Tomorrow in THE NATION PUNCHLINE
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2011 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM VOL.5, NO. 1878
It is not enough to be sanguine about the indivisibility of Nigeria. It is rational to do everything possible to stop a religious sect that appears to have the power to foment a war of cultures in the country —Ropo Sekoni
I
agree entirely with most analysts who have identified sincerity as the cardinal at tribute of President Goodluck Jonathan’s personality. The trained scientist turned lucky politician is obviously a good natured man. He has the best intentions in the world. He communicates in a believable manner that makes his audience feel he is a man they can trust despite his frequent lapses into linguistic incoherence. His infectious sincerity on diverse issues was once more on display during Jonathan’s maiden media chat broadcast live on national television. The gift of sincerity is one of the most wonderful assets any man can possess. However, a man who is sincerely wrong and is blissfully unaware of his predicament is in a very precarious situation. A traveller who heads with sincere zeal from Lagos in the direction of Badagry wrongly believing he is on the way to Ibadan will inevitably arrive at an unintended destination his admirable sincerity notwithstanding. Dr. Jonathan either severely underestimates the seriousness of the multi-dimensional crises in which the nation is enmeshed or he has simply not taken the time to think rigorously and engage in robust discourse on the various issues confronting the country. Many continue to marvel and even envy the mysterious luck responsible for the humble academic’s meterioc rise to the apex of Nigeria’s political structure. But this, in reality, is not the luckiest of times to be President of a fast disintegrating state agonisingly starved of credibility, moralty, legitimacy and elementary efficacy. The President’s responses on many of the issues during the chat came across as confounding non-thoughts (apologies to the late Professor Billy Dudley). Did his handlers prepare Jonathan adequately for this major maiden media encounter? I doubt it. Let us take the vexed issue of the single term proposal for example. Despite the widespread and vehement opposition to the proposal, Dr. Jonathan stoutly defended the presidential brain wave. Yet, his defence of the idea continued to be as grossly deficient in logic and rationality as when it was first mooted. According to him “I have no regrets over the single tenure proposal because it will stabilize the polity. I said seven years actually; I did not talk about six years. My thinking is seven years for President and Governors, but for the National Assembly, I said six years”. This is the kind of wooly, rowdy and arbitrary thinking that characterize the Jonathan presidency. How will this proposal stabilize the polity? We are not told. How did they arrive at the proposed seven and six year single tenure, respectively, for the executive and legislature? Mr. President’s mood on the day the decision was taken? The side of the bed he woke up from? The special Bayelsa Fish pepper soup delicacy probably prepared by Dame Amazon the previous
Presidential thoughts and non-thoughts
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•Jonathan
night? What is the scientific basis for seven years? Why not 9, 11 or 13 years? The President bases his advocacy of the single tenure non-idea on the high cost of running elections in Nigeria without convincingly demonstrating how his proposal will solve the problem. In any case, if that is the premise for the proposal, is it not even more logical to argue for the abolition of elections and a possible life-tenure for office holders? Would that not be the ultimate cost-cutting solution? It is a completely ridiculous suggestion. The honourable thing would be for the presidency to abandon its obstinancy, bow to public opinion and drop the idea. Dr. Jonathan vows that there is no hidden agenda and says the single tenure suggestion has nothing to do with his personal gain. Why should we take him at his word? Wasn’t he a party to the zoning policy of the PDP? Didn’t he opportunistically jettison the principle for his own personal gain in the last election? We should be wary of creating any opportu-
How did they arrive at the proposed seven and six year single tenure, respectively, for the executive and legislature? Mr. President’s mood on the day the decision was taken? The side of the bed he woke up from? The special Bayelsa Fish pepper soup delicacy probably prepared by Dame Amazon the previous night? What is the scientific basis for seven years? Why not 9, 11 or 13 years?
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nity for the otherwise well meaning President to be exposed to seductive unholy tenure elongation temptations. On insecurity and fears of possible disintegration of the country, a supremely confident President, whose administration has been embarrassingly helpless in responding to the recurrent bombings and sundry criminalities across the country, declares “I, as the current President of this country, do not agree with that insinuation that this country will disintegrate. That people are throwing bombs does not mean that the country will disintegrate…We will not disintegrate. And I can assure you that between now and 2015, Nigeria will remain a single entity”. Now, this is a rather problematic submission. The
President does not tell us what the prospects of national cohesion are post 2015. It is possible that Dr. Jonathan has some yet unacknowledged spiritual and prophetic powers. There may therefore be a mystical basis for his supreme serenity amidst the bombs constantly exploding all around him. That is beyond the provenance of this column. But the rationale for his expressed confidence is fundamentally weak. Dr. Jonathan argues that Nigeria has afterall survived past crises including the civil war and the Niger Delta unrest. Is that a reason not to address the structural distortions that generated those crises and which still persist? Given current circumstances, is there any guarantee that the country will not implode iredeemably under the weight of new crises arising from unresolved structural deformities? Has Dr. Jonathan considered the fact that if the Biafran crisis was to occur in the contemporary context, secession would most likely succeed? Yes, we have bought peace in the Niger Delta through the Amnesty deal. But what of the combustible mix of pervasive poverty, mass unemployment and religious fanaticism that has made the vast North a ticking time bomb waiting to explode? More fundamentally, can we honestly argue that the Nigerian State has not practically disintegrated in any meaningful functional and productive sense? The highways within its territorial jurisdiction are veritable death traps killing innocent citizens on a daily basis. Its privileged citizens routinely travel out to die in foreign medical facilities with the virtual collapse of health facilities at home. Education at all levels is in ruins. Millions of youths are trapped in hopeless unemployment. The state cannot even guarantee the security of its own police national headquarters! A President that does not realize that such a state lies, at the very least, in psychological and psychic ruins, cannot summon the resolve to take the decisive, radical measures necessary for national redemption. This is why the President cannot appreciate the urgent imperative of a national dialogue to re-negotiate the basis of the Nigerian union. I commend to Mr. President and his think tank the following insightful comment of the Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, published on page 10 of the Thursday, September 15th edition of The Punch: “We need to know that Nigeria is not a nation, it is just a country. We are a country that is working to be a nation. So, we need to sit down and discuss how this entity should exist. So many things are not clearly defined. We cannot continue to promote unitarism and continue to decieve ourselves that we are operating federalism. That is why we need to discuss our fundamental diversities and our differences.” Incidentally, Drs. Jonathan and Fayemi belong to the same club. They are both Ph.D holders.
Ade Ojeikere on Saturday
Bad coaches
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PORTS Minister Yusuf Suleiman hit the nail on the head when he revealed that Nigerian coaches are chiefly responsible for this country’s seeming poor showing at the 10th All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique. What the minister didn’t know was that these coaches have failed in previous international sports competitions. Each time the coaches fail, those who empower them at the National Sports Commission (NSC) blame it all on poor preparation of athletes. At other times, they lay the blame on the players’ mercantile attitude and lack of commitment, as if they picked themselves to represent us. Most times, achieving coaches in the states are sidelined by national coaches who hardly do anything, except when Nigeria is ready to participate in competitions. The coaches are not abreast of the new tricks of their games nor do they undergo refresher
courses to equip them for the tasks ahead. Coaches are judged by their last outings. Those who failed are replaced by achievers. This competitive approach challenges those who have lost out to do something to retain their positions. It also assures upcoming coaches that handling the national teams is not one person’s birthright. In other climes, coaches who groom athletes to win domestic competitions are allowed to take them for international tournaments, such as the All Africa Games. Not so in Nigeria. Some people at the NSC would always argue that state coaches lack international experience, hence they must remain in the background, never to be seen, never to be heard. What these all knowing NSC men don’t know is that new coaches need international platforms to gather experience and strengthen their skills. Now, the desk coaches at the NSC cannot be trained. They lack the motivation to acquire new ideas. They see refresher courses as unnecessary. Their training methods are archaic. To them, cringing before their superiors is the best way to keep their jobs. We need to review the parameters used in recruiting national team coaches. We ignore
achievers. We recruit ex-internationals without pre-requisite training, forgetting that they would be competing against better equipped coaches. Ex-internationals know how a game is played yet they need training in management of men and the application of the rules. For instance, an ex-international who last played the game in 1990, certainly has lost grasp of modern trends in the game. Sport is dynamic. New rules and systems are being introduced, hence the need for us to either recruit a foreign coach to re-train our coaches or take the good ones, based on recent performance, to Europe for refresher courses regularly. The 2012 Olympic Games is a few months away. If the minister wants us to do well in London, he needs to head for the Scandinavian countries for coaches who are knowledgeable and hungry for glory. They should be given short-term contracts to prepare our athletes for the Olympics. The caveat would be to retain those whose athletes excel. We don’t need European or Asian training tours, like most NSC men would suggest because it would be a wasteful exercise,
especially as we have lost time using mediocre coaches. Of course, foreign coaches won’t operate in a vacuum. The minister should visit those blue-chip companies that bankroll competitions to see how they could pump cash into events meant to prepare our athletes for the 2012 Olympics in London. Our athletes should take advantage of the modern facilities in Port-Harcourt, the rivers state capital, which hosted the National Sports Festival. Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi would be magnanimous in allowing our athletes use the place. For the future, the minister should get his men to produce a sports calendar that would be adhered to. We must know when competitions are scheduled. Any disappointment should attract sanction, including sack from office. A situation where the last Sports Festival held one year after it was scheduled and budgeted for explains why those discovered will not make any impact now and even in London, next year. The minister should visit governors to urge them to provide sports facilities for budding athletes at the grassroots. We must reinvent those sports
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