The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Dates!

    Dates!

    May 29, June 12, August 27 and October 1 are dates that have played prominent roles in the running story of Nigeria.  With democracy firmly forming, running for 25 years for the first time in Nigeria’s history, it’s cheering news the “fake” dates are giving way for the genuine ones.

    Clearly the most arbitrary date in Nigeria’s history was August 27.  On that day in 1985, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida overthrew Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in a palace coup. 

    As far as power infamy goes, it was no better or worse than any other day that the political military stole power.  Its notoriety, however, lay in the IBB regime trying to etch it into the country’s consciousness as if that day were any better, during IBB’s eight-year power roller coaster. 

    But it’s good and pleasing that date got buried with the IBB debacle.  IBB scuttling from power, itself a fallout from the June 12 annulment crisis, signified the first-ever civil society victory over the political military.

    Clearly, the most traumatic of these dates is May 29.  On 29 May 1962, Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa-in-Parliament imposed an ill-advised emergency rule on the Western Region.  As things turned out, that marked the beginning of the end for Nigeria’s 1st Repsublic, since it spurred a chain of crises that led to the first military putsch of 15 January 1966.

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    It was the same day — 29 May (1993): his Inauguration Day — that elected President but former Army General and Head of State, Olusegun Obasanjo, tried to impose on Nigeria as “Democracy Day”, against June 12, memorializing MKO Abiola’s martyrdom, which powered the forced foundation of the current 4th Republic.

    But again as it takes poison to defang poison, it was another retired General, Head of State but elected President, Muhammadu Buhari, that knocked off that “Army Arrangement” (apologies to Fela); and restored the primacy of June 12, as worthy Democracy Day; and also recognized MKO as elected President that never ruled.

    And just as well — for June 12, for Nigeria’s civil society, symbolizes second independence from internal subjugation by the political military and the soldiers of power fortunes that misruled the country for much too long.

    With democracy at 25 in its present stretch, it’s pleasing that only two — genuine –dates have survived: October 1, the day in 1960 that Nigeria won independence from British colonialism; and June 12, the day Abiola won a free election, which the arrogant IBB and delusional boys cancelled but which turned out to be sweet Waterloo for the political military.

    October 1, June 12 — sacred dates to be memorialized!  Nigeria — Democracy — We Hail Thee!  Dates!

  • Delay and deterioration

    Delay and deterioration

    Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta Road is in a worse state than it was in October last year when the Federal Government finally gave the Ogun State government permission to fix the road, which was categorised as a federal road. For years, the road had been in very bad shape, and overdue for reconstruction.

    An investigative report published in The Guardian on February 4 said: “It is sad to note that between October last year and now, the road has further degenerated.”

    This was unexpected. Indeed, it was disappointing. Minister of Works David Umahi, after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja on October 16 last year, said the state government had requested to be allowed to “do the road on their own.”  He announced that the state government had been permitted to “do it and toll it,” and there would be “no refunds” for the road reconstruction.

     At the time, the Ogun State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Ade Akinsanya, said the state government “has been rehabilitating the road since 2019,” adding that “With the transfer done now, we are happy and ready to immediately take over the project and turn around the fortunes of the road.”

    Just before the announcement that the road had changed hands, Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun had lamented its terrible condition. 

    Akpabio noted the extremely bad condition of the road when he visited the state to attend the grand finale of the Yewa Cultural Festival, and receive a traditional title, Aare Fiwagboye of Yewa land. According to him, he decided to pass through the Lagos-Abeokuta, Papalanto-Ilaro road where he spent about two hours in traffic on Papalanto-Ilaro road “because two tankers fell on the road.” He told the people at the event: “I really sympathise with you. I went through what you people are going through on a daily basis.” 

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    When the governor spoke, he also told a sad story, telling Akpabio that “it took me three hours to get here from Abeokuta. I am sure it took you just as much to get here from Lagos because of the deplorable state of Lagos-Abeokuta Road.”

    He pleaded for Akpabio’s intervention, saying, “Please help us with the Federal Government to transfer this road to us. This road is very key to our socio-economic economic development.”

    It was bad enough that the road was abandoned for so long by the Federal Government, which worsened its condition.  It is worse that more than three months after the federal authorities allowed the state government to fix the road, the condition of the road was reported to have worsened. 

    Why the delay in fixing the road? The Ogun State government has a lot of explaining to do.

    First published January 6, 2024

  • Unburied hero

    Unburied hero

    It was reassuring that the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) responded positively to negative news about the inaction of the authorities, which has delayed the burial of the celebrated designer of Nigeria’s flag, Taiwo Akinkunmi, who died on August 29, 2023, aged 87. He remains unburied, 10 months after his exit.

    In a statement, NICO said it had “considered taking up a major role and responsibility in coordinating and collaborating with other agencies that may be necessary in giving a befitting burial to this fallen hero.” The agency described the national flag as “one of the greatest tangible heritages of this country.”

    A concerned group, Yoruba World Congress (YWC), UK, recently wrote an open letter to President Bola Tinubu, saying Akinkunmi, known as ‘Mr Flag Man,’ “did his best for this country and his body should not be allowed to remain in the mortuary without attention and without a befitting burial.”

    Following his death, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, had led a Federal Government delegation that paid a condolence visit to his family in Ibadan, Oyo State, where he was based, though he hailed from Abeokuta, Ogun State.  “He designed one of the most powerful symbols of our collective existence as a country and a nation,” the minister said at the time. Also, the Oyo State government had officially expressed its condolences in a letter to the family signed by Governor Seyi Makinde. The authorities gave the impression that they would be involved in his burial.

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    However, the public show of interest by the federal and state authorities has not resulted in expected action. According to YWC, the Akinkunmi family “had planned the burial for 7th and 8th of December 2023,” but “it was annulled by the Oyo State government on the grounds that there was no representation from the government to confirm the date chosen by the family.”

     The Oyo State government was said to have requested another date for his burial, and his family sent “April 10, 11 and 12 2024.”  “But this date has also lapsed as all attempts to get to the governor or his representatives were futile,” YWC observed.  Since his death, the group added, his family “made it known that they have been paying N2,000 daily as a mortuary bill without any support from the government.” The YWC, therefore, called on President Tinubu “to urgently look into this matter so that the family can bury their dead and be pacified.”

     Akinkunmi was in his early twenties, and a student in London, when he designed the national flag, after stumbling upon a newspaper advertisement calling for the submission of designs for the Nigerian flag ahead of the country’s independence from British rule in October 1960. He deserves a hero’s burial.

  • Unfinished tasks in Kogi rescue

    Unfinished tasks in Kogi rescue

    When a mission gets accomplished, it is rightly time for backslappings and shared commendations signalling curtains on that issue. Such was the mood that trailed the recent rescue of eight students of Confluence University of Science and Technology (CUSTECH) in Kogi State, who were said to be the remainder of those abducted by suspected bandits some weeks ago. The students were rescued penultimate weekend from a Kwara State forest in an operation that involved collaboration by Kogi and Kwara governments with security operatives.

    Gun-wielding bandits had on 9th May stormed the Osara campus of the institution and abducted students studying in the lecture halls at evening for their imminent first semester examination. There was uncertainty about the number of students abducted. Kogi government, on 10th May, estimated that nine students were affected, but later reviewed the number to 14. On 13th May, seven students were reported rescued from a forest beside Obajana road, with another 14 rescued a week later, taking the tally to 21. The police confirmed the killing of two of the abducted students on 26th May.

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    Kogi government, early last week, announced the rescue of eight more students aged between 17 and 23 years. Commissioner for Information Kingsley Fanwo, in a statement, expressed the state government’s appreciation to the security services and all others who collaborated in effecting the rescue of the students, adding that Governor Usman Ododo had directed full support towards the recovery of the students and their parents. The statement thanked President Bola Tinubu for “directing the mobilization of resources to ensure the rescue of the kidnapped students,” and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu for “his commitment to the release of the students and the general security of the state.” Among others, the statement also thanked Kwara State  Governor AbdulRahmam AbdulRazak for working with his Kogi counterpart on the rescue mission, as well as the security service chiefs and all security personnel who played a role in rescuing the students. “Now that the remaining students have been rescued, our administration will continue the drive to recalibrate our security architecture and pay uncompromising attention to the Safe School Initiative,” it added inter alia.

    But it shouldn’t yet be curtains on the abduction saga, as no mention was ever made of what happened to the bandits. Did they just melt away as the students were being rescued? It would be a gross security failing if none of these are brought to justice. Besides, Governor Ododo on the heels of the incident  alleged insider collaboration from within CUSTECH with the bandits, as installed surveillance cameras on the university premises were reportedly disabled in apparent anticipation of their strike. It can’t yet be case closed if such internal collaborators aren’t fished out.

  • Labour, value and sabotage

    Labour, value and sabotage

     A Labour centre — Joe Ajaero’s Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) — morphed into a child craving stuff: a shirt here, a burger there, a coveted toy and another pair of shoes for Christmas or “Ileya” — as sacrosanct criteria to bargain for a national minimum wage.

    It’s glorious numbers (Aluta continua!) were N615, 000, later, N494, 000 — (Victory ascerta!)

    But the reflex of the same Labour, dreaming such confetti of cash, was to go switch off, post-haste, the national electricity grid, to paralyze all production!

    A Labour movement with no sense of value is a joke upon itself.  On that, Ajaero’s NLC takes the cake.  For Festus Osifo’s TUC, it is the sorry story of the sheep messing around with dogs.  Sooner than later, it would eat faeces!

    Nigeria’s two Labour centres have made themselves a deserving butt of jokes, with their gaming-machine thinking! 

    From an initial N615, 000 opening offer, these Labour Titans are now holding out for N100, 000.  Should they slip again, what else will they shut down?  Set ablaze all the electricity dams and thermal plants?  Such unthinking breed!

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    Still, jokes are part and parcel of a democracy — not economic sabotage.  Indeed, a fundamental kernel of democracy is knowing the limits of your rights, for no right is absolute. 

    Which is why when the hurly-burly is done, and after the battle is lost and won (to echo good, old Shakespeare in Macbeth), those who switched off the national grid must be brought to book. 

    That was economic sabotage, plain and simple!

    By the way, might Ajaero have leveraged own Labour base — the National Union of Electricity Employees, where he was general secretary — to achieve that rather nefarious act?  That is worth investigating.

    But aside from that main act, there were allegations of assault and battery, by a statement released by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which claimed enforcement gangs, behaving like thugs and touts, beat up and wounded some staff in the TCN control rooms, just to achieve a willy-nilly grid shutdown.

    Organized Labour must know this and know peace: the law that gives it the right to go on strike does not give it the leeway to turn outlaws while at it.

    The right to strike and picket also frowns at violence and outlawry.  It’s time to break some heads to make that point.

  • NFF: Playing games

    NFF: Playing games

    Money is usually said to be an issue in the affairs of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), the country’s football governing body. So, it was good news when President Bola Tinubu, in January, approved the payment of N12b to cover allowances and bonuses owed the Super Eagles, the country’s senior men’s national football team, and other Nigeria national football teams.

    Indeed, Sports Minister John Enoh was recently reported to have not only confirmed this approval but also listed this special intervention fund as one of his achievements in office.

    However, six months after Tinubu’s intervention, according to Sporting Life, “what has so far been paid out to Super Eagles are match bonuses for the 2023 AFCON home qualifiers against Sao Tome & Principe and Sierra Leone. These monies were paid in Naira as is the standard for home games.”

    The report said: “The team have NOT been paid other outstanding monies, ranging from allowances for friendly matches to 2022 World Cup qualifiers and dating as far back as 2021.”

    According to the report, “This special fund was to pay the Flying Eagles outstanding allowances and bonuses for the 2023 U20 AFCON in Egypt as well as the 2023 U20 FIFA World Cup in Argentina.

    “Allowances for 28 days – 15 days at the U20 AFCON and 13 days at the World Cup – as well as qualifying bonuses from both U20 AFCON qualifiers as well as the U20 AFCON proper.” But the payments are outstanding, the report said.

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    The report also said: “This same fund was to pay the allowances and bonuses of the Golden Eaglets 2023 U17 AFCON campaign in Algeria as well as the WAFU B qualifiers in Ghana the previous year.

    “This has also NOT been paid.

    “The same is the unfortunate case of both the women’s national team, the Falconets.”

     Interestingly, according to the report, NFF board members and NFF secretariat staff who were involved in these international engagements were paid last month. The question is: What about the players? 

    The NFF’s announcement that all Super Eagles 2023 AFCON allowances and bonuses had been paid failed to answer the questions concerning the reported outstanding payments. The body has a lot of explaining to do. It needs to clarify when and how much the involved national teams were paid from this fund, and whether there are outstanding payments.  That’s what transparency and accountability are about. 

    It’s curious that there are reported outstanding payments despite the intervention fund that was meant to cover allowances and bonuses owed Nigeria national football teams.  The money should be used for the purpose it was meant for. Failure to do so after six months is inexcusable.

  • Japa symphony

    Japa symphony

    No fewer than 15,000 to 16,000 doctors left Nigeria for ‘greener pastures’ in the last five years, the Federal Government recently confirmed. But it said it was making efforts to expand the training scheme for the medics and motivate those who choose to stay back and serve their country.

    Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Ali Pate, lamented during an appearance on a Channels Television programme that the country has witnessed a generation of young doctors, health workers, tech entrepreneurs and other professionals in the medical sector abandoning the country for better opportunities abroad. He said: “In the last five years, the country lost about 15,000 to 16,000 doctors to the Japa syndrome, while about 17,000 were transferred. There are about 300,000 health professionals working in Nigeria today in all cadres. I am talking about doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, and others. We did an assessment and discovered we have 85,000 to 90,000 registered Nigerian doctors. Not all of them are in the country though. Some are in the diaspora, especially in the US and UK. But there are 55,000 licensed doctors in the country.”

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    According to the minister, the bane of the health system in Nigeria isn’t just the low number of personnel, but also their distribution across the country. “The issue overall, in terms of health professionals, is that they are not enough. They are insufficient in terms of the skill mix. Can you believe most of the highly skilled professional doctors are in Lagos, Abuja and a few urban centres? There is a huge distribution issue,” he said, as he acknowledged that the doctor-to-patient ratio in the country was both inadequate and disproportionate. “The population of doctors overall is about 7,600 in Lagos and 4,700 or thereabouts in Abuja… There are huge distributional issues and there are, of course, opportunities even for some of those who have been trained to get into the market,” he added.

    Pate’s appraisal was more factual about the Nigerian situation compared with the bluster by a trained medical doctor and former Labour and Employment Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige, who once said Nigeria had a surplus of doctors and those among them desiring to relocate were encouraged to so do. But Pate too stressed the pull-factor more than he acknowledged the push factor. He said the ‘japa’ syndrome was a global phenomenon not restricted to Nigeria. “Other countries don’t have enough, they’re asking to take more. It is not only in Nigeria. It is happening in India, the Philippines and other parts of Africa,” he stated.

  • Vera’s cruise

    Vera’s cruise

    When on 14th April, she was humiliated while sharing her testimony at an Abuja-based church, many Nigerians rallied to Vera Anyim’s side because she did earn what she was dismissed as not having earned – a Bachelor degree in Law. Senior Pastor of Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Dr. Paul Enenche, had been put off by her incoherence, poor diction and inadvertent claim that she obtained a ‘BSc in Law’ at the National Open University (NOUN) while sharing her testimony at the church’s headquarters, and he ordered her off the stage as having told a lie.

    Anyim, a policewoman by career who is active on social media, gained instant fame that she wasted no time milking. Emergency fame became for her a tiger on whose back she rode to cash on public compassion and generosity. But she seems to have ended up in the belly of that tiger:  when last she was in the news, she was reported arrested by her employer, the Police, for alleged breach of etiquette.

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    Pastor Enenche and Dunamis church did retract somewhat on the humiliation of Anyim when netizens posted proofs of her in her graduation robe and her name on NOUN’s graduation list to back up her testimony. The church said her disgrace was never intended, and the pastor convened a truce parley with photo opps that Anyim made sure to publicise on her social media handles. She was offered lavish gifts by members of the public in apparent compensation for her emotional hurt. Among these was a sponsored vacation at a Port Harcourt resort from which she shared videos of her pleasure ride. She took it all in so fully that she proclaimed herself a celebrity, and was reported demanding meetings with A-list entertainers.

    Anyim simply couldn’t handle fame and she soon hit upon the elastic limit of public charitableness. In a video appeal posted on her Facebook page, she said her Abuja residence no longer befit her “celebrity status” and she needed to move house. “I never dreamt of being a celebrity. It just came all of a sudden, I did not prepare for it,” she said inter alia as she appealed: “I want to use this medium to urge us to assist me with accommodation because I am not buoyant now to rent a house. Where I am staying now is risky and insecure. It is a very open place and everybody already knows I am a celebrity.” The fierceness of public rebuff against that request has since made her withdraw and apologise for making it.

    Now that the Police pulled her in, Anyim may well have become a celebrity mishap.

  • BRAGGing over Trump’s scalp?

    BRAGGing over Trump’s scalp?

    June 30 has changed US history forever — Donald Trump earned the dirty record as the first former American president to become a convicted felon.

    He also preps himself as the first convicted felon, in American history, to again gain the White House, since he will be the Republican Party candidate.  Indeed, his sentencing is billed for July 11, just four days shy of GOP’s formal coronation of Trump’s 2024 candidacy.

    But is Alvin Bragg, the New York District Attorney (DA) that finally ensured something was pinned on who they call Teflon Trump, bragging over it?  Hardly!

    In a brief news conference shortly after the conviction, Bragg hardly commented on the facts of the case.  All he told the media was that he did his job, the 12-man jury of ordinary New Yorkers did its, and the US judiciary did its duty by the law.

    Indeed, Bragg did his job in a spectacular version, returning a unanimous guilt verdict in 34 separate but related charges!  That has sent Trump and supporters raving mad!

    Instead of Alvin Bragg, it’s Trump and co that have been bragging.  Though they accused New York (read rival Democrats) of weaponizing the US justice system, they themselves are threatening to counter-weaponize the election of November 6, to right the court wrongs at the polls.

    That — wait for it — is voters returning a felon, convicted by due process, in an open court, as president?  Even that, shorn of the immediate post-conviction hysteria, is a bone sure to hang in America’s throat!

    Predictably, Trump has been as unreflective as ever, reinforcing his image of a boy in a 77-year-old’s skin, who just lost a lollipop, and was throwing tantrums.

    It’s a “disgrace” he howled virtual minutes after his conviction; and that the actual verdict would come on “November 6”.  As he declared the polls rigged when he lost in 2020, he is declaring the courts rigged in 2024 because the New York Manhattan court returned on him a guilty verdict!  Predictable!

    The “disgrace” irony was totally lost on Trump!  Was he not, in fact, that disgrace?

    As the Yoruba always say, the sheep that schmoozes with dogs ends up eating faeces.  That might just be the fate of the Grand Old Party (GOP), good old Abe Lincoln’s party. 

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    A party that once prided itself as party of law and order is, on account of Trump, now throatily ridiculing the due process that ensures that order, on Trump with all his open vulnerabilities, most of them self-induced!

    Will they triumph with Trump or crash with him?

    From here, no tears for Trump.  He certainly got it coming, to echo a popular American phrasing.  Whatever happens on November 6 is America’s domestic business.  But is America ready to become the global butt of jokes, of having for president, an ex-convict and unrepentant outlaw?

    Time will tell — and the globe will have its laugh!

  • Old anthem, new woes

    Old anthem, new woes

    On the same day, the two chambers of the National Assembly (NASS) last week moved towards substituting the national anthem, ‘Arise, O Compatriots,’ with the discarded old anthem, ‘Nigeria, We Hail Thee.’ The House of Representatives, on Thursday, gave accelerated hearing to the proposed enabling bill and, within minutes, passed it for the first, second, and third readings; while the Senate passed the bill for the first and second readings before committing it to its Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters for further legislative work.

    Reports last Tuesday said the Senate had passed the bill on the panel’s recommendation, with the panel having disagreed with Justice Minister Lateef Fagbemi’s advice that the process be subjected to wider consultation.

    ‘Arise, O Compatriots’ was adopted in 1978 under the military regime of Olusegun Obasanjo to replace ‘Nigeria, We Hail Thee’ that was handed down by British colonial power at Nigeria’s independence in 1960.

    Leading the debate on “A Bill for an Act to provide for National Anthem of Nigeria and for Related Matters, 2024,” Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele, who is the sponsor, reportedly argued the merits and demerits of reverting to the old anthem, saying: “The new (i.e. discarded) anthem – ‘Nigeria, We Hail Thee’ – will inspire in us the zeal to build a fully integrated and indivisible nation, whereby all citizens will live in unity and harmony.” Other senators spoke in support of the bill, arguing that the lyrics of the current anthem are vague and do not evoke the desired emotion or reflect Nigerians’ aspirations. According to them, the old anthem will promote unity and progress in the country.

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    In the green chamber, House Leader Julius Ihonvbere led the debate, arguing on the need for Nigerians to see the anthem as a national symbol and a sign of authority that does not deny their realities. Although Minority Leader Kingsley Chinda argued otherwise, saying the old anthem had a colonial background, which necessitated the adoption of a new anthem in the first place, the representatives gavae the bill accelerated consideration and passed it.

    The lawmakers apparently envisage the lyrics of the old anthem assuaging harsh realities of the Nigerian nationhood the way the current anthem has not been able to. But it is doubtful they themselves are not disjointed from reality. A nation’s anthem is ideally a product of the citizenry’s collective mood and vision – not the producer of that mood and vision as the lawmakers seem to assume. It is Nigeria’s realities that will inspire an appropriate item, otherwise any imposed anthem will be an echo of idle fantasy that the anthems have been till date. To be blunt, the preoccupation in NASS is a voyage in nostalgic inanity.