Category: Editorial

Game, set and match for a prominent sports journalist and administrator

The death of Deacon Ayo Ositelu on January 9 marks the departure of one of Nigeria’s most experienced and knowledgeable sports journalists who bestrode the diverse worlds of sports journalism, sports administration and grassroots governance.

As one of the country’s pioneer sports journalists working in the print media, Ositelu brought an articulateness and depth of analysis that had previously been uncommon in the profession. He was one of the few individuals who did not see sports reporting as a career dead-end which attracted those who could not cover more prestigious beats. In a glittering journalistic sojourn which included stints at some of Nigeria’s most admired newspapers, he manifested the beauty of sports reporting and commentary through personal example. His long-running sports column, “The Arena,” was so popular and so closely identified with him that it became his nickname.

Deacon Ositelu took sports journalism to new levels in his extended analysis of tennis, soccer and other sports. He was blessed with an eye for the quirky and the unusual, and could draw upon an almost-faultless mental encyclopaedia to draw out the significance of particular landmarks in sporting history. The passion and sense of seriousness with which he wrote about sports was so palpable that it was no longer possible to dismiss either sports journalism or its practitioners as “lesser” journalists. His administrative capacities were not in doubt either: he rose to become editor of The Sunday Punch and served on editorial boards where his experience was put to good use.

Such was Ositelu’s versatility that he seamlessly transferred his skills to the electronic media and was in demand as an analyst on television where he continually impressed viewers with his depth of knowledge and understanding of different sporting events, and the murky politics which underpinned them.

He did not stop at merely talking about sports; he administered it as well. He was Chairman of the Lagos State Tennis Association and was frequently made a member of different initiatives and bodies designed to improve sporting activity at the state and national levels. He never passed up an opportunity to responsibly utilise his credibility, and continually wrote and spoke against the ills that were besetting Nigerian sports and preventing it from assuming its proper place in Nigerian life.

Born on April 6, 1943, Deacon Ositelu was also prominent in grassroots politics. He was the first Executive Chairman of the Ejigbo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), where he oversaw much of the hard work involved in putting it on a sound footing. Even after stepping down from the position, he was a keen participant in the council’s activities.

As is usual when prominent professionals pass on, it must be wondered whether those to whom the baton has been passed are prepared to carry it with similar commitment and professionalism. While Nigeria can boast of many competent sports journalists, it must be admitted that some practitioners are not as professional as they ought to be. Unlike Ositelu, for whom exclusive stories were non-negotiable, many of his successors are content to source stories from the internet, and to pass off rumour and innuendo as news. Again, unlike Ositelu, whose independence was unquestionable, many of today’s sports journalists are a little too quick to take sides instead of reporting events thoroughly, honestly and neutrally.

There can be no doubt that the sporting fraternity in particular, and Nigeria as a whole, has lost a man who stood out for his professional commitment, his personal integrity and his unstinting generosity. May his soul rest in peace.

France’s initial airstrikes have, so far, failed to halt the southward advance of Islamist rebels in Mali. Containing these militias, which are sheltering international terrorist groups, and the threat they pose to West Africa and the wider world is essential. But President François Hollande should resist beginning a ground assault, which would almost certainly turn into a protracted counterinsurgency campaign that France should not take on and cannot afford.

The challenge of dislodging the rebels from the northern zone must remain with Mali’s Army and its West African allies. France, along with the United States and others, should intensify efforts to prepare them for this fight, as authorized by a United Nations Security Council resolution last month. The resolution set a timetable for an African ground force to be deployed by this fall, but, given the current fighting, that may need to be accelerated.

Until the Malian forces are able to retake the north, bloodthirsty militias like Ansar Dine and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb will continue terrorizing the people of that region with punishments like amputation and stoning. They seized power in the vast desert region the size of France last June after Mali’s American-trained Army overthrew the democratically elected government and threw the country into chaos.

Yet it is this same Malian Army, with military help from West African neighbors like Nigeria, Niger and Mauritania, and training, weapons and logistical support from France, the United States and others, that will have to assume responsibility for reintegrating the north.

American military training programs have had an unhappy history in Mali, as reported in The Times on Monday. Years of effort, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, turned to disaster when American-trained units defected with their weapons and joined an ethnic Tuareg rebellion that preceded the Islamist takeover. One American-trained Malian officer who did not defect led the coup that overthrew President Amadou Toumani Touré last March, further weakening the country’s defenses. Mali’s Army has also been cited by human rights groups for torturing detainees.

The Pentagon’s top commander for Africa, Gen. Carter Ham, acknowledges that the actions of Mali’s Army last spring were “wholly unacceptable.” The lessons of this debacle must be absorbed and perhaps applied elsewhere as well.

Still, this is no time to walk away from Mali. American training programs there should be strengthened, with greater emphasis on human rights and civilian supremacy. In the meantime, France’s airstrikes, responding to urgent pleas from Mali’s government, make sense. But they are no substitute for what Mali must now do for itself.

– New York Times

This is at the root of the region’s underdevelopment

Rulers of the Northern states received a damning report card by the president of Civil Rights Congress (CRC), Mallam Shehu Sani, in his response to a Daily Trust story that all the 19 northern states and their local governments have altogether received a whopping sum of N8.3 trillion between 1999 and 2010. His revelation is as startling as it is mind-boggling.

Yet, the North is the most vociferous about resource allocation; always fighting for more federal allocation from the national cake baked in far away Niger Delta. The question then arises: what do these northern leaders do with the resources allocated to their states? Here again, Mallam Sani provided the answer dispassionately: “the resources allocated to the states (of the north) are not commensurate with the level of development on the ground. The scandalous looting of the states (of the north) is a product of thieving and venal governors and compliant and placid state assemblies”.

As a way of stating what would have been if the locusts in human clothing had judiciously utilised their resource allocations for the development of the north, he remarked, “we (northerners) could have been on our way to the states of Malaysia or Indonesia. But we are now a region in the league of Western Pakistan and Eastern Congo”. In his judgement, even as a full-blooded northerner, “when you have thieves at the helm of affairs of a state, governance becomes a criminal enterprise and public office becomes a crime scene”.

Mallam Sani has come out boldly to reveal what many Nigerians already know about the profligacy of most northern governors and the extreme selfishness of its elite in government. Only the few wealthy people send their children to school while the majority of the youth roam the streets as beggars. It is with this regularly shared and stolen money that the privileged few acquire choice property all over the world.

Indeed, it is now becoming clearer why a northerner said many years ago that if there would be a revolution in Nigeria, it would come from the north because of the northern governments’ neglect of their citizens, especially the youth who, in league with other poor adults, constitute a significant percentage of the population. There has been a rehearsal of that prediction by what Boko Haram has been doing for more than a year now, with governors, top political functionaries and other northern elites being unable to sleep with their two eyes closed.

In the light of Mallam Sani’s revelation, we may ask why the northern governors are always asking for more money, and northern politicians going to war about juicy appointments at the federal level? They often accuse the Niger Delta of cheating them by collecting more allocation from the resource baked at the latter’s backyard, forgetting that all Nigerians live on the oil revenue accruing from the same Niger Delta.

Why can’t the northern governors, for once, stop frivolous spending, sharing of government money to traditional rulers, elites and political jobbers, unproductive annual hajj, among others? Why is it impossible for them to deploy their financial resource to the provision of good and sound education to their people? Why is the gap between the extremely rich and extremely poor in the north growing astronomically on a daily basis?

Perhaps the pitiable state of the north should serve as a lesson to other states of the federation that may be doing well (or appear to be doing well) but may face a similar fate if they are not thinking of how to judiciously use their federal allocations for the common good. They should try to stand on their own rather than keep on expecting manna, in form of handouts from Abuja, through the Niger Delta.

• MASSOB has reminded us of the need to bring culprits to book expeditiously

The delay in the trial of the alleged murderers of ‘Apo six’ no doubt casts a slur on our criminal justice system. Many Nigerians will recall with horror, the gruesome murder of six Nigerians at a police check-point in Abuja, in June 2005. But for the findings of the panel of enquiry headed by Justice Olasumbo Goodluck, set up by then President Olusegun Obasanjo, the police authorities had lied that those killed were armed robbers. Unfortunately, it has taken recent threats by the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), for Nigerians to be reminded of that national tragedy.

By June 2013, it will be eight years since those Nigerians were murdered, yet the trial of the alleged murderers is yet to be completed at the High Court, in Abuja. This delay should be deprecated by all and sundry, as it portrays our judicial system as very inefficient, and aids the general impression that justice does not flow from our courts. It also fuels the resort to self-help by Nigerians. While we do not agree with the threats by MASSOB to make the country ungovernable over the matter, we agree with its demand that those responsible for the unlawful killing of their fellow citizens should be brought to justice.

We also agree with the group’s intent to monitor the trial, as long as it does not constitute a nuisance at the trial, or seek to influence or pressure the judge to meet their desired end. As the world is witnessing, following the rape and killing of a female medical student by a gang of six in India, the civil society is a veritable instrument for social justice. In India, the government has been pressured into taking steps to ameliorate the derogatory treatment of women. Following public pressure, there is a huge possibility that a new law named after the victim of the rape may be put in place to prevent ill-treatment of women in that country.

Regrettably, the Indian public appears more primed to resist social injustice than their Nigerian counterpart. As the rape incident showed, there were country-wide demonstrations and demand for justice for the victim; unlike the experience in Nigeria where many glaring cases of injustice are first interpreted through the prism of ethnicity or other anachronistic tendencies to determine the reaction of various interest groups. This is condemnable; it also aids the irresponsible leadership that has been foisted on Nigeria, as the leaders exploit their differences for political gains.

Now that MASSOB has helped to arouse a renewed public interest in the matter, the courts must not be found wanting again. As the common saying goes, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. We urge the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation or any other prosecuting authority to rise up to its responsibility in seeking justice for the ‘Apo six’. The trigger-happy officers of the Nigerian police who are on trial for allegedly killing their fellow citizens must be seen to answer for their callous conduct. It will amount to an insult to our common humanity if, as alleged by MASSOB, any of the accused persons is treated differently because of any reason whatsoever.

The Inspector-General of Police must ensure that the police investigation is watertight and that all his officers indicted for the murder of the ‘Apo six’ are treated the same way that other Nigerians are treated for similar charges.

THE MOST important measure of Egypt’s Islamist government will not be how it manages the economy or even whether it maintains friendly relations with the United States and Israel; it will be whether it preserves the democratic norms that allowed its own rise to power. If Egyptians are able to freely criticize the government’s performance and can eventually vote it out of office if they are dissatisfied, the inevitable mistakes and occasional abuses of President Mohamed Morsi will be correctable.

Mr. Morsi and his Freedom and Justice party, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, insist that they are committed to the democratic system. They say that they will protect press freedom and allow all opposition parties to operate freely. After only a few months in office, however, there are disturbing signs that they may not stick to those promises.

Foremost among them is the increasing pressure being brought to bear on critical journalists. In recent months at least half a dozen prominent editors, writers and cartoonists have been the targets of criminal investigations, many of them launched by a prosecutor appointed by Mr. Morsi following complaints from the president’s office. The charges range from reporting false news to blasphemy; a cartoonist for the independent Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper was accused of the latter after she published a cartoon depicting Adam and Eve.

One of Egypt’s most popular television personalities, Bassem Yousef, became the target of a criminal investigation last month after he displayed a pillow with Mr. Morsi’s image on it. Mr. Yousef, who models himself after American comedian Jon Stewart, was accused of denigrating the head of state.

Mr. Morsi’s office protests that it is not responsible for these investigations; it points out that the charges against Mr. Yousef, as well as some other journalists, were initiated by private lawyers, who are allowed to lodge complaints with prosecutors. But several of the cases originated with complaints from the president’s office. And the government has not hesitated to impose its agenda on state-run media, installing its own editors and yanking unsympathetic news hosts off the air.

It has also tolerated — at least — a climate of intimidation. The offices of several independent television channels were besieged for weeks by supporters of a popular cleric. During demonstrations against Mr. Morsi’s government, his Muslim Brotherhood supporters took to the streets and were accused of targeting journalists; one was killed by a rubber bullet.

While calling for preservation of democratic freedoms in Egypt, the Obama administration has been slow to take note of or respond to the attacks on journalists. Officials say they are feeling their way with Mr. Morsi’s government, trying to preserve cooperation on matters such as counterterrorism. Yet the United States retains considerable leverage over Egypt, including its influence over a pending International Monetary Fund loan the government badly needs. That sway should be aimed at preserving space for free media and a democratic opposition — which, in Cairo, is not just a liberal good but a vital U.S. interest.

– Washington Post

•Like a leopard, the NNPC cannot change its ways

If  Nigerians weren’t already familiar with the image of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as an inept, transparently opaque, and irredeemably corrupt entity, its latest attempt to corral the nation to take a dubious loan would have been something of a surprise. Even at that, the corporation would seem to have surpassed its own ignoble records in recklessness and impunity going by its reported plan to syndicate a $1.5 billion loan from a consortium of lenders, to settle trade partners. And, as if to confirm the dubious reputation of an entity that does its business in utmost secrecy, it took a foreign news agency to blow the whistle on the deal.

The meat of the story is that the NNPC owes major commodity trading houses – including Glencore and Mercuria – about $3.5 billion in unpaid fuel supply bills. For this, it seeks $1.5 billion from a group of local and international lenders to offset the debts for which it proposes to put 15,000 barrels per day of its production as collateral.

Another instance in which legalism will come, not only handy to defend the indefensible, but would also serve as the sole armour for the wastrel, NNPC spokesperson Ms Tumini Green, cited the provisions of Sections 6 (1) and 8 (1) (2) of the NNPC Act as empowering the corporation to borrow.

The sections read: “The corporation, in fulfilment of its duties, can enter into contracts or partnerships with any company, firm or person, which in the opinion of the corporation will facilitate the discharge of the said duties under this Act”.

It states further, “Subject to the other provisions of this section, the corporation may from time to time borrow by overdraft or otherwise howsoever such sums as it may require in the exercise of its functions under this Act and the corporation shall not, without the approval of the National Council of Ministers, borrow any sum of money whereby the amount in aggregate outstanding on any loan or loans at any time exceeds such amounts as is for the time being specified by the National Council of Ministers”.

The issue isn’t so much about legalism but the ways of the corporation that are antithetical to good business practices. An OPEC member state –the sixth largest producer in the cartel – seeking international financing, not for its highly capital-intensive, exploration activities, but to finance fuel imports would hardly qualify as model in good corporate practices. But that is how far down the NNPC has sunk. More worrisome is the basis of the so-called loan; these are imports expected to be sold on cash-and- carry basis to marketers. Whatever happened to the proceeds of the imports for which the corporation now requires a five-year repayment plan to offset?

Before now, the question of the solvency or otherwise of the corporation was said to be academic. Not anymore. Way back in July 2010, the then Minister of State for Finance, Remi Babalola, had declared the corporation as insolvent. Of course, a lot of furore greeted that declaration then.

The issue then was the corporation’s liabilities said to have exceeded its assets by $5bn or £3.3bn; the corporation was also indebted to the federation account to the tune of $3bn at this time.

What has changed between then and now? The answer is – nothing. If anything, the corporation seems to have sunk deeper into the financial hole. What keeps it going is of course the flow of crude – the only reason it has not filed for bankruptcy.

We expect the National Assembly to stop the loan if only to prevent the corporation from wreaking further havoc on the treasury. And if we may add – the need to break up the corporation has become urgent; so is the imperative of a new national oil corporation ready to embrace global best practices.