The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Finally, Chime comes clean about his health

    Finally, Chime comes clean about his health

    Four days after he returned to Nigeria from a four-month vacation/medical trip, Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State has finally briefed newsmen on issues relating to the trip, the utterances and motives of his detractors, and matters relating to governance of the state during his absence. During the briefing, Chime came across as angry, cynical and misadvised. For someone who claimed having cancer and treating it made him a changed man, it was hard to see that change, at least that disciplined appreciation of life’s vanities that evokes soberness, satisfaction with life’s gentle mercies, and indifference to provocations. His words were copiously quoted by reporters, and those words unfortunately for him tell more stories than the governor dared hope.

    It is of course a relief that Chime returned home in one piece. Though he may have his doubts, the truth is that most Nigerians, not excepting the good people of Enugu, actually wish him well, believing they stand to gain nothing from his incapacitation. But sceptical and abrasive as ever, the governor dwelled more on the provocations authored by his opponents than on the lessons he and his aides should learn from the controversies and misrepresentations surrounding his over four months trip to London to treat nose cancer. This column does not wish to worsen his pains, but it is unlikely Chime has learnt or will learn anything from the health controversy.

    By giving reporters a very lengthy explanation of his London health trip, almost a blow-by-blow account, he misses the point. What the public, or at least the Enugu electorate, desired was that while he was away, and as his vacation changed from purely one of leisure to that of medical attention, he should have carried along those who voted him into office. But here is his own explanation for not carrying anyone along: “I wrote a letter to the speaker in accordance with the constitution, informing him of my decision to proceed on leave and, of course, sought his co-operation to work very well with the deputy governor who will act as governor in my absence … I didn’t know it would be the business of people to know what my activities would be during my vacation. A lot of you here, I am sure, you all go on vacation, you don’t tell us what you do. So, if I decide to utilize the period of my vacation to take care of myself, I don’t see why it should concern anybody. I don’t see why we should owe anybody any apology.”

    It is unbelievable that an elected governor could argue it was not the business of anyone to know what he did with his vacation, especially when that vacation turned into a health scare. It is even more incredulous that the governor compared his vacation as an elected official with the vacation of someone else not elected. Perhaps the governor is overrated after all. He should not only be able to tell the difference, if he really cared about his people, and if he was as altruistic as he seemed to feign, he should also have known they deserved more than an explanation and some humility from him.

    But what is even more worrisome about the press conference is his dismissive characterisation of the Nigerian print media as proponents of charming falsehood. Hear him again: “Throughout the period of treatment I was an outpatient. All the publications about the governor being in one hospital or the other were all false. I was never admitted in any hospital; all my treatment I took as an outpatient … So, when I started reading in the papers how I died in India, to us, it was a source of entertainment. Anytime we felt like being entertained, we open the website and we will be reading and laughing.” So, here was a governor who rather than give information out, waited until his condition was misrepresented. And then to top what seemed to him morbid recreation, he and other unnamed officials saw the misrepresentations as entertainment. There must surely be a limit to coarseness; there must be a limit to cynicism and macabre delight in falsehood, especially when a governor is dealing with the press of his own country.

    Mr. Chime was kind enough to excuse his aides from the shoddy information management that undermined his peace. They didn’t know the truth because he didn’t tell them the whole story. And he didn’t come clean with them at the time because, to him, it was nobody’s business. Shock! Shock! Shock! More astonishingly, when it came to question time, Chime was even more acerbic, more abusive, and was railing and denouncing. It made us ask whether the change he said was triggered by cancer treatment had made him less sanguine about life and more resentful of his polarised publics. If there was any misrepresentation of his condition, if anyone sought to misapply the constitution, if anyone told any lie against him, if anyone spread rumours about his health, the fault was entirely his.

    This column wishes him permanent recovery and a cancer-free life. But the truth is that he has neither acted with the dispassion and maturity expected of a governor nor acquitted himself as one imbued with the kind of judgement we would be glad to offer an eye.

  • Murtala Ramat Muhammed (November 1938-February 1976)

    Murtala Ramat Muhammed (November 1938-February 1976)

    Some 37 years ago Gen Murtala Ramat Muhammed was assassinated in a coup d’etat led by Col Bukar Sukar Dimka. He was barely 38 when he died. Right from the time his participation in the countercoup of July 1966 brought him to the fore of Nigeria’s often cataclysmic struggle for power at the age of 28, the intensely ambitious military officer never left the thick of military politics and leadership until assassins’ bullets stopped him on February 13, 1976, a little over six months after he seized power. He was a man in a hurry who died in a hurry, in the prime of his life. Imagine what he could have done with power had he lived for a little longer, say, until he handed over power to an elected civilian government in 1979? Could the transition to civilian rule have proceeded the way his sanctimonious successor, General Olusegun Obasanjo, managed it? Indeed, in spite of his glaring weaknesses, particularly his riling and famous impetuousness, would he have handed over power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari, especially considering his highly publicised antipathy towards the gentle style of Gen Yakubu Gowon, his predecessor? These are indeed interesting areas of discourse historians and political scientists should engage themselves in.

    But for our purpose today, let us simply remember the young officer who at 28 had the chutzpah to want to rule Nigeria consequent upon the success of the countercoup. In the event, and to his eternal dismay, the opportunity of ruling Nigeria went to another northern officer, the then Col Yakubu Gowon, perhaps because the scheming American and British advisers read him (Murtala) correctly and knew he was too hot-headed and opinionated to be amenable to their dictations. He proved the meddlesome duo right in 1976 when he took power and began the most intense domestic policy and external relations transformation the country had ever witnessed. Indeed he was at once so activist and populist that the undiscriminating intelligentsia of the day idolised him and the less finicky rabble to whom he had seemed to throw caviar were ecstatic.

    The love affair between the country and Murtala was so instant and so passionate that few paused to ask questions about the appropriateness or long-term impact of his radical policies. The nationalisation of the so-called commanding heights of the economy, the takeover of the very large newspapers of the day, the Daily Times and New Nigerian, and the appropriation of private and state schools unleashed such social devastation and developmental dislocations that the consequences are still being felt even today. And who can forget the tsunami he unleashed against the civil service, a catastrophe that the hitherto professionally-run institution has not recovered from?

    Yet, it was clear that after many years of the Gowon government, and especially the casual manner he reneged on the original 1976 handover date, the country had sunk into such stultifying staleness that only a horse dose of adrenalin could have brought the country back to life. Murtala rode on that resuscitated crest for about six dizzying, unbelievable months. Would to God he had ridden more carefully, and dealt with antagonistic foreign powers more circumspectly. But there is no denying he is still regarded as one of Nigeria’s true heroes. He was detribalised, he was authentic, he was eager, he was extraordinarily bold, and he was a patriot who truly loved his country, even if many of his policies were misconceived and misplaced. Could anyone say the same of his successors, particularly the pretentious Obasanjo and the considerably insular and divisive President Goodluck Jonathan?

     

  • VIP lessons from South Africa

    VIP lessons from South Africa

    A  very perceptive and politically conscious reporter from this newspaper, Mr Taofeek Babalola, sent a curious despatch from Johannesburg, South Africa on how that southern African country treats its Very Important Personalities (VIPs). (By any standard, a governor in Nigeria is a VIP). That despatch was published in this newspaper’s sister publication, Sporting Life, on Monday, and it reported the movement of at least two governors who attended the final game of the Africa Cup of Nations football fiesta. Nigeria defeated Burkina Faso to lift the trophy after 19 years of waiting. The report mentioned two important points about the Nigerian dignitaries.

    One was that the governors, though regarded as VIPs alright, still had to join the queue at the VIP section in order to gain access to the main bowl of the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg. The governors, Rotimi Amaechi and Peter Obi of Rivers and Anambra States respectively, had to remain on the queue for several minutes, according to the report. Hear the reporter: “Unlike in Nigeria where top executives enjoy preferential treatment at public events, the governors who were waiting by the side gate with the hope of gaining access without observing normal protocol, were told to join the queue formed by other ticket holders.” Now, it is perhaps possible that the governors were not exactly expecting the sort of preferential treatment they were accustomed to receiving in Nigeria, but the reporter was sensible, seeing the comportment of the governors, not to give them the benefit of the doubt.

    The cheeky reporter also noted that no siren wailed anywhere near the stadium. Everyone, including VIPs, approached the stadium as humans, not demigods. The reporter needn’t remind us about the horrendous wailing of sirens that accompany or herald top Nigerian government officials’ movements, including the minions who wait on them or run errands for them. He needn’t remind us how many people have been elbowed off the road here to their untimely deaths by homicidal protocol drivers and staff, often with no chance of redress. And he needn’t tell us how state officials consumed by an overwhelming and vexatious sense of self-importance regard less privileged Nigerian citizens as subhuman.

    But it was clear the reporter had the good sense and presence of mind to draw a parallel between how South Africans, a fellow African country, regard their important personalities, and how the more obsequious Nigerians esteem their rulers. By sending the report back to his newspaper in Nigeria, the reporter was indirectly asking Nigerian officials to borrow a leaf from South Africa. He should have spared himself. Any cursory reader of Lord Frederick Lugard’s Dual Mandate will understand why asking Nigerian leaders to plant their feet firmly on terra firma is a waste of time. It is in their nature to act haughtily; just as it is also in their nature to denigrate their fellow countrymen. They won’t be fulfilled until they emphasise that class distinction and make it much huger than it really is. And if anyone thinks Nigerians will change, that person must be chasing chimeras. Ask Lugard whose contemptuous 1914 amalgamation exercise Nigerian leaders have unreflectingly begun to celebrate.

     

     

  • Bamanga Tukur eats his words, and crow

    Bamanga Tukur eats his words, and crow

    During his two-day fence-mending trip to Port Harcourt last week, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairman, effusively praised Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, for unparalleled performance. He even descried the governor as the best. He said much more, enough to unnerve the judicious. “Without mincing words, since Friday, when I arrived Port Harcourt, I have been inspecting one project or the other till this morning (Saturday),” began the party chairman. “…It is very difficult to praise your son (talking to the people of Rivers) because he’s the best for me…Believe you me, PDP will never lose to any party if people like Governor Amaechi stand boldly behind us; we will win and continue to win in any election. Support your governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, support our party, and be sure to win your elections.”

    For a chairman who just weeks ago was at war with the Amaechi-led (PDP caucus of the) Governors’ Forum, a war many erroneously thought was a fight to the bitter end, and one that would be irreconcilable and could lead to the fragmentation or even disintegration of the ruling party, the unexpected rapprochement obviously came as a surprise. Unwilling to leave anything to chance, Tukur piled up the praise until Amaechi became saturated. Hear Tukur again: “What I have seen today, gives me hope. I saw first of all, the development of the educational sector and I want to say that education is key, the laboratory facilities in the new model schools and the ICT facilities will indeed spur the students to major in science subjects, thank you Amaechi for doing this.”

    Such effusions were enough to loosen the tongue of Amaechi, who gushed on behalf of the Governor’s Forum. “We assure you that governors will support and remain loyal to the party,” he said, “…we need each other at such a challenging moment. Lead us to victory and it is Important that we don’t take ourselves for granted, so that we will continue to lead ourselves and the party to victory. The PDP Governors will do everything necessary to ensure that they deliver to the people.” It became clear that one of the reasons behind the misunderstanding between the PDP chairman and President Goodluck Jonathan on one hand, and the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) and PDP governors on the other hand was that the former took the latter for granted. It was always clear the PDP would make up after every fight, no matter how acrimonious the quarrel, yet the party is not as cohesive as its opponents think, and can in fact be taken apart scientifically. Indeed, it will take more than a simple disagreement over the dissolution of the Adamawa State PDP caretaker committee to fatally injure the party.

    Given the intensity of the misunderstanding between the two camps in the past few weeks, few expected Tukur’s dramatic volte-face. Well, he will enthusiastically eat more crow whenever PDP unity is threatened. More, though he is advanced in age, it is only now that he is maturing in the art of stooping to conquer. Last week, it was Amaechi, for whom he composed a dithyramb; next month it could be any other troublesome party man. The elastic principles of the ruling party and the formlessness of their war fronts are such that whoever is their party chairman or even president of the country would be willing to eat any species of crow or write doxologies to their worst enemies to sustain the facade of unity.

  • APC: New party, new frontiers

    APC: New party, new frontiers

    In the coming months, the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) made up of four leading opposition parties will face the huge responsibility of convincing Nigerians it means business. It has no choice but to make a success of it. The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) had surprised the polity on Wednesday by announcing their merger in order to present a realistic challenge to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The announcement itself was well orchestrated, with many governors in attendance, and inspiring speeches made justifying the merger as a prerequisite for the sustenance of democracy. The merger was of course expected, but few people knew it was about to be consummated. They will need more such surreptitiousness in the months ahead to guard their future plans and defend the principles of their association.

    Chairman of the Merger Committee of the ACN, Chief Tom Ikimi, was especially convincing in offering the rational for the merger. Said he: “At no time in our national life has radical change become more urgent. And to meet the challenge, we the following political parties namely ACN, ANPP, APGA and CPC have resolved to merge forthwith and become All Progressives Congress and offer to our beleaguered people a recipe for peace and prosperity. We resolve to form a political party committed to the principles of internal democracy, focused on serious issues of concern to our people, determined to bring corruption and insecurity to an end, determined to grow our economy and create jobs in their millions through education, housing, agriculture, industrial growth etc, and stop the increasing mood of despair and hopelessness among our people. The resolution of these issues, the restoration of hope, and the enthronement of true democratic values for peace, democracy and justice are those concerns which propel us. We believe that by these measures only shall we restore our dignity and position of pre-eminence in the comity of nations. This is our pledge.”

    But the easiest part of the unfolding political contest set to captivate the country between now and 2015 is the merger of the four leading opposition parties or the making of pledges. The hardest part, however, will be how these coalescing parties successfully create, among other things, internal dynamics that is both practicable and truly democratic, a party machine primed into a cohesive and irresistible fighting force, and a progressive platform cobbled together adroitly to resonate with the electorate. If they overcome these hurdles, they will then come against the unrelenting and ruthless PDP machine that does not fuss over rules and regulations, not to talk of principles and values. The PDP will not consider it in its interest to let the new party cohere or stabilise. They will attack it with new alliances of their own, and erect a stifling architecture of legislative and executive fiats against the new party, up to the point of even demonising it.

    What is not in doubt, and a fact that stands in favour of the new party, is that the coming of APC will lead to the sharpening of the main political dividing line in the country. Gradually, rather than accentuating the possibility of one-party state, we may begin to move in the direction of the much-desired two-party system that is more manageable, less threatening to the country’s unity, and able to sharpen the appreciation of issues upon which enlightened political choices are made. The country is ready for APC; what no one is sure of, but which only the party can answer, is whether the party is ready for the country.

  • El-Rufai: So, who is not consulting marabouts?

    El-Rufai: So, who is not consulting marabouts?

    Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, former Federal Capital City (FCT) minister, is not just satisfied walking audaciously in the corridors of power and stepping on toes and breaking chinaware, he is also audacious in writing about both the colours and tempers of those corridors and the scheming of the feckless men that walk in them. The gifted and energetic former minister has now given teeth to his daring by writing a book, The Accidental Public Servant, on those years when he luxuriated in power and cavorted among the powerful. Given the many startling and frank revelations jumping out of the iconoclastic book, it is expected that the jaws of many Nigerians will drop permanently when they read it. Indeed, after the public presentation of the book today, there will certainly be angry reactions; and soon we may be able to determine just how far the former Abuja gadfly sexed up portions of his book.

    The excerpts published by some newspapers so far have meanwhile gone a long way in publicising the book, even establishing some reputation for it ahead of presentation, and creating effective demand for it. Probably one of the most colourful accounts in the book is the story of how former Vice President Atiku Abubakar patronised and became a captive of marabouts, yes, the same metaphysical agents that hallmarked the military government of the degenerate Gen Sani Abacha. Not since Saul consulted the witch at Endor has a story of high-level flirtation between rulers and agents of the dark arts fascinated a people as the Atiku/marabout interaction.

    According to el-Rufai, the marabout story began when some senators demanded N54m bribe from him in order to help him scale confirmation hurdle. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who was then president, was of no help, writes el-Rufai. This led him to briefly toy with the idea of resigning, a thought he went to share with Atiku. The former vice president, says el-Rufai, asked him where he was going when “…we are about to have the whole thing.” That whole thing, it turned out, was the presidency.

    In brief, writes el-Rufai, Atiku explained that he knew a marabout who told him all that ever happened to him, at least in terms of electoral fortunes. The marabout was never wrong, not even once, said Atiku giddily to el-Rufai. In addition, the marabout had just predicted that Obasanjo would not complete his tenure, and he (Atiku) would be president, blurted the former vice president excitedly. Well, it turned out the marabout was dead wrong, assuming indeed he made such a prediction. According to Mallam Garba Shehu, Atiku’s long-standing spokesman, the marabout story is not only an infernal lie, it is even more an indication of el-Rufai’s equally long-standing romance with marabouts. Shehu disclosed that el-Rufai once sponsored one of his brothers to see marabouts in Morocco, Mali, Senegal and Somalia. From all indications, Nigerians are going to hear more about marabouts in the coming months.

    But while Hardball waits patiently for el-Rufai and his subjects to slug it out brutally in the weeks ahead, it must be recalled that marabouts are a permanent feature of Nigeria’s leadership landscape. The temptation to know what the future has in store is always too strong to resist for generals anxious about the outcome of the next battle, politicians eager to avoid electoral debacle, and the ordinary man impatient to know where his fortunes lie, and where his tragedies come from. The question to ask, then, is who among Nigeria’s leaders, many of them steeped in superstition, is not consulting marabout, or in the case of the religiously sensitive among them, consulting soothsayers dressed in borrowed, sanctified robes?

  • More controversies for African First Ladies

    More controversies for African First Ladies

    Last year, a mendicant African Union (AU) needed the benevolence of China to get a new and befitting $200m office complex in Addis Ababa. On the other hand, ‘wealthy’ Nigeria is proudly and confidently proposing to shell out N4bn to build the headquarters of African First Ladies’ Peace Mission (AFLPM) in Abuja on a controversial land. Nigeria’s generous spirit is obviously unlimited and undiscriminating. The Senate, which is considering the Federal Capital City’s proposed budget for the project, has so far given the impression it is scandalised by the presidency’s absolute lack of reality check. The country’s economy is in such dire straits, the Senate said, that it is shocking the government could tend to that project at all, not to talk of voting such a huge sum for its execution.

    In his reaction to widespread outrage over the AFLPM office project, the FCT minister, Senator Bala Mohammad, knowingly begged the question. He tried to justify the allocation by arguing that according to the law the FCT was charged with the responsibility of building public offices. As he put it, “The Decree No.6 of 1976 that created Abuja also simultaneously created the FCTA with duty and responsibilities to plan, design, provide the infrastructure and construct public buildings as well as services to the entire 8,000 square kilometres of the FCT…As part of its remit to live up to its international obligation, the Federal Government accommodates certain international bodies – just like it is done across the globe; every year, the cost of rent or accommodation for such bodies tends to be above one billion naira…In Abuja, this obligation is transferred to the FCT Administration and as part of its efficiency measure, the FCT Administration saw in the proposed headquarters of the African First Ladies Peace Mission building an opportunity to save cost by using the AFLPM building to serve multiple roles in providing office accommodation as well as housing not just the African First Ladies Peace Mission but to other international bodies as well.” But who is disputing the functions of the FCT? It’s the project and the public money, stupid.

    Even if you ignore the obfuscation in the minister’s response, how could you also ignore the tendentious view that the AFLPM had become a part of our international obligations? And who can forget the messy controversy surrounding the land upon which the office complex is to be built? In February 2010, the land was allocated to the Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation (WAYEF), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) run by the immediate past First Lady, Hajiya Turai Yar’Adua. In November 2011, however, the FCT minister revoked the allocation and transferred ownership of the land to AFLPM, thereby setting in motion a very nasty and embarrassing struggle between the two First Ladies. The minister of course later explained that the earlier allocation to Hajiya Turai was inappropriate in the first instance.

    No matter how much the Senate wants to cooperate with the presidency, it is unlikely it can be persuaded to approve the expenditure for AFLPM as part of the FCT budget. After all, the sponsors of the project had vehemently clarified in 2011 and in July last year, during a dispute over supply of cars for the AFLPM summit, that it was an NGO. Taken together with its recklessness on the centenary project and other financial imprudence such as the N12bn proposed expenditure for the construction of two city gates for Abuja and rehabilitation of commercial sex workers in the FCT, it is clear that the President Goodluck Jonathan presidency has lost all sense of restraint in spending money and prioritising projects. The legislature must recognise that in spite of being sometimes ineffective in carrying out its oversight responsibilities, the onus for saving this democracy is on its shoulders. It should do what is right on the AFLPM office project, and put a leash on a presidency that has lost virtually all sense of reality and proportion.

     

  • Obasanjo should bother about his meddlesomeness

    Obasanjo should bother about his meddlesomeness

    On Monday, virtually all newspapers published the photograph of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo participating actively in Sunday’s worship service at the Aso Villa chapel. He was in company with his host, President Goodluck Jonathan, the president’s family, and other cabinet aides and friends. Obasanjo was at the Villa with a few members of his own family. After the service, in which the former president prayed fervently for his host, whom he had traduced repeatedly in the past few months, he went for a private lunch and discussions with the president. Some newspaper analysts construed Obasanjo’s presence at the Villa as a sort of rapprochement with his protégé. Perhaps it was.

    Obasanjo’s visit came a few days after a news magazine, the New African, published an interview quoting him as accusing Jonathan of mismanaging the campaign against insecurity. That interview in turn came at a time when the uproar over Obasanjo’s vehement denunciation of Jonathan’s conflict resolution style was yet to die down. The former president had last November dismissed as weak Jonathan’s approach to the Boko Haram menace compared with his own vigorous approach to tackling insurrections. The brickbat between aides of the two leaders stoked the cold war triggered by factors yet to be fully and accurately determined. Analysts suspect those factors were probably connected with the unsuccessful effort by Jonathan to call his soul his own in the face of Obasanjo’s obtruding and sometimes risible political behaviour.

    Since Obasanjo has refused to detach himself from the government of the day, as well as from general governance, observers have been quick to judge that his obtrusion had reached a clearly portentous stage. They in fact read metaphysical meanings to his every move in favour or against the ruler of the day. Observers, for instance, equate his lunch with the president on Sunday ominously with the lunch he had with former Peoples Democratic Party chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, shortly before the latter’s fall. And they also recall his public show of affection for Otunba Gbenga Daniel, whom he publicly fed cake, as an indication of his ability to cynically purge himself of any feeling for his enemies, no matter how hard they try to placate him. It remains to be seen whether Sunday’s Aso Villa ‘rapprochement’ should be interpreted as a simple gesture of reconciliation or as a complex foreboding of impending apocalypse.

    What is not in doubt, however, is that the country, nay, Obasanjo himself, should be worried that whereas the former president was his own man when he ruled the country, he seems reluctant to allow Jonathan to come to his own. But what worsens the whole messy interaction between the former and current presidents is that one man or two, as the case may be, appear to determine by questionable deductions the fate of more than 160 million Nigerians. That galling resort to faulty reasoning led to the foisting of the late Umaru Yar’Adua as president in 2007. It also enthroned Jonathan himself two years later, which perhaps explains why he is wary of extricating himself from the bind he finds himself. That twisted logic has indeed now taken on a life of its own, gaining momentum by the week, and threatening to spiral out of control every time a disagreement spews out from the pressure pot.

    Obasanjo has become the leitmotif of Nigerian politics, a reputation he obviously revels in. He will not discard the distinctive triumphalism that accompanies that exalted status, for there is no incentive for him to self-immolate. The better option would be for Jonathan to wean himself off the former president’s tutelage. But that also assumes Jonathan has the courage to cross the Rubicon and burn his bridges. More, taking that fateful step calls for a cleverness never before exhibited in these parts, one so unusual as to be sufficient to establish a president as a true leader. Obasanjo has an obtruding personality; he won’t let go of the reins of power. It is in fact Jonathan who has the responsibility of freeing himself and offering the country independent leadership, assuming he can summon the required confidence, courage and wisdom.

     

     

  • Akpabio as Chime’s incongruous herald

    Akpabio as Chime’s incongruous herald

    Some 11 days after Governors Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, Gabriel Suswan of Benue and Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers visited ailing Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State in London and swore he was in fine fettle, even pressing to return home, Akpabio has reportedly told the media on his arrival from London on Friday that this time the Enugu State governor would return in two weeks. The first time the three governors spoke to the press on the controversial subject, they only indicated that the governor was on his feet and had made a sensational recovery. Now, according to Akpabio, a timetable for Chime’s return has been set. Two weeks is a short time; it will soon pass. And in any case what is two weeks compared with the more than four months Chime has spent in hospital, away from the splendour of State House?

    When the Enugu State governor’s long absence first assumed controversial dimension, with some political interests in the state asking for the application of either the Doctrine of Necessity or some other constitutional imperatives to declare Chime incapacitated as a prelude to his replacement, his troubled aides swung into action to denounce what they described as uncharitable and amoral moves to unhorse the governor. The governor’s poor health was being malevolently politicised, they wailed. And just as the aides of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua employed subterfuge to throw curious citizens off the scent, Chime’s loyalists have also seized upon all the subterranean tactics they can find to both distract the governor’s opponents and denounce them for being so unfeeling. It was clear that to the aides, their principal’s health condition had become an emotional, not constitutional, thing.

    After observing the reactions of the three governors who purportedly visited Chime in London – whether in hospital or out of hospital, we do not know – and their curt replies to media inquiries, Hardball had on January 24 observed as follows: “It is clear that neither Chime nor any of his three august visitors understood the issues involved, and indeed it is no surprise that most Nigerian governors are simply incapable of adapting to the governmental needs of the modern era. If Chime and his fanatical supporters had come clean on his health, regularly updated the public with news of the governor’s health condition, and not take the same electorate for granted, would there be speculations, let alone a wish for some hypothetical evil to befall him? The problem with Chime’s long absence is not whether the constitution had been breached or not; the problem is lack of good faith, disrespect for Enugu people, childish contrivances, and now additional verbal indiscretions from the visiting governors.”

    Now, quite unfortunately, Akpabio has seemed to magnify the lack of wisdom displayed by Enugu State officials in the management of their governor’s health crisis. It must be reiterated that Enugu officials and Chime’s aides ought to have opened up on the governor’s health trips, give periodic updates, and if possible a timeline. A governor from another state is least qualified to fill that information gap. Indeed, it is incongruous and even insulting. Above all, it must scandalise us how governors, presidents and high state officials here treat their health crises with demeaning furtiveness. They all give the impression health problems are a metaphysical thing that must be hidden from prying eyes. Is this how barbarously low the country has sunk, or how backward it has become? After many months of lying unconscionably to the public, could Enugu officials finally and kindly issue an official press release on the governor’s health trip and date of return? And let us hope this time that the ‘fit as a fiddle’ governor will honour the timeline.

  • AFCON: Writing Super Eagles off

    AFCON: Writing Super Eagles off

    In their effort to qualify for the quarterfinals of the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) competition taking place in South Africa, the Super Eagles of Nigeria kept Nigerians so much on edge that when they finally booked a place, everyone shrugged, including their compatriots. It was therefore no surprise that in their not-so-comprehensive defeat of the Ethiopian team, Nigerians gave their lacklustre team grudging plaudits, uneasy about what embarrassment the more technically solid Cote d’Ivoire team could cause us in a few days to come. If this unease is whispered in Nigerians’ living rooms, football commentators from elsewhere are less bashful. One of them, FIFA man and former publisher of African Football magazine, Emmanuel Maradas, spoke so candidly about the Eagles’ shortcomings that it left many proud Nigerians shamefaced and desperate. According to the Vanguard newspaper, Maradas believed the Eagles stood no chance of going anywhere in the on-going soccer fiesta. In the next round, he was quoted to have said specifically, “Cote d’Ivoire will beat Nigeria because you have no chance. You’ll struggle.”

    Hear his unsparing analysis: “Your team is not solid, and it has no star player. It is just an ordinary team. I feel sad to see Nigeria which used to be a powerhouse present a mediocre squad. They have played poorly and only managed to escape the disgrace of being beaten in the first round. I feel sad because this is the same country that had star players like Kanu, Babayaro, Oliseh, Okocha, and the list is endless.” Maradas was so stunned by the decline in Nigerian football that he asked rhetorically what had become of the great footballing country. And that precisely is the most important question of the last few decades.

    Maradas might have been prompted by football to wonder what came over us. But considering the way he asked the weighty question, he seemed to also imply that the problem with Nigeria transcended football or sports generally. Again, hear his distressed complaint: “What is the problem with Nigeria? Are you saying that out of the millions of people in Nigeria, you cannot get up to seven star players? What is the problem with Nigeria? This is a country that I love so much, a country of the greats in African football. Nigeria should not struggle in any group in African football…Eagles have fallen. A country with so much and millions of people cannot raise a dreaded squad; no, it is a shame.”

    It is clear Maradas’ reflections on Nigerian football go beyond football. The way he mourned our decline, and, according to the newspaper, the way he gestured, he seemed to indicate the world expected so much more from Nigeria in all fields. By limiting his comments to football, Maradas was apparently simply being diplomatic. He wanted Nigeria to provide leadership, especially with its endowment and population, but he is deeply mortified it is unable to rise to any level of acclaim. But if it is any comfort to Maradas, he must be told that most Nigerians, minus those in government, also ask the same question: What has become of us? And so far, there has been no consensus on what went wrong. However, there is consensus on the physical manifestations of those things that are wrong with us – the incompetence, the waste, the mediocrity, the nepotism, the lack of passion for the country etc.

    In any case, whatever the outcome of the match between Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire on Sunday, Mr Maradas’ question will still be valid. For the problems we confront as a nation are so weighty and pernicious that except we confront them boldly and intelligently, the morass will persist, and both the country and its leaders will continue to make an ass of themselves internationally.