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Why I Didn’t Conduct LG Elections As Anambra Governor — Obi
Mr Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP) presidential candidate in the February 25 election, has explained why he did not hold local government elections while governor of Anambra State.
Obi claimed he was prevented from holding local government elections due to court action.
The former governor announced the party’s mega rally in Benin to rally support for LP candidates ahead of the Edo State local government elections on September 2.
Obi said;
"As Anambra governor, I was prevented by arms of legal and litigation from conducting local government elections for over six years in the state."
The Labour Party’s Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, will launch the party’s campaigns for the November 11 governorship election in Imo state today.
The event will take place at Owerri’s Kanu Nwankwo Stadium.
The governor of Abia State, Alex Otti, the party’s national chairman, Julius Abure, and other national officers and chieftains would join Obi to launch the campaigns in the state officially.
Athan Achonu, the LP’s governorship candidate in the state, told journalists in Owerri that everything was in place to welcome Obi and his entourage.
He stated that the party’s goal was to run an issue-based campaign in the hope of unseating the state’s All Progressives Congress government.
Achonu stated that the LP members and all supporters were looking forward to Obi’s arrival in Owerri on Tuesday.
Achonu, who was in the Senate in 2015, described Obi as a transformational leader and said the former Anambra governor inspired him to join the LP.
He claimed that his candidacy and the LP’s unwavering support in the state had already positioned the party as a lovely bride.
He stated that his campaign slogan, “Bring Investment Home,” would significantly address insecurity and food insecurity issues while promoting agriculture, education, investments, health, tourism, human capacity development, infrastructure development, and housing projects.
[OPINION] ‘To Serve…and To Eat!’ - Olusegun Adeniyi
For the past eight years, the joke among Abuja residents was, “When will President Buhari appoint a Minister for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)?”. The once pristine city has gradually been reduced to a vast slum as mountains of garbage dot many areas. Even maintaining streetlights, including on the airport expressroad, has proved difficult for Abuja authorities. Beggars are everywhere, compounding the security challenge. And with touts waylaying motorists on street corners to enforce dubious revenue generation laws, land speculators have also been allowed free rein. So right from the moment the former Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike was sworn in as FCT Minister three days ago, Abuja residents knew that, for good or ill, they now have a Minister!
On Monday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu inaugurated his Federal Executive Council (FEC) with the swearing-in of 45 ministers, the highest number of federal cabinet members under any administration (whether military or civilian) in the country. He has also appointed 20 Special Advisers, which is equally unprecedented. At a time when the singsong is about reducing the cost of governance, this bad example is being replicated in states across the country where ‘job creation’ has been given a whole new meaning. While we will come back to this issue another day, Tinubu has urged his ministers to discharge their responsibilities in a manner that would “meet the expectations of all Nigerians.”
The issue here is about what those expectations are. On the day the president sent the list of the first batch of his nominees to the Senate last month, I wrote, ‘Ministerial List: To Serve or To Eat?’. In that column, I cited the ‘come-and-eat’ altercation between Chief Bola Ige and Chief Sunday Afolabi (both deceased) during the Obasanjo administration and other examples to illustrate my point on how public office in Nigeria has been reduced to ‘looking for something to eat.’ I was shocked by the responses I received, most of which dwelt on the headline. And there were many. I got lectures, including from some prominent Nigerians, on why the headline should have been, ‘To Serve and to Eat’.
The notion that public officials should help themselves from a public till is alien to the concept of accountability. But apparently not in a society where it is now practically legitimate that people can live above their means without questions being asked. When I engaged a respected lawyer who also argued that it is quite okay to ‘serve and eat’ in the public arena, this was his response: “(Name of the former Nigerian leader he mentioned withheld) ate very well in his time and still eating. If public service as the name implies is all about public service without opportunity for self advancement, then the reality is that all over the world, there will be little interest. See the religious leaders who are supposed to be examples of selfless public service, many of them are eating very well! In Britain, Tony Blair and his wife ate very well. I don’t even want to talk of the Americans because they’re the worst. See the mess with President Joe Biden and his son!”
I have heard the argument that the Yoruba adage of ‘Eni toba se ni idi pepe lo n je ni idi pepe’ is the same message embedded in the Biblical 1 Corinthians 9, verse 13: “Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar?” Beyond the issue of context, I believe that nobody should justify or rationalize abuse of public trust. But I also understand the nature of government jobs and the reward system in our country. The major concern here, as we see with the excitement that comes with such an appointment and the congratulatory messages that usually follow, is that of public expectation.
Some 15 years ago, precisely on Sunday, 19th October 2008, I dealt with this same issue. I was in government at the time as Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. I recall that I had just finished reading Reuben Abati’s weekly column in the Guardian where he used lessons in Leo Tolstoy’s ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’ to drive home a point about the Nigerian condition and the place of greed in our public arena. He was then the Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Guardian newspapers. In a moment of indulgence, I called Reuben to say that I had a different way of looking at the issue. He asked whether I would like to share my view with readers and I agreed. My piece, ‘Shooting an Elephant: Public Service in Nigeria’ was published in The Guardian a week later, on 26th October 2008. I want to recall excerpts from it before I draw my conclusion.
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…I am not surprised that Tolstoy’s thesis fascinates Reuben because as a practicing journalist, I had also interrogated the place of greed in our national life, using the same thesis. But now, from the vantage position of someone who can see both sides of the divide, I think there are some lessons being ignored. For those who did not read Reuben last week on the “primitive acquisitiveness of the Nigerian Leadership elite” and may not be familiar with Tolstoy’s writing which informed the essay, ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’ is the story of a poor but seemingly contented farmer who eavesdropped on a conversation between his wife and her sister married to a city merchant. From here, let’s take a little bit from the book:
Pakhom, the master of the house, was lying on the top of his stove and he listened to the women’s chatter. “It is perfectly true,” thought he. “Busy as we are from childhood, tilling mother earth, we peasants have no time to let any nonsense settle in our heads. Our only trouble is that we haven’t land enough. If I had plenty of land, I shouldn’t fear the Devil himself!” The women finished their tea, chatted a while about dress, and then cleared away the tea-things and lay down to sleep. But the Devil had been sitting behind the stove and had heard all that was said. He was pleased that the peasant’s wife had led her husband into boasting, and that he had said that if he had plenty of land, he would not fear the Devil himself. “All right,” thought the Devil. “We will have a tussle. I’ll give you land enough; and by means of that land I will get you into my power.”
The Devil granted Pakhom’s wish. He got a chance to acquire as much land as he wanted by marking out its perimeters on foot, but the catch was that he had to be back to where he started before sunset. But Pakhom got greedy such that by the time he felt he had acquired enough land, a better one beckoned. At the end, there was no time for him to return to where he started, and he was already exhausted. He eventually slumped and died and was buried like any other mortal on a piece of land not exceeding six feet!
What Reuben sought to illustrate with Pakhom’s story is the greed in public office and the evident rot in our society which he ties to that greed. While I agree with Reuben to the extent that we can see a direct correlation between the opulence of a few elites and the poverty of our people, I fail to agree with his summation that many of the otherwise good people who join government only to come out with serious moral deficit do so on account of personal greed.
Incidentally, there are two literary works, also very popular with the Aspen Leadership series, which I consider important to interrogate this issue. The first is ‘No Longer at Ease’ by Chinua Achebe which tells the story of a brilliant young Nigerian who was given a scholarship by his community to study Law in the United Kingdom during the colonial days. He went, bagged his degree in English rather than in Law and came back home to secure a top job in the civil service. He, however met a decadent society in which corruption was seen as a way of life and decided he was not going to be part of the rot.
For a while, Obi Okonkwo resisted the pressure, but a combination of unpleasant circumstances forced his hands. First, he had problems paying back the loans he took from his community and there were implacable foes. Then he had problems with a woman he wanted to marry who happened to carry a societal stigma. To compound the situation, his mother was dying, and he needed money for her medicals. On the weight of all these personal conflicts, Obi Okonkwo succumbed by subverting the lofty ideals he had espoused. The issue here is the kind of pressure public office holders are subjected to because it is almost as if society expects them to go and steal given the kinds of demands that are made of them.
Before I share my own experience, I will use another literature which is also a compelling reading at the Aspen Institute Leadership series. It is George Orwell’s classic, ‘Shooting an Elephant’, generally regarded as reflections on his time while serving his country in Burma. In the tale, Orwell (real name, Eric Arthur Blair) recounted an incident where a young colonial police officer was summoned to a provincial village to kill a ‘rogue elephant’ which had injured one of the local people. Upon his arrival, the elephant, far from being wild and on a rampage, was now calm. But the British officer had a gun and a huge crowd had gathered expecting him to shoot the elephant:
I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd –seemingly the lead actor of the piece; but I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life trying to impress the “natives,” so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him. I had got to shoot the elephant.
From the narrative, the officer had a moral dilemma in that he did not want to kill the elephant. But because the mob expected him to, he eventually shot the elephant. The point of the story is that we are all sometimes forced into actions which we know to be wrong, to meet the expectations of our friends, our family members, our community, political peers and several other ‘crowds’ in our lives. I have been in government for about 17 months now and I cannot recall a day when I have not received about five text messages from persons seeking financial help. The messages are often similar and usually end with details of the bank account I am expected to pay certain sums of money into. I have since discovered it is the same with virtually every public official. These solicitations come from family members, long-term school mates whose names and faces you may not even remember; distant relations and some no relations at all; church members; people from the village, neighbours, and casual acquaintances of the spouse. All they request is that you do ‘something’ to help them.
The stories are usually the same: they need money to pay the school fees of their children; to settle hospital bills for dying relations, to feed after days of hunger. They paint pathetic pictures of themselves and their circumstances that one would seem wicked not to want to help. They would remind you of tales from the past and may even refer you to Biblical passages that it could even be because of them that you were placed in the position of trust. They don’t ask you to steal but then you ask, where is the money with which you are expected to ‘help’ supposed to come from? Unfortunately, this is the kind of pressure public officials are exposed to in our society.
Here, I must make a clarification because there are many politicians who seek public office as a form of investment on which they expect to receive a bountiful return. I am not talking about such characters who loot public treasury without any pang of conscience. My disquisition is on those who go into public office with the intent of making positive contributions yet come out with their integrity battered. I believe that in some such cases, society must share part of the blame. What Orwell’s elephant story teaches is that there is a form of complicity from society in some of the primitive accumulative tendencies we have seen over the years. That explains why some of our big-time crooks still draw huge crowds from their people comprising mostly those who benefited from their perfidy.
The lesson from the foregoing is that the ultimate responsibility for one’s actions and integrity rests with the individual. In Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’, while the young British officer may have found himself in a difficult situation, he clearly had a choice between following his own inclinations or that of the crowd of natives. My view is that if we all remember, like Tolstoy tells us, that “whichever way a man goes, he is destined for no more than six feet of land or worse, the crematorium”, we will think twice next time we have that elephant within our shooting range. That is the message for everyone.
ENDNOTE:
As the renowned Professor, Peter Ekeh (formerly of the University of Ibadan but currently at the State University of New York, Buffalo) reminded us in his seminal work, Nigerian officials are caught between two contrasting publics and their expectations. And for that reason, a public officer must choose which expectation to meet. The challenge lies in deciding how to navigate the pressures that follow.
In President Jonathan’s book, ‘My Transition Hours’, there is a profound statement I once referenced. “I have learnt from political ascendancy in the sixteen years that I served from Deputy Governor to President that power is a shield, for those who wields it and for the people it serves,” Jonathan wrote. “I understand that power will protect you and enable you protect your charges. It will provide shade from the blistering heat of the sun. When it is raining you can use it as an umbrella to protect yourself and the people you are meant to serve. And when you come to a river, you can convert it to a vessel that will help you and those who you lead to cross.”
Since Jonathan is talking about the power that comes with holding public office, I cannot fault the argument about “opportunities for self-advancement” made by my lawyer friend, including even in the Western world. It must be said though that in those societies, such ‘opportunities’ come by way of consultancy, book writing, speaking engagements, appointment into corporate boards etc., but only after office. These are legitimate earnings. In the peculiar nature of the Nigerian environment, the real challenge is the disposition by public officials to use their positions to provide ‘shades’ only for themselves and their cycle of friends and families.
Last Sunday, Daily Trust newspaper published an extensive story of how children of prominent politicians are now getting appointed and elected to public offices in the states and Abuja through the influence of their parents, with politics being turned into a family business. Many of these young people have no visible means of livelihood beyond parental ‘legacy’. One of the Ministers appointed by Tinubu from the Senate is a former Governor who got one of his children elected to the State House of Assembly with another holding a powerful position in the same state. For the Senate seat now vacant by virtue of his ministerial appointment, he can only think of his brother as replacement!
In a society with limited opportunities for honest livelihood, public office has become a gate pass to the things that many wish for or dream about. Those who come by this gate pass are naturally expected to enter ‘paradise’. If they fail, it will be because they are either foolish or mentally unhinged. If they ‘make it’ alone, they are selfish and wicked. If they help their community, they get a hero’s welcome. If the public officer serves the wider nation meritoriously, he may be publicly acclaimed. But if he fails to enrich himself in the process, his wide acclaim will come to nothing. There lies the moral burden.
As I said, we will come back to interrogate some of these issues another day. The charge today is for the new ministers. To build a society that works for the greater majority, they must understand that the ‘shade’ they need to provide should be able to shield not only their family and friends but also many of the ordinary people. I wish them success in their assignments.
Lagos Assembly Rejects 17 Of Sanwo-Olu’s Cabinet Nominees, confirms 22
The Lagos State House of Assembly, on Wednesday, confirmed 22 out of the 39 cabinet nominees sent recently by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for screening.
The Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa, who presided over the day’s plenary, said the confirmation followed a rigorous and detailed screening of the nominees by an ad hoc committee led by the Chief Whip of the House, Fatai Mojeed.
Obasa commended the committee for its effectiveness and urged the confirmed nominees to always remember that they are in office to serve the people of the state and not individuals.
He also promised that the House would continue to do its best in the interest of the state.
Seventeen nominees were, however, rejected during the confirmation which was done through a voice vote as Obasa mentioned the name of each of the nominees.
The lawmaker representing the Ikorodu Constituency II in the House, Aro Abiodun, when contacted by our correspondent on why the 17 nominees were rejected, said he could not speak for the House but only for his constituency.
Also, when contacted by The PUNCH, the chairman of the screening committee and Chief Whip of the House, Mojeed, simply said in a text message, “It was a decision of (all) 40 members (of the House).”
However, a former member of the House who pleaded anonymity said such rejection could be for several reasons.
“A nominee may be rejected for several reasons. It may be for not having the (APC) party membership card or for presenting a controversial qualification. Other reasons could be security-related or criminal records, unexplained dismissal from office, among others.”
Asked if there would still be an opportunity for the rejected nominees to be cleared later, the ex-lawmaker said, “No. They won’t be cleared. The governor will have to send other names.”
Meanwhile, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Sanwo-Olu, Gboyega Akosile, in a telephone chat with The PUNCH late Wednesday said the outcome of the screening and confirmation had yet to be transmitted to the governor, hence the governor had yet to know the reason for the reported rejection of some nominees.
“Mr Governor has not received it officially, but we are just hearing from the media. So, we will wait for when the Speaker transmits it to the governor, then we will know the appropriate reaction from the governor,” Akosile said.
The rejected nominees are: Folashade Adefisayo, Akin Abayomi, Yomi Oluyomi, Folashade Ambrose, Barakat Bakare, Gbenga Omotosho, Olalere Odusote, Rotimi Fashola, Bolaji Dada, Sam Egube, Olalekan Fatodu, Solape Hammond, Mosopefolu George, Aramide Adeyoye, Seun Osiyemi, Rotimi Ogunwuyi, and Olumide Oluyinka.
Amusan qualifies for World Athletics Championship 100m final
World champion, Tobi Amusan, qualified for the final of the 100-meter Hurdle at the ongoing World Athletics Championship in Budapest on Wednesday.
The Nigerian athlete won the second semifinal with a time of 12.56 seconds to qualify for the final billed for Thursday evening.
Despite a slow start, the world hurdles record holder recovered in time, clocking 12.56s to finish ahead of Jamaican Achkara Nungent’s 12.60 seconds and Dutch Nadine Visser’s 12.62 seconds.
[OPINION] Good Signals from Akwa Ibom - C. Don Adinuba
In the most cited line from his 1983 book, The Trouble With Nigeria, Chinua Achebe, raconteur, novelist, and thinker, declared that Nigeria’s problem is the leadership which, unable to rise to the true challenges of national development, cannot provide inspiring examples to followers. Achebe’s assertion was in line with the thinking of most researchers of that era. In the last few years, however, some scholars have come to think that Africa’s problem is actually societal rather than just leadership. In a scintillating 2008 academic article, Larry Diamond of Stanford University, one of the leading lights on democracy research, argued that followers of African leaders do not disapprove of the sacrilege committed by their leaders but rather support it out of primordial solidarity; some benefit directly from the system.
Still, the primacy of leadership anywhere in inspiring the confidence of the people, in setting a development agenda, and in defining a moral climate for the larger society based on a regime of sanctions and rewards cannot be overlooked. Africans generally, however, have a fundamentally flawed view of leadership, whether in the private or the public sector. They see leadership from the royalty prism, equating with it bigmanism and all manner of ostentation. Our leaders are expected by society to wear fancy, flowing clothes with big caps and expensive bangles and trinkets, and move in long and expensive motorcades, with large contingents of praise singers, as well as security and protocol officers—all at public expense!
That’s why we are delighted to see something different coming from Akwa Ibom State. The new governor, Umo Eno, flies Ibom Air, rather than use the existing state government-owned private jet. This is in contrast to the practice of most of his contemporaries who consider it infra dig to travel by commercial planes, even when the Singaporean prime minister travels always by commercial flights, to say nothing about Scandinavian leaders who frequently fly budget airlines or use the economy class in overseas trips.
In his famous memoir, From the Third World to First: The Story of Singapore Since 1965, Lee Kuan Yew, arguably the most important transformative leader since the Second World War, expresses shock that African rulers attended the 1980 Commonwealth Summit in Ottawa, Canada, with their presidential jets. To exacerbate matters, they were asking for aid for their countries from such foreign leaders as the United Kingdom prime minister who arrived by commercial airlines. African rulers appropriate more and more for themselves even when the resources of their countries are depleting fast.
Leaders who are so callously selfish are referred to in modern social science theory as operating the self-protective leadership style, a term coined in 2004 when 97 social scientists from 62 cultures led by (the late) Robert House of Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania produced a path-breaking book on the effects of cultural values on leadership styles across the world. In his excellent book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap, and Some Don’t, Jim Collins, formerly a Standford Business School professor, shows that American organisations which indulged in this practice in the 1980s performed suboptimally—some actually crumbled. Any wonder why Nigeria and the rest of Africa are in a development morass?
I was pleasantly surprised to watch on television Governor Umo hold the umbrella while speaking to people when it was drizzling. The umbrella could have been handed over to his aide de camp (ADC), orderly, or any of the numerous security and protocol officers which every Nigerian governor has. But he was making a point: leadership is about service, and not lording it over your people. The leader has to serve, and not to be served (Matthew 20: 28). Servant leadership is now a buzzword, but in Africa, it is observed more in the breach. Servant leadership is about humility; it is taken straight from the New Testament where Jesus Christ chose to wash the feet of his apostles instead of the other way (See John 3: 1-5).
If only Africans knew that the most successful leaders are frequently the simplest and the humblest, former Delta State governor James Ibori would not have chosen the jawbreaking but meaningless sobriquet of Odidigborigbo of Africa. Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo would not have elected to be known as the Redeemer of his people. Nor would Idi Amin of Uganda, a barely literate person, have announced himself the head of the political science department at Makerere University, in addition to making himself a field marshall. Bola Tinubu would not have allowed about 100 blackened SUVs to accompany him from Lagos Aiport to his residence in Ikoyi, a distance of only 28 kilometres, at a time of extreme economic difficulties. Nigerians will always miss Donald Duke, Lateef Jakande, and Babatunde Fashola in public office.
He may not have coined the term, but Steve Jobs, co-founder and chairman of Apple Incorporated, one of the most admired and storied firms in recent decades, popularised the idea that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. In his absorbing book entitled The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation, Jay Elliot, the human resource and operations team lead at Apple, reveals how Jobs wanted an atmosphere at Apple where any of the 100,000 staff members worldwide could approach him in the office without going through the secretary!
Jobs was so obsessed with simplicity that iPad, which he invented, could be operated within minutes by an illiterate Colombian teenager who had never touched a computer, as reported in Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Jobs’ critical biographer who is a history professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, after working as editor in chief of Time magazine and serving as president of the Aspen Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. The simplicity of Apple products is a chief reason why Apple has hypnotised the world. Simplicity (and humility) is not just personal virtue but also critical management and leadership requirement.
Governor Eno says he is on a mission to demystify leadership. It is a noble enterprise. But he doesn’t need uniformed security around him. He needs to learn from Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo. There are no security officers in uniform around foreign leaders who are, of course, far better protected than African rulers. All the same, signals from Akwa Ibom State so far are encouraging.
At the recent development conference in Uyo, Eno chose the best from different parts of Nigeria, regardless of their political, sectional, or religious affiliations, to participate in it. Bart Nnaji from Enugu State, a globally renowned engineering professor and chairman of the Geometric Power group whose only one-year tenure as the Minister of Power remains Nigeria’s gold standard, chaired the breakout session on power and is now assisting the state with an electricity development roadmap.
There is still hope for Nigeria.
Adinuba, the immediate past Commissioner for Information & Public Enlightenment in Anambra State, is head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting, Lagos.
Tinubu broke jinx by appointing Wike FCT Minister – Oshiomhole
Edo North Senator, Adams Oshiomhole, has said President Bola Tinubu broke a jinx by appointing Nyesom Wike as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
Oshiomhole said Tinubu’s decision to appoint Wike as FCT Minister was ground-breaking.
Addressing journalists on Wednesday, Oshiomhole said Tinubu gave every part of Nigeria hope with his ministerial appointment.
He also noted that President Bola Tinubu should be credited for fixing what former Presidents could not do.
Oshiomhole assured Nigerians that Tinubu was already laying a solid foundation for the development of the country.
According to Oshiomhole said: “May this government be credited as the one that fixed what others could not fix. This will not be a government of lamentation, but one that will do what others failed to do.
“This singular move shows that anyone can become the minister regardless of their birthplace, tongue and dialect.
“For me, one of the ground-breaking decisions President Tinubu has taken is to give every part of Nigeria a hope that regardless of your birthplace, tongue or dialect, you can be the Minister of the FCT.”
[DailyPost]
Lagos Assembly rejects 17 of Gov. Sanwo Olu’s 39 cabinet nominees
The Lagos State House of Assembly made a decision to decline confirmation for 17 out of the 39 nominees for commissioners and special advisers who had been put forth for screening by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
Among the governor’s selections, only 22 cabinet nominees were granted confirmation by the Assembly.
Prominent figures among those not selected include Gbenga Omotoso, who previously served as the Commissioner for Information and Strategy; Prof. Akin Abayomi, the former Health Commissioner; as well as Sam Egube, the former Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, among others.
Details later...
[Nairametrics]
Tobi Amusan qualifies for 100m hurdles final at World Championships
Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan has qualified for the final of the 100m hurdles event at the ongoing World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Amusan, running in lane seven, won the second semi-final with a time of 12:56 seconds despite having a slow start.
Ackera Nugent enjoyed an early lead before Amusan snatched victory at the finishing line.
The reigning NCAA Champion who clocked 12.60 seconds eventually settled for the 2nd position which was also enough for an automatic qualification for the final.
Amusan who is the world record holder in the event is seeking to defend the title she won last year in Oregon.
Though the build up to the World Championships has been challenging for Amusan, she remains determined to prove her last year performance is not a fluke.
On Wednesday, running in Heat 5, Amusan also won her race and she is now looking all fired up for Thursday’s final race.
Predictably, the usual suspects that will be giving Amusan a run for her money in the final also made it through on Wednesday.
Former World record holder Kendra Harrison won the first semifinal race in 12.33s as Jasmine Camacho-Quinn took Heat 3 in 12.41s, ahead of Nia Ali in 12.49s.
Many are hopeful Amusan is saving the best for the last as it appears her rivals have all posted faster times in Budapest than she had done in her two races so far.
In her characteristic way, Amusan says she is not under any pressure and is ready to take each race as it comes.
[Premium Times]
North-East: US commits $9 million support to natural disaster victims
The United States government, through the US Agency for International Development, is providing $9 million in humanitarian assistance to bolster disaster response efforts in North-East Nigeria.
This was contained in a statement by the US embassy in Nigeria and made available to our correspondent on Wednesday.
Through the United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration, the funds will provide emergency shelter, water and sanitation, psychosocial support services, and cash to populations affected by floods from the ongoing rainy season across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states.
In addition, the funds will provide critical life-saving assistance to populations affected by other natural disasters such as fire or climate-related shocks.
In 2022, Nigeria witnessed the worst flooding in more than a decade, which affected 4.4 million people, displaced over 2.4 million people, and killed over 600 people.
As the United States Mission to Nigeria announced in October and December 2022, the U.S. Government provided $6 million in life-saving aid to support the people affected by last year’s devastating floods.
The statement reads, “This included $1.75 million to the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies in partnership with the Nigerian Red Cross Society; $2.5 million to the International Organization for Migration; and $1.75 million divided among Save the Children, FHI360, and Intersos.
“These agencies used the funds to reach more than 225,000 people in seven highly affected states with critical aid.
“The assistance included emergency shelter repair kits, water and sanitation purification tablets to protect against waterborne diseases, hygiene kits to promote safe and healthy practices, and multipurpose cash for families to purchase what they need to recover,” the statement said in part.
In its 2023 Seasonal Rainfall Prediction, the Nigeria Meteorological Agency indicated that earlier than the normal onset of rainfall this year could put 4.2 million people at risk of flood-related impacts.
In light of this, the new $9 million U.S. Government assistance will bolster community preparedness and strengthen vulnerable people’s ability to cope with the impact of natural disasters.
The USAID Mission Director, Dr. Anne Patterson said, “The United States will continue to stand with the people of Nigeria to mitigate the effects of climate change and address the impacts of more frequent natural disasters. We have a long history of providing humanitarian assistance across the country.”
From 2021 to 2022 alone, the United States provided over $356 million in lifesaving, multi-sector assistance to people most affected by conflict and food insecurity.
[Punch]
[OPINION] Now that the Ministers are empanelled… - Bola Bolawole
On Monday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu welcomed 45 out of 48 Ministers, with just three more to complete his bloated cabinet. Hours before their inauguration, some Ministers-designate swapped offices. Should we call that cabinet reshuffle or what? Or is it another sign of the ill-preparedness of the president to govern, as some critics have suggested? While it is damn too early to categorically affirm such a thing, the morning, as they say, shows the day. So, the president must watch it. He needs to put his acts together. Too many unforced errors make even the best of tennis players lose a match.
As I watched the Ministers take their oath of office last Monday, my heart went to the immediate past two-term governor of Kaduna state, petit Nasir el-Rufai, who was dropped in controversial circumstances. Some reports said he was not cleared by the Directorate of State Security (DSS) in what some other sources described as high-wired politicking within the Tinubu presidency. Sources said that a cabal has already coalesced within the less-than-three-month-old Tinubu administration and that it is this cabal that orchestrated the DSS report that unhinged el-Rufai’s ministerial ambition. Reports also have it that preparations and permutations for the 2027 and 2031 presidential elections are already in top gear. Some other sources said the fear of any eventuality in the presidency (God forbid bad thing!) is also already receiving serious and urgent attention from those who are eager to position themselves to reap bountifully from it – if it happens. So, any would-be opponent must be put at an arm’s length.
It is difficult to say at this point which is true but one thing that is certain is that there are usually competing forces and centres of influence and power in any administration. The Tinubu administration will not be different. At different times, one centre will be dominant and will use that advantage to clip the wings of others and establish its suzerainty. At other times, depending on shifting alliances and circumstances, a dominant group may miscalculate or be unhinged by forces beyond its control and lose relevance and have its power and influence whittled down and another cabal group may overrun it. So, those that were dominant yesterday may become less relevant today. The powers-that-be yesterday, the untouchables, may become featherweights who are easily disposable today. Yesterday’s assets may become liabilities today. Such is the way of politics and politicians!
Some sources said that is what has happened to el-Rufai. He was courted and reverenced during the campaign, both for the APC presidential flag and the presidential election proper. He was a beautiful bride. He was also the “ajantala” boy whose dare-devilry helped to whip the then President Muhammadu Buhari and other APC top shots in line to reluctantly support Tinubu’s presidential aspiration. Remember that he even led some other governors to drag the Federal Government and the then CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, to court over their Naira colour change policy. Truth be told, el-Rufai did a lot for Tinubu; whether his reasons are altruistic or not, as some have alleged, I cannot say. It may be that el-Rufai wanted to put Tinubu and his government in his pocket! One thing I am certain about, though, is that the political enemies of el-Rufai had their game plan up their sleeves even when the then Kaduna state governor was gallivanting up and down selling the candidacy of Tinubu; they knew that once the goods are delivered, they will throw the enfant terrible under the bus! Whether this was also the thinking of Tinubu, I cannot now say!
Unfortunately for el-Rufai, he has a reputation that has travelled far ahead of him as an alleged serial betrayer. They said he betrayed Atiku Abubaka who brought him to Olusegun Obasanjo; that he betrayed Obasanjo and also betrayed Goodluck Jonathan; that he betrayed Buhari and would, in time, betray Tinubu. Under his governorship, Kaduna state in general and the south of it became a killing field. Some have said they hold him, his utterances and the policies of his government accountable. In his second term, he discarded the Muslim/Christian ticket and settled for a Muslim/Muslim ticket. Many also fingered him as having something to say about the influx of killer herdsmen into the country. Could these, then, be what his enemies unearthed to have him unhinged? Even at that, he still has my sympathies. He had gathered a team and was already working behind the scene as Minister of Power and Gas before the bombs exploded in his face. What now happens to the assemblage of talents he was already working with? Will the (new) ministers of Power and Gas take them over and continue where el-Rufai had stopped?
I also feel for the Minister-designate for Kano state, Dr. Maryam Shetty, who was dropped at the 11th hour. Congratulatory messages must have started flooding her phone lines. Application letters to be her aide in this or that capacity must have filled a bedroom. “Aso-ebi” to celebrate and committees to welcome her from Abuja back to Kano or whichever is her village must have been set up – only for the rug to be pulled from under her feet! If we understand the case of el-Rufai, what was this woman’s own offence? Sources said her case was elimination by association; that it was hire-wired politicking between Rabiu Kwankwaso/New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje/APC. The latter had overhauled the former in the last governorship election in Kano but Ganduje is today the APC chairman. Dr. Shetty is said to have been Kwankwaso’s nominee but Ganduje would have none of it! How can Kwankwaso have the governor and also have the Minister? The same Kwankwaso was encouraged to work for Tinubu during the presidential election and he helped deliver votes to Tinubu/APC. But that now belongs in the past! An aggrieved Kwankwaso has since started hobnobbing with Atiku Abubakar.
Now that most of the ministers are in place, we should see less of knee jerk policies like “subsidy is gone” and floating of the Naira, twin policies that have made life miserable for ordinary Nigerians. With the way the floated Naira is tumbling at the parallel market, despite the effete “shakara” of the government, and its attendant effect on market prices, including that of petroleum products, transportation costs and foodstuffs, Nigerians are wondering whether this government will not be forced to retrace its steps and do a policy summersault. The politicians are on board now; they are in a position, more than the technocrats, to speak to the president in the language he will understand. If a policy is not working, review, rethink and rework it. Laws are made for man; not man for the law.
So far, I am impressed about two things: Tinubu appears to listen and act on public opinion, which was not the case with Buhari. He has acted on criticisms of some of his policies, which is good. He is making efforts to solve the problems that Buhari mindlessly created, even if some of the policies he has enunciated so far may not have had the desired impact. This is far better than Buhari who was laidback, who was piling one problem on top of another without solving any; and who picked his teeth and threw his hand up in resignation while his aides looted the treasury with reckless abandon.
Let Tinubu tell us what mandate he gave each Minister. We need to know so that, together, we can hold their feet to the fire. So far, all we know is that it seems Tinubu has deleted the fight against corruption from the three-pronged agenda he inherited from Buhari, leaving him with the fight against insecurity and rescuing and reshaping the economy. A man ought not to deceive himself! With Gandu-Dollar as party chairman, Akpabio as Senate president and Tinubu’s own antecedents, Mr. President will be a laughing stock if he tells anyone he will fight corruption! That is not to say, however, that he cannot and should not. Without taming corruption, no policy will work effectively and not much progress will be made. If Buhari was wrong in all things, he got it right when he said corruption will kill Nigeria if Nigeria does not (quickly) kill corruption. Had Nigerians heeded that clarion call and Buhari himself had been made an object lesson, we would not have been in the mess we are in today.
Why Wike stole the show
Former two-term governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike, expectedly stole the show at the swearing-in of Ministers. Say whatever you like, it was an indication that the man is popular. His person or politics or both resonate with the people. Every government needs such personalities in its fold. So, it would have been a minus for Tinubu had Wike missed the ministerial list. Should Wike now defect to the APC? I think he should not! Let him remain in the PDP and continue to torture, torment and unsettle them there! So he can also continue to sing his song: As e dey pain them/E dey sweet us/As he dey sweet us/E dey pain dem” Politics, like writing (journalism) is also about entertainment!