We love drama in this country. According to recent media reports, some American investors who control portfolio worth trillions of dollars are coming to Nigeria for investment talks with top Government officials and the business community. Ordinarily, this should be cheering news. As usual, there is a lot of frenzy in the air and propaganda on the social media. The so-called “influencers” have taken over the media space by engaging in acrobatic dances. It looks as if this is the first time investors are visiting Nigeria since independence in 1960. From all indications, the foreign visitors are already assured of effusive welcome. However, there is a caveat. The nagging issue which continues to beg for answer is whether Nigeria is actually investment ready. Since the return to civil rule in 1999, the record of former President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 to 2007) as a globe trotter remains unbeatable. He travelled all over the world in search of foreign direct investment. At the tail end of his administration, he confessed that despite all the talks with foreign investors and tonnes of promises, there was nothing to show. He only got warm handshakes and beautiful smiles from his hosts. Obasanjo was very honest and blunt on the outcome of his economic diplomacy and elusive search for foreign direct investment. Despite the poor response of foreign investors, one fact that is undeniable is that Nigeria’s economy was more robust during Obasanjo’s presidency than the situation today.

At present, Nigeria’s economy is facing a lot of challenges due mainly to accumulated years of leadership failure, lack of political will to do the needful, wrong fiscal policies, huge local and foreign debts, endemic graft, malfeasance, pervasive corruption, excessive bureaucracy, multiple taxation, high level of revenue leakage due to massive looting, infrastructure deficit, population explosion, energy crisis and hyperinflation. The ugly situation has led to the closure of several businesses, mass unemployment, economic despair, hopelessness and weaponization of poverty in the country. Poverty walks on four legs as the value of the national currency continues to depreciate. Majority of the citizens are living from hand to mouth as they swim in the ocean of poverty. There is a daily struggle for economic survival.

The energy crisis remains a daunting challenge. Successive administrations have invested billions of dollars on the power sector since 1999, but power supply remains erratic. The power sector reform of 2013 during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan has not yielded the much-expected impact. A decade after the reform, we are still talking of megawatts of darkness! The manufacturing sector is groaning due to high cost of power generation. The cost of petroleum products, especially diesel, is prohibitive. This has resulted in high cost of production and relocation of some manufacturing companies to other countries. For the past three decades since the regime of late General Sani Abacha, Nigeria relies totally on imported fuel as the local Government-owned refineries are moribund. Fuel importation alone has become a huge elephant in the room and an albatross on the macro economy. It is a major drain on the treasury. Until the removal of subsidy on May 29, 2023 by President Tinubu in his inaugural address, fuel importation gulped the lion share of annual budget.

For Nigeria to make a headway in its foreign direct investment drive, the power and energy sectors require priority attention. Investment, whether local or foreign, needs a conducive environment to thrive. There is need for a complete overhaul of the power sector value chain- generation, transmission and distribution to change the current narrative. The power sector is the backbone of any economy. In the same vein, the Government must take a definite decision on the moribund refineries. Fuel importation is a major drain on Government resources especially foreign exchange. It is not sustainable. The Federal Government should consider Public Private Partnership (PPP) template to revamp and run the refineries for efficiency and optimal production. As a major oil producing country, Nigeria has no business importing petroleum products. It is a huge embarrassment. There is urgent need for a paradigm shift.

Priority attention should be given to local investors through provision of incentives and enabling environment to boost the economy and create jobs. The opportunities available in the digital technology space should be fully tapped for income generation, poverty reduction and sustainable livelihood. There is a huge demand for digital technology skills globally. This sector alone can provide jobs for millions of youths and reduce youth unemployment.

Agriculture holds the key to food security. However, the cost of local food items is beyond reach. This is partly due to high cost of farm inputs and transportation as well as insecurity. Insurgency and banditry have impacted negatively on agricultural production especially in the North. As the military continues to tackle insecurity, there is need for massive investment in the agricultural sector to feed the teeming population of over 200 million people.

Based on the current situation in the country, the economy requires a stimulus package to reduce economic hardship and high level of poverty. The role of development partners notably the World Bank, International Development Association, African Development Bank, European Union, Japan International Cooperation Agency, United Nations Development Programme, United States Agency for International Development, United Kingdom Department for International Development, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, French Development Bank, German Agency for International Development and several others cannot be overemphasized.

The revenue base of the country has to be expanded to reduce dependence on crude oil receipts. The policy initiatives already mapped out for the solid minerals sector as well as marine and blue economy require accelerated action. The same thing applies to the creative/entertainment industry. We need to walk the talk. Foreign debts have to be rescheduled to give the economy a breathing space. A situation whereby the country is spending about 96 per cent of its total revenue on debt servicing is not desirable. It is counterproductive as it imposes severe limitations on the macro economy and provision of critical infrastructure. We need to take the country back and restore hope for shared prosperity.

The challenges confronting the country are not insurmountable. Visionary leadership and strong political will are crucial. Lee Kuan Yew did it in Singapore and his legacy continues to endure. There must be a total crackdown on graft and zero tolerance for
corruption to move the country forward. What we need to emphasize now is action not mere talks.

There is one thing a country must not have - and must therefore avoid by all means. A country must, by all means, avoid corrupt leadership. In good, normal, and ordinary times, a country with corrupt leadership may still manage to chug along without suffering dire existential consequences. However, such a country must pray - and hope - that it is not hit with a major catastrophe, one that requires a credible and popular leadership that can summon the unquestioned and enthusiastic loyalty of its vast citizenry. When a country confronts major challenge of existential proportions, a credible leadership not only becomes necessary, it becomes imperative.

The beleaguered nation of Israel has been hit with the worst existential catastrophe in its history, comparable only to its 1973 Yom Kippur (Ramadan) war with the Arab nations of Egypt and Syria. One of the major differences between 1973 Israel and 2023 Israel is that the 1973 Israel was in the hands of a credible leadership. For all her jingoistic and xenophobic flaws, Prime Minister Golda Meir, the Iron Lady of the Middle East, was not corrupt. Today's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not just corrupt, he is incredibly corrupt.

Netanyahu is so corrupt that when he has been indicted for corruption, his strategy has been to fight his corruption indictment with even more corruption. Since January, tens of thousands of Israelis from all walks of life have been engaged in large-scale demonstrations and protests across Israel in response to Netanyahu's unprecedented push to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court and reform the judicial system by limiting judicial oversight on official decision-making and legislation. Remarkably, among these protesters have been some members of Israel Defense Force (IDF) who have avowedly withdrawn their loyalty to Netanyahu.

Questions are:

1.     Did Hamas choose this time to attack Israel because it thought, not quite unreasonably, that Israel was vulnerable from growing cracks of insubordination in its security and defense ranks?

2.     Did Hamas choose this time to attack Israel because it believed, not quite unreasonably, that Israel's intelligence agencies were lax and distracted by Netanyahu politics?

3.     How does a nation's army disaggregate patriotism to nation from the filthy lucre of a corrupt commander-in-chief? Should the average Israeli soldier even have to undertake such difficult and profound calculations? How fair is that?

4.     How fair is it to mobilize Israeli soldiers to confront a deadly foe at the command of a corrupt and loathsome commander-in-chief? What are implications for troop morale?

In truth, I do not pretend to know the right answers to these questions. What I do know, however, is that a corrupt leader is an albatross on his nation, both in good, normal, and ordinary times, and even worse so in bad, dangerous, and challenging times. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not the best face of Israel right now. He is the ultimate albatross. If he resigns today, it will be a psychological relief to the average Israeli even as the bloody stench of the horror of Black Saturday still hangs in the air.

But, beyond Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, there is serious lesson for corrupt leaders in other dark corners of the world. Africa must be paying attention to Tel Aviv. A corrupt leader is a national security threat to his nation. A corrupt leader is the single most dangerous security vulnerability for his nation. A corrupt leader is an open invitation to opportunistic foreign enemies, yet a secret bouncer to the loyalty, morale, and patriotism of local national army. Is Abuja listening? Is Yaoundé watching? Is the Nigerian Supreme Court taking notes? I hope so. I hope so. I can only hope so.

Dr. Vitus Ozoke is a lawyer, a civil and human rights activist, and a public commentator based in the United States. 

Whenever I hear of EFCC on the news again for the wrong reasons I always quickly rush to the ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIMES COMMISSION (ESTABLISHMENT) ACT 2004 which is their establishment act to check especially section 6 of the act that provides for their functions but as expected, all you need to know is that law enforcement agencies and their agents in Nigeria have a thing for acting beyond their power; ie acting ultra vires. 

We woke up yesterday to a famous Nigerian musician, Skales ranting and complaining bitterly about how the agents of the EFCC pulled up with sophisticated weapons to his home, forcefully broke into his apartment at 3 am-midnight, ransacked his home while pointing guns at him and his family members and that got his wife and six months old baby to traumatized. 

Be it as it may, by the provisions of section 148 of the Administration of the Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015, a search warrant may be issued and executed at any time on any day, including a Sunday or public holiday. This is to say that a search or an arrest warrant can be executed at midnight by a law enforcement agent, so the EFCC agents knocking on people’s doors at midnight and using force to gain entry if the owner of the house fails to open up is still within the bounds of the law so far as they have been issued with a search and arrest warrant on that particular person or on that particular house by a court of competent jurisdiction. This is the condition precedent; they must have obtained a search or arrest warrant for the particular assignment but the bitter pill to swallow is that they always do not approach people’s houses and break into peoples’ apartments with any valid search warrant against that house. 

Knocking on people’s doors or breaking into people’s houses while brandishing sophisticated weapons at midnight without any valid search warrant as a law enforcement agent especially on a mufti makes you an armed robber or a kidnapper and the house owner is legally allowed to use any force necessary to defend himself and to resist you to ensure you do not break into his apartment. This implies that if the house owner has a licensed firearm he can shoot you on the grounds of self-defense and he will be permitted by our laws. 

Interestingly, the men of the EFCC (just to let you know that they know what they are doing) only execute this kind of Gestapo style of midnight arrests in the houses of alleged young boys and petty internet fraudsters. They dare not try it in a house of politicians or someone who knows his rights and is ready to stand for it because they know that the person’s first point of action is to raise a preliminary objection against his mode of arrest and seek proper damages against the agency and the agents that executed it. 

In fact, a friend who is a senior officer at the EFCC told me that the only reason the EFCC agents prefer to go after the petty Yahoo boys and petty financial criminals instead of going after big-time corrupt politicians is because the Yahoo boys are so easy to prosecute. A politician is always ready to fight in court but an alleged Yahoo boy will always chicken out and beg for a plea deal and people do not know that just as bankers or salesmen have sales targets, EFCC agents or EFCC sessions are also given targets of number of prosecutions they must meet at a particular time hence they opt for the easier way of meeting the target by going after petty yahoo boys whom they know are easier to prosecute. 

There is no justification for crime, so this is not me justifying internet fraud or making a case for the internet fraudsters but this is me as a lawyer standing against breaking into people’s homes at midnight without search warrants or court order to that effect. I am talking from experience as a lawyer that 99% of those homes men of the EFCC break into at midnight they do so without a proper search and arrest warrant. Some agents are always quick to tell you when you ask them to show you their warrant that their Identity card is a valid search and arrest warrant but that is not what our law says; there is no law in Nigeria that says that an ID card of an operative of an EFCC is a search or an arrest warrant.

The EFCC totally needs overhauling. Touts are now joining the forces and making a mess of why the force was established in 2004. You don’t have to break the law to execute another law; when you break a law to execute another law you have also become a criminal. You can carry out an arrest and execute a search by going through the proper channels of the law. 

What happened in Skale’s apartment last night is totally uncalled for. Seeing the CCTV footage of operatives of the EFCC heavily armed breaking into his apartment will send chills to the shiver of everyone. You will be forced to think that the residents of the apartment are boko haram bandits hence why the agents are heavily armed like that to flush them out. 

The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the forthcoming Bayelsa governorship election, Timipre Sylva, has filed an appeal against the judgment of a lower court disqualifying his candidacy.

Recall that Justice Donatus Okorowo of a Federal High Court in Abuja, in a judgment delivered on Monday, disqualified the APC candidate from contesting in the poll.

Justice Okorowo had held that Sylva, having been sworn in twice and ruled for five years as governor of the state, would breach the 1999 Constitution (as amended) if allowed to contest again.

Sylva, in a notice of appeal filed by his lawyer, Ahmed Raji (SAN), filed a stay of execution of the judgment and prayed the court to set aside the judgment.

Raji, shortly after the appeal was filed, said the FHC judgment was against settled principles of law and notable precedents.

He said the appeal raised three fundamental issues touching on jurisdiction, locus standi, and wrongful evaluation of affidavit evidence.

In a motion on notice dated October 10, Sylva prayed the court for “an order staying execution and/or further execution of the entire judgment and the orders contained in the judgment of the court, delivered on the 9th October 2023, pending the hearing and final determination of the appeal lodged against the judgement and orders of this court before the Court of Appeal, Abuja.”

He also prayed to the court for an injunction, restraining the respondents from implementing and giving effect to the declaratory and executory orders contained in the judgment.

Also in the appeal, the former minister raised three grounds of appeal, saying that Justice Okorowo in his judgement wrongly assumed jurisdiction by delving into the internal affairs of his party, APC, which is a non-justiciable cause of action and thereby occasions a grave miscarriage of justice.

He said the trial court had a duty to understand the case presented by the parties and apply the law correctly.

In ground two, the former governor said Justice Okorowo erred in law when he wrongly conferred, allowed and adjudicated on the matter when the respondent had no locus standi to initiate or institute the action, having confessed not to have participated in the primary election that produced him as the governorship candidate of the APC, thereby occasions a grave miscarriage of justice against him.

He said the court failed to properly evaluate, determine and pronounce on his notice of preliminary objection challenging the competence of the suit and thereby breached his right to fair hearing as guaranteed by the 1999 ‘Constitution.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the appeal.

[NaijaNews]

The price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, has increased in parts of the country after marketers adjusted their pumps to reflect the new price yesterday.

This measure by marketers stems from the rising cost of diesel which has disrupted distribution of products across the country.

LEADERSHIP reports that due to infrastructure challenges and inadequate depot facilities especially in the Northern part of the country, marketers rely mostly in trucking petroleum products to their service stations from long distances. The trucks run on diesel.

In Abuja, the country’s capital, queues have emerged at petroleum dispensing outlets while street urchins have taken advantage of the situation to sell the product at the black market at NN625.

President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, Elder Chinedu Okoronkwo, blamed the situation on the high cost of diesel.

He said, “On my way to Port Harcourt (Monday), my driver drove into a filling station and I observed a minor pump adjustment and when I inquired I was told that the adjustment is to cover operational costs because marketers pay higher now to truck operators and also to run our generators.”

Okoronkwo explained that the adjustment was due to rise in operational costs to enable marketers recover expenses instead of them shutting operations and throwing the country into chaos.

However, in Lagos, the situation is normal as most filling stations are selling at normal price without hiccups.

At AP and Total in Maryland, MRS in Ikeja, and Conoil at the local airport, and other major stations on the Island, sales were going on without vehicular queues.

Also, there is no traffic congestion in the city.

A few marketers, who spoke to LEADERSHIP on condition of anonymity, said Automotive Gas Oil, AGO, also known as diesel, is still selling at over N1,000/litre despite the announcement of the Federal Government that it had removed Value Added Tax, VAT, on the commodity.

Our investigation showed that depots were selling to marketers at between N970 and N990 per litre while outlets sold at between N1,000 and N1,100/litre as of yesterday.

Though many filling stations lacked the product, as they blamed this on the high price of diesel, importers confirmed availability of the product.

Marketers said they were aware of the decision of the government to remove VAT on diesel, but said it had not affected the price.

Information and national orientation minister, Mohammed Idris, had disclosed the federal government’s decision to remove VAT on diesel after a meeting between government officials and labour unions over the latter’s planned industrial action.

While one of Labour’s demands is to cushion the rising cost of transportation via the use of alternative energy sources, the minister said the government is “committed to fast-tracking the provision of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses to ease public transportation difficulties associated with the removal of PMS subsidy.”

The fuel situation in Imo State remained normal as fuel stations in the state still sold between N630 and N650 per litre.

The director of Ukoromi Filling Station, Chief Prosper Uzondu, described the situation as tough as they find it difficult to make profit due to low patronage and cost of purchasing the product at the depot.

In his contribution, the deputy president, Owerri Chambers of Commerce, Chief Charles Okeke, said government is not run on adhoc basis, and advised governments across the country to always think through policies before implementation

Chief Okeke revealed that many of the citizenry had parked their vehicles and now commute via public transport.

Meanwhile, there appears to be confusion in the petroleum industry, following the return of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS)  three months after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had pronounced it ‘gone’.

The oil marketers last week confirmed that the federal government had restored subsidy for petrol, even as the GCEO of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, has said the Tinubu administration has not reinstated fuel subsidy.

Fuel Sells For N700/litre In Sokoto

Long queue is gradually returning to filling stations in Sokoto State as sudden scarcity and increase in price beyond government approved selling price in now the order of the.

The few filling stations owned by the independent marketers were selling between N680 and N700  per litre which is beyond government official price.

It’s N650 Per Litre In Gombe

In Gombe State, price of petrol has increased from N615 per litre to NN650 per litre in private filling stations even as NNPC stations were closed.

The development followed the scarcity of the commodity in the state that led to the locking down of most of the filling stations across the state capital.

LEADERSHIP observed that on Monday night, fuel was not available in most parts of the Gombe metropolis thereby reducing vehicular movements including that of commercial motorcycles, tricycles and causing transportation difficulties.

However on Tuesday, the fuel was available in few stations who sold it at N650 per litre, the situation that further hiked the fares charged by commercial motorcyclists.

Fuels Stations Shut in Kebbi

The situation in Birnin Kebbi, the Kebbi state capital, was tough as all the filling stations owned by independent marketers were shut yesterday.

Our correspondent gathered that only two filling stations belonging to NNPC mega stations were attending commercial vehicles and motorcycles at N615 per litre.

The Kebbi State government has  summoned the independent Marketers Association, IPMAN, officials in the state for a crucial meeting in order to solve the situation, it was learnt.

The commissioner of information and culture, Alhaji Yakubu Ahmed, told journalists that vital issues were discussed between the government and officials of IPMAN.

According to him, the filling stations owned by the marketers would soon be open on a daily basis but at an amount different from the mega stations.

Delta Stable, No Panic Buying

The fuel situation in Delta state is stable and there is nothing like panic buying nor queues in any petrol stations in Asaba and the entire Delta State.

The product is sold at between N600 and N650.00 per litre among the major independent marketers like NNPCL, Matrix, and other sub marketers.

In Niger state PMS sold at between N620 and N640 per litre in most of the fuel stations visited.

It was discovered that most independent marketers sold at N640 while major marketers sold at N620.

Some of the fuel station attendants interviewed confirmed that the changes in pump price started Monday’s night.

No Queues in Jigawa, PMS Sold At N660

In Jigawa State so far there are no queues in most of the filling stations visited in Dutse, the state capital, and other neighboring local governments. The pump price of petroleum remained at ₦620 per litre in NNPC Mega stations and other major marketers filling stations, while in other filling stations, the pump price differed, with some selling at N635 per litre and others at N660 per litre.

In apparent anticipation of the new price regime for PMS, most filling stations in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom state capital, closed shops, while some that opened for business slightly adjusted the unit price upward, LEADERSHIP checks revealed yesterday.

Our Correspondent gathered the price adjustment peaked at N625 per litre in most of the filling stations operated by independent markers, while the big players in the sector including Rainoil, Oando and others sold the product at N610/per litre

Although transportation cost which had hitherto been raised by 100 percent at the period of President Bola Tinubu’s inaugural announcement of the removal of fuel subsidy, checks revealed that despite the current panic in the sector, costs of intra and inter-city fares remain stable in the state.

PMS Price Unchanged in PH

The pump price of premium motor spirit (PMS) in most filling stations in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, has remained at N595 per litre.

LEADERSHIP observed that there were also no queues at filling stations in the state capital and environs.

Scarcity, Price Hike in Katsina

In Katsina State only few filling stations were seen selling fuel at N640 and N645.

Other stations had been shut for over two weeks due to scarcity of the product.

Nigeria Imports 23 Billion Litres Of Petrol In One Year

Meanwhile, Nigeria has imported a total of about 23.5 billion litres of PMS, also known as petrol, in the past year alone, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) revealed yesterday.

Chief executive of the NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed, who made this known, said the country’s average daily truck-out over a period of eight  years stood at over 55 million litres per day, with a peak of 66.7 million litres recorded in 2022.

Speaking at the ongoing 2023 PENGASSAN Energy and Labour Summit in Abuja, yesterday, Ahmed who was represented by executive director, Corporate Services & Administration, NMDPRA, Bashir Sadiq, said the Nigerian government expended more than N4 trillion on PMS subsidy in 2022 alone,  which amounted to about 20 per cent of Fiscal Budget for the year, presented a strain on the fiscal viability of the government, and became a major obstacle to inclusive participation in downstream petroleum sector.

“The subsidy bill ballooned to over N400 billion monthly, making it unsustainable in the short to medium term. The subsidy regime also encouraged inefficiency, waste, and environmental pollution, hindering the country’s alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of providing cleaner energy,” he said.

According to him, the removal of fuel subsidies and migration to a full market-based pricing for petroleum products was a necessary step to attain a transparent mid and downstream value chain for petroleum products supply.

Ahmed  also said that the NMDPRA is pivotal in the implementation of all relevant regulatory frameworks required for the sector, including the issuance of critical regulations, emplacement of new licence regimes, and enhanced monitoring regimes of technical, operational, and commercial activities.

[Leadership]

United States, yesterday, formally declared the ousting of Niger’s democratically-elected president a coup d’état, more than two months after mutinous soldiers seized power.

According to senior administration officials, the U.S. was taking action after exhausting all avenues to preserve constitutional order in the West African nation, including urging the military leaders to restore civilian rule within four months in compliance with the constitution.  
   
The coup designation comes with the suspension of counterterrorism assistance and military training as well as the pausing of certain foreign assistance programmes worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
   
Confirming this, U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said: “The United States has concluded that a military coup d’etat has taken place in Niger. Pursuant to section 7008 of the Department of State’s annual appropriations act, the United States is suspending most U.S. assistance to the government of Niger.  

“On August 5, the United States temporarily paused certain foreign assistance programmes to the government of Niger, totaling nearly $200 million. That assistance is now also suspended pursuant to section 7008 of the Department of State’s annual appropriations act. We also note the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s suspension of all assistance to Niger, including all preparatory work on its $302 million Niger Regional Transportation Compact and all new activity on its 2018 Compact.

[Guardian]

Former Manchester United striker, Louis Saha, has hit out at the club’s summer signing Mason Mount, insisting that the former Chelsea star is not performing for the Red Devils.

Saha, who claimed he has not seen enough of Mount this season, wants Man United to sign Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma in the next transfer window.

“Man Utd are relying on one or two players to create, and I have not seen enough of Mount yet,” Saha told King Casino Bonus.

“His creativity is nowhere to be seen. I didn’t see any positive runs from him against Brentford. His timing is off, too, and he can’t make chances by playing like this.

“I hope that the players find their groove, and once they do, they will be hard to play against. They have the energy, and when players like Bruno Fernandes start making those passes, I will be more confident in Man Utd.

“I’d say, based on what we’ve seen, Mount isn’t performing and I’ve seen Casemiro play more offensively than Mount. That’s a crazy thing to say, but it’s true.’

He added, “I would like to see Mitoma arrive at Old Trafford. He’s a very exciting player and he never seems to have any doubt on the ball.”

[DailyPost]

Liberia went to the polls for the presidential and parliamentary elections yesterday in which 20 presidential candidates, including incumbent George Weah, were hopeful to lead the country of five million.

Hundreds of people had gathered at polling stations in the capital, Monrovia, early yesterday morning ahead of the start of voting at 08:00 GMT.

Weah, a former international football star, rode to victory on a wave of optimism in 2017, bringing hope to a country that had been devastated by two back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003, and the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016.

His election was an historic event, marking the country’s first democratic transfer to power since 1944. He promised to tackle poverty, create jobs, build roads and end corruption.

Nearly five years after he took office in 2018, the former Ballon d’Or winner remains popular in some parts of the country, but anger is growing over persistently high levels of corruption and the cost of living.

The main political parties have pledged that the presidential and legislative elections in the West African country would pass off peacefully.

However, the death of three people last month during clashes between rival party supporters has raised concerns about a return to bloodshed.

Scuffles also broke out on Sunday as Weah, who is seeking a second six-year term as president, held his final campaign rally, leaving several injured.

The election was the first to be held since the United Nations ended its peacekeeping mission in Liberia in 2018.

UN peacekeepers were deployed to the country after more than 250,000 people died in two civil wars between 1989 and 2003.

Weah has argued that he needs more time to fix the nation’s decrepit economy and infrastructure.

The former athlete is the favourite among 20 candidates but could face a second-round run-off if he does not secure an absolute majority in the first round of voting.

The European Union, the African Union, the West African bloc ECOWAS and the United States have deployed observers to oversee the vote.

Some 2.4 million Liberians were eligible to vote in the elections, with polling stations closing at 18:00 GMT.

Beyond the high principles espoused on all sides of the current Israeli-Palestinian war is the enormous human cost of the conflict. While Israel, formidably backed  by America, legitimately insists on the right to defend itself against attacks by Hamas, the Palestinians battle cry is their freedom. They want an end to the 56-year old illegal  occupation of their land and humiliation by Israel. Blood and tears have been flowing in the periodic eruptions of violence in over seven decades of the perennial conflict. In the more recent  violence that has defined the region, thousands have been killed since the first Palestinian intifada in 1987. 

The toll is rising in the  current war  triggered by Hamas attack on Israel on Saturday. Experts say the war  might extend  beyond Israel, Gaza and West Bank. 

Among the hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians killed were  scores of children. 

This is the  issue  for rest of humanity  that seems to have mentally normalised the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

The conflict remains  an open sore on the social conscience of humanity. It fundamentally questions the moral content of western civilisation.  

A judicious way of looking at the conflict  is that war crimes are being committed by both Israel and Hamas, as former foreign minister, Professor  Bolaji Akinyemi, put it while offering profound insights into the crisis on ARISE Television yesterday morning. 

Reports from  Gaza and West Bank suggest that a humanitarian crisis looms in the areas as Israel has imposed a blockade on a people already under occupation in defiance of international laws. 

Stopping the violence  and averting the resultant  humanitarian crisis is the immediate task. But the more urgent task for the United States appears  to be arming Israel   for the “elimination of the Hamas leadership,”  as the Israeli opposition leader, Avigdor Lieberman, has demanded. The prospects of a diplomatic solution are dim  as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin  Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership are not embracing the option of  negotiation.   

Like the previous periodic bloodlettings on both sides,  the fundamentals of the conflict are again being ignored. 

That is the Question of Palestine. Originally,  the word Palestine was   geographically used to refer to  the eastern Mediterranean region. In geo-political terms, it comprises of parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of Gaza and West Bank. The history of Palestine in the last 3, 000 years has been that of changes in political status. Jews, Christians and Muslims have their sacred sites in Palestine. Since the last century Arabs and Jews have made conflicting claims on the land.  Some claims  to the land even have Biblical dimensions.

Such is the   complexity of the region’s reality. To unravel this complexity, it is unhelpful to begin the story  with the “terrorism” of Hamas. The provenance of the  story in the modern sense was  the United Nations Resolution 181 of 1947. It is  also called the Partition Resolution. According to the resolution, the Britain’s former mandate of Palestine should be partitioned  into Jewish and Arab states. The mandate was billed to end in May 1948. And indeed  the State of Israel was created that year. However, the other state for the Arabs in Palestine (now simply called the Palestinians) have not been created 75 years after  despite heaps of resolutions by the same United Nations and  futile negotiations to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, the Palestinians have lost a good portion of the land they owned before the 1967 war to encroachment by Jewish  settlers. 

This monumental failure to make the Palestinian State a reality is squarely  at the root of the conflict. 

Ironically, the conflict has persisted not because reasoned  propositions have not been put on the table broadly from all sides of the conflict. But the  generations of implacable extremists among the Jews and Arabs in Palestine have seemingly made the application of reason impossible.

Yet since the first intifada, Jewish and Arab thinkers have made critical observations pointing to the ultimate futility of the approaches currently adopted by both Israel and Hamas. 

Take a sample.   

An Emeritus Rabbi based in the United Kingdom, David Goldberg, has questioned the tendency of Israeli politicians and generals to “prefer to remain in ignorance of the army’s brutality” in the occupied territories in his book entitled “This is not the Way: Jews, Judaism and Israel.”  

As a Jew in the Diaspora, Goldberg says criticism of  Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism. His point is as follows: “So what might coax Israel  to accept that holding on to the Territories is counter-productive? … A start would be a mass petition from Jews worldwide to the Israeli prime minister’s office under the slogan ‘Passover for the Palestinians’. Even Eli Wiesel might have difficulty in refusing to sign it. All of Judaism’s ethical teachings are based on and derive from the concept of Freedom. It is the sine qua non   of Jewish values. The exodus from Egyptian slavery is the folk memory above all others that is embedded in our collective unconscious and unites religious, secular, atheist and only-just Jews in nominating the Passover Seder as their favourite celebration. It was Heine, in many ways the epitome of the post-Enlightenment Jew adjusting to the temptations of modernity without forfeiting Jewish distinctiveness, who wrote in Germany to Luther, ‘Since the Exodus, Freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.”  The journey of the Hebrew slaves to freedom has been the inspiration for most liberation movements in Western history and ‘Let my people go’ the battle cry that has urged them forward. Liberty is a universal yearning, shared by all peoples everywhere.”

From the other polar end is the view of eminent Palestinian American  scholar, Edward W. Said. In one of his last essays compiled in a book entitled “From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap,” Said observed that the tragedy of Palestine would deepen  unless the Palestinian (nay Arab)  leadership changed their approach to the conflict. Said, who died  20 years ago, wrote within the context of the siege on the Palestinian territories  following  the crisis provoked  by the visit of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, surrounded by thousands of Israeli soldiers,  to Jerusalem’s Haram al-Shariff  (the Noble Sanctuary), a Muslim’s holy place on September 29,  2000. Goldberg’s  reasoning is as follows: “No one can deny that Palestine is an exception to nearly all the colonial issues of the past two hundred years: it is exceptional but not removed from history. Human history is full of similar, if not absolutely the same, instances, and what has surprised me, as someone living at a distance from the Middle East but close to it in all sorts of ways, is how insulated from the rest of the world we keep ourselves. Whereas, I believe, a great deal can be learned from the history of other oppressed peoples in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and even Europe. Why do we resist comparing ourselves, say, with the South African blacks, or with the American Indians, or with the Vietnamese? By comparing, I don’t mean mechanically or slavishly but rather creatively and imaginatively.

“The late Eqbal Ahmad, who was certainly one of the two or three most brilliant analysts of contemporary history and politics that I ever knew, always drew attention to the fact that successful liberation movements were successful precisely because they employed creative ideas, original ideas, imaginative ideas, whereas less successful movements (like ours, alas) had a pronounced tendency to use formulas and an uninspired repetition of past slogans and past patterns of behaviour. Take as a primary instance the idea of armed struggle. For decades we have relied in our minds on ideas about guns and killing, ideas that from the 1930s  until today have brought us plentiful martyrs but have had little real effect either on Zionism or on our own ideas about what to do next. In our case, the fighting is done by a small brave number of people pitted against hopeless odds: stones against helicopter gunships, Merkava tanks, missiles. Yet a quick look at other movements- say, the Indian nationalist movement, the South African liberation movement, the American civil rights movement-tells us first of all that only a mass movement employing tactics and strategy that maximizes the popular element ever makes any difference on the occupier and or oppressor. Second, only a mass movement that has been politicised and imbued with a vision of participating directly in a future of its own making, only such a movement has a historical chance of liberating itself from oppression or military occupation. The future, like the past, is built by human beings. They, and not some distant mediator or saviours, provide the agency for change.

It is clear to me, for example, that the immediate task in Palestine is to establish the goal of ridding ourselves of the occupation, using imaginative means of struggle… “

If you synthesis the different perspectives of Goldberg, a Jew,  and that of Said, a Palestinian,   it would be obvious to see the irrationality in Hamas’ refusal to recognise Israel which it calls an  “illegitimate state”  and Israel’s illusion of resting  on its  military power to occupy Palestinian territories  for ever. Other Palestinian factions which do not also  recognise Israel  are making the same mistakes as well as  the right-wing extremist Jews ruling out perpetually  the possibility of a Palestinian state. They are all poor students of history.  The dialectic of  history is that oppression cannot last for ever. 

In fact, the proud national history of the Jews themselves  shows that a determined people will survive the worst form oppression and persecution.

The United States and its western allies are also part of the problem. Former American president, Jimmy Carter, once described the inhuman  condition of the  occupied territories as that of “apartheid.”  Without saying so, America and its allies are today  not too worried  about the settler-colonialism existing in Gaza and West Bank. The last time the United States showed real enthusiasm about resolving the crisis was on September 13, 1993 when President Bill Clinton presided over the signing of a peace agreement  in White House between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat. Unlike Clinton, President Joe Biden has not  put the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “priority” of his administration. For America, the Palestinian Question is not an urgent item like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Neither is it as urgent as America’s ill-fated democracy projects in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. 

The European countries are hardly different  in failing to nudge both Israel and the Palestinians towards a just resolution in the interest of peace and security of the Middle East and indeed the world.

Even the United Nations appears helpless in the situation. The lack of even -handedness on  the part of the  UN in the matter is reflected in the Monday  statement of its  secretary-general,  Antonio Guterres,  in which he expressed “condemnation of the abhorrent attacks of Hamas and others on Israel”  while he was only “alarmed by reports of over 500 Palestinians-including women and children killed in Gaza and over 3,000 injured.” 

That is not a balanced approach to resolve a conflict

Israel  is legitimately entitled to its national security just as the Palestinians  have fundamental human rights  to their freedom and national dignity as a people.  These are rights embodied in the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.  Israel’s  national security  and the existence of the Palestinian state are   not be  mutually exclusive. 

That is the logic of the two-state solution.

Peace and security  based on justice can come to  Palestine.

Saudi Arabia announced it took the second step to bid for the 2034 World Cup by submitting a letter of intent to host the event to world soccer governing body Fifa on Monday.

“Last week we announced our ambitions to host the 2034 Fifa World Cup, and this official submission continues our journey to make the dreams of our people a reality,” Yasser Al Misehal, President of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation SAFF said in a statement.

“We are extremely committed to presenting the most competitive bid possible that will also help unite the world through football,” he added.

SAFF said that once they declared their intention on Wednesday to bid for the tournament, “over 70 Fifa Member Associations from across different continents have publicly pledged their support for the Kingdom.”

Last week, Fifa named Morocco, Spain and Portugal as hosts of the 2030 World Cup, with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay hosting the opening matches to mark the tournament’s centenary.

Spain Call Up Fati, Zaragoza To Replace Pino

Spain selected Ansu Fati and Bryan Zaragoza to replace the injured Yeremy Pino for upcoming Euro 2024 qualifiers on Monday.

Granada winger Zaragoza, 22, scored twice in his team’s 2-2 draw against champions Barcelona in LaLiga on Sunday, earning his first international call-up.

“Barca players congratulated me a lot (on the performance)… and told me to stop running in the middle of the game,” Zaragoza told DAZN.

Brighton forward Ansu Fati, on loan from Barcelona, was not selected by Spain coach Luis de la Fuente for the previous qualifying wins over Georgia and Cyprus in September.

Fati’s last appearance for Spain came in June in the Nations League final victory over Croatia, when he came on as a substitute for Pino.

Villarreal winger Pino suffered a hamstring injury during his side’s 2-1 defeat by Las Palmas on Sunday.

Spain, second, will face Group A leaders Scotland on Thursday before visiting third-place Norway on Sunday.

[Leadership]