The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Jonathan bares his fangs

    Jonathan bares his fangs

    After last week’s duel between President Goodluck Jonathan and the Nigeria Governors Forum, it seems unlikely that anyone would ever again dare to underrate the capacity of the President to take on his opponents or even doubt that he has come to his own. Not with the serial victories of the last fortnight starting with the one over his nemesis, Olusegun Obasanjo. Like a good learner, such has been the unaccustomed dexterity of the erstwhile godson that the structure inelegantly put together by his Baba has been taken down with barely audible whimpers. Like the Biblical quest, Jona’s lines are at the moment falling onto their right places!

    Now, the anointing of Anthony Anenih as the chair of PDP Board of Trustees was supposed to be the icing on the presidential cake. The president obviously got a double in the long-awaited onslaught against the Nigerian Governors Forum – and by extension, the spat with the irrepressible Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi – which came within micro-seconds of the former.

    Thanks to President Jonathan and his PDP Governors Forum, the nation has a lot to learn from the power arithmetic in which a part is deemed to be more than the sum of the whole. A PDP Governors Forum is after all, some steps to decapitation of the bigger body. The President may not have had the head of the chair of the NGF on a platter –John the Baptist-style, the journey to its internment is well on course. The trophy of the PDP governors’ forum is after, all as good any.

    If we add last week’s judicial victory clearing the coast for candidate Jonathan in 2015, the momentum of unchallenged and unchallengeable power would seem infinite. We expect more of such victories – either procured or earned – even as the premature countdown to the 2015 polls begins in earnest. And as Governor Godswill Akpabio, the President’s Man Friday cared to remind last week, part of the sideshow is to fix the Judases and the traitors in the party. By then, the move to carve the PDP in the image of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan would have been near perfect – completed.

    Not even for most part of the imperial Presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, did we see him herd the club of governors to the Villa with the sole aim of choosing their leader for them. Of course we know why the Presidency would pay so much attention to a body it once charitably (?) described as an extra-constitutional body. One Presidential minion – Ahmed Gulak – actually described the body as a trade union. Earlier, Presidential godfather Edwin Clark had described it as an opposition movement perpetually in breaches of both the 1999 Constitution and the constitution of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    The story goes all the way back to a minor incident in the Okrika waterfront in 2010. Nigerians would recall how a visiting Dame Patience Goodluck chided the elected governor of her home state over the latter’s use of “must” to convey his administration’s resolve to demolish and upgrade the blighted Okrika waterfront. The spectacle of the President’s spouse snatching the microphone from Amaechi and the equally dramatic putdown of the former with undisguised venom is one Nigerians are unlikely to forget: “I want you to get me clear. I am from here (Okrika). I know the problems of my people. So, I know what I am talking. I do not want us to go into crises….But what I am telling you is that you always say you must demolish. That word ‘must, you use is not good. It is by pleading. You appeal to the owners of the compound, because they will not go into exile. Land is a serious issue.”

    Of course, Amaechi’s sins have since grown in leaps and bounds. His leadership of the NGF has been uncompromising in its opposition to the Federal Government’s expropriation of funds belonging to the states and local government to establish the Sovereign Wealth Fund. There is also the lingering matter of the excess crude account which the federal government sought to disburse as it pleased but which his leadership of the NGF would insist on contesting in court. The dispute between Bayelsa and Rivers over the status of some oil wells and which the Rivers Governor had openly accused the President of meddling in favour of his home state of Bayelsa merely added salt on a gaping wound.

    Governance is however not the only area of disagreement. If the raging battle in Adamawa is a revelation of the extent to which the governors club is locked in combat with the President and the national chairman on just about every and any issue, the tension between the National Working Committee of the party and its executive council are as equally revealing of a party in turmoil.

    However, just as much has been written about the struggle for the soul of the PDP as the 2015 race hots up as the driver of the animosities, there is another factor often glossed over. Psychoanalysing the President is certainly far from my mind. However, one only needs to go back to the travails of former Governor Timipre Sylva for an inkling into the character flaws of the number one citizen. I refer here to his intolerance of those perceived as remotely challenging his authority, plus his inability to overlook a hurt or forgive an injury. To these add his penchant to elevate personal issues to state matters and his lack of restraint in the use of state instruments to push a personal agenda.

    Now, where do these lead? I make some guesses. Already, with two fixers in office, there shouldn’t be shortage of enemies to find and fix in the run down to 2015. It is futile to ask a man riding the crest of victory to slow down or dismount.

    Not unexpectedly, the developments have come with interesting side shows. Just like in Sylva’s case in which an alleged insubordination would become the subject of a thriller at the Villa, Amaechi story is already being promoted in Jonathan’s court as a block buster in gubernatorial insolence! How about something to excite the bored presidency?

    The point is – this presidency knows a bit or two about the use of power – in a perverse way. Gone are the days when presidents drew from the well-spring of moral authority to get things going. With President Jonathan, the seduction to raw power has become so irresistible as to constitute the barometer to measure the decline of the moral authority.

    Sure enough, everyone is guaranteed to learn the unknown equation in power relations: the rule of unanticipated or unexpected behaviour. It’s something for the gloaters to ponder over.

  • In the shadow of Rosa Parks

    In the shadow of Rosa Parks

    Irony rarely comes in a more profound form.

    It is Black History month, and in the rotunda of the Capitol, in Washington, DC., President Barack Obama is unveiling a statue of Rosa Parks, the demure black seamstress who refused to give up her seat at the back of the city bus to a white passenger, in Montgomery, Alabama, in the American Deep South, where racial segregation was official policy.

    That singular act of defiance led to her arrest, and to a boycott of the bus service coordinated by a little-known local pastor who ultimately became the acknowledged leader of the civil rights movement in the United States, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and is acknowledged as one of history’s great men.

    Across from where the unveiling is taking place, the Supreme Court of the United States is hearing oral arguments in a petition urging it to strike down a law that bars states from changing their voting laws in ways that could disenfranchise residents without the approval of the Department of Justice.

    The law, revalidated by a unanimous decision in 2006, was enacted as part of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, which made it possible for generations of African Americans to register to vote for the first time, without having to pass stultifying literacy tests and without having to show that they owned property.

    The tests were so brazenly manipulated that very few even among educated and propertied African Americans could pass them, leading a frustrated Dr Martin Luther King to complain that, at the rate at which it was being carried out, voter registration of the black residents of the state of Alabama would take about 150 years.

    Today, the right to vote continues to be circumscribed, especially in states controlled by the Republicans, in ways that on their face seem to apply to the general population but are designed to suppress the vote of African Americans and Latinos who tend to go with the Democrats.

    It is well known, for example, that African Americans generally flock to voting centres to cast early ballots after Sunday worship. To prevent that, some states outlawed Sunday voting. In a variation of that theme, they also cut early voting so drastically that, as happened last November, it took eight hours for some voters to cast their ballots. This measure was calculated to make the cost of voting almost prohibitive for persons at the lower end of the economic scale.

    In yet another variation of that theme, the Republican majority in many states redrew electoral districts in such a way as to dilute the black vote and make the election of African Americans or a Democrat virtually impossible. So that, today, although Republican candidates polled at least a million votes fewer than Democratic candidates, they hold a commanding majority in the U. S. House of Representatives.

    It took spirited legal challenge mounted by disaffected citizens, with the backing of the Justice Department, to block the enforcement of the more brazen of these voter suppression laws.

    Now, scarcely four months later, a county in one of the states with the most odious record of discrimination – a county in which an election was cancelled because it was going to be won by an African American despite all the mago mago –is asking the Supreme Court to void the federal law mandating District of Justice to vet changes of that kind to the state electoral laws.

    And despite this recent history, despite the cumulative evidence of continuing disenfranchisement and voter suppression, a majority of the justices of the Supreme Court, an institution now widely regarded as the Republican Party in black robes, seems inclined to hold that the federal law at issue has run its course and should go.

    Chief Justice John Roberts says the United States had changed to the point where the law was no longer necessary. Then, he went on to cite Massachusetts. which is not subject to the law being challenged, as a state with a poorer record of American African American voting than Mississippi – the same Massachusetts which has as its elected governor Deval Patrick, Jr.

    This, as has been pointed out, is a distortion of the Massachusetts record. In any case, the issue is voter suppression and disenfranchisement, not the quantum of minority voting.

    The Court’s resident bully, a perfect refutation of the perception of judges as the epitome of sobriety, and the leading exponent of a soulless judicial doctrine which holds that statutes are only to be construed the way the framers understood them – they call it “originalism” — said that continuing enforcement of the federal law at issue would amount to “perpetuation of a racial entitlement.”

    Now, few words evoke greater resentment in American experience than “entitlement.” When an issue is framed as a “racial entitlement” from which only the usual suspects stand to profit, the mooching, freeloading 47 percent, that cause is doomed. That is race baiting at its most unsubtle. But then, Antonin Scalia is about as subtle as a kick to the groin.

    As is his habit, the only black associate justice in the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, sat impassively through the 79 minutes the oral arguments lasted, seeking no clarification and offering none. He has probably made up his mind to vote for striking out the law. He is as predictable as an automaton.

    Though a beneficiary of affirmative action, he automatically votes to void any measure aimed at redressing or on-going discrimination, claiming that such considerations have no place in the supposedly race-neutral society he claims to inhabit.

    He even voted to strike down the Affordable Health Care Act, the law designed to make health insurance available to more than 30 million Americans, the majority of them blacks, who had none previously. For good measure, his Caucasian wife had campaigned vigorously against the law, on the platform of the now exhausted Tea Party.

    Planting Clarence Thomas in the Court was a masterstroke by President George W. Bush and the Conservative Establishment to slow down, if not reverse, the march of civil rights and indeed the progressive agenda in America.

    If a case with the contours of Brown v. Board of Education were to come before the Court today, there is little doubt that Thomas would cast his lot with the proposition that having separate schools for whites and blacks is not inherently unequal.

    His appointment to the Court is an insult to the legacy and the memory of Thurgood Marshall, his black predecessor, whom The New York Times described as “a model and a monument.”

    The first President Bush probably spoke a greater truth than he realised or intended when he claimed that Thomas, who had no judicial experience whatsoever, was the best man for the job, their job.

    In the African American community, there were dozens far more qualified than Thomas on every score. But none could be counted upon, like Thomas, to be a scourge to his own people.

    The Supreme Court will hand down its opinion in Shelby County, Alabama v Eric Holder in the summer. It would be irony most profound if, during Black History Month and under the shadow of Rosa Parks, it laid the ground for overturning a crucial element in the most important civil rights law even as the substantive evils it was designed to prevent are still so brazenly practised.

    Whatever the outcome, one impression will stay with me: the consummate skill, the erudition, and the calm self-assurance, with which our distinguished compatriot Debo Adegbile, attorney for one of the respondents in the case, marshaled facts and figures to score telling forensic points, as splendidly reflected in the Court’s transcript.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Tackling Bayelsa’s infrastructure challenge

    Tackling Bayelsa’s infrastructure challenge

    Infrastructural development is one of the major components of economic growth of any developing nation. Leadership at all levels of government places premium on infrastructural development, as it creates the enabling environment to stimulate business and industrial activities which in turn enhances productivity, check undue rise in cost of operationa, employment generation and as well poverty reduction.

    Good governance to the average citizen of a developed or developing nation is all about provision of social amenities at affordable rates, meaningful and long lasting development. And, to achieve this, the leadership must be prepared to tackle the challenges of basic infrastructural needs of the citizenry.

    Some these basic amenities include efficient, stable and reliable power supply, safe and potable drinking water, functional public transportation system, effective communication system, functional and affordable healthcare and educational facilities.

    Irked by the age long infrastructural decay in the oil rich Bayelsa State, Governor Seriake Dickson on assumption of office on February 14, 2012 officially declared a State of Emergency in the educationand other critical sectors of the economy.

    Created in 1996, the issue of security in the state has been of great concern to successive administrations in the state. The Internally Generated Revenue of the State nose dived on daily basis, as efforts at attracting investors hardly produced the desired results, largely due to insecurity and the chaotic situation infrastructure in the state among others.

    Local and foreign investors never saw Bayelsa as a safe and viable investment destination. The state was always in the news for the wrong reasons. It was either rival cult wars, kidnapping of mainly expatriate workers of multi-national companies, illegal oil bunkering, financial fraud, and other related vices.

    In order to tackle this problem and make the state investment friendly, Governor Dickson, as a former security operative, put in place a security outfit code named: Operation Doo Akpor to checkmate the activities of criminals in and outside the state capital.

    This decision is paying off, as night life has gradually returned to Yenagoa, the state capital.

    The heatwarming news is that, investors, local and foreign are now jostling to invest in the state.

    The Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, Colonel Bernard Kenebai (Rtd) said with the security gadgets and personnel put in place by the Dickson-led administration, the state is no longer the safe haven for criminals.

    In the last one year, the operatives of the security outfit”Operation Doo Akpor” have arrested over 600 suspects for criminal offences and handed them over to the appropriate security agency for further interrogation and prosecution in accordance with the law. Prior to the advent of the administration, there were high incidents of criminal activities in Urban and other metropolitan cities of the state. The waterways, then were not safe as there were reported cases of sea piracy and other related vices. The impact of a state of insecurity is quite obvious. Criminals were taking institutions of government in open confrontations. There were reported cases of kidnapping, assassinations and the activities of some purported amnesty agitators.

    However, with the installation of TETRA Trunk radio, the first of its kind in the West Africa sub region and purchase of over 85 patrol vehicles and 15 patrol boats, the residents of the state can now sleep with their two eyes closed.

    Also, as part of the security measures put in place, the government has built 13 emergency response centres in some designated areas of the state. The areas are: Oloibiri, Ogbia town, Opume, Otuabagi junction, Emeyal 1/Otuoke junction and Otuasega/Shell camp junction.

    Other areas are: Onuebum, Agbura, Okaki/Yenegwe junction, Igbogene/Okolobiri/Glory Drive round about, Okordia-Zarama market and Opokuma and Sagbama junctions.

    With the security measures put in place, Governor Dickson has turned the entire state to a massive construction site with work on 41 roads, 75 block-low cost Housing Estate, civil servant quarters, building of model secondary schools in the three senatorial zones, commencement of work on 500 bed hospital, world class referral centre, the three senatorial districts roads, Transparency building, the Five-Star hotel, the four secretariat annexes, Multi Door Court House, Governor’s Lodges in Yenagoa, Sagbama and Nembe.

    Conducting newsmen round some of the project sites, State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Lawrence Ewrudjakpor said, ‘when we took over, there was nothing to write home about and that is why the governor was angry to develop the state. All the ongoing projects as well as the ones earmarked for construction would be completed within the tenure of the present administration.

    The government embarked on this massive construction of projects because the state is backwards in terms of physical development compared with its contemporaries, especialy in the southern part of the country.

    The target of the administration is to restore the lost glory of the state and put it on sound footing to be able to catch up with the rest.

    Also, the Government has invested over N4bn in rural electrification projects with the award of over 23 contracts. These include; Obunagha-Sagbama 33KVA line, extension to Ofoni community through Ebedebiri, Bolou Orua, Angiama and Toru Orua, 2 by 7.5 MVA injection sub-station; Agbere-Odoni, 1000KVA gas-fired CAT generating station including cabling, upgrading and modification of Angiama sub station to import electricity to communities in Southern Ijaw local government area among others.

    In the area of human capacity-building, a total number of 557 scholarships have been awarded in the last one year. Governor Dickson stated that his administration has made huge investments in the education sector because of its commitment to developing the human capacity of the state.

    According to him, Government made an initial provision of N1bn for the postgraduate scholarship scheme, but has since overshot that amount in view of the massive demands it got from Bayelsans.

    “The sums involved are quite staggering, but we believe it is a good investment. Because of our passion for human capacity development, we have since overshot the N1bn originally earmarked for the scheme.” Dickson explained.

    • Ajibola writes from Yenagoa

  • Edo’s 2013 budget

    Edo’s 2013 budget

    Can you really satisfy the people of Edo State? Of course, yes. Aren’t they more demanding than state resources can carry? The answer is in the affirmative. Could it be because to whom much is given, much is expected? Again, yes. The truth is – the people of Edo want more from Governor Adams Oshiomhole despite his overwhelming scorecard in the past four years in office.

    Oshiomhole, on his part has vowed to post more mouth-watering dividends. His 2013 budget christened “Taking Edo to the next level” is one among three others before Oshiomhole will call it quits.

    Successive governments in the past have had budgets tagged with flamboyant adjectives but unfortunately they hardly yielded the much trumpeted result. Today, the difference is clear. Whereas the budget used to be an opaque instrument; now it’s a self-reliant and fiscally prudent tool.

    Edo State is one of the few states where Fiscal Responsibility legislation was passed into law and we all know the import of that. While the state benefits from the 13% derivation fund as a marginal oil producing state, this fiscal advantage does not translate to any significant edge in financial transfers and key indices when compared to other states in the Niger Delta region.

    The proposed Budget size for the year is N150,045,377,060 billion. Of this, the sum of N87,407,475,855 billion, representing approximately 60%, is being proposed as Capital Expenditure; while the proposed Recurrent Expenditure is N62,637,901,205 billion, which represents approximately 40% of budget size.

    By the above figures, government is sustaining the tradition of putting more funds into capital expenditure, while reducing recurrent expenditure.

    The sum of N116, 479,778,045 billion is proposed as recurrent revenue, made up of the following components: Statutory Receipt – N86.51 billion, Internally Generated Revenue – N26.97 billion

    The projected capital receipts amount to N64,341,876,840 billion, while there is a projected deficit of N23,065,599,015 billion to be funded through the World Bank Budget Support Facility and additional credit lines.

    The Recurrent Component of the 2013 Budget, which is N62,637,901,205 billion, is made up of Personnel Costs – N25.46 billion, Overhead Costs – N16.40 billion and Consolidated Revenue Fund Charges – N20.76 billion

    Government is concentrating the bulk of it’s Capital Expenditure on key priority areas. Roads Project is allocated the sum of N33,351,000,000 billion. This will be used to complete ongoing intra and inter-city road projects, in addition to funding new road projects. The designs of these road projects, according to government sources, are ready.

    The sum of N 13,293,000,000 billion is proposed for Flood and Erosion Control and Environmental Protection. Of this amount, N8.00 billion is allocated for the execution of projects under the Benin City Storm Water Masterplan. Also, a substantial sum has been earmarked for the continue desiltation and dredging of the Benin Moat.

    Similarly, the sum of N2.55 billion is set aside for erosion and flood control infrastructure in Edo Central and Edo North senatorial districts, while the sum of N1.20 billion is proposed for Beautification and Urban renewal projects across the State.

    The total budget provision for education is N26.7 billion comprising of N14.6 billion capital and N12.1 billion recurrent expenditure excluding salaries to primary schools teachers.

    The state owned university, Ambrose Alli University has a provision of N4.82 billion of which N1.02 billion is for capital projects. N4 billion has been provided for construction and renovation tertiary institutions in Edo State. The technical schools reconstruction/renovation has a provision of N500million.

    The sum of N6.78 billion has been allocated to the Health Sub-Sector, comprising of N2.8 billion capital projects and N3.98 billion for recurrent expenditure.

    Edo people should expect the procurement of rescue ambulances to cover Benin-Auchi, Benin-Ore, Benin-Agbor and Benin-Warri roads at an estimated cost of N30,000,000 million. It is expected that this will complement the on-going Accident and Emergency facility in the new complex at the Central Hospital, Benin City.

    The administration has also promised to continue to transform the agriculture sub-sector to ensure increased food and raw material production. In this connection, government plans to provide necessary inputs to farmers and encourage our teeming youth to engage in agricultural activities. The sum of N400 million is proposed for this sub-sector in Year 2013.

    Sure, the budget is intended to strengthen the administration’s resolve to galvanize the people of Edo state towards developmental action and make the state competitive economically as well as make it self-reliant.

    This is more so as Oshiomhole is sworn to carry out institutional reforms necessary to guarantee and sustain irreversible development. “The thrust of our policies is to achieve concrete development. In this regard, the fiscal governance measures we adopted at the beginning of this administration will be sustained.”

    Edo State has been acknowledged as a rapidly developing state in Nigeria by local commentators, investors and development partners. Oshiomhole and his team have creatively managed the state’s resources efficiently to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of the people. He has worked consciously with the people to deepen their partnership for our overall progress.

    The administration must be commended for its efforts at improving the state compared to the work done by its predecessors. But as with everything in life, there is room for improvement if continuity is sustained. The state is blessed with abundant resources which have barely been tapped and transformed to cash-cows. Apart from tax earnings which cannot even sustain its recurrent expenditure, the states’ major financing source is the Federation Account.

    Without handouts from the Federal Government, will the state exist in the form it does now? The answer is no. It definitely needs an improvement in federal allocation. Has the state provided a thriving environment for SMEs to play an active role in its economy? It is trying but needs to do more. Is the government investing in physical infrastructure and human capital or is it just maintaining what it has inherited? The state’s performance in education and spending on roads answer this question affirmatively.

    To a great extent, leadership is like beauty, it’s hard to define but you know it when you see it. Oshiomhole has proved himself a model in self-confidence, vision, virtue, plain guts, and reliance on blessed impulse. He has learned from everything, more importantly from experience, adversity, and mistakes. He has learned to lead by leading.

    There are a lot of goodies for the people of Edo in Oshiomhole’s 2013 budget. All we need to get the best from this government is to simply support the government, criticize constructively, pay our taxes and maintain whatever public infrastructure the government must have succeeded in building in our environment. By so doing, Edo can be said to be on the path of sustainable development.

    • Mayaki is a founding member, Coalition for Good Governance and Economic Justice in Africa

  • The Berende challenge

    The Berende challenge

    It is not often that personnel of Secret Service agencies around the world come out in the open to reveal their identities or what they are working on , let alone call a media conference to do so. But since the Boko Haram terrorism onslaught on Nigeria, the State Security Service has been more than willing to report breakthroughs and progress.

    But while we have been inundated with efforts being made by SSS to crack Boko Haram, albeit with limited success, the revelation last week by the service that it had been able to burst an Iranian sponsored terrorist cell in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital could end up being a major breakthrough for the organisation.

    Parading 50-year-old Abdullahi Berende as leader of an Iranian sponsored terrorist group in Nigeria before the public in Abuja Wednesday last week, SSS spokesman Marilyn Ogar named two others, Saheed Adewunmi and Sulaiman Saka as members of the terrorist cell being handled by Iranians to spy on Israel and American interests in the country. A fourth person, Bunyamin Yusuf is said to be at large.

    In addition to spying on American and Israeli interests in the country for possible terrorist attack, the suspects were said to have also drawn up a list of prominent Nigerians that could be attacked and whose attack could set up a chain of reactions capable of destabilizing the country.

    Of course Iran has denied ever running a terrorist cell in Nigeria or planning to do so and blamed enemies of the growing cordial relationship between the two countries for cooking up the story to not just cause disaffection between both nations but also permanent damage and enmity. And when Iran talks of enemies, the State of Israel and the United States of America come to mind.

    When it comes to state security matters it is very difficult to know the actual truth as all the parties tend to exaggerate or “sex-up” the facts to present a convincing evidence to justify their respective and often different positions. Remember former US Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell presented to the whole world, at the UN, what America said was solid evidence of Iraq’s weapon of mass destruction to justify US and allied forces attack and decimation of Iraqi armed forces and to a large extent the country’s infrastructure all in a bid to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. Britain, in her own intelligence report even said attack on western targets in Europe by Iraq was just few weeks away and called for pre-emotive attack to destroy Saddam Hussein and his army. Of course they attacked and destroyed Iraq but no weapon of mass destruction was ever found because none existed in the first place. Virtually all the intelligences services in the west had similar report of Iraq’s weapon of mass destruction. So, were they deliberately misleading the world to justify their planned destruction of Iraq or they got their intelligence wrong?

    Nobody could say which now, but because Iraq was such a bad guy nobody bothered to give the country the benefit of the doubt or even seriously blame the west after the fall of Saddam and destruction of Iraq and no weapon was found. The general conclusion was even if Iraq had no weapon of mass destruction, the world would be a better place without the Iraqi dictator.

    The same could be said of Iran now as the country battles biting western economic sanctions over its nuclear programme. While the world is accusing Teheran of enriching uranium to produce nuclear war heads/bombs the Iranians are insisting that their nuclear programme is for peaceful purpose.

    While it is very difficult to believe Iran on anything, we only have the words of Berende and the SSS on the alleged Iranian sponsored terrorist cell in Lagos. So, who do we believe?

    Iran in the past had sponsored attacks against Israel’s interests, notably in South America and anywhere it considered the weakest link in the Jewish state’s seemingly impregnable security network. So, if truly the country had plans to attack Israel’s cultural centre in Lagos, it won’t be much of a surprise as it had done so elsewhere. And remember the previous Shia Muslim unrests in Nigeria had the hand of Teheran as the Islamic Republic appeared bent on having more than a mere economic footprint in Nigeria but also political/ideological and religious presence.

    But if Iran is saying no, then could our SSS be lying or merely carrying out the wish of Israel and America, fighting western war against Iran by proxy? It is very difficult to fault our security service in this regard not only because one is not in a position to do so, but also because it would be unpatriotic to do so when there is no evidence to the contrary. It is also unthinkable that the SSS would be protecting any other interest apart from Nigeria’s. So from the evidence at hand Iran is guilty, but then what are the options open to Nigeria to seek redress. One is to strongly protest this clandestine operation by Iran within Nigeria’s territory to the authorities in Teheran and if we are truly convinced about it, we could summarily expel all or any Iranian diplomat here engaged or involved in one way or the other in this plan to carry out terrorist attacks in Lagos or anywhere else in Nigeria. We could also in addition to expelling the diplomat(s) recall our own envoy to Iran if we feel strongly about the alleged Iranian action. But are we on a strong footing on this matter? Because issues like this should not be taken lightly. So if our position is so strong, then let’s go ahead and do whatever we could to show our annoyance to Iran, after all we are a sovereign state.

    But beyond this, the choice of Lagos should trouble every right thinking Nigerian, just as the alleged involvement of a Yoruba man from Ilorin, Kwara state in particular to cause destruction and mayhem in a largely Yoruba city/state of Lagos should worry every Nigerian. Aside Lagos being largely populated by Yoruba, it is also home to all the other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria and remains the economic capital of the country. Apart from oil and gas that come from the Niger Delta region, Lagos accounts for virtually every other business and commercial, activities that drive Nigeria’s economy, so, any terrorist attack in the emerging mega city could be inimical to Nigeria’s shaky image of a stable country. An attack on Lagos could be seen by the rest of the world as a sign of insecurity in the country and this could scare foreign investors.

    In addition any such attack could cause ethnic unrest that could ultimately lead to fratricidal conflicts across the federation, hence the need to take the Berende’ s Iranian terrorists plot very seriously. It is not enough to just parade the suspects, SSS should also endeavour to pursue not just the investigation to its logical conclusion but also charge the suspects to court and put a lie to the Iranian denial. It is about time our security services including the police and even Immigration intensify their surveillance of religious places and organisations to detect any foreign ideological infiltration that could harm our well being as a nation and a people. The Immigration Service in particular should monitor (but not unnecessarily interfere) the movement of Nigerians to such volatile countries that have the tendencies to indoctrinate young and often idle minds towards harmful causes to their nations and their people. Most important however is a commitment by the Nigerian government at all tiers to providing employment for our youths. Most of these unemployed youths are easy targets for evil minded people recruiting terrorists all over the place. The fact that Berende and co and heir minders have Lagos in mind shows that the city and indeed the entire southern Nigeria is not immune to terrorist attack. We should all be vigilant.

     

  • The battle of two Orjis

    The battle of two Orjis

    Since the beginning of the year, the media has been awash with the story of the attempts by former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu to re-enter the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the resistance of such effort by the state leadership of the party led by Governor T.A. Orji and chairman, Senator Emma Nwaka. The scenario has unarguably drawn both critics and antagonists of both parties into the public domain.

    However, an objective understanding of the Abia political situation can only be attained if we cast our minds back to the political dynamics in Abia State since 1999 and how it has evolved till date.

    Such proper understanding will equally enable us understand why such effort by Orji Kalu evokes so much passion and emotions especially by Abia politicians and the stiff resistance to such re-entry by the current leadership of the party.

    Orji Kalu in Abia State evokes so much emotion because his administration was one that came to power with so much support by a wide spectrum of the Abia population in 1999. It has to be stated that between 1999 and 2002 when there was still some pretence to governance, the Kalu administration constructed few short roads, which were concentrated in urban centres of Aba and Umuahia. However, by 2003 these roads which the Kalu administration used to showcase as its achievements had started showing signs of collapse due to poor conception and execution, and by 2006 most of them had actually collapsed. The gradual collapse of these roads was simultaneously followed by the collapse of a more fundamental value, which was the gradual collapse of democracy in Abia under Kalu’s watch, and its substitution with the rise of the dictatorship of the Kalu family.

    How did this situation arise? Early in the administration of the Orji Uzor Kalu, the dictatorial tendencies of the Kalu family, the muzzling of dissent voices and alienation of critical segments of the Abia population were the main contradictions that generated an opposition group led by the trio of Onyema Ugochukwu, Ojo Maduekwe and Vincent Ogbulafor.

    Towards the 2003 elections, the imperative of ensuring electoral victory for the PDP, had led to the resolution of the Abia leadership crises in favour of Kalu and his mother. Such resolution equally led to the ascendancy of Mrs Eunice Uzor Kalu as the de facto leader of PDP in the state.

    The 2007 gubernatorial election was mainly between the PDP led by Chief Onyema Ugochukwu and the PPA, which had Chief T.A. Orji, a technocrat with friends across the divide as the candidate. While the PPA, which had Governor T.A. Orji as the candidate won the governorship election and majority of the state assembly seats, the PDP clinched the majority of the National Assembly seats and some state assembly seats. The situation however remained such that the Kalu family dictatorship was still in full gear. The power of the dictatorship was exercised in a manner that gave them unlimited control over several organs of the government thus leaving Governor T.A. Orji very little room to utilize the mandate given to him by the Abia electorates.

    The situation was made worse by the monopolization of the big projects contracts by the Kalu family companies and their inability to deliver. The matter was not equally helped by a burgeoning security challenge that was threatening civic and economic activities especially in the urban areas of Aba and Umuahia. As if history was repeating itself, these contradictions caused implosive crisis within the PPA that brought about Governor T.A. Orji seeking for another platform to contest for the 2011 governorship election. This development metamorphosed into the merger of Orji’s PPA large followership with the PDP. The fallout was a sweeping victory by the PDP in all the contested positions.

    It has to be noted that Orji’s magic wand that made this history in Abia politics were his candour and exceptional humility that paid off in unifying the political bigwigs and reintegrating the state to the mainstream of national politics.

    The most significant aspect of the 2011 elections was the round rejection of the Kalu family dictatorship as symbolized by not only the rejection of all PPA candidates but also the eventual woeful failure of Kalu who contested for Abia North Senatorial election. He lost despite his empty boasts and grandstanding.

    Over the past two years, this has guaranteed a quantum leap in governance in both qualitative and quantitative terms. At least, democracy has finally been restored to the people under the current leadership of Governor Orji and the PDP in the state ably led by a tested and self-effacing politician Senator Nwaka. The evidence of the new order can be taken from a little incident that happened a few months ago at Arochukwu Local Government chapter of the PDP, where the LGA Chairmanship position became vacant and a successor-Hon Obinna Nwankwo was elected in a transparent and constitutionally stipulated manner. There was no interference from either the state governor or the state leadership of the party. Such a thing would not have happened under the former era.

    Another milestone of Governor Orji’s visionary leadership is the synergy and harmonious working relationship between the state government and the Federal Government. This has brought about a number of federal government projects to Abia State. Some of the projects include: the Abiriba-Nkporo-Eso-Edda Road, rehabilitation of Ohafia-Arochukwu Road, re-opening of Osisioma NNPC Depot, the reconstruction of federal roads by FERMA, the Independent Power Project at Alaoji, the Labour Institute in Umuahia, etc. These harvests of projects were in contrast to the locust era of the Kalu family when Orji Kalu engaged the Federal Government in meaningless confrontation.

    Again, the achievement of elite consensus has enabled the state government to concentrate effort at pursuing its legacy development agenda undisturbed by unnecessary political bickering and scheming. The most outstanding example of the healthy political environment is the numerous construction sites all over the state and building modern institutional monuments in Umuahia.

    Those who know Orji Kalu well will agree that his sudden re-appearance to Abia scene after two years in the cooler, and his desperation to re-enter the PDP after re-organizing his PPA will only have one agenda in mind and that is to cause confusion and balkanize the Abia PDP, while repositioning his party (PPA) to actualize their plan for 2015. It is too late in the day for Abia people to be dragged back to Egypt by Orji Kalu and his band of buccaneering adventurers.

     

    • Chief Ike is former chairman Arochukwu LGA, Abia State.

  • 2015: So you want to be president?

    2015: So you want to be president?

    Until lately, few of the many puzzles the first-time visitor to Nigeria encounters could have been more intriguing than the warning in bold letters they find on the façade of many homes in many of the bigger towns: THIS HOUSE IS NOT FOR SALE.

    “If it’s not for sale,” the visitor must wonder in his or her innocence, “why call attention to that fact? Surely, any person offering to buy a house that is not on the market cannot complain if they roughen him up and throw him into the streets on the perfectly sensible ground that he could well be an intruder with criminal intent on his mind.

    It could be worse, of course. The owners of the property could just as easily – and with greater profit to their own equanimity – hand him over to area boys forever lurking in the neighbourhood and abandon him to their not-so-tender mercies. Or they could march him to the nearest police station, serenaded by the jeers and taunts and curses of passers-by, and turn him in as a burglar caught in the act

    Even in the more genteel section of town, offering to buy a house that has not been placed on the market is a fraught proposition. When it is proclaimed in bold letters on the property that it is not for sale, the contumacy is compounded.

    As if this puzzle was not mystifying enough, a new one that cannot fail to raise questions in the visitor’s mind about the political rationality of the natives has now been added.

    Hardly a day passes without a political figure proclaiming in full-page newspaper advertisements in lavish colour, on radio and television, on billboards and wall posters and in handbills, that he is not contemplating running for higher office (usually for president), has never contemplated such a move, and will never contemplate it.

    To leave absolutely no room for any misreading, the statement usually adds for effect that any person who asserts, suggests, insinuates, implies, or in any other way creates the impression, by word or image or any other means whatsoever, that the declarant has ever harboured, now harbours or will ever harbor such an ambition, belongs in a lunatic asylum and should be rushed there without further delay.

    You could hardly blame any visitor who concluded on encountering such abject disavowal again and again that aspiring to higher elected office is the greatest political crime in this realm. You would have a hard time convincing the visitor that political ambition has not been criminalised – at least, not yet.

    It was not always like this.

    Back when politics was politics and politicians were politicians, you adopted one of two strategies if you were desirous of climbing higher on what Disraeli called the greasy pole.

    You proclaimed your desire from the rooftop and as loudly as possible, thus serving notice on anyone with any eye on the same position that he or she would have to reckon with you.

    This strategy also carried with it the advantage of primacy, which is no small matter in politics. If you were the first to declare, you or your supporters could always label anyone declaring after you a spoiler driven by no higher motive than envy and malice.

    Nor is that all. If you cannot silence them altogether, jumping out ahead of the pack could also be an effective way of serving notice to all those professional malcontents who are forever kvetching about one thing or another to keep their intrusive eyes off you or face the consequences of their temerity.

    The late Godwin Daboh understood this strategy very well. Even while the rules of the game were yet to be fashioned, Daboh would declare that he was going to run for governor of Benue. Thereafter, if anyone wrote or said anything he didn’t like, he would threaten to file a lawsuit seeking compensatory damages on the ground that the speech or publication had ruined his chances of being elected governor. . .

    Daboh had his faults, but you could never accuse him of reticence.

    The second strategy is to keep everyone in suspense, without affirming an intent to run or denying it – the kind of strategy Dr Goodluck Jonathan has been employing with regard to the presidential election scheduled for 2015.

    Those “on ground,” to employ a delicious Nigerian locution, say that his “body language” points powerfully to his seeking a second substantive term in 2015. But the wily resident of Aso Rock has steadfastly refused to be goaded into saying anything remotely definitive on the issue.

    “It is too early to talk about it” has been his stock response when pressed on the matter. He could for good measure add that the whole thing is a distraction when so much that has been malformed, deformed or unformed is awaiting transformation. From this vantage point, he can survey the entire field, identify potential challengers, and neutralise them on the threshold.

    Could this be what has happened to Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido and Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, or are their current travails the products of pure coincidence?

    No sooner was it bruited that the one might be running for president in 2015, with the other as vice president, than the political environment began to crackle. Though billed only to play second fiddle in the rumoured project, Amaechi frantically bought acres of pages in the newspapers and large chunks of prime time on radio and television, not forgetting billboards and handbills and social media, to proclaim that he had no plan to run for president or vice president.

    Apparently, they did not take him at his word.

    So, knock him off his perch as chair of the influential National Governors Forum. Failing that, create a separate caucus of PDP governors with a complaisant governor as chairman, to dilute whatever influence Amaechi may still muster. He may be governor of an oil-rich state, but he knows only too well that he can be brought to heel by the Federal Might.

    Did I hear someone just say that the EFCC is waiting in the wings?

    In this political season, fear of the EFCC is the key to self-preservation. Consider the cruel swiftness with which it was deployed against Timipre Sylva, former governor of Dr Jonathan’s home state, Bayelsa. Recall how it was pressed into service to rein in one party in what was essentially a war of words between protagonists of the previous order and the present one.

    After his son was arrested, charged with trafficking in foreign currency and denied bail, Sule Lamido, who had been playing the waiting game, announced that he would not be a candidate for president in 2015.

    In the months ahead, we are likely to see many more political figures declaring in the most emphatic manner possible that they have no plan to run for president, possibly going so far as to echo American Civil War general, William Sherman, who warned those seeking to draft him to run for president, that if nominated, they would not accept and if elected, they would not serve.

    The PDP might well end up begging Dr Jonathan to run for re-election in 2015 because no one in the party currently holding high elected office is willing to risk being smothered in the EFCC’s net.

    But the “No Vacancy In Aso Rock” opera, led by Tony “The Fixer” Anenih, had better not take the curtain call yet. Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu for one is not in the least fazed. He says he is not afraid of running for president and will announce his plans at the opportune moment. He has even summoned the audacity to assert that Dr Jonathan, having solemnly undertaken to hold office for just one term, cannot in good conscience run for another.

    Bravo, Talban Minna.

    Expect the EFCC or the ICPC or both of them to come calling shortly.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Ekiti PDP politics of desperation

    Ekiti PDP politics of desperation

    The dictionary defines propaganda as “information, ideas, or rumours deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation.”

    No doubt, propaganda has become a useful tool in the hands of many, especially in politics and business and going by the definition above, it can either be a force for good or bad depending on the intention of those who use it.

    The word ‘propaganda’ originated in Rome. Back then, as it is now, it denotes the spreading of rumour, information, ideas and allegations to further one’s cause or to demonise or damage the reputation of opposing forces.

    Propaganda has always been part of politics and the corporate world. It may be surprising to some to know that its use also extends to journalists, salespeople, fake prophets, advertisers, amongst others. It is so easy to think up dirty words or images when the term “propaganda” is mentioned, but propaganda is not all about maligning people. It is used to draw attention to good causes, especially if such could be or are being attacked by malcontents or opposing forces who would stop at nothing to revile a good cause, even if it benefits them.

    Figures like Adolf Hitler and Stalin readily come to mind when bad propaganda comes to mind. Hitler was so adept at it that he turned Germans against peace-loving and innocent Jews, but even his Minister of Propaganda and successor as chancellor after he committed suicide, Joseph Goebbels, reputed for saying “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” insisted that propaganda had to be truthful. This doesn’t mean he did not lie, but he knew that for propaganda to last, it had to have an element of truth.

    As former Lagos State Commissioner of Information Dele Alake put it at a lecture he delivered in Ondo town recently: “Blowing your trumpet without performance is pure crass propaganda; blowing your trumpet while delivering dividend of democracy is publicity” (not his exact words). If there is anyone who understands what it takes to be a government’s spokesperson in Nigeria, it is Alake. So by saying it is not propaganda if a government publicises its good works, Alake was on point, since in this clime, no one blows your trumpet for you if you do not blow it.

    From Alake’s submission, (bad) propaganda is putting something on nothing, which, of course, would be very foolhardy and wouldn’t last, as it would also be foolhardy for a political party that had seven and a half years in the saddle, but achieved almost nothing, save for cosmetic endowments and the introduction of an alien culture of thuggery.

    This, today, best describes the situation in Ekiti State where the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) had its chance for almost eight years but totally flunked it. The last was Segun Oni who flunked out, having been sacked for rigging by the Appeal Court, but still hopelessly hoping against hope with his protest against the “red biro judgement”.

    Seeing the works of the present administration in the state and knowing that it was going to be almost impossible to beat the incumbent in an election, the PDP quickly activated a propaganda cell, which mostly has made the social media its operational base. Since the youth make up a larger percentage of the voters’ register, using the social media definitely is a good move for them.

    Like all propagandists, they use persuasive allegations, messages, ideas, opinions, statements, accusations and exaggerations with the main purpose of influencing, and, if possible, manipulating, the minds and emotions of the public or of those at which they are directed.

    They try to manipulate unsuspecting indigenes to jump to illogical and baseless conclusions. Typical examples of this were the reforms carried out in the local councils. NCE holders who were stagnated in the councils and were to be redeployed to teaching were convinced by the PDP that they were to be sacked. Same goes for non-medical personnel who were drawing salaries of medical personnel at the local councils. PDP went to town with the lie that 4, 000 local government workers had been sacked by the government. When asked to produce just one sack letter, it went on lying in the face of confounding evidence. One expected that they should have responsibly evidenced their claims.

    Another of their tactic is name-calling, which is also one of the tactics of propaganda. They associate good things or personalities with negative words or images to make unsuspecting people shrink from the thought. An example of such is the newly formed party, APC which they had already nicknamed armoured personnel carrier without thinking for a second that it could backfire on them. Now that the opposition is saying the Armoured Personnel Carrier is to shoot the PDP down, one can only wonder what they’ll come up with next.

    The good thing is that more often than not, PDP’s lies have been exposed by the public and rather than responsibly admitting their miss, the party’s members shamelessly continue to insist on the lies. This is seen daily on the social media as most of their tutees and recruits, most of whom use pseudo names on the social media, insist on hugging ignorance right after they have been corrected or confronted with the truth.

    The crumbling of their house of cards (should I say house of lies) has gradually driven them to desperation. One may not want to blame them as time is not on their side and Governor Kayode Fayemi has also uncovered their political and organisational deficiencies by showing them how governance is done, but allowing desperation to take over reasoning is dangerous and not healthy for Nigeria’s democracy. It is so bad that in Ekiti there is nothing the PDP cannot come up with. Don’t be surprised if tomorrow they say “Fayemi is broke! He now drinks garri with sugar and epa” or “Fayemi has bribed Obama to support him for second term”. Don’t be shocked! It can come from them. It is nothing but sheer lack of ideas and the shock they are suffering from Fayemi’s unrivalled performance and prompt delivery of dividend of democracy.

    • Daniels writes from Ado, Ekiti State

  • After AFCON: Getting back to basics

    After AFCON: Getting back to basics

    It is just as well that the euphoria that swept the nation following the victory of the national team, the Super Eagles, in the African Cup of Nations soccer competition, has almost run its course. At least, it is being tempered somewhat by a return to the harsh realities of life in Nigeria.

    While it lasted, nothing else seemed to matter.The bestial murder of three Korean doctors in Yobe, hard on the heels of the drive-by murder of eight nurses administering vaccines to infants in Kano, passed off as just another grim statistic in Boko Haram’s macabre harvest

    The kerfuffle generated by plans to spend N2.2 billion Naira to build a banquet hall in Aso Rock “befitting” the formerly shoeless boy who now lives there, and N9 billion over and above the projected cost on the vice president’s official residence, might well have occurred in an era long past.

    Even the request for N4 billion to build a headquarters for an aberration that calls itself the African First Ladies Peace Mission no longer seemed a grave provocation in a country where police officers are trained and housed in hovels.

    “Peace mission my foot,” millions of Nigerians might well be saying in indignation.

    What peace missions hasthis unelected and unaccountable conclave of freeloaders undertaken? How many of its members can locate Darfur, Timbuktu, or Potiskum on the map? How many refugee camps in strife-torn countries have they visited? How many peace talks have they initiated or staged?

    How many peace missions has their host and leader who should set an example — how many peace missions has she led to Yobe and Borno and Bauchi and Jos, or for that matter to those communities just outside Abuja that have been ravaged by Boko Haram terror?

    To echo novelist Chinua Achebe in another context, they came, they ate, and they went — the so-called First Ladies, that is. And now the Nigerian taxpayer is being asked to finance what is at bottom a monument to the vainglory of their host.

    That such a proposal was ever presented before the National Assembly is at once a comment on its mover’s overweening sense of entitlement and utter lack of a sense of proportion and propriety on the one hand, and the gutlessness of the officials who should have told her that the whole thing was flagrantly indecent, given the country’s circumstances.

    Maybe that was the Patience Jonathan of a bygone era. The new, resurrected Patience Jonathan should withdraw the request.

    The National Assembly will be legislating itself into infamy if it approves this unconscionable proposal. If the proposal clears the Assembly and President Goodluck Jonathan assents to it, he would be saying to Nigerians that gratifying his wife’s delusion of grandeur that seems woven inextricably into his, rates higher on his Administration’s scale of priorities than providing relief for a burgeoning army of jobless university graduates, to cite just one group, in need of urgent remedial action.

    While the euphoria lasted, the farce that the National Assembly has been carrying out in the name of constitutional review drew scant notice. A thoroughly unreliable poll purportedly reflecting the views of Nigerians on the matter was doing the rounds. So were documents purporting to be a “collation” of the views purportedly expressed by Nigerians at consultative conferences that lasted just several hours during which befuddled attendees were asked to vote yes or no on a narrow range of proposals they played no part in formulating.

    Those who crafted that instrument also took it upon themselves to “collate” the results. “The people”for whom and in whose name the Constitution is being prepared were virtually shut out of the process.Even the British enforcers of the imperial order in Nigeria, the centennial of whose subjugation of our peoples Abuja is now planning to celebrate on a prodigal scale, accorded their colonial subjects far greater respect than that.

    All this, and much more, was swept off the front pages and the headlines and the discussion platforms by the euphoria, the delirious jubilation unleashed by Nigeria’s crowning as Africa soccer champions. It had been 19 years since the national soccer quad last won the trophy. The celebration was therefore understandable.

    Reward in cash – in the resilient U.S. dollar and the anaemic Naira- has followed bounteous reward for the players and the coaches who groomed them and the supporting, crew, and so has reward in kind. Members of the team now own choice land in Abuja worth hundreds of millions in Nigeria.

    By the time the shower is over, the players will each have amassed from their epic outing a huge and complex property portfolio that nothing has prepared most of them to manage. Some of them may spend much more time thinking of how to handle their fortune than they devote to sharpening their skills. The fortune could turn out to be more of a distraction than an incentive, and some of them may end up wishing it had not happened, at least on that scale.

    There is example for it. About two decades ago, The Mac Arthur Foundation’s so-called genius award, designed to free recipients from financial worries so that they can concentrate on their cutting-edge work, went to a young man just out of his teens, a computer geek.

    After several weeks, the young man returned the award, worth some $200,000. He said he was spending so much time thinking about what to do with the money that he could no longer concentrate on his work.

    To return to the euphoria and the orgy of celebration: To the extent that it gave honour to whom it is due, a rarity in Nigeria, it was unexceptionable.

    But it should have been tempered by a sense of proportion. In the excitement of the moment, the Minister for Sports and Youth Development, Bolaji Abdullahi, was reported to have said that if the Super Eagles won, they would be the first inductees in the projected Hall of Fame.

    What of those who came before them? I am thinking of Tesilimi”Thunder” Balogun and Elkanah “Ballington” Onyeali who made their mark in professional soccer in England decades before the current stars and even their officials were born. I am thinking of the team that won the gold at the 2nd All-Africa Games in Lagos in 1973 and the team that won the Olympic gold medal in Atlanta, not forgetting the teams that had won the African championship in two previous appearances.

    If the team were to win the World Cup in Brazil next year, the nation would have to give each player an oil well. And that would be just for starters. Then the government would rush to appropriate the feat in every conceivable way as proof that the system works and that all is well with the nation, and those who claim otherwise be damned.

    This was why, in the time of the dictators and usurpers, a good many of our compatriots were indifferent about the outcomes of soccer competitions in which the national team was a strong contender. They wished the boys would do well for the sake of their own playing careers. They did not want to see Nigeria disgraced.

    At the same time, they did not grieve it the team lost, because the government would have conscripted the victory to create the illusion of progress and to serve other dubious ends.

    In the time of military president Ibrahim Babangida, cup-winning outings of the nation’s soccer teams were advertised as gains of the doomed Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). The debauched Sani Abacha wasted no time in advertising Nigeria’s soccer gold in the Atlanta Olympics as proof, were any still required, that he was the person Nigerians had been yearning for.

    Time to get back to basics, then, before the Jonathan Administration pivots the AFCON victory as a dividend of the Transformative Agenda.

     

     

  • If Pope Benedict were to be a Nigerian

    If Pope Benedict were to be a Nigerian

    When I got the news flash on my BBM that the Pope Benedict XVI plans to quit the post of Bishop of Rome and spiritual head of the 1.2 billion catholic faithful around the globe by the end of February, my mind immediately pointed at fraudsters at work. What won’t this 419 people do, I asked?

    With more than six weeks to April 1, the world acclaimed “Fools Day” I was in no doubt that this was no April fool and mischief makers are somewhere trying to pull our legs or planning to make money out of the Catholic Church. So, I ignored the message and moved on even though the sender of message is well known to me as a credible source.

    The reporter in me told me to suspect the information first but go ahead to verify which I did some few hours later when I went on the net and was confronted with details of Pope Benedicts decision to quit the highest office in the Catholic church.

    Whaaat! I screamed. This has never happened before, I told myself, but upon further research I discovered that in the year 1294, Pope Celestine V resigned because he could not cope with the physical demands of that office and wanted a simpler life. And as recent as 1415 Pope Gregory XII left office to save the Church from disgrace as there were two Cardinals laying claim to the papacy. So Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as he was before he became Pope Benedict in April 2005 at age 78 was after all not doing what no Pope had done before, as I had thought, just that he was the first in about 600 to quit the papacy.

    So, why the decision to quit? I am sure you know the rest of the story but for the sake of emphasis and to quell all conspiracy theories, the Pope said his failing health at 85 would not allow him to, in good conscience, discharge his papal duties as he ought to and so he would be stepping down later this month, in time for a new Pope to be chosen and consecrated before Easter.

    On reflection, I asked myself if this Pope were to be a Nigerian would he offer to quit such an exalted office even if he is unable to discharge his duties to God and the Church. An office in which he is expected to remain for life?

    Well, without casting aspersions on the integrity of the Catholic Church in Nigeria and the Cardinals that have emerged from among the faithful here, this is a very difficult question to answer even by Nigerian Catholics. And the reason is not far fetched. Leaders find it very difficult here to quit office even when they are on tenured appointment. They look for one excuse or another to extend their tenure and the Church is no exception. And I am sure if one digs deep enough, one could find some Islamic leaders who would rather die in office instead of relinquishing their positions even when they are no longer up to it.

    The argument here is not even about any sit tight religious leader but rather our political leaders who would want to hold on to their positions even when it was apparent their health was not good enough to continue in office. We all know the story of our late President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Governor Chime of Enugu State just came back home after several months outside the country to treat what we now know to be cancer of the nose. While he was on hospital bed wherever he went to seek cure for his ailment, Chime refused to hand over the reins of power as if it were a personal property. It took a lot of efforts and months to get the Taraba House of Assembly to empower the Deputy Governor of the State to act in the absence of Governor Suntai who is on a sick bed somewhere in Germany receiving treatment for injuries he sustained in a plane crash. A badly injured Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State had to be rushed back to office even when he had not fully recovered from the injuries he sustained in an auto crash, just to prevent his deputy from acting as governor, as the Nigerian constitution demands, while he treats his injuries. Nobody seems to be talking again about the long absence of Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River State from office. The man has been away for some time now to treat himself of yet to be disclosed ailment and he is still holding on to power. Why did the constitution make provision for a deputy Governor or vice President if the boss so to speak, could hold on to power even when he is dying? You might want to ask. Even if the deputy is a ‘spare tyre’ as we are wont to say here, why would the driver continue with a punctured or flat tyre when the spare tyre is ok? The ride will definitely not be smooth. So why put everybody in the car through that horrible ride when the spare tyre could have come in handy?

    For too long Nigeria has been unlucky to produce selfish leaders who see and parade themselves as messiahs. Obasanjo believed he is the only one that could lead this country well and onto the Promised Land such that even after eight years in office, he wanted to manipulate the constitution to get another term. Yar’Adua and his handlers including wife, Turai saw Nigeria as their personal property and could do as they wished. When the President was evidently dying they still held on to power until the man could no longer be sustained by life machine at a Saudi hospital. They tried to hoodwink us into believing that the ailing President had signed that year’s appropriation bill even when sources told us the man could hardly recognize anybody not even his wife. Nigerians were deceived for months and taken for a ride for so long until Yar’Adua died.

    Pope Benedict and/or his handlers/close associates could have chosen to deceive the Catholic Church by manipulating the health certificate of the ailing Pontiff presenting to the faithful a picture of a healthy Pope, as Yar’Adua people did to us, and remain in office and enjoy the pecks of office until death takes their man away. But out of fear of God and love for the Church they chose not to. This is the way honourable people and people of conscience behave. Do we have such people in Nigeria?

    Maybe the Catholic Church is lucky as their priests are not allowed to indulge in the affairs of the flesh, so the Pope has no wife to influence his decision or biological children to think of before acting. No wife or children that would want him to remain in office till death even when he is weak, tired and unable to continue, just to have access to the enormous wealth of the church and the privileges attached to the office.

    We have seen most Pentecostal churches in Nigeria turned into a family business where the GO and his wife are sole signatories to the Church’s account and the wife taking over on the death of her husband. Was this the way Christ intended his Church?

    Away from the Church, we have seen Presidents and their wives running the country as a family business, where the wife as First Lady assumes the powers of her husband the Commander-In-Chief and go about terrorizing the rest of us; spending state’s money on anything that catches their fancy. The same scenario is replicated at the state and even local government levels. With our leaders invested with so much power, power of life and death, unlimited access to loot our treasury and with impunity, none of them would want to leave office even if they are dying. None of them has the heart and conviction of Pope Benedict. The beautiful ones are not yet born.