendment that makes it illegal for any gender to occupy more than two thirds of any elective post.

    The implication of the muted voice of women in the legislative arm of government is dire. What it means is that the male voices would continue to drown that of the women and there are and would be consequences when the voice of almost half of the population cannot be heard in the highest law making body in the land.

    The result of the last election amounts to the nation shooting itself on the foot. Development in a country with 133 million people living in multi-dimensional poverty might just be more difficult. Betty Wilkinson, a financial analyst and some global bodies like the United Nations, IMF and World Bank all believe that the lack of gender inclusion continues to create more poverty and less development for any nation. He who wears the shoe knows where it pinches.

    The Roundtable Conversation has over the years x-rayed the roots of the exclusion of women, youth and persons living with disabilities in the Nigerian electoral processes. While the Nigerian democracy is fashioned after the American model, in real practice, the Nigerian brand of democracy is structurally flawed and a patriarchal enterprise. Sociologically, girls in Nigeria are raised as second class citizens whose place is in the kitchen and bearing children.

    What that does is that from the cradle, the orientation of children empowers the boy child as the one with leadership skills and more value to the society. So the girl child grows up feeling a sense of submissiveness to the inferred authority of the men. Even from primary schools, class leadership is ceded to the males in most instances. Even though this seems to be changing, it is still very pervasive. On the religious angle, the preaching by all religions including the African traditional religion is that women are not spiritually empowered to preside over some religious rituals. This is often transferred to life outside the religious enclaves.

    The burden of socio-religious issues lays a perfect background for the experiences women have in the political field. The male political elite often transfer their socio-cultural orientation to the political field. The assumption is that men are born to lead. In addition to this flawed narrative is the character of the Nigerian political party structure. The men often dominate the political party structure that is the decision making body of the political parties.

    When political parties are dominated by the men, very little presence is seen of women who are often pushed to the peripheral ‘Women Wings’ of the parties with little executive influence. Most times their mandate is to organize fellow women to vote for men during elections. The political party leadership structure excludes most women and as such their influence in decision-making is often non-existent.  The reasons are multi-faceted. Running political parties in Nigeria is often not a structured system in the sense that political party finances are neither strictly regulated nor monitored to ensure a level-playing field.

    Economic strength often determines the level of influence in political parties and women are often not financially strong to play along on equal terms. No matter how much players pretend that money does not matter, a close scrutiny of the political party system shows that financial muscle is always an issue. The women are often at a disadvantage.  Perhaps by the time the political parties are run in ways that the finances are centralized and used to run the system, may be more women would begin to participate like in other countries.

    The level of literacy and knowledge of economic variables and their implications  in the country is still very low. Not many of the men across the country understand the implication of gender injustice on development. To exclude almost half of the population both economically and politically is reason Nigeria suddenly became the poverty capital of the world. Researches have shown that countries with the least empowered women are always the most underdeveloped.

    The ignorance and illiteracy of most men in the parliament for instance is reason why five gender equity bills in the last assembly were thrown out. Most of the men who opposed the bills were citing socio-religious reasons why they believe women should not have equal opportunity with men. There was an instance in the senate when a female senator stood up to present a bill and a male senator stood up to say that he opposes the bill because in his religion, women are not supposed to be equal to men. There are a few things that can be less astounding.

    A member of the House of Representatives had once brought his four wives to plenary to show that he is a powerful man with four wives and the nation was shocked as the presiding officer and most of the House members laughed and hailed him. Another House member once stood up in the house to oppose any gender equity bill because in his words, more women in the national assembly would run most men out of the chambers especially if they are very knowledgeable. The house members again laughed but these otherwise simple acts of indiscretion are played out even outside the national assembly. Those are sentiments most men act out in political parties.

    The use of violence to intimidate women is another weapon that scares many women away from partisan politics. Many women like the PDP women leader in kogi state and the one for Labour party in Kaduna state have been killed by political opponents for just daring to be politically active. Many other women are either nursing wounds or scared off the political field because largely most of the offenders are often never brought to justice. The justice system in thecountry often just focus of election litigations rather than pre or post electoral violence largely because the security agencies often never conclusively prosecute offenders.

    It must be noted however that the gender inequity in Nigerian politics is an ill-wind that blows no one any good. Since 1999 that men have monopolized the political space, the Nigerian economy has been wobbly and with 133 million today living in multi-dimensional poverty, that is an eloquent testimony of the effects of male-dominated leadership. Curiously, in sectors that merit is the criteria for engagement, Nigerian women have excelled. In the academia, sports, entertainment, media, corporate world etc., Nigerian women have excelled both nationally and internationally.

    An Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, an Amina Mohammed, an Arunma Oteh and many other well-educated Nigerian women are making global impact. Paradoxically, all three were vilified in different forms by some male politicians  when they were in the country as political appointees who have distinguished themselves in different fields. There are many capable women that can give the country good leadership but will patriarchal nuances ever  give way?

    The dialogue continues… 

  • Issues in the presidential election

    Issues in the presidential election

    It was easily one of the most keenly and bitterly contested elections in this dispensation since 1999. The intense competitiveness of last Saturday’s presidential election was reflected in the number of states won by the leading political parties with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) winning in 12 states each including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, which went to the LP. Mr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) swept the polls in Kano as had been widely envisaged.

     The degree of competitiveness is clearly a function of the substantial credibility and integrity of the electoral process notwithstanding some of the technical hitches as well as logistical failures experienced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at the initial phases of the exercise on polling day. Sporadic acts of violence in some areas were quickly contained by security agencies. Hijacked Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines were promptly replaced. The shortcomings witnessed were insufficient to fundamentally change or alter the ultimate outcome of the exercise. The election largely reflected the will of the electorate. Despite the glitches, which are understandable since there are no perfect elections anywhere in the world, those who contend that this was one of the best-organised elections in this dispensation cannot be faulted.

    Indeed, the voting pattern and trend of support for the leading presidential candidates confirmed the projections and prognostications of many analysts and pundits before the elections. Perhaps the greatest revelation of the election was the performance of Mr. Peter Obi on the platform of the Labour Party (LP). Many analysts and members of the dominant parties had dismissed the LP as lacking in the elaborate structures needed to win a national election. The party had no governors and hardly any seats in the National Assembly or state legislatures. It could not boast of controlling any Local Government Area. Yet, Peter Obi won emphatically in the five South-East states and also recorded electoral victories in Lagos, Plateau, Delta, Edo and Nasarawa states outside his home region. Obi skillfully projected himself as a ‘born again’ politician of sorts with a mission to fundamentally overhaul and radically reform the prevailing system.

    To those who rallied to his trumpet call, it did not matter that as governor of Anambra State for eight years and running mate to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the 2019 presidential election on the platform of the PDP, Obi was part and parcel of the system he now disavowed in often trenchant language. Had Atiku won the 2019 election, Obi would have been in office as Vice President of Nigeria today and would most likely have been on the ticket of the PDP in that capacity in this year’s elections. Obi was an entrenched member of the subsisting system and only quit the PDP to pick the ticket of the LP when it dawned on him that he could not clinch the PDP’s presidential ticket at the primaries. There is no significant difference between the values Obi stands for and the philosophical orientation of the PDP or any of the other dominant parties.

    Yet, Obi is one of those who have vehemently denounced and rejected the outcome of the elections as well as voicing his intention to challenge the results in court. But if the election had been rigged against him as Obi insists, how on earth could he have won over 90% of the votes in the South-East while the other leading candidates performed abysmally in that region? Indeed, the South-East was easily the most monolithic and one-sided in terms of voting pattern while other regions were more diverse and liberal in their voting behavior. While the LP recorded 1,960, 589 votes in the South-East, the APC and PDP scored 127,605 and 91,195 votes respectively. If the election was indeed rigged against him as Obi alleges, how come he defeated Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s APC in Lagos State, a party that had won every election in the state since 1999? Can it be that elections were free and fair only in those states where Obi’s LP won?

    Running a most divisive campaign, Obi, apart from understandably enjoying the massive support of his Igbo kith and kin, also deliberately and consciously courted and sought the Christian vote never giving a thought about the dangers of politicizing religion in a complex, multi-religious polity like ours. Engaging in what has been described as “church tourism”, Obi made a point of attending the annual mass gatherings of the mega Pentecostal churches where he was rapturously received by some of the leading pastors openly endorsing his candidacy. This is one of the reasons why the APC’s Muslim,-Muslim ticket, chosen for strategic and pragmatic electoral purposes, became a contentious issue, particularly in Christian circles. The Christian factor was thus a key consideration that swung substantial Christian votes to Obi in states like Plateau, Nassarawa, Delta, Edo, and even Lagos to some extent. However, the obverse side of the coin in this regard was the dismal performance of Obi in the North-West and North-East. Those pastors who were openly and sometimes threateningly projecting Obi as a Christian candidate were unwittingly de-marketing him in key Muslim areas with substantial voting numbers.

    Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his party, PDP, which came second in the polls with 6,984,520 votes has also not unexpectedly rejected the outcome of the polls and also hinted that he will be going to court to challenge the results. However, Atiku ought to have known that he was headed for defeat even before the votes were cast. His strategy was to project himself as a Northern candidate hoping to win massive votes across the North while calculating that Tinubu and Obi would split the Southern votes to his electoral advantage. However, the APC governors and other younger and more liberal elements from the North were determined that the zoning policy of rotating power between the North and South must be honoured in the best interest of equity, justice and national cohesion. Thus, even though Atiku won key northern states like Yobe, Gombe, Adamawa, Sokoto, Katsina, Bauchi, Kaduna, and Taraba, the magnitude of his victory was marginal as Tinubu came a close second in many of these Northern states won by Atiku. The APC had total votes of 1.7 million to PDP’s 1.4 million votes in the North-Central. In the North-East, the APC scored a total of 1,185,458 to the PDP’s 1,741,845 thus coming second in that zone. And in the North-West, APC scored 2,652, 253 votes to the PDP’s 2,329,540.

    Again, the PDP inexplicably went into the election as a divided house especially with the grievances of the G5 governors – Benue, Oyo, Rivers, Abia and Enugu – not addressed by the party and its presidential candidate. The indifference of the governors to the Atiku campaign no doubt partly contributed to the loss of the party in all the South-East states as well as in Rivers, Benue and Oyo states. Although he has attributed his loss in the election to rigging, Atiku himself acknowledged that lack of cohesion within the ranks of the party contributed to the disappointing performance of the party. As he told the press, “Obi took our votes in the South-East and the South-South but that alone cannot make him President. We are ready to dialogue with Obi with a view to forming an alliance”. But such an alliance or mutual understanding should have been undertaken before the elections, not after. Lack of cooperation and a working relationship among the leading opposition parties rather than the rigging allegation is responsible for the outcome of the elections. It is unlikely that either the PDP or LP could single handedly defeat the APC at the polls.

    Although he was the most vilified, denigrated, and relentlessly attacked by his adversaries and opponent, obviously because of his front-runner status in the race, Tinubu overcame all odds to triumph at the polls and emerge as President-elect. His victory demonstrates once again that it is impossible to become President of Nigeria based on the votes of just one region or religious faith. The Director of Media and Publicity of the APC PCC, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, makes this point succinctly, “God created our country in a way to make it impossible for any part of the country to exist without the other. The framers of our constitution also worked to bind our country together with provisions that will make it impossible for a section of the country and any religion to have political dominion over the other. What this means is that any aspiring politician for the presidency of Nigeria must have a strong Pan-Nigeria appeal and strong support and must be embraced by adherents of other religions”.

    Tinubu has been forging friendships, building bridges and forming alliances across ethnic, regional and religious lines over the last three decades and this was reflected in the outcome of the presidential elections. Amazingly, it appears that Tinubu contested not only against candidates of other parties but also some forces within his own party who were unenthusiastic about his candidacy. Thus, how do we explain the inexplicable protracted fuel scarcity as well as the abrupt cash swap policy that threw hundreds of thousands of Nigerians into indescribable pain and anguish right into the election with the strong possibility that many would be angry enough to vote against the ruling party and its candidate?. But the Jagaban triumphed. However, for the first time since 1999, his party lost in one of its most formidable strongholds, Lagos, where APC lost to the LP by 9,848 votes.

    From all indications, however, the dynamics of the governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state next Saturday will be different. Many complacent APC leaders and supporters who had taken victory for the party for granted will be highly motivated to come out en masse to vote for Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s election. In any case, the presidential election in Lagos was not reflective of the relative strengths of the parties in the state. For, in last week’s election, the APC won the three Senatorial seats as well as 20 of the 24 House of Representatives seats. Those who continue to wail that last Saturday’s elections were rigged will have to explain how the APC lost in Lagos or how President Buhari’s party lost in Katsina or how governor Nasir ‘el-Rufai lost in Kaduna or the loss of the DG of Tinubu’s campaign team, Governor Simon Lalong, in Plateau State to name just a few in elections that were allegedly characterized by large scale fraud.   

  • No nurseries, forget age-grade tourneys

    I’m not a fan of Nigeria’s age-grade teams across all levels and gender. The reason is straightforward. Our age-grade stars hardly make it to the pinnacle of their careers because there is little willpower that can propel an ageing player to compete with younger boys. Indeed, the wholesale transition of most of the country’s cup-winning age-grade teams to other teams leading to wearing the Super Eagles shirts regularly has been like a mirage. And until those who administer our football redirect their attention to nurturing the grassroots through soccer academies, we would always resort to shopping for talents to represent Nigeria at the nursery levels in Europe and the Diaspora. Shame.

    Countries we invade to convince kids who haven’t been to Nigeria to represent us have credible nurseries beginning from age five where children are taught the rudiments of the game. Indeed, there is hardly any club in Europe across all leagues that don’t have thriving academies whose products are involved in weekly league schedules like their senior teams. These leagues have competitions bankrolled by the corporate world with the talents discovered properly groomed and exposed to their senior teams whenever there is the need to plug leaky positions in such squads. Need I waste space to list such players? But if you insist, a recent example of a gem discovered a few years ago who is dazzling the world with immense talent is Frenchman Mbappe. Interestingly, Mbappe has played in two consecutive World Cups for France, winning one and being a runner-up in the other.

    Manchester United FC’s goalkeeper David De Gea was runners-up to one of our grade team’s goalkeepers in one of the U-17 World Cups when the English Premier League’s goaltender featured for Spain’s cadet side. How our goalkeeper isn’t relevant or should I say why he isn’t competing at the same level as De Gea today speaks to the biggest problem with our age-grade teams, not minding whose ox is gored.

    The absence of credible nurseries to discover, train and expose the talented players at the grassroots at the 774 Local Government Areas in the country explain why such a kid goalkeeper could rise to the height of such an international competition and being the star of that final game against Spain tells the story of how our football chieftains don’t consider standardising the nucleus of the beautiful game here.

    The Senegalese have established qualitative nurseries using their allocations from FIFA through grants. Today, the Senegalese are kings and queens of different age-grade tournaments in Africa. What this also means is the discovery chain of new talents is seamless, not needing any form of corruption in the models being used. What nurseries do for such a shining goalkeeper is that the operator would monitor his career path and ensure that he plays for decent clubs here or in Europe than allow him to easy prey of shylock club scouts and agents? This writer won’t be surprised if the Senegalese lift the U-20 trophy in Egypt, given the way the young lads strut their trade during matches. In fact, they score goals with aplomb unlike ours.

    Academies which are nurseries for warehousing the game have been standardised to protect the sector and backed by law for effectiveness. It is at this level that countries’ playing patterns evolve depending on what the coaches feel could bring the best from their nationals.  Standards are set for owning such academies including their curriculum to shut out quackery. These academies are registered by the country’s FA with the right synergy struck where players’ movement in and out of the country is documented.

    The beauty of this system is that it also provides a platform for coaches to be trained and retrained on how to handle kids until adulthood. In fact, many of these coaches end up specialising in training young ones. They won’t be persuaded to handle clubs since they enjoy doing the job. It is, therefore, easy for these countries to name age-grade teams’ coaches, not by guesswork or sentiments but by their achievements in the local competitions in such countries. This academy system ensures that players’ data are accurate. They are stored and used in subsequent editions as the players grow. I have deliberately dwelled on age cheats and the choice of coaches.

    Our soccer chiefs shouldn’t insult our sensibilities by celebrating pyrrhic victories over soccer minnows such as Uganda, with due respect to their citizens on the altar of securing the U-20 World Cup qualification ticket scheduled to hold in Indonesia. It took a deflected own goal for the Flying Eagles to earn a place in the World Cup, with most commentators unhappy with the team’s performance. Flying Eagles’ strikers have developed clay feet so far, leaving the team’s defenders to score the few goals credited to them.

    Flying Eagles’ game against the Ugandans was miserably poor with sports entrepreneur Onome Obruthe complaining about his eyes which still itched him, a clear two hours after the match ended. The Master, ace sports journalist Mitchell Obi wrote in one of the WhatsApp platforms on the game thus: ” Football with pain…a goal with pain…a ticket with pain and a coach who goes down in praise..were these Eagles meant to fly…not all birds fly. Consolation is deserved…we can March ON….keep marching Mr

    Bosso…our pain will be your gain.” NFF, those of you who still have ears to listen and eyes to read, Obi’s message is clear – we need a paradigm shift in the team. What we have seen from this squad is a very bad testament to our game at the domestic level. This group can’t be the best crop of U-20 players in Nigeria. The team’s style of play speaks to the technical abilities of the coach as he has shown an improper understanding of the modern tricks of the game. Nigeria would be the whipping team of the World Cup in Indonesia if this group is allowed to remain as the country’s flag bearers. It isn’t enough for any Nigerian team at the U-20 level to qualify for the main event. Given the exploits of Nigerian kids in Europe, we should be the favourites to win the trophy at such a major tournament and not among the also-ran teams.

    Former Interim League Management Board member Emmanuel Zira stated when asked to review the team’s performance thus: ”Coach’ Ladan Bosso is a very good coach and knows how to develop a good team. He was able to bring together, at short notice, a group of players who seem to grow from strength to strength in the ongoing U-20 AFCON. They look like they can qualify for the World Cup and probably even win the ongoing championships in Egypt!

    ”However, I have a huge concern about the true ages of the players. I have been a club chairman for decades and I can tell you that those players don’t look like U-20 to me at all! You are talking of an age range of 19 years and below.!

    ”This is not a common practice in Nigeria alone, but rampant in Africa. Especially west Africa. Only Egypt seem to have a semblance of U-20 players! This practice is only hurting the growth and development of our football. The effect of such practice, down the line for Africa, will just be a mere waste of time and wastage of the so many talents we gave around Nigeria that are of the age category!

    ”We must not see under-age tournaments as purely designed for us to go and win trophies by cheating, at the expense of developing our abundant talents that can shock the world going forward, that can be of economic value to themselves, family and the country,” Zira wrote to this writer.

    Those who have refused to speak the truth about this team’s uncoordinated displays so far, should ask themselves who among these Flying Eagles can in the next two years walk into the Super Eagles and pick a regular shirt? Besides, the players on the U-20 side, Flying Eagles ought to naturally be the feeder team to the Super Eagles. Certainly not these Coach Bosso boys.