The Nation Newspaper

Category: Vincent Akanmode

  • Flash of hope in a dying country

    ON Wednesday, former President Olusegun Obasanjo received a delegation of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) at his Abeokuta, Ogun State home, where he extolled the virtues of women in politics. According to the ex- President, women in politics are more reliable than their male counterparts because “when a woman says she is with you, you can believe that she is truly with you. But if a man tells you he is with you and you catch him in another meeting, he will tell you it is politics. It should not be so.”

    Obasanjo’s public appreciation of the womenfolk could not have come at a better time, considering the excellent showings of two of our female football teams in major competitions in circumstances their male counterparts would have cracked like biscuits. Two weeks ago, the senior national female football team, the Super Falcons, won the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) a record seventh time after dispatching countries like South Africa, Cote d’Ivoire and Cameroun by wide margins. They attained the feat barely two months after the female national under-20 team, the falconets, won the silver medal in the World Cup tournament held in Canada.

    The conduct of the falconets was particularly remarkable as they were said to have put up the performance hailed by everyone as spectacular without their match bonuses. Juxtapose that with the shows of shame the senior national male football team has put up at major competitions, including the 2014 FIFA World Cup tournament in Brazil where the team boycotted training and vowed not to touch the ball with a sixinch pole as they prepared for a quarter-final match with France because the bonus for their win in the previous match against Bosnia-Herzegovina had not been paid. Not surprisingly, the team crashed out of the competition after losing to France by 2-0. In contrast, the Falconets, in their quest for national glory, relegated money to the background, played their hearts out and lost narrowly to Germany in the final.

    It was no surprise that the Nigerian team produced the most valuable player of the competition in the pearl of attacking football, Asisat Oshoala. But it is US-based Courtney Dike that has emerged the finest flower in the team, not because he scored the fastest goal ever in the tournament, but because she became the epitome of patriotism. Born and bred in the US with a football talent as huge as General Sherman, she had every chance to ply her trade for God’s Own Country, but opted to play for Nigeria. And as if that was not enough show of patriotism, she rejected the sum of 7,000 dollars the nation ferried to her as match bonus from the competition.

    It was the least gesture the pearl of female soccer deserved for her scintillating performance at the competition, but one she declined out of sheer patriotism. At a time the nation has become one huge cake and everyone is scrambling for a slice, Courtney Dike told the conveyors of the money that it was already more than enough honour that the nation gave her the chance to wear its green and white colour. Return the money to Nigeria and use it to further develop our football, she reportedly told the bearers. Yet her story would hardly come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the ways of her elder brother, Bright Dike, the few times he has been invited to the Super Eagles. In the friendly games in which he has featured for Nigeria, the enthusiasm on his face was simply palpable. He broke his leg playing for Nigeria and could not kick the ball for almost a season. But even in those trying moments, he prayed fervently for the success of the national team and continually voiced his readiness to return to action for Nigeria. It would have been interesting to see how he would react, if he was in the World Cup team that refused to train in the buildup to the quarter-finals match because their bonus had not been paid.

    In more civilised societies, Courtney Dike’s story would have been a veritable source of inspiration for our rapacious leaders to see beyond themselves and members of their immediate families. But ours is a country of rat race where public good has no meaning. It will not come as a surprise, for instance, if the money rejected by Courtney does not find its way back into the treasury, much less deployed for public use as she requested. Yet her action portends a glimmer of hope that all hope may not yet be lost for the future of the country with the existence of youthful patriots like the Dikes. In a country where the ability to corrupt and be corrupted is a precondition for appointment into public office, our kleptomaniac leaders would rather rehabilitate, repackage and rebrand old men convicted of corruption than bestow honour on a patriot like Courtney.

    The challenge is for the youth to begin to identify such positive minds with the aim of rallying around them for future leadership. The Dike family deserves national recognition for breeding children that could act as a rallying point for the national rebirth the country desperately needs.

    Re: Still on Fayose’s flawed ideology

    UNCLE Vincent, why are you misinterpreting the bible for political gains? The manner in which you interpreted the Esau and Jacob story makes a misfit analogy to what happened and still happening in Ekiti. Why did you think that Rebecca loved Jacob just because he kept her company at home? Jacob would not be like many of our country’s pet writers of today who would be romancing their mothers at that age.

    Gen. 27: 9 makes one to understand that Jacob was a keeper of flock. It is important for writers like you to always free their minds from received opinion(s). The Illegal removal of Fayose from office during his first tenure was based on his anti-third term crusade against Obasanjo and not because any poultry project failed. Since Obasanjo had no respect for the rule of law, he succeeded in roping Fayose with the poultry project through the manipulation of procedural rules. The same Obasanjo in likewise manner removed Ladoja in Oyo.

    Also, I perceive that you were not objective enough to recognise that the electorate that voted Fayemi out of office was the same electorate that voted for him earlier. This only implies that Ekiti people are more intelligent than you writers think. What is the logic in government renovating roads and hospitals while people are dying of hunger? Is it the case that such a government wants easier passage of people’s dead bodies to the hospitals? Moreover, as an acclaimed bible scholar that you are presupposes that you should understand the importance of food. You are not concerned that Jesus miraculously fed more than 5,000 and provided manna in the wilderness. It is claimed that Fayemi engaged in infrastructure development of roads,

    hospitals and schools, but it is a pity that such infrastructure development failed to develop and transform the lives of the majority Ekiti that voted him out of power. Above all, Ekiti people are wise to reject the deceptive government that wants her masses to live in hunger while the elites live in outrageously expensive mansion built by a prudent government from the borrowed money of the impoverished state. Meanwhile, it will be unfair to treat Fayemi as if he has done nothing for the Ekiti. It is only that there cannot be a perfect government or person. In all fairness, infrastructure development under the Fayemi administration cannot be forgotten in a hurry. Thus, it is expected of the Fayose government to continue with some of Fayemi’s initiatives. May God bless the gentleman Fayemi in all his endeavours, Amen. •Simon O. Aderibigbe

  • Still on Fayose’s flawed ideology

    ONE of the most bizarre stories in the Bible is that of Esau and Jacob, the two sons of Isaac. Rebecca, their mother, was delivered of them the same day with Esau as the elder brother. Esau became the favourite of Isaac, their father, because he was a hunter and Isaac was a lover of bush meat. Jacob, on the other hand, was Rebecca’s favourite because he was always at home to keep her company.

    One day, Esau returned from the hunting field and was famished. As fate would have it, he entered the house and found Jacob, his younger brother, preparing pottage. Esau begged Jacob for some pottage and Jacob said he would only oblige him on the condition that he (Esau) conceded his birthright to him. Esau thought nothing of a seemingly harmless demand that would see his hunger assuaged. He willingly took an oath to concede to Jacob his rights as the elder brother. That became the reason Jacob was greater than Esau in every respect.

    I would not know how familiar Ekiti people were with this story before the last governorship election in the state. It might have been sheer coincidence that they reasoned like Esau when they voiced their preference for the stomach infrastructure Governor Ayodele Fayose promised them against the social infrastructure of the immediate past administration of Dr. Kayode Fayemi in the state.

    Expressed in more familiar terms, a guaranteed daily supply of amala and gbegiri soup makes far more sense than roads, schools or hospitals. Following in the tradition of the amala brand of politics espoused by the late Chief Lamidi Adedibu in Oyo State, it had seemed an unlikely path the Ekiti would toe until the People’s Democratic Party began a cynical campaign slogan that caught the fancy of many undiscerning minds and spread like Ebola.

    Confronted with the reality that they might never be able to catch up with the pace of work in most APC-controlled states, the hawks in the ruling party hit on an insidious slogan that seeks to exploit the ignorance of the average voter by giving them the impression that nothing else counts but food.

    So, in a state like Ogun where Governor Ibikunle Amosun has embarked on massive construction of roads, rather than admit the APC governor’s triumph in a sector where the PDP administration of Otunba Gbenga Daniel could not make an impact for eight years, the hawks ask the short but deadly question, na road we go chop? Rather than commend the novel accomplishment of the Rotimi Amaechi government in building the light rail in Rivers State, they ask the unethical question, na light rail be our problem? In Lagos, Osun, Kano, Ilorin and other APC states where schools and hospitals are being renovated or upgraded, you find the hawks asking, “We are hungry but they are constructing hospitals.

    Are they praying that we fall sick?’ As would be expected, the worst victim of the negative slogan is the army of disillusioned artisans who have been pauperised by the failure of successive governments at the centre to provide the environment needed for their businesses to thrive. Denied electricity, the welders, the barbers, the tailors and others whose vocations are driven by the critical social amenity are left frustrated and disillusioned because they don’t even know where the next meal would come from.

    It is a perfect setting for the mischief makers who reasoned that the only way they can play on the emotion of the hungry artisans and their dependants is to make food an issue. Unfortunately, this category of Nigerians constitutes the fulcrum of elections. But if the biblical injunction that man should not live by bread alone was lost on the people; if they have lost terms with the saying that there is no free launch even in Freetown; the one they ought not have forgotten so quickly is that Fayose was kicked out of office in his first coming principally because he squandered the state’s resources on a poultry project that was non-existent.

    The natural question to ask is: If billions of naira would vanish on account of a non-existent poultry project at a time that abundant food was not on the card of the Fayose administration, what will become of the meagre resources of the state now that stomach infrastructure is its defining principle? The question is asked in the interest of well-meaning Ekiti indigenes who still believe that strategic gains of governance, like roads, schools and hospitals, weigh more in importance than bowls of pounded yam and egusi soup.

    Those who voted for rice and beans would see it as a positive development, if the roads in Ado- Ekiti are abandoned until they become dilapidated and waterlogged because they would constitute alternative ponds for fishermen in a state that is not blessed with major rivers. From the verandas of their homes, they can cast their nets and catch as much fish as they desire. Unfortunately, they have wormed the state into the Yoruba lexicon of insults. A few days after the governorship election, I heard a neighbour calling his daughter alatenuje bi ara Ekiti.

    It is like calling someone an FFO (for food only) or FMF (food minded fellow) like we did in secondary school, all for no fault of theirs. They acted innocently or ignorantly as the case might be. That leaves the more discerning voters in the state and, indeed, the nation with the arduous task of re-orientating the innocent or ignorant ones ahead of the 2015 elections. They must no longer allow their minds to be swayed by campaigns that are based on nothing but mischief or religion

  • Before Bianca, Fani-Kayode turn their feud into roforofo

    Before Bianca, Fani-Kayode turn their feud into roforofo

    As a primary school pupil, some of my best moments were the periods set aside for Bible Studies. I looked forward to them because of the interesting stories we were regaled with and because the handlers of the subject were not the regular teachers, but clergymen deployed from some of the surrounding churches. We were sure that even if we provoked them, the Bible Studies teachers would not deploy the cane like the other teachers did. The worst they would do was to tell us that we should not act like Satan’s offspring so that we would not go into hell fire. It was a tension-free atmosphere we cherished and wished that the other teachers would emulate.

    My love for Bible Studies continued into my early years in secondary school, but I had a problem with the teacher after the first few classes in my first year. I had enjoyed the stories about creation and the activities of Adam and Eve in Eden up until the time they sinned and lost favour with God. But I became apprehensive the day the teacher told us that Adam knew Eve and Eve conceived and gave birth to Cain. In pristine innocence, I asked the teacher why it took Adam so long to know Eve when the two had lived together for years as husband and wife. And by what magic did a man and a woman simply knowing each other translate into conception and the birth of a baby?

    The teacher ignored the clarifications I sought, but I continued to chew on the issue until I realised that the word “know” in the context it was used meant more than the dictionary could explain. That probably informs the furore that was generated in the camp of former beauty queen and Nigerian Ambassador to Spain, Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu, when former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, declared on his facebook account that he intimately knew Bianca, the widow of Dim Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, former Biafran leader and Ikemba Nnewi, in her prime. For a woman that is quite familiar with the biblical story of Adam and Eve, it is discomforting enough that a man would claim to have known her, not to talk of doing so intimately.

    Fani-Kayode’s seemingly innocuous claim, now labelled an outburst by Bianca and her supporters, had been made in the most innocent and fortuitous manner. Defending himself against some critics who had labelled him a tribalist and hater of the Igbo race, Fani-Kayode felt the need to highlight some past deeds he thought would hold him up as a shining example of a detribalised Nigerian. The deeds, according to the former Aviation Minister, include the long list of Igbo women he had dated and could have taken as wives if circumstances had permitted.

    In the piece titled ‘A Word for Those Who Call Me a Tribalist,’ Fani-Kayode wrote: “I was not a tribalist when I had a long-standing and intimate relationship with Miss Bianca Onoh, an Igbo lady who later married Colonel Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the leader of Biafra and who is now our Ambassador in Spain. I was not a tribalist when I had a long-standing and intimate relationship with Miss Chioma Anasoh, another Igbo lady who I almost married. I was not a tribalist when I had a long-standing and intimate relationship with Miss Adaobi Uchegbu, another Igbo lady who was exceptionally close to me and who is now a leading figure at the National Headquarters of the ruling PDP.”

    For understandable reasons, this portion of the piece has generated the most interest, particularly from Fani-Kayode’s traducers who are not impressed with his definition of nationalism. They cannot understand why the virile ex-minister would glory in his exploits with women, while his contemporaries elsewhere are building castles in Mars. The more fastidious ones are even demanding the age at which he began to cast his nuptial net as to have caught such a long list of Igbo chicks. They are also eager to know how many Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw, Efik, Idoma, Tiv, Ibibio, Kanuri, Fulani or Jukun women have profited from his patriotic and nationalistic zeal.

    Bianca, certainly, is not enjoying any of these. And in spite of the testimonies of Kemi, the controversial daughter of former civilian governor of Oyo State, Dr. Omololu Olunloyo, that she was an eye witness to Bianca and Fani-Kayode’s intimate relationship as students in the UK, Bianca insists that Fani-Kayode is as strange as unicorn. She insists that she has never met him much less maintain a relationship, no matter how casual. And to strengthen her stance, she has threatened a legal action against Fani-Kayode unless he publishes a retraction in some national newspapers and tender unreserved apology for maligning her and defaming her character.

    But there is an impasse as Fani-Kayode stands by his words and threatens to also drag Bianca to court for presenting him as a liar in the public eye. “We will also be instigating (not just instituting) our own legal proceedings against her in due course for her barefaced and malicious lies and her consistent claims that she has not met Chief Fani-Kayode, all in an attempt to libel, defame, diminish and discredit him before the entire world,” Fani-Kayode’s media assistant said in a statement. The statement maintained that Fani-Kayode did not only have an intimate relationship with Bianca, he “knew her far better than she cares to publicly admit.” In a veiled threat, the statement added: “The precise nature of that relationship will be explored and exposed in open court!”

    Considering that Bianca is still smarting from the death of her husband and the battles she is faced with on the home front over her late husband’s will, a legal battle with Fani-Kayode over a relationship he claims is in the past is the least distraction the Nigerian Ambassador to Spain needs at this time. This is besides the blow that such a battle could deal on her image as an ambassador, a former beauty queen and widow of a highly respected Igbo leader. A Yoruba adage says that when a blind man threatens to throw a stone, it is either he has one in his hand or there is one under his foot. What if Fani-Kayode’s threats are thought to be empty, but he comes up with disarming exhibits that would alarm even the presiding judge?

    It is also in the nation’s interest that the dispute does not progress beyond the current level of grandstanding, considering the status of the two parties involved. Otherwise, the nation could be in for one of its most embarrassing moments as two national figures wash their dirty linens in the public. Our statesmen and other well-meaning Nigerians should prevail on the warring parties to sue for peace, particularly Bianca who definitely has more to lose if the feud degenerates into roforofo.

  • Atiku’s pound of flesh after his longest night

    Atiku’s pound of flesh after his longest night

    The implosion in the Peoples Democratic Party, predicted by political analysts, occurred at the special convention of the party in Abuja last Saturday. The prediction had been premised on the analysts’ belief that the party is an amalgamation of strange bed fellows whose guiding principle has no philosophical base other than to hold on to power at all costs and help themselves with the nation’s exchequer even to the detriment of the larger society. New or aspiring members must shelve their thinking, orientation or philosophy and submit themselves to the party’s directive principle: share the money.

    In spite of repeated claims by Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, a former national chairman of PDP, and Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State that the party, touted as the biggest in Africa, will rule for a minimum of 50 years, not many who had followed the party’s way of life would be shocked at the turn of events. Now the signs are getting clear that some members of the party are getting sick of the unholy wedlock and are now set for divorce.

    The development would constitute a huge relief for millions of well-meaning Nigerians and their foreign sympathisers who are deeply concerned about the nation’s steady descent into anomie. These would include some respondents to a piece in this column sometime last year wherein I suggested that Jonathan should not seek another term in the interest of his party and the nation. They responded to my counsel with indignation, warning me to stop counselling Jonathan against seeking the presidential ticket of the PDP in 2015, as that would be the easiest way to get rid of his docile government and the looting party.

    All the credit for the imminent funeral of the the party must go to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who led the rebellion at the Eagles Square last Saturday. Given the crises that had engulfed the party, particularly the election that produced two chairmen for the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and the failure of the leaders of the party to resolve the impasse, not many keen watchers of political events expected the convention to end on any other note than rancour. Hence, it was not a shock to many when the news filtered in that Atiku had led seven PDP governors and some other heavyweights in the party to another venue for a parallel convention.

    Seeing the straight face he maintained as he departed the Eagles Square venue of the party’ presidential primaries where Jonathan roundly defeated him with open support from Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo in January 2011, I needed no soothsayer to know that President Jonathan had not heard the last from Atiku. Many people had expected Atiku to give Jonathan a good fight in the primary election with the prospect of a bloc vote from northern delegates to the convention after he was adopted by northern elders and leaders. But the election night turned out the longest for Atiku. The confidence his face radiated at the start of business gave way to anxiety and despair as the counting of votes began.

    The pattern of voting ended up a one-way traffic. Jonathan routed the Turaki of Adamawa even in his (Atiku’s) home state According to Professor Tunde Adeniran, the returning officer, 3542 votes were cast during the primaries, out of which President Jonathan polled 2736. He was trailed by Atiku with 805 votes while Mrs. Sarah Jubril got one vote, apparently the one she cast for herself. If Atiku suspected that he was manipulated into defeat, he had no way of protesting at the election venue. He walked away quietly and bided time to get even.

    If Atiku’s swing from one party to another is a sign of desperation as now perceived by many, the desperation has less to do with his presidential ambition than the chance to take his own pound of flesh after the humiliation he suffered at Eagle Square. Atiku is on a vengeance mission. A vengeance mission devoid of desperation only has a remote chance to succeed, for desperation is the highway that leads to the city called vengeance. Fortunately for him, the President played into his hands with unguarded use of power and the tactless way he and his men handled the crisis that was foisted on the party by its chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.

    The governors, in sympathy with Governor Murtala Nyako, whose political structures in Adamawa State were demolished by Tukur and replaced with his as soon as he became the party’s chairman, had demanded his immediate removal. But President Jonathan would not have any of that. And rather than pacify the governors or stoop to conquer like Obasanjo did when he had a similar experience with governors at the presidential primaries of the PDP in 2003, he opted for brute force, seeking to weep them into line.

    The result has been continued escalation and diversification of the crisis, which culminated in Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s defeat of Jonathan’s candidate, Governor Jonah Jang, at the recent chairmanship election of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. Rather than accept defeat, Jonathan and the governors in his camp decided to recognise Jang as a factional chairman of the forum. Lost on Jonathan and his men was the bad precedent that was being set with the recognition of an illegal chairman of the governors’ forum. The precedent produced its first offspring with the emergence of two factions of the PDP last Saturday. Concerned Nigerians can now only pray that the trend does not continue into the 2015 elections.

  • Needless fuss about the Daniel of our time

    My six-year-old daughter returned from school the other day with the excitement of one that had just won a jackpot. As I was wondering what could be responsible for her gay and spritely mood, she announced with glee that she would be going to London.

    “London?” I wondered aloud. As a Lagos resident, she was yet to visit any of the landmarks in the city. She knew not the direction of the University of Lagos or the Lagos State University. She had not been to the National Stadium or the Teslim Balogun Stadium. She was yet to visit Lekki, Badagry or Bar Beach and did not know the way to the Iduganran Palace of the Oba of Lagos. Why then would her first exposure to the world outside her home and school be London?

    The natural questions to ask were her mission to London and how she intended to get there. To these, she beamed a cheerful smile and declared that she was going with her classmates and I had three days to raise N350,000 for the trip! Poor girl, I said to myself. If she knew how strenuous it was to raise her school fees, she would realise the futility of dreaming a trip to London on my own account. A Yoruba adage says it makes no sense to a child when his father says there is famine.

    I knew it was dangerous to tell her immediately that the proposed flight to London was impossible. She was in cloud nine and it made no sense draw her back to earth so abruptly. I waited till dinner to tell her the truth: a summer excursion to London was financially unrealistic and she was too young for that kind of exposure. Happily, she understood.

    Or so I thought until she returned from school the following day and told me that she had found an answer to my poor pocket. Her teacher said she could go to Ghana, if London was too expensive. For this, her teacher said she should bring “shikinni money.” And how much is the shikinni money? I asked. “Only N150,000,” she said. I told her, to her utter disappointment, that even the so-called shikinni money was a luxury I could not afford.

    Our perception of good education has changed dramatically over the years, particularly at the foundation level. The days are gone when the emphasis was on sound knowledge of Mathematics, English and other critical subjects. Now, it is more about how much exposure the child can gain to the culture of the western world. Our children are made to speak English from the womb.

    Childhood is vanishing if it has not already vanished. At age two, a toddler is garbed in oversize shirt and shorts that reach down to his ankles and make him to look like one poised for sack race. Then he is laden with a bag as he totters to school at an age that some of us were still busy sucking our mothers’ breasts. From that tender age, they begin to stock his head with foreign ideas. They eat foreign delicacies, wear foreign clothes, watch foreign movies and are generally orientated in the ways of the West until they become Europeans in black skins.

    Of course, exposure is good. There is a general belief that it is organically linked with knowledge. But there appears an urge among the handlers of our children’s education to over-expose them, with the consequence that we now ape the West to a fault. It is increasingly becoming a capital offence to pronounce an English word with African accent. You must bend your mouth and twist your tongue in a way that leaves an observer fearing that you might lose some teeth. These leave the average African child with the impression that our cultures and ways of life are inferior to those of the West and make him long for life in Europe or America.

    That is the context from which the botched ambition of 13-year-old Daniel Ihekina to travel in the tyre hole of an aircraft from Nigeria to America should be understood. After repeatedly watching the exploits of Sylvester Stallone, Roger Moore and Ian Fleming in such films as First Blood, The Expendables, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and From Russia With Love, the poor lad decided to put that which he had watched into practice by flying to America in the oddest of ways for a first-hand experience of the purported rosy life in “God’s Own Country”. But the expedition turned out an anti-climax. To his utter disgust, the Arik aircraft he thought was taking him to America only took him from the serene ambience of his Benin home to the rowdy and riotous setting of Lagos, a move, like they say, from frying pan to fire.

    But in spite of the disappointment the innocent lad might suffer, he should thank his star for becoming the only Nigerian to have survived the dangerous adventure. There were reports of a similar attempt by one Emeka Okechukwu Okeke to smuggle himself to the United States from Lagos in the tyre compartment of a plane belonging to Delta Airlines in 2010, but he was discovered dead on arrival in New York. The dead body of a young Nigerian was also said to have been found in the undercarriage department of a domestic airline’s plane on arrival from South Africa sometime last year.

    If the biblical Daniel is revered for emerging from the lion’s den without losing a limb, this Daniel of our time should be saluted for travelling in the tyre compartment of an aircraft from Benin to Lagos with his swathe shirt, rosary and black bag intact. We have strived so desperately and invested so heavily in making James Bonds of our children. Why then should anyone raise the alarm if a five-year-old boy hangs on to the tail of an aircraft from Lagos to Tokyo? We should be happy and contented that our efforts are yielding the results we desire.

    More importantly, Daniel’s botched trip to America has alerted Nigerians and the rest of the world to the porous nature of security at our airports at a time the Boko Haram sect is cashing in on every available opportunity to kill and maim as many Nigerians as possible with bombs. Most Nigerians have shuddered at the possibility of the sect gaining similar access into an aircraft.

  • Automated teller machines or automated trouble machines?

    I returned home from work the other day and met my semi-literate neighbour fuming. In his hand was the exercise book of his 10-year-old son and pupil of a popular primary school in the area. “Nonsense! Arrant nonsense!” he yelled repeatedly. The son’s answer to a social studies question was marked wrong by his teacher and the poor man was livid with rage.

    The pupil had been asked the full meaning of ATM and he put it as Automated Trouble Machine. The teacher insisted that the correct answer is Automated Teller Machine, but my neighbour believed he was being mischievous. “What are those empty contraptions if they are not automated troubles? They are either permanently out of service or they tell you they cannot dispense money after you have spent hours on the queue,” he fumed. Not even my intervention persuaded him that his ugly experience could not give his son the liberty to change the meaning of ATM from what everyone else knows it to be.

    Of course, I knew where the poor man’s anger derived from, as I have also fallen victim to the machines on numerous occasions. While the ineffectiveness of ATMs has been a general problem, my experience with the ones on the premises of a branch of a first generation bank with which I operate an account in Ota, Ogun State has been particularly traumatising. Ironically, there are no fewer than six ATMs on the bank’s premises. A notice at the entrance advises any customer withdrawing an amount less than N100,000 to use the machines, but it is almost as sure as daybreak that they will disappoint.

    It must have been a policy at the bank that only one of the half a dozen machines must function at any particular time. Hence you will always find a queue of customers as long as the unaided eye can see. And some of those who wait for endless hours are there to withdraw sums that can barely take them home. Customers’ plight has been compounded by the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria to outlaw the N100 service charge imposed on those who use the ATMs of other banks than the ones they operate accounts with. Apparently in protest against the CBN directive, most of the ATMs of banks that proved to be more efficient in the past now tactically decline payment non-domiciled customers by telling them that the issuers of their ATM cards are inoperative.

    In the circumstance, the customers of most of the first generation banks are more or less restricted to the largely inefficient ATMs of their banks. I experienced one of my most frustrating moments on a Saturday last month. My wife needed to make a pot of soup and approached me for money. Realising that I did not have a dime on me, and knowing that the ATMs at my bank are designed to frustrate and disappoint, I approached a branch of one of the second generation banks to use their ATM, but it told me that the issuer of my card was inoperative. I went round the branches of some other banks, but the situation was the same. Left with no choice, I went to the branch of the bank I operate an account with and met a queue of desperate customers numbering more than 50.

    Left with no choice, I joined the long queue and waited for my turn. But I soon realised that the only machine that functioned could only dispense N1,000 per transaction. The customers had agreed among themselves that no individual should perform more than three transactions, which meant that the maximum amount any of us could withdraw was N3,000. I remained patient on the queue only for the machine to indicate that it could no longer dispense cash, with just two people left in my front. Of course, I returned home crestfallen. But my real frustration occurred two days later when I checked my account’s balance and realised that one of the ATMs I tried earlier had debited my account without dispensing cash.

    Last week, one of the ATMs of the bank in question added embarrassment to the streak of pains it has inflicted on me. I had gone there to withdraw the sum of N20,000. Unknown to me, one of the N1,000 notes dispensed by the machine was fake. I did not realise it until I got to a filling station and paid the attendant after buying N3,000 fuel. But as I made to enter the car and drive off, the young lady approached me and said, “Excuse me sir.” She handed out one of the N1,000 notes I had just given to her. I thought that I had overpaid her by N1,000 and she was being honest to return the money. But with disarming calmness, she said, “No sir, you did not overpay. I’m returning the money because it is fake!”

    The embarrassment can only be imagined. Fake N1,000 note from ATM? Exasperated, I threatened to return to the bank the following morning to challenge them for loading fake naira notes in their ATM. But my wife reminded me that I could be setting myself up for further embarrassment because I had no way of proving that the controversial note was dispensed by their machine. Before I knew it, she said, I would be the one to prove to the police that I am not a member of a fake naira syndicate. I saw the sense in her counsel and backed out. As I write, the money lies at my bedside, untouchable and “unspendable”.

    Happily, there have been reports of plans by the House of Representatives to probe the ugly trend. The lawmakers will also do well to take a holistic look at the ineffectiveness of the machines, which informed sources say are always grounded because they are bought in the refurbished form after they had been used and discarded by foreign banks. Without any shade of doubt, the ATM is one of the greatest human inventions designed to ease the pains associated with withdrawing money over the counter. But in Nigeria, it seems to be adding more to customers’ troubles than solving them.

  • If President Jonathan were my father…

    If President Jonathan were my father…

    I have heard and read about people describ

    ing their parents as strict disciplinarians.

    But I often wonder if the disciplinary instincts of those parents were anywhere near my father’s. As a big time farmer and traditional ruler of my town for 42 years before he passed on three years ago, he could afford us some little luxuries, but he made sure that we got only things that were extremely necessary. Unlike many other children in the community, we hardly had time for leisure. We were woken up at 5 am for the morning devotion, after which we would perform some household chores or even visit the nearby farm before heading for school.

    And in spite of all that we had to do before going to school, we were in serious trouble if my father got a report that we got to school late. I remember a particular day we had to go to the farm after the early morning devotion. The farm in question was more than three kilometres away from home. By the time we returned to prepare for school, we were already late. As we made to depart for school, my father called the eldest of us and gave him a letter he addressed to the headmaster. Of course, we did not know the contents of the letter, but we were happy that he must have written to tell the headmaster that we were late because we had to visit the farm before going to school.

    Armed with the letter, we walked leisurely to school, believing that we were armed with a defence. But we had barely settled down in our various classrooms when the headmaster sent for us. On getting to his office, he read out the contents of the letter sent by our father and we were alarmed. He told the headmaster that we must be flogged because there was no reason for us to get to school late. While he admitted that we had to run an errand for him before coming, we ought not to have got to school late if we had not wasted time on the way. My father was highly respected by every teacher in the entire region because he had functioned as a headmaster and manager of primary schools in the district before he became a monarch. On account of the letter, we were so flogged that some of us had to be treated for minor injuries.

    But there was one among my elder brothers who suffered the most from my father’s intolerance for indolence. My father’s grouse with the elder brother in question was not just that he always got the last position in his class, but that he was not making enough effort to improve on his performance. At the end of each term, he was either scolded or flogged for performing poorly. Flogged continually by dad and derided by the rest of us, he decided to do something about the ugly trend. At the end of a particular term, he came 30th in a class of 30 pupils. He fetched a razor blade and scratched off the ‘0’ in 30th, but forgot to change the ‘th’ to ‘rd’, such that his position read 3th instead of 30th or 3rd.

    By the time he got home and presented his report card, the evidence that he had tampered with his position was so overwhelming that even a blind illiterate would notice. My father was too smart to know that there is no such thing as 3th position. Besides, the spot from which he scratched off the ‘0’ was not only rough, it also left a space that any blind man would notice. His aggregate score was simply too low to merit the third position. The remarks by the class teacher and the headmaster also did not help matters, as both of them described his performance as woeful. Convinced that my brother had compounded failure with forgery, my father could not resist the urge to flog him until he gasped for breath.

    I have not taken time to seek my brother’s opinion of President Goodluck Jonathan, but I am almost certain that he would wish the President were his father in those heady days. Were that the case, he would not have needed to go through the hassle of altering his position in such an untidy manner. Like Governor Jonah Jang did after losing the chairmanship election of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to Governor Rotimi Amaechi, my brother would simply have gone home and claim that he came first from behind, and the President would have celebrated him the same way he is celebrating the man that claimed victory with 16 votes in an election his opponent scored 19!

    Indeed, given the way he has handled many critical national issues as the President, I am convinced that my siblings and I would have escaped many of the strokes we received as children, if President Jonathan were our father. A man who would indulge former Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha with presidential pardon after he was tried and convicted for looting the state’s treasury, jumping bail in the UK and subjecting the entire nation to international disgrace will certainly bat no eyelid to overlook many of the offences for which our buttocks were whacked. If on the other hand my father were the one in Jonathan’s shoes, many of the characters who are flaunting power and parading themselves as the President’s men today would be rotting away in jail.

  • Our moral triumph over Brazil’s sex workers

    Our moral triumph over Brazil’s sex workers

     Depleted by injuries, and against the expectations of many, the senior national football team, the Super Eagles, managed to give a good account of themselves at the ongoing FIFA Confederations Cup. Fears that the team would not do well at the competition, which also featured other continental champions like Spain, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Uruguay and Japan, had heightened with the blows that injuries dealt on influential members of the team like Emmanuel Emenike, Victor Moses, Onazi Ogenyi and Nnamdi Oduamadi. But like they did during the African Cup of Nations competition in January, the national team rose to the occasion, flying like the eagle and spinning like the bee.

    After their emphatic 6-1 victory over Oceania champions, Tahiti, they lost their two other group matches with Uruguay and world champions, Spain. But it was not with heads bowed as soccer analysts have observed. Against Uruguay, they lost by 1-2, but were superior to their opponents in terms of ball possession. They also lost to star-studded Spain by 0-3, but even the coach of the Spanish national team, Vicente del Bosque, admitted that the Super Eagles had posed the greatest threat to his team in recent years. With crisp and sharp passes, the African champions almost played at par with the masters of tiki-taka. They created chances at will, and would have scored some good goals, if the likes of Moses and Amunike were on parade.

    But while Nigerians and football analysts across the world have taken turns to hail the exploits of the Super Eagles on the pitch, I am particularly impressed with their ability to avoid the trap Brazilian prostitutes had set before their arrival in the Latin American country. A stone had dropped from my heart to my belly when the media reported the top-gear preparations the women of easy virtue were making to ensure adequate patronage from members of the Nigerian football team and their supporters during their stay in Brazil. A particular report indicated that in order to facilitate their ability to win our players’ patronage and succeed where Allen girls in Lagos have failed, Brazil’s Association of Prostitutes had hired experienced teachers to take the sex workers through some English classes. By the beginning of May, about six weeks to the commencement of the tournament, no fewer than 300 prostitutes were reported to have signed up for the training.

    “We teach basic expressions but also have demonstrations with erotic paraphernalia so they can learn the names, how to use them and propose them,” a volunteer named Igor Fuchs was quoted as saying, while the president of the Association of Prostitutes, Cida Vieira, said the lessons were meant to provide the prostitutes with communication skills to keep clients who don’t speak Portuguese (Brazil’s official language) happy during the competition and beyond. “We deal with gringos (foreign men) daily on the streets and in discos. We want to train the girls so they can better serve them,” Vieira added.

    Belo Horizonte, the Brazilian city where Nigeria thrashed Tahiti 6-1, is reputed to have no fewer than 80,000 sex workers, but there was no report of any desperate harlot getting as close as a radius of 50 metres to a Nigerian player or supporter. This, no doubt, is commendable, particularly when it is considered that no special arrangement was made by the Nigerian football authorities to fend off the prostitutes in spite of their open threats. It would seem, therefore, that whatever the players had lost in terms of tactical discipline, as observed by Sunday Oliseh, former captain of the team and now a football pundit, they gained in moral discipline.

    Those who think our sea of churches and mosques are only out to fleece unsuspecting members of the public must have realized by now how much impact they have made on our moral lives. Without the moral discipline that these religious institutions have instilled in our players, many of them could have fallen prey to the advances of Brazil’s prostitutes and the antics of their sponsors. That, certainly, would have constituted a major distraction to our campaign like it happened during one of our African Cup of Nations (AFCON) outings. After a dismal performance at the said AFCON tournament, it was discovered that some of our players had smuggled prostitutes into the hotel where they were accommodated and were busy sleeping with them while the competition lasted.

    The foregoing considered, I am beginning to think that contrary to the calls in some quarters that government should make churches to pay tax, it should begin to weigh the possibility of allocating funds to churches in the annual budget.

    But the threat is by no means over. To use the words of Shakespeare, we have only scorched the snake; not killed it. Brazil’s Association of Prostitutes would not invest so heavily in their members without expecting something in return. The days the Nigerian team spent in Brazil for the Confederations Cup competition might have been too few for the prostitutes to make headway in their pursuit of the Super Eagles players and their Nigerian supporters, but the situation will be different if we eventually qualify for the World Cup next year. With the prospect of going all the way in next year’s global football fiesta, our players will be more vulnerable than they were in the just-concluded contest. Given the foregoing, it will not be out of place to hire some reverend fathers who would go with the Eagles to the World Cup competition next year. The clergymen will camp with the players and continuously tell them to remember the sons of whom they are.

    There will never be an end to the devil’s antics. Brazil’s sex workers are laying ambush for our players at a time we are battling with the bid by Britain and other so-called advanced countries to drag us into the league of nations that glorify same-sex marriage. But strengthened by God and guided by our clergies, our delegation to the 2014 World Cup will return undefiled; just like they did at the just-concluded Confederations Cup.

  • Re: Obasanjo: A patriot or self-serving nationalist?

    •I was one among many Nigerians who were so bitter about the arbitrary leadership of Obasanjo when he was in power. Nigeria really needs a strong leader to put things right here, but not in the manner he went about it in his years.

    The pedigree of the person he chooses as his anointed godson for whatever political position in the country does not seem to matter to him, provided that such choice has the potential for putting him in the news always, which he loves so much. Of course, his place in the nation’s history is secured. But with his present contradictory socio-political roles, one can only pray that the great man does not end up a bore.

    That, however, should not distract from the fact that he is truly a patriotic Nigerian leader, all things considered. The problem with Obasanjo is that he is so controversy-driven and tends to derive pleasure in conducts, whatsoever, that make him to appear all-time relevant, however inadequate the conduct is.

    Emmanuel Egwu.

    •You have said it as it is. Obasanjo’s opposition should serve as the nudge to return Jonathan in 2015. There is no greater factor in the capitulation of the PDP in the South West than the OBJ persona. And it is all too visible that the region is all the better for it. Other regions would do better by following the example of the South West in putting OBJ in his place.

    Kuteyi R.R., Ondo

    •Once in a while, we do have such people as OBJ in this world. What we fail to understand about OBJ is that he believes mostly in himself because he loves the entity called Nigeria. He believes less in other people and suspects others. He defended the choice of the late Umaru Yar’Adua and the ascension of President Jonathan has so far stabilised the oneness and polity of Nigeria.

    I admire his boldness where others who are expected to talk tough pretend and dilly-dally. His routing for Sule Lamido for 2015 could not have come from the blue.

    Lanre Oseni

    •Obasanjo is not a patriot. He used his eight-year rule to erase the memory of Awo from our hearts without success. He refused to recognise June 12 and could not point to a single achievement throughout his eight years in office. He is a self-serving nationalist.

    Alhaji Adeboye Lawal

    •I hate it when you people always unnecessarily hit or talk against this great African leader. It is unfair and that is lack of respect for our elders. Stop twisting his words.

    080299911..

    •Vincent, Obasanjo is a selfish and ruthless man. He is very crafty too. He is the type that asks you to eat well but put your hands in chains. Yar’Adua became an easy prey to his ploy on account of his simplicity. But Jonathan was smarter than Obasanjo, who took the former’s clueless outlook for granted. He is serving OBJ right. But both of them are playing with fire. When it sparks, it will consume them and their co-travellers.

    Please correct my earlier impression of Kenneth Kaunda, the former president of Zambia, who I had thought was decent man on account of his book, Zambia Shall Be Free, but was shocked to see you grouping him with Idi Amin and others.

    Wole Adediran, Ode Omu, Osun State.

    •Let us hope that Obasanjo calling on Sule Lamido as best candidate for president in 2015 is not a hidden agenda to cover up his looting when he was poresident.

    Gordon Chika Nnorom

    •Ex-President Obasanjo is not a nationalist but a self serving Nigerian. The only African nationalist is Mandela of South Africa. Obasanjo is egoistic, materialistic and selfish. Politically, he is not a democrat but a dictator. He and his successors don’t believe in the rule of law but in the ruse of law.

    During his administration, the South-West lacked any meaningful development. Instead, he was busy building an empire for himself. He is still part of the malady befalling the nation. The National Council of State comprising past heads of state should be cancelled because their decisions are not beneficial to the country.

    Pastor Odunmbaku.

     •Obasanjo has been ruling and not leading the country all this while. He has always kept us in suspense. It is left for us to free ourselves from his bondage by voting out his chosen political son come 2015.

    MAO Adigun, Ibadan

    •Vincent, I don’t know how old you are. But those of us on the side of the truth will always tell it that OBJ only failed to make Awolowo president after him in 1979 partly because of Awo’s decisions then. Again, with Zik’s entry into the race, there was no way Awo could have won the election. But the Yoruba elite continue to crucify OBJ for Awo’s failure.

    080931374..

    •For Obasanjo to have sworn that a doctor had told him that Yar’Adua had been cured of his illness shows that he is not a sincere person. And then to foist a man who is incompetence personified on the nation weakened by a combination of religious and ethnic animosity and corruption, for whatever reason, is the highest level of treason. He is a man blinded by a vindictive quest to do the nation in simply because the nation rejected his third term bid!

    Manjadda, Sokoto

  • Re: Again, the Akpabio jinx manifests

    Re: Again, the Akpabio jinx manifests

    Thanks for telling the truth. Now that Akpabio has shown his rump as undemocratic by telling the whole world that the man who lost an election was the winner, what will happen to his truckload of awards as a performer? I was in a friend’s house when Channels Television showed clips of what happened at the NGF election. While we were watching, my friend’s wife barged into the sitting room and angrily took her three kids away. I asked why she did so, and she said she would not want them to copy the ways of touts who parade themselves as His Excellencies.

    Ifeanyi O. Ifeanyi.

    Your piece on Governor Akpabio made my day. All you have said about him is true. The bible says by their fruit you shall know them. He is an apostle of do-or-die politics. God bless you.

    Chief Isaac, Aba, Abia State.

    How did Amaechi manipulate the Governors’ Forum’s election result? Does that mean he turned himself into the returning officer to announce the result of the election? In the interest of Nigeria, all the aggrieved governors should support Amaechi as their chairman rather than creating factions.

    Ijeoma Nnorom, Lagos.

    •You are funny. Are you talking about somebody that keeps winning his own elections with relative ease? Let Amaechi call a meeting of his own Governors’ Forum and let us see the true winner. You mentioned Samuel Peter and Super Eagles’ loss as if it was Akpabio’s. Was it not Nigeria that lost? If I may ask, who did you support between Samuel Peter and Klitchsko and between Nigeria nad Argentina? You write like a comedian. Then, again, are you a Nigerian?

    Goddy Ekanem

    Vincent, my brother, the governor is on a fight for survival, trying to use Jonathan as a soft-landing pad after office. Embezzlement in Akwa Ibom is monumental and Akpabio needs Jonathan’s protection. So, it is not about Jonathan but Akpabio. – 07032260…

    Akpabio betrayed the man that installed him. Now his is busy preparing the ground for a life after his tenure in 2015. It is not that he loves Jonathan but he has his own agenda. If Jonathan does not distance himself from him, he will infest him with ill-luck. – Seye, Akure.

    God will never abandon the righteous and will never support the wicked. Akpabio is a leaf chased by the wind. He is a bread and butter politician. He would do anything to retain his position. Such a man can never be on the side of the truth. Unfortunately, the President shares the same mentality. Hence, they will always flock together in defeat. It is shameful for the president to have fuelled the NGF crisis. He wants to rule at all cost.

    This is the beginning of his imminent fall come 2015. The APC must be vigilant on subsequent state/national elections. The power drunk party can never win any good election except through rigging. We are yet to embrace true democracy.

    Pastor Odunmbaku