Good God, we are madly in love with yesterday, aren’t we? We are always looking forward to yesterday. You know, the good old days. The days when we had three regions and “true” federalism. The days when the regions “competed” with one another, when the Western Region would set up a TV station and the Northern and Eastern Regions would follow suit. The days when one region would build a stadium and the rest would construct theirs. The days when the North stood tall with the groundnut pyramids, when the West was a huge forest of cocoa and when the East swam in palm oil. The days when we ran the parliamentary system and every region self-governed and had a premier.

The good old days when our national anthem was ‘Nigeria, We Hail Thee’. With the speed of light, a law has just been passed by the National Assembly returning us to the old national anthem with immediate effect. We were not even given a transition period to learn or re-learn it — unlike in 1978 when the military government gave us one-month notice. While the serious corners of the world are already living in tomorrow by focussing on artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, cancer vaccines, biotechnology and smart cities, Nigerians are being held hostage to yesterday with meaningless symbolisms. In the absence of good governance, diverting attention is such an easy thing to do.

Many disgusted Nigerians have been asking if the new old anthem would resolve the hunger in the land or put an end to insecurity. I asked a similar question before, but I am no longer interested in pursuing that line of inquiry. I have since realised that even if we do not backslide to the old anthem, there will still be inflation and insecurity. Meanwhile, the old national anthem is “service to Nigeria”, in the words of President Bola Tinubu. It will return Nigeria “to glorious days”, Philip Agbese, a member of the house of reps, said. Senate President Godswill Akpabio, arguably Nigeria’s most prolific sycophant, said it is Tinubu’s “most profound act”. So profound I was moved to tears.

By the way, Nigeria is not the first to tamper with its anthem. Anthems are sometimes changed when something significant happens — independence, “revolution” and such like. South Africa, Burkina Faso, Libya and Zimbabwe, among others, have made fundamental changes to their anthems when entering new eras. There are also minor consequential changes: Britons started singing ‘God Save the King’ when King Charles III succeeded Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 and ‘God Save the Queen’ had to be amended. Nigeria, however, has just done the unusual by reverting to an old anthem. We have not composed a new one to signify a new era; we only did some archaeological work to dig up the past.

What next? It has been repeatedly suggested that we should change the name “Nigeria”, which was apparently coined from “Niger Area”. Proponents say the name was given to us by foreigners. A critic once said a change was necessary because it was a British journalist and Lord Lugard’s “girlfriend”, Flora Shaw, that christened us. Therefore, the time has come for us to cut off from our colonial past by giving ourselves a new name — although I must regret to add that we have just dumped an anthem composed by full-blooded Nigerians for the one written by a British expatriate in 1960, but never mind. Pre-Independence, we used to sing ‘God Save the Queen’ as British colonial subjects.

The proposed change of name for Nigeria is, I hope, going to launch us into a new age and grow our GDP by a minimum of 10 percent per annum. Chief Mike Ozekhome, a senior lawyer, was ecstatic when we reverted to the old anthem, recalling how he moved the motion at the national conference in 2014. I remember him also saying the country’s name should be changed. He proposed that it should be spelt backwards: “Nigeria” would become “Airegin”. Federal Republic of Airegin, that is. That aligns perfectly with our backward thinking. I would struggle to pronounce “Airegin”, but I also struggled to say “shokolobangoshe” when I was a little boy and I would say I am doing just fine today.

Many countries have changed their names. The Democratic Republic of Congo used to be Zaire. It was a case of “potato, potahto” as Zaire is another name for the Congo river. It was called Republic of the Congo at Independence in 1960, changed to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1965, rechristened Republic of Zaire in 1971, and (when the strongman Mobutu Sese Seko was overthrown by Laurent Désiré-Kabila in 1997) reverted to DR Congo. In the main, the country has remained poorly governed, riddled by abject poverty and armed conflict — with over six million killed since the last name change. Yet, it is one of the most resource-rich African countries. So much for symbolisms.

What else? I am enthusiastically expecting a bill to change our national currencies to pounds and shillings. I don’t know if it would be the next most profound thing to be done by Tinubu, but, by some logic, when Nigerians were spending pounds, the economy was bubbling, there was no Boko Haram, there were no yahoo boys and there were no potholes on Nigerian roads. The refineries were working efficiently and we never had to import fuel. Bad things started happening when we changed our national currencies to naira and kobo. The solution, according to the logic of the Yesterday Movement, would be to go back to the past. Who knows, we may soon change to left-hand drive.

There is this song by the Carpenters, the former American sibling duo, that I love so much. It is titled ‘Yesterday Once More’. They made the song five decades ago but I still listen to it as if it was released this morning. Old school is something I love when it comes to music, so I can understand the fixation with Nigeria’s past by the nostalgic sections of the political elite. Members of the old order have passed on the received wisdom to their descendants that a return to yesterday is the gateway to our future. I am, thus, not surprised or bemused by the sustained campaign to return Nigeria to the things we used to do in the 1950s and 1960s. Going back to ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee’ is true to type.

When are we returning to regionalism, another super solution to Nigeria’s problem? This is a hot item on the bucket list of the Yesterday Movement. The argument is that our golden era was when Nigeria was in regions. It doesn’t matter that 36 states, as against three regions, are now competing. It doesn’t matter that we now have more stadiums and more TV stations. It doesn’t matter that many states are now big on rice, cassava, maize, sorghum, sesame seed and gum arabic. No. We must revert to three regions and return to groundnut pyramids, cocoa and palm produce. The only way forward is for three or six regions to compete. Competition among 36 states is unacceptable.

In fact, the most popular argument is that we should collapse the 36 states into six regions, along the line of the current six geo-political zones. That way, there will be only six governors, six regional governments and six houses of assembly — thereby saving the treasury the enormous bureaucratic costs of running 36 “unviable” states. If the six-zone proposal scales through, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Cross River will become conjoined under one governor. If we adopt the almighty 1963 constitution, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Cross River, Edo, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo and Rivers will be reunited under one governor. This promises to be super interesting. Bring it on!

You cannot accuse the Yesterday Movement of lacking a sense of history, although you may say they tend to circumcise the facts. The expansion from three regions to 36 states was not done without reason: there were strong agitations by ethnic and political minorities who felt marginalised. The Midwest Region was created in 1963 to satisfy the yearnings of the people of today’s Edo and Delta states who felt overwhelmed by the Yoruba majority in the Western Region. Every state in Nigeria today is a product of yearnings by those who felt marginalised even within their own ethnic groups. Many are still campaigning for new states. But, hey, let us return to yesterday and hail Nigeria.

There is also an ongoing campaign to ditch presidentialism and return to the parliamentary system “as practised in the first republic”. By the way, I love parliamentarism. I wrote a whole article to make my case (‘A Vote for Parliamentary System’, December 16, 2018). I like the reduced cost of electioneering since parliamentary polls are local to constituencies. I like the potentially reduced cost of running government since most ministers will be picked from the parliament. I love the culture of debate, particularly the Prime Minister’s Question Time. A dumb leader cannot be PM: opposition is constantly asking hard-hitting questions on the floor of parliament. There can be no hiding place.

However, my support for parliamentarism has nothing to do with the fact that we practised it in the first republic. No way. It will not turn water into wine. The secret of the successes of Nigerian regional leaders — such as Dr Michael Okpara, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Chief Obafemi Awolowo — in the 1950s or 1960s was not regionalism or parliamentarism. It was not ‘Nigeria We Hail Thee’. The secret was that they were competent and patriotic leaders. They had vision and values. They were not insanely greedy. They were committed to good governance. Though imperfect, they put their people first. That is the yesterday I look forward to, the yesterday I long for. Yesterday once more.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

LAST TRUMPET

Former US President Donald Trump has been found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records — the first time an American president, former or serving, has been convicted of a crime. But no constitution is perfect, so Trump has a loophole and will still run for office later in the year. No law bans a convict from becoming president in the US. The founding fathers of American democracy never thought a day would come when an individual like Trump would defy shame and stretch the constitution to the limit. I keep thinking Trump was meant to be a Nigerian politician but he found himself in the wrong country. If he wins, American democracy will become a butt of jokes. Awkward.

SPOX VS SPOX

Presidency treated Nigerians to an extraordinary spectacle on Tuesday over President Tinubu’s “state of the nation” address to the National Assembly. While Mr Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to the president on information and strategy, announced that Tinubu would address the legislators on May 29 to mark his first anniversary, Chief Ajuri Ngelale, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, issued a counter statement, describing the information as “false and unauthorized”. My interest is not in the facts of the matter but how such heavy words could be issued on a presidential spokesman by a fellow spokesman. Something is wrong somewhere. State of the nation. Indeed.

CYBER CRY

It would appear that every week in Nigeria, a journalist is arrested under the Cybercrimes Act. Let me be clear: I do not support the use of journalism to terrorise people. I do not condone reckless journalism. However, the newfound love for the Cybercrimes Act — which treats what should be civil libel as a criminal case to be prosecuted by the police — is a clear and present danger to journalism. They started using the law against obscure online outlets but it will gradually get to the traditional newspapers, who also have online presence. This is the time for free speech campaigners to move for the amendment of the Cybercrimes Act to decriminalise libel. Nobody is truly safe. Pressing.

NO COMMENT

The new old national anthem says “in brotherhood we stand” — written in an era when gender justice was a joke, when everybody was a “man”, and when a woman’s place was in the bedroom, not boardroom. The world has moved on, but Nigeria has returned to “brotherhood”. Anyway, we have never elected a female president, VP or governor. Elected and appointed public office holders are overwhelmingly standing in “brotherhood”. The third stanza of the anthem says “a nation where no MAN is oppressed”. Sorry, women, your oppression is officially back to the good old days. On a brighter note, the new old anthem ends with “our sovereign motherland”. Sweet mother. Wonderful.

It is a puzzle that the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration has dragged the 36 state governments to court to compel them to respect the autonomy of the 774 local governments, often touted, though erroneously, as the third tier of government and the government that is closest to the grassroots. That Tinubu has seemingly chosen the path of strengthening the existing Nigerian political structure or system contrary to the avalanche of cries for restructuring will baffle many.

It may appear that Tinubu is negating, nay, rubbishing, the very battle he waged - successfully - against President Olusegun Obasanjo when he (Tinubu) was the governor of Lagos State (1999 - 2007). After conducting a referendum and getting the endorsement of the state House of Assembly, Gov. Tinubu in April 2004 announced the creation of 37 additional local governments in Lagos, bringing the number of LGs to 57. The constitutionally-recognized local governments in Lagos State hitherto had been 20.

Obasanjo would have none of it. Yet, Tinubu would not back down. Obasanjo seized the Federally-allocated funds for Lagos state local governments. Tinubu took a step backward by designating his new local governments as “Local Government Development Areas” subsumed under the constitutionally-recognized 20 local governments. Obasanjo was not assuaged. Tinubu went to court and the matter dragged up to the Supreme Court. In the end, Tinubu won but Obasanjo would not be persuaded to let go of the Lagos State local government funds he had placed a lien on.

Tinubu was, thus, forced to ingeniously search for means to increase Lagos State’s internally-generated revenue. It remains to his eternal credit that he succeeded in doing that, setting the pace for Lagos to wean itself from dependence on federal allocation. The bad belly generated between Obasanjo and Tinubu as a result of that tango remains to this day. It was the government of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who succeeded Obasanjo, that obeyed the courts and ordered the release of the seized Lagos State LG funds - amounting to N10.8 billion - in July 2007.

Lessons learned include that of putting to test the principles of federalism or constitutional democracy. One is that the Federal Government (or the Centre) may not dictate or breathe down the neck of its constituent parts or federating units on matters concerning local administration.

Two: That the same system of local government administration cannot be imposed on a heterogeneous society like Nigeria, where there are over 370 nationalities with different languages, cultures, traditions, ways of life, economic and political systems, religions, etc. Even the colonial powers recognized and respected this basic fact in the system of government they imposed on the conquered peoples of Nigeria for the period they bore rule over them.

Three: that the command-and obey structure or unitary system of government imposed on Nigerians by successive military leaders, beginning with the first military coup of 1966, and which Obasanjo, himself an erstwhile military dictator, appeared to favour, could not be tolerated in a supposedly civilian federal system of government.

What, then, has changed since he stepped down as a two-term civilian governor of Lagos state that has made Tinubu to now step into the shoes and assume the same position as Obasanjo? Why seek to strengthen a local government system that is as oppressive and wasteful as it is unjust to a large section of the Nigerian polity? The present local government system is an aberration, to say the least. It is unitary in concept as well as in its implementation.

The same system cannot be expected to work uniformly all over the federation. Each segment of the country is unique and should be allowed to formulate, fashion out, and administer a local government system suitable to it. What the Tinubu administration seeks is an imposition and must be discarded for a truly federal system to emerge; to do otherwise is to enhance illogically.

The question many are also asking is whether Tinubu as governor of Lagos allowed the local governments the kind of autonomy he is seeking for them now as the President! It is on record that Tinubu as governor took the Federal Government of Obasanjo to court on many occasions over this or that issue, testing the constitutionality of Obasanjo’s efforts to arm-twist the States. No other governor was that audacious against President Obasanjo. Will Tinubu stomach the same treatment from any of the governors? Shall we have at least one State governor able and willing to do unto Tinubu what he did to Obasanjo?

The present local government system is not the only incongruous creation of the military that must be done away with. To start with, the 1914 amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates of Nigeria by Lord Lugard to form what is now known as Nigeria was an imposition. There was no referendum or plebiscite allowed for the people under the two protectorates to determine whether or not they wanted the amalgamation. It was a “diktat”, pure and simple, imposed by the British colonialists for their own selfish reasons.

The agitations for self-rule by Nigerians, over which a civil war was fought, and over which some have, again, taken up arms, must now be respected. Let Nigerians decide whether or not they want a continuation of the Lugardian experiment, as some have described it, or they want a break-up; be it a “velvet divorce” along the lines of erstwhile Czechoslovakia or the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Sudan model.

Nigeria’s Constitutions, especially after those of 1960 and 1963, have been described as a fraud - and appropriately so - because they make claims that everyone knows to be patently false. They all started by saying “We the people (of Nigeria)” made those constitutions for ourselves when we did not. Our first military ruler, JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, destroyed Nigeria’s federalism with his Unification Decree Number 34 of 1966; since then, all the states created by fiat by our military rulers cannot be regarded as “federating units” properly so-called but are mere “begging bowls” as my sister, Funke Egbemode, once described them.

Virtually all the states are weak and are not economically viable. In many cases, strange bedfellows have been lumped together and birds of a feather separated, giving rise to perpetual acrimony and animosity. One reason why we do not, and cannot, see the kind of economic development witnessed in the First Republic is because the states as we have them today are a far cry from the Regions of old.

Why restructuring is not top on President Tinubu’s agenda - seemingly - should baffle many; for that has been canvassed as the panacea to the myriad problems bedeviling the country. Professor Akinyemi Onigbinde’s position on the issue of federalism titled “Granting autonomy to Local Governments undermines federalism principles”, aligns with mine.

Hear the erudite professor: “In a federal system of government, such as the one we claim to be running, granting autonomy to local governments undermines the principles of federalism. Successive military leaders from certain sections of Nigeria have used their power to create local government areas in their regions, giving them demographic and fiscal advantages over other sections which provide the bulk of the fiscal resources that all tiers of government rely on. This autonomy is a subversion of federalism and should be rejected by all who value democracy within a federal system.

“In a true federal system, regions, provinces, or states are the federating units that create a central authority to achieve specific mutual benefits. Local government areas, which are created for administrative convenience, do not qualify as federating units and should not draw administrative costs from the federation account. In principle, they are unknown to the central authority as established by the federating units.

“While efforts should be focused on repairing our feudalistic unitary system disguised as federalism, we are instead dismantling the political architecture of the federal system by undermining the states' authority over local governments. The argument that governors are misappropriating local government funds from the federation account does not justify dismantling the federal system. The neglect of local roads and other responsibilities of local governments is not solely due to state governors’ controlling funds, but also due to politicians' general disregard for the welfare of the people and their tendency to prioritize personal gain.

“Even if local government funds were distributed directly to them, there is no guarantee that local government chairmen would not emulate the governors' corrupt practices. This could lead to further fragmentation, with each political ward or village demanding direct allocations from the federation account.

“The issue of underdevelopment in local government areas is more about the politicians' lack of accountability than the governors' control over funds. Constituents must mobilize to hold their local leaders accountable, regardless of political party affiliations. Furthermore, while state governors are criticized for mismanaging funds, there is little concern about the federal government's handling of its share of the federation account, which affects national infrastructure and services like policing.

“As part of our journey towards a restructured federal system that allows states or geographical zones to flourish socioeconomically, we should consider dissolving existing local government areas. States should delineate their own local-governing areas based on demographics, administrative needs, and available financial resources. The current proliferation of local government areas, driven by military rulers from the North, was primarily to receive funds from the federation account without considering viability.

“Granting local government areas direct funding from the central purse has serious implications for rural lands. Local government chairmen in rural areas, dependent on federal allocations, may be pressured into relinquishing land for projects that serve the political or personal interests of the central authority. The RUGA project under former President Muhammadu Buhari exemplifies the potential dangers of such autonomy, which could have led to significant land loss for communities if local governments had been autonomous.

“The Yoruba people in the South-West are still not free from the threat of land subjugation, even with their son in power. It is important to avoid supporting policies simply because they are pushed by someone from one's own group. While President Bola Tinubu may have good intentions for local government administration, we must be wary of the potential misuse of rural lands by future presidents from other geopolitical zones. The idea of RUGA remains alive in the consciousness of herdsmen in Nigeria, and local government autonomy could provide a legal basis for similar projects in the future”.

I agree no less with Professor Onigbinde! From experience, creation of LGs have not led to development at the grassroots; if anything, it has only democratized corruption, taking it from the top (FG) through the middle (State Governments) to the bottom (LGs) of the country’s leadership ladder! In Lagos where I work and live, don’t we see how LG chairmen live large, abandoning their localities and relocating to VGC or Banana Island? Don’t we see how they compete with governors to send their children to the most expensive schools and acquire choice properties abroad?

I have received yet another disheartening news of the killing of five soldiers by suspected militants of the proscribed terrorist organization, IPOB.

The slain soldiers were on peacekeeping duty in Aba, Abia State on Thursday when they were murdered, just two months after a similar tragic incident happened in Okuama in Delta state.

These unwarranted barbaric and evil acts stand condemned and should never be condoned and tolerated in our country.

Our soldiers and the police have the onerous duty to protect all of us from aggressors and non state actors. Hundreds of them have paid the ultimate price in fulfilment of their duty, while some have experienced the indignity of being manhandled by the people they protect.

They surely do not deserve the mindless attacks by unruly elements in our society.

The federal government will come down heavily against those who have made it a habit to needlessly attack the officers and men of our armed forces.

On no account should anyone, under any guise, have the audacity to kill agents of state.

I want to make it clear that the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the armed forces have the capacity to crush violent non-state actors, making our communities unsafe.

I urge security agencies not only to fish out the masterminds and perpetrators of the Aba attack, but also those calling on people to stay at home. Their action is nothing but a treasonable offence.

The fact that the security forces are exercising necessary restraints should not be mistaken for weakness.

We are working to build a peaceful and harmonious society, but nobody should be under any illusion that the government will not act appropriately when the lives of our officers and men are wantonly taken.

While my condolences go to the families of the five slain soldiers, their colleagues and the leadership of our armed forces, I urge other men and women on peacekeeping duty not to be discouraged by the unfortunate incident in Aba.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu

President and Commander-in-Chief, Federal Republic of Nigeria

June 1, 2024

The attention of WAEC Nigeria has been drawn to a notice of the Commencement of Indefinite Strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trades Union Congress (TUC) effective, Monday, 3rd June, 2024.

The Council shares the concerns of both Unions and the generality of Nigerians, however the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates which is currently going on in all member Countries is an international examination and as such the Nigerian Child should not be put to a disadvantage of missing the examination.

As a result of the aforesaid reason, WAEC Nigeria will continue with the conduct the examination as scheduled on the timetable.

All School Principals, Supervisors, Parents, Candidates and the general public should please take note and make adequate arrangements for their candidates to sit the examination in all centers in Ogun State as scheduled.

Thank you.

Ayobami L. Suberu
Branch Controller
For:Head of National Office

Aba Power Limited, Nigeria’s youngest electricity distribution, has given out over 22,000 smart prepaid meters since last November when it initiated its Mass Metering campaign.

“Much as our stakeholders are satisfied with our speed since we rolled out the programme”, Aba Power managing director, Ugo Opiegbe, told select journalists in Aba today, “we will do much more in the next six months and achieve a far greater target after that”.

It is estimated that meter installation for some 200,000 registered customers in the Aba Ring-fenced Area will cost at least N32 billion.

Aba Power commenced commercial operations in September 2022 and provides electricity to nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State.

To reduce the financial burden on the power distribution company, the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) directed it to work in conjunction with meter vending companies which now charge customers between N129,000 and N147,640.01 for a single-phase meter and N227,207.76 and N241,875 for a three-phase meter, from N88,124 and N154,624 for single-phase and three-phase meters, respectively.

“We regret these increases in these difficult times for the Nigerian people, but they are inevitable because of the depreciating value of the naira against the dollar”, Opiegbe explained.

“The good news is that the customers will recoup the payments over 10 years through electricity credit”

The power utility executive disclosed that Aba Power is currently working with two meter vendors., though it is considering increasing the number as soon as possible to end the practice of estimated meter readings completely.

“Estimated bills are a no-no to us because it does not encourage accountability and transparency”, Opiegbe stated.

“They do not give confidence to our customers, so they cannot be satisfied”.

He revealed that some of the vendors Aba Power negotiated earlier but couldn’t hire because of issues of quality and integrity may be engaged now because they have made amends and “are willing to meet our standards, which must be international”.

There are unconfirmed reports that some agents of the vending companies were illegally charging money to individuals and businesses. The Aba Power MD declined to comment on the allegation.

The utility is currently working with Holley Metering Ltd and the KAYZ Consortium to install smart prepaid meters to all businesses and individuals in its coverage area.

The Aba Power MD said that his company has 31 feeders, making it difficult to provide smart prepaid meters to the people on all the feeders simultaneously.

“We are providing prepaid meters feeder by feeder”, he stated.

“We have covered four feeders in the last six months, namely, Aba Township, Aba East, Ehi Road, and the World Bank.

“We are about to start on the fifth feeder, and our chairman, Professor Bart Nnaji, has asked us always to prioritize manufacturing firms because they are the foremost group that brought Geometric Power to Aba, a key industrial city.

“We give them priority so that they can reduce the cost of doing business, which will, in turn, make their products more affordable and thus benefit the common man”.

Dike Ejike, an engineer and electricity consultant in Enugu, commended Aba Power for giving priority to industrialists.

“Manufacturers are going through a rough phase in Nigeria, and they must be encouraged to retain their staff, otherwise their collapse will have a cataclysmic effect on not just the economy but Nigerian society as a whole”.

I have been in hibernation for two weeks, high up in the hills of Wasimi in Ogun State buried in work. As a result, I failed to catch up with some major sports news. I missed Raphael Nadal’s loss in the first round at Roland Garros. I missed Manchester United’s surprise defeat of my favourite team in the English Premier League, Manchester City FC in the FA Cup final. I also missed Nigeria’s matches at the CAF Under-17 AFCON where I am told that, for the second time in a row, the national team failed to win and to qualify for the FIFA World Under-17 Championship.

I asked what the reactions to not qualifying out of Africa to the FIFA championship where Nigeria holds the best records in the world with 5 World Cup victories. I had to ask because, contrary to my expectations should Nigeria fail a second time in a row, the world did not end!

Instead, (as I was told) the country’s football officials are actually toying with the idea of promoting the ‘failed’ coach of the team to a higher age-grade level!

Nigerian football did not shake to its roots? Nobody was fired? Nothing happened? The country and its football have just moved on, unperturbed and undisturbed, when my own blood pressure had shot up in worry and uncommon concern? What is happening? Where has Nigeria’s passion for grassroots football gone to? What is happening at the grassroots level of Nigerian football? Why would the country’s national teams suddenly become cannon fodder for other African teams? Why would the production room of great Nigerian players and squads in the past suddenly become impotent and unproductive?

Yet, even from my humble observatory in the hills of Wasimi, I see global interest for young, strong, athletic Nigerian football players by foreign clubs, exploding.

It must never be true that the head coach of the U-17 is being touted for promotion to a higher age-grade level after failing to take the team beyond Africa. There are too many questions begging for answers.

Let me step back a little and examine the foundations of the grassroots again.

There is a global football competition for Under-17s. Nigeria has won it 5 times.

That means that participants from Nigeria must have come from the millions of boys in secondary schools, with most under the age of 17.

In Nigeria, in particular, for that age group, at around 16 years of age, the secondary school offers the best option for the discovery, development, assembly and authentication of the young, gifted football players that will represent the country. Beyond that, the schools also offer the best opportunity to reduce the incidences of cheating that have smeared the country’s reputation, and slightly affected the integrity of their past U-17 victories.

Using the schools offers the best opportunity to reduce the tendency to cheat. The schools have the numbers, trained and qualified teachers in Physical and Health Education, and some level of basic facilities within them to kick-start ‘something’ in the process of player-development.

There was a time (not too long ago) that a national football competition between secondary schools around the country existed.

It was founded and funded by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd, SPDC. For 19 years, the competition, even with its foibles, provided a platform that fed the selection process of players for the Under-17 teams in the various States and at the national level. In a particular year, 11 players were invited from the Shell Cup competition for the national Under-17 team.

The space left by Shell Cup has not been filled since then, even though there are a few emerging football competitions with their sponsors for schools in some States. Unfortunately, these do not enjoy national coordination and so, lose their power to fully harvest the best crop of emerging young talented footballers in the country. Many of the best players may not be caught in the net that the most authentic under-17 players should go through.

Football academies mushrooming all over the country now provide the feed for the national team. Their numbers are limited despite their rapid expansion, and most will not pass the age integrity test with most of their players being out of the school system. Under this arrangement, the vast number of the most gifted and authentic talents remain undiscovered.

The issue of school sports, generally, needs to be looked at microscopically and practically again by both the Federal Ministries of Education and of Youth and Sports. Their partnership is key and critical. A good working relationship between them will make the school the epicentre for the discovery, nurture and development of grassroots athletes for the country’s Under-17 national teams. Essentially, the matter must go beyond irrelevant and endless ‘talk talk’ without action. Some affirmative action is needed. The effort to make sports development at secondary schools level authentic should never fall victim to short-cuts, desperation or frustration.

School sports should be revived, made authentic and promoted as the bedrock of all grassroots sports development.

Even SPDC should be reminded of its contributions in the past, and can still be encouraged to revive that invaluable All-Nigerian Secondary Schools Football Championship for the NNPC/Shell Cup that involved some 60,000 new student footballers every year.

Specialisation of coaches!

Meanwhile, back to the issue of Nigerian coaches at age-grade levels.

Nigeria should have coaches specializing to handle specific levels of football development. The practice of ‘promoting’ coaches from one age-group level to the next can be counter productive.

The requirement for training of players at different age groups varies.

There are coaches that have the ‘eye’ to spot exceptionally talented players from an ‘army’ of children. These are the best scouts for fresh talent. They recommend players to schools, clubs, and even the national teams.

There are coaches that know how to take raw talents, hone and transform them into technically skillfull players with confidence to play freely and the ability to tame the ball and make it do his bidding. They know how to teach players basic skills, to head, to pass, to shoot, to control the ball with different parts of the foot, to dribble, to tackle and so on. These are the essential requirements for mostly Under-17 players.

Above that, some coaches are good at training players to understand team tactics, strategies, formations, discipline and organization whilst developing their physique, strength, flexibility and speed.

At the very highest level, special training skills and knowledge from experience, are needed to blend all the above with player management, psychology and comfortability against the highest levels of opposition.

It follows that coaches should remain within their areas of specialization and experience in order to flourish best, and add the highest value to developing players. Promotion up the rung of age groups may be a ‘wrong’ prescription for coaches.

So, Nigeria’s absence from the net FIFA Under-17 Championship is a great shock. It should be of great concern to football administrators and the people. It is surprising that the failure came and went, and nothing has happened. It is almost like it did not happen at all. Whereas, it is a catastrophe considering where the country’s football was in the world some time ago, and could be now.

1. I have instructions of the President of the All-Africa Students’ Union – HE Osisiogu Osikenyi Enyinnaya to convey the Union’s condemnation of recent spree of attacks on Military Personnel in Nigeria especially the one in his hometown – Aba.

2. To this end, we have learnt with great chagrin, yet another dastardly, unwarranted, outrageous, cruel, and totally condemnable attack on military personnel at a military checkpoint at Obikabia Junction in the Ogbor Hill area of Aba, Abia State – Nigeria, on Thursday, May 30, 2024 which left five soldiers who were carrying out their lawful duties dead. Sadly, similar situations have been witnessed in recent times in Delta State, Anambra State, FCT, and other parts of Nigeria.

3. The President – HE Osisiogu Osikenyi Enyinnaya at this point wishes to join prominent Africans in condoling the Nigerian Military and the families of soldiers, who lost their lives in the unfortunate incident; and condemn the clandestine act of attack on Soldiers under any guise; while aligning with Statements of the Governor of Abia State HE Alex Otti; Chairman of South East Governors Forum HE Hope Uzodinma; Deputy Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives Rt Hon Benjamin Kalu; former Minority Leader of the Senate – Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe and others.

4. In addition to being the commercial nerve Centre of Nigeria; Aba City also plays host to major Institutions of Learning such as National Institute for Nigerian Languages (NINLAN), Abia State Polytechnic, Havard Wilson College of Education, Nigerian British University among other Vocational Skills Acquisition Centres located at nooks and crannies of the City.

5. Hence we wish to appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Chief of Defense Staff - General Christopher Gwabin Musa OFR; Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja to consider disappointing prophets of doom by not unleashing excruciating military action on the thriving commercial city especially in considering high population of formal and informal student in the Aba and environs.

6. Recalling that the Armed Forces of Nigeria is committed to the security of schoolchildren and other learning institutions against attacks within the ambit of Nigeria’s constitution; I trust that safety of students/schools and other innocent civilians will be compromised as seen in other parts of Africa such as Tigray(Ethiopia); Amhara(Ethiopia); Khartoum(Sudan); Mogadishu(Somalia) where even campuses are used as military concentration camps – a situation we always find disturbing.

7. The Union under the leadership of The President – HE Osisiogu Osikenyi Enyinnaya condemns these attacks and calls on the Nigerian Military to consider exercising retrain to guarantee safety of law abiding while also dealing with culprits decisively and professionally.

SIGNED:
Abrhaley Arefaine Hailenchael
Executive Director to the presidency, All-Africa Students' Union (AASU);
Suite 304, 3rd floor Guji Complex, Bole - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Nothing in my adult life has made me more ashamed to be a Nigerian and more inclined to completely divest my emotions from Nigeria than the readoption of “Nigeria, We Hail Thee,” a colonially created national anthem whose first stanza drips wet with the spit of racist condescension, gender exclusion, and stodgy, ungainly archaisms. 

First, it’s inexcusable national self-humiliation to discard a home-made national anthem, irrespective of its defects, for one that was made by an imperialist whose influence we’re supposed to be independent of. That instantiates a phenomenon that social anthropologists call cultural cringe. 

First propounded by an Australian scholar by the name of Arthur Phillips in the 1950s to describe Australia’s complicated cultural relations with Britain and the US, cultural cringe is the deep-rooted inferiority complex that causes psychologically damaged, formerly colonized people to inferiorize and disdain their own country and its culture and to uncritically valorize cultures and countries that their low self-esteem persuades them to believe is superior to theirs.  

In previous columns, I have called this Nigeria’s national xenophilia, which I have defined as our predilection for irrational, unjustified, inferiority-driven veneration of the foreign and the corresponding sense of low national self-worth that this veneration activates.

A country whose symbolic song of independence is inspired, written, and composed by the appendicular remnants of imperialist oppressors of whom the country has supposedly been independent for more than six decades isn’t worthy of its independence. Such a country has lost the moral and philosophical argument for independence and against recolonization. 

That is why, as I’ve argued in the past, our leaders are routinely infantilized by the West. As a people and a culture, we have internalized a mentality of low self-worth and an unwarranted veneration of the foreign, especially if the “foreign” also happens to be white. Nothing has demonstrated this more than the readoption of a national anthem that was written and composed by colonial British women.

But my worry transcends this. I am mortified that the very first stanza of our national anthem derogates our humanity. I have written multiple articles on what I have called the vocabularies of racial differentiation and exclusion in which I have repeatedly pointed out that “tribe” and “native” are racist words that white people reserve only for people they consider inferior, and that their appearance in Nigeria’s first national anthem was one of the reasons for the anthem’s rejection in 1978. 

I’ll repeat some of the things I’ve written over the last few years on this issue and hope that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sees reason to rescind the readoption of this denigrating British anthem written for Nigeria.

Shorn of all pretenses, “tribe” basically means backward, primitive nonwhite people.  Let no one deceive you that the word means anything other than that in the English language. Even the Oxford Dictionary of English recognizes this fact. Its usage note on “tribe” reads: 

“In historical contexts the word tribe is broadly accepted (the area was inhabited by Slavic tribes), but in contemporary contexts it is problematic when used to refer to a community living within a traditional society. It is strongly associated with past attitudes of white colonialists towards so-called primitive or uncivilized peoples living in remote underdeveloped places. For this reason it is generally preferable to use alternative terms such as community or people” (p. 1897).

I personally prefer “ethnic group” as an alternative to “tribe.” But I am aware that “tribe” has been congealed in our lexical repertory and can even be said to have been resemanticized by Africans, that is, given a meaning that is different from its original one. 

For most English-speaking Africans, “tribe” is simply the English lexical equivalent of the words in their languages that they deploy to denote peoplehood. That may be so, but I come to language from a communication standpoint. To effectively communicate, you have to speak the same codes and share the same meanings. 

Native English speakers would never call themselves “tribes” and understand the word to mean a group of primitive, nonwhite people who are still stuck at the lower end of the civilizational hierarchy.

You may understand the word differently, but if you tell a native speaker you belong to a tribe, you are inadvertently authorizing your inferiorization. That’s why when anybody asks me, “What is your tribe?” I always say, “You mean my ethnic group? I don’t belong to a tribe.” That was, by the way, Chinua Achebe’s attitude, too. He hated the word “tribe.”

That was also why when former US President Bill Clinton visited Nigeria and other African countries in 1998, experts told him to steer clear of the word “tribe” and its inflections such as “tribal,” “tribalism,” “tribalistic,” etc.

An influential American newspaper called Politico contrasted Clinton’s studied avoidance of the word “tribe” and Obama’s liberal use of it. “Keep in mind that the word ‘tribal conflict’ is extremely insulting to Africans,” the paper quoted a scholar by the name of Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to have told American reporters who would cover the presidential visit. “Don't write about ‘century-old tribal conflicts in African countries’… Yet, when Obama uttered the phrase ‘tribal conflicts’ at a press conference Friday as he discussed his planned trip to Africa, it went virtually unremarked upon. So too did several references he made in his Ghana speech to battles among ‘tribes.’” “Another president,” the paper concluded, “might have been accused of racism…”

Well, I criticized Obama for this in a Jul 18, 2009, column titled, “The Anti-African Racist Insults Obama Got Away with in Ghana,” which attracted the attention of the White House at the time.

A column I wrote earlier on February 27, 2009, titled “What’s my tribe? None” got the attention of CNN International’s copy desk. After a back and forth with its Chief Copy editor, the organization banned the use of the word “tribe” from its style guide. It came from their admission that no white ethnic group would ever be called a “tribe.”

In my September 30, 2018, column titled, “‘Tribe’ and ‘Detribalized’ are Derogatory Words,” I wrote: “Sadly, in 2018, our elites not only still call us ‘tribes’; they defend doing so. Lillian Jean Williams, the British colonial who wrote the anthem, would be proud.” I had no inkling that Tinubu would take this embarrassing sociolinguistic suicide to the next level.

“Native” is another linguistic marker of racial inferiorization that has no business being on Nigeria’s national anthem. The word was originally used by white colonialists and later by Western anthropologists to refer specifically to nonwhite people. The New Oxford American Dictionary (3rd edition) captures this subtlety well. One of the definitions of “native,” which the dictionary says is “dated, often offensive,” is “one of the original inhabitants of a country, especially a nonwhite as regarded by European colonists or travelers.” 

Lillian Jean Williams was a British colonialist who thought herself superior to the “natives” and reflected that in the first stanza of the anthem she composed for us. 

Notice, though, that in American (and Canadian) English “native” is used widely in a non-racially discriminatory way. When people call a city their hometown, they often say they’re natives of the city, as in “I am an Atlanta native.”  I am not sure how widespread this usage of “native” is in British English, but it appears only 148 times in the British National Corpus.

The New Oxford American Dictionary’s usage advice on “native” is instructive. It says, “In contexts such as native of Boston or New York in the summer was too hot even for the natives, the noun native is quite acceptable. But when it is used to mean ‘a nonwhite original inhabitant of a country,’ as in this dance is a favorite with the natives, it is more problematic.  This meaning has an old-fashioned feel and, because of its association with a colonial European outlook, it may cause offense.”

There is exactly zero reason to revert to “Nigeria, We Hail Thee.” Its readoption symbolizes the starkest evidence of national defeat, national self-humiliation, and national inferiority complex that I have ever seen. If Tinubu doesn’t reverse himself on readopting this national disgrace, the next government should. This is simply unbearably embarrassing!

Donald Trump’s campaign said Friday it had raised nearly $53 million in online small-dollar donations after he was convicted in his New York hush money trial, boasting that the verdict had galvanized his support “like never before.”

The record haul was equivalent to more than $2 million raised per hour, it said.

Senior campaign aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in statements that more than a third of the total came from new donors to the campaign and hailed an “outpouring of support from patriots across our country.”

Calling the Thursday court decision a “sham trial verdict” the advisors reported that the “digital fundraising system was overwhelmed with support” despite temporary online delays “because of the amount of traffic” from small-dollar donors.

As of Friday evening, the day’s total had climbed to a whopping $52.8 million.

A jury convicted Trump Thursday on all 34 charges of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal in the final stages of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Prosecutors said Trump had sex with porn actress Stormy Daniels soon after his wife Melania had given birth in 2006, and then paid hush money a decade later to avoid the fallout and deceive voters, before creating false paperwork to conceal the payment.

He is due for sentencing on July 11 but is expected to appeal the verdict.

“Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrats with their election interference political witch hunt have awakened the MAGA movement like never before,” LaCivita and Wiles said.

President Joe Biden has been at pains to avoid commenting on the trial and there is no evidence that he or his administration had any involvement in the investigation, which was launched by New York state, not the federal government.

Trump has a long record of turning scandal to his advantage, and his campaign website began redirecting visitors to a fundraising page declaring he was a “political prisoner” moments after he was convicted.

The page crashed for around an hour within minutes of launching, however, as the surge of Trump supporters overwhelmed WinRed, the official Republican Party donation platform.

Trump regularly characterizes his legal woes as a battle against the evil forces of the “deep state” and Biden’s White House, casting himself as a martyr willing to sacrifice his liberty to stand up for his supporters.

In April he compared himself to South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela for the second time, and he has also likened himself to Jesus Christ.

“WITCH HUNT! IF THIS CAN HAPPEN TO ME, IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE!,” Trump posted on his platform Truth Social on Friday.

[DailyTrust]

The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday, said the conditions for ending the war in Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu said Israel’s condition to ending the war is the destruction of Hamas military.

He also reiterated the freeing of all Israeli hostages.

A statement by Israeli’s Prime Minister’s Office, said these conditions must be met before a permanent ceasefire.

“Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: The destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.

“Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place.

“The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” the statement reads.

[DailyPost]