Super Eagles winger, Samuel Chukwueze will wear number 21 at his new club, AC Milan, DAILY POST reports.

The Nigeria international arrived Milan on Wednesday and underwent his medicals with the seven-time European champions at the La Madonnina Clinic.

The electric winger revealed his squad number for next season by writing the number 21 on a shoe he was handed for his signature by a Milan fan.

The shirt was last worn by former AC Milan and Italy midfielder, Andrea Pirlo.

Chukwueze is expected to be unveiled on Thursday (today) by the Rooseneri.

The 24-year-old arrived at AC Milan from LaLiga side Villarreal.

Chukwueze will sign a five-year contract, while Villarreal will receive €28m, including add-ons for the player.

[DailyPost]

The federal government has reacted to the seven-day ultimatum issued by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to embark on a nationwide strike over the hike in the price of petrol and the high cost of living in the country.

On Wednesday, NLC issued a seven-day ultimatum to the federal government to reverse all “anti-poor” and “insensitive” policies.

The policies, the union said, include the recent hike in the price of petrol, and the sudden increase in public school fees, among others.

In the communique signed by Joe Ajaero, NLC president, and Emmanuel Ugboaja, the union’s general secretary, the union accused the federal government of showing enormous disdain and contempt for the Nigerian people and declared a war of attrition on citizens.

However, in a statement, B.E Jedy-Agba, the permanent secretary at the ministry of justice, said the union is restrained by the order of the national industrial court from embarking on any strike regarding the removal of petrol subsidy.

She said the court had on June 5 granted an injunctive order restraining the NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC) “from embarking on the planned industrial action/or strike of any nature, pending the hearing and determination of the pending motion on notice”.

Jedy-Agba advised the union to explore other means of negotiations with the federal government rather than “resorting to self-help and undermining the orders of the court”.

“It is noted that the issues (removal of fuel subsidy, hike in prices of petrol and consequential increase in the cost of living, etc) which precipitated the above court action are the very same issues over which NLC has now issued another strike notice,” the statement reads.

“The NLC has submitted to the jurisdiction of the court and is being represented by the reputable law firm of Femi Falana, SAN. It is therefore our minimum expectation that the NLC will allow the courts to perform their constitutional roles rather than resorting to self-help and undermining the orders of the court.

“We note with dismay that this latest strike notice is consistent with the inexplicable disdain which the NLC leadership has visited on the authority of the court in recent times following earlier inciting and derogatory remarks made by the NLC president against the court.

“Aside from the above legal inhibition against any strike action of any nature, we also note that both the federal and state governments are engaging with stakeholders to cushion the collateral effect of the removal of fuel subsidy and increment in fuel price.

“It would be a great act of service to Nigerian workers and the nation’s economy for NLC to explore negotiations rather than embark on any strike action.”

[TheCable]

Since the ill-fated night of October 20, 2020, the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration has heavily invested in propagating its version of what went down. One press release issued by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr Olusegun Ogboye, to deflate the outrage following the leaked memo revealing that the Lagos State Government planned a mass burial for the 103 victims of the 2020 #EndSARS violence punched a hole in one of their strongest arguments. From the Dis-Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, to state officials who traversed the news media circuits over the Lekki toll gate incident, one of their most vehement defences was that many deaths could not have occurred as claimed without families coming forward to claim their losses. It took only three years for the government to inadvertently confirm that some of us are actually officially faceless, nameless, disconnected from kith and kin, and can be disposed of like nothing.

As one has come to expect of Nigerian bureaucratic riposte to public disquiet, the Lagos press release on the mass burial Ogboye followed the standard format of prefacing the point with feigned anger at a misinformed public, pejoratively schooling people for what they got wrong, finally making the expected point, and rounding off with a scold. Apart from not departing from this pattern, they were also more concerned with responding to those they consider mischief-makers than reflecting on the moral import of 103 people (and likely more) dying in a single day in a single city. The way the government glibly stated that they picked up their bodies in several neighbourhoods around the city, one would be forgiven for thinking these people were merely a herd of cows struck by thunder while grazing.

If the feverish explanations of Lagos State officials fail to convince anyone of their sincerity, it is because we are reeling at the horror of the city as a sprawling necropolis. So many lives can be lost, and the government cannot stretch itself to dignify them by at least finding out their identity and killers? It must be far much easier to stick people in the ground and forget them than to take the trouble to come to terms with the cheapness of life and death under your administrative watch.

Ogboye’s write-up concludes interestingly: The government, therefore, appeals to social media rumour mongers to please allow the hapless families of the unclaimed loved ones a deserved closure. Such self-contradiction! If the whole point of mass burying 103 people is because nobody came forward to claim them, then who are these “hapless families” getting “deserved closure” on whose behalf you are appealing for sensitivity? What kind of emotional closure is possible for the families who are still out there unknowing of the fate of their deceased, and will probably never know now that those people will be undistinguishably buried in an unmarked grave with many others? If the state had truly believed some families out there deserved closure, it would have tried harder.

Tomorrow, 28^th July, will mark exactly five months since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was elected. Yet he still does not have his cabinet in place. This says a great deal about his preparedness for office as well as the nature of ministerial appointments in our country. If the basis for appointment was about service to the people and delivering the public good, the issue of ‘pressure’ to which we hear the president is being subjected (an excuse for the delay) should not arise. But perhaps we should cut the president some slack. The Constitution which makes it mandatory that a minister must come from every state already presupposes that such appointment is little more than a distribution of spoils.  

Going by Section 42 of the 1999 constitution (as amended) “the nomination of any person to the office of a minister for confirmation by the senate shall be done within sixty days after the date the president has taken the oath of office”. With that provision, the president has only until tomorrow to submit his ministerial list to the Senate. Since the Senate ordinarily does not sit on Friday, it then goes without saying that the list must be released today. But the entire process has become ridiculous. Aside the blatant lobbying by individuals and groups in the media, there are also reports that religious clerics and marabouts are making a killing to ensure that certain names emerge on this list that can catapult someone from penury to prosperity. After all, we know those who used to travel by Night Bus and now travel by Private Jet, simply because they were once on ‘The List’!  

On Monday, I was the reviewer at the public presentation of a book, ‘Reclaiming the Jewel of Africa’ by former Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Olusegun Aganga. The keynote speech was delivered by President Olusegun Obasanjo. He spoke about so many things but of particular interest is this line: “If you ask most of our leaders why they want to be in the position they are craving for, you will weep for your nation over their level of emptiness as far as development issues are concerned.” While that may be true, there are those who would also argue that the tone was set by President Obasanjo’s government. 

When in 1999, he chose Second Republic Governor of the old Oyo State (now Oyo and Osun), the late Chief Bola Ige, among his ministers, not a few people were surprised. Even though Ige was played out of the presidential ticket of the opposition Alliance for Democracy (the dominant party in the Southwest) which he formed along with others, it was clear that working in a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government was bound to be problematic for the famed ‘Cicero of Esa Oke’. When he started to attack the then ruling party, it did not sit well with some, including his former deputy, Chief Sunday Afolabi (now deceased), who was also a minister. It was Afolabi who made the Freudian Slip about public service in Nigeria while attacking Ige. He said: “The PDP wanted Bola Ige to come and eat. I don’t believe we have done something wrong to warrant such insults from him. Although President Obasanjo is not bothered, we have to tell him (Ige) to stop insulting us.” Ige of course shot back that he was invited to government to serve, wondering what Afolabi was ‘eating’ in his own ministry.  

Meanwhile, as it is with the federal government, so it is in the states. In Osun State for instance, Governor Ademola Adeleke is currently being accused of appointing into his cabinet a nephew who graduated from the family’s (Adeleke) University just two years ago—“a boy who has never worked before who goes about in dreadlock to direct the affairs of our Osun State local government service commission.” I don’t know what crime the governor has committed by offering a big job (and plenty of ‘food’) for his young and inexperienced nephew. 

Of course, what concerns the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) is that the list of commissioners contains seven Muslims and 17 Christians. “We condemn this wanton blockage of privileges that should go to Muslims and their diversion to over-pampered and over-fed Christians in Osun State,” an angry MURIC Executive Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, wrote in his statement. “By deceiving Muslims in the state and engaging in spiritual hide and seek, Governor Adeleke has exhibited qualities odoriferously short in honour and dignity but egregiously long in infamy and bohemianism.” 

Stripped of all the ‘odoriferously bohemianism’, what Akintola is telling us is that you cannot allow some to be ‘over-fed’ from public treasuries while encouraging ‘blockage of privileges’ for others. Unfortunately, it is this misunderstanding of public service that accounts for the state of our nation today. The challenge of leadership in Nigeria is also based on this warped notion that being elected or appointed to public office is simply to find ‘something to eat’. The misallocation of scarce resources that follows most of these appointments can then be easily explained by the same logic. When in April 2020 former Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State approved the appointment of 427 additional aides to join more than a thousand special assistants already working for him, this was the explanation from his spokesman, Christian Ita: “The governor has said repeatedly that he only needs about five per cent of his appointees. So, he deliberately creates these jobs to put food on the table so as to reduce social tension.” 

But we should not blame Ayade for using public offices to ‘put food on the table’ for cronies. That is the philosophical underpinning for government in Nigeria.  Which is why it is always about ‘sharing the national cake’, and not baking it. Leo Tolstoy’s ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’, Chinua Achebe’s‘No Longer at Ease’ and George Orwell’s classic, ‘Shooting an Elephant’, are popular literature in Aspen Institute Leadership classes. They are also standard readings in the seminar series of the Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI) founded in 2006 by Aganga. While the first is used to interrogate the place of greed in the public arena, the other two speak to public expectation and the kind of pressure elected and appointed officials face, especially in an environment like ours. I have interrogated this issue before and will come back to it in future. But for now, all eyes are on the Villa and the Senate. 

After weeks and months of waiting, ‘The List’ will finally be out today. And we are going to witness congratulatory messages for these eminent Nigerians. Yet, it is trite to say that our country is today going through one of the most difficult periods in our history. And if only for that reason, I hope the men and women who make ‘The List’ for the next federal executive council will be those who will contribute ideas to improve the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people and influence social change. God save us from the perpetually ‘hungry’ characters who are always looking for what to ‘eat’! 

The Emefiele Lesson 

There is a scene in ‘The Queen’, a multiple award winning 2006 British film starring Helen Mirren, that I love so much. The fictional account of the drama at Buckingham palace, following the death of Princess Diana, is a lesson for all power handlers. While Queen Elizabeth II (now of blessed memory) saw Diana’s death as a private family affair, then newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair exploited the situation by reflecting the public’s wish for an official expression of grief. This instantly earned Blair public acclamation while the Queen became so unpopular that many were even calling for the abrogation of the monarchy.  

In the instructive dialogue from the encounter (as depicted in the film), the Queen had asked Blair, “You don’t think that the affection people once had for me, for this institution, has been diminished?” The PM replied, “No, not at all. You are more respected now than ever.” Apparently fishing for information, the Queen then said, “I gather some of your closest advisers were less fulsome in their support.” To this, Blair replied, “One or two but as a leader, I could never have added my voice to that chorus.” The Queen was unrelenting: “Because you saw all those headlines and you thought: ‘One day this might happen to me’…” Before the PM could respond, the Queen added, “…and it will, Mr. Blair; quite suddenly and without warning.” 

The message speaks to the transient nature of power and how fortunes can change. But that is a lesson those who hold the levers of power in Nigeria never seem to learn. They believe they are invincible until they lose out in the power game. In an untidy bid to rearrest the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, after he had been granted bail by the Federal High Court on Tuesday, hooded operatives of the Directorate of State Security (DSS) engaged officials of the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCoS) in a physical scuffle. They pushed and dragged the NCoS squadron commander out of the courtroom, molesting him in the process. In the sordid drama that played out in an open court, it was almost as if Emefiele was a merchandise. This clear abuse of power is being orchestrated by some who believe they are now above the law. And that what they are doing to Emefiele can never happen to them. They must be poor students of history.

Just about six months ago, Emefiele himself defied the Supreme Court ruling that the deadline for exchanging old banknotes for the so-called redesigned notes be extended. Emefiele considered himself to be above the law at a time many Nigerians were suffering from his Naira confiscation policy. Today, the emperor is naked. But as I wrote in my column last week, we must see beyond the person of Emefiele on this matter if we are to build a society governed by law and order. What is happening to the suspended CBN Governor is neither right nor defensible, whatever may be our feelings about him. 

Under democracy and the rule of law, as I pointed out last week, accused persons are presumed innocent until evidence is adduced in a court of law to secure conviction. Revenge, as I also stated, is not the same thing as justice and state institutions should not be used for such perversion. The lesson is simple, when the most fundamental element and requirement of a civilized society, the rule of law, is trampled upon, we all have no defence against tyranny.  

Since democracy is built on the principle of rule of law, no agency of government (or their heads) should be allowed to take the law into their hands on any issue. Besides, when those who ordinarily should enforce the law begin to treat court orders with impunity, anarchy is not too far away. I hope President Tinubu and his handlers can see beyond the person of Emefiele to the danger posed to the larger society by their contempt for a court order. 

The Enugu State Government has reacted to Wednesday’s protest by traders of the popular Ogbete Main Market, saying they “defied the instruction on how the shops should be re-opened and resorted to self-help by removing the seals”.

The state government’s reaction to the protest which halted commercial activities in the capital city was contained in a statement by the Secretary to the State Government, Chidiebere Onyia.

Channels Television reported that at least two were reportedly killed as traders protested the sealing off of their shops by the state government for observing the illegal Monday sit-at-home order by a faction of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

According to the government, the ensuing confrontation resulted in a protest, which they said was infiltrated and hijacked by “dangerously armed hoodlums and miscreants, who broke shops and looted traders’ wares.”

It added that attempts by security operatives to restore order and prevent further looting were violently resisted by “the imported and armed hoodlums.”A video grab showing an officer of the Enugu State Capital Territory Development Authority (ECTDA) sealing a shop on Monday, July 24, 2023 in line with the government’s clampdown on the IPOB sit-at-home order in Enugu State.

The state government also said that it is receiving further briefings on the development, adding that investigation to unravel the circumstance surrounding the incident, including the reports of casualty, is already ongoing.

It called on the people and residents of Enugu to remain calm and go about their lawful businesses, as adequate security measures were in place to secure lives and property in the state.

The state government had earlier warned that it would seal off shops of those who refuse to open business on Monday in the name of sit-at-home.

In protest, traders whose business premises were sealed trooped out on Wednesday to express their displeasure over the development.

It resulted in a clash with the police who came out to disperse them from the streets.

[Channels TV]

Canada has picked up its first win at the Women's World Cup.

Adriana Leon's 53rd-minute goal helped Canada pull out a 2-1 victory over Ireland.

The Irish took a 1-0 lead just four minutes in thanks to Katie McCabe.

But an own goal just before halftime allowed Canada to tie things up.

London, Ont. native Jessie Fleming captained the side and came into the starting lineup after having missed the Nigeria game with a calf injury.

The Canadians were coming off a scoreless draw against Nigeria in their opener.

[london.ctvnews]

On behalf of all Nigerians, President Bola Tinubu extends best wishes to the Super Falcons as they prepare to face Australia in their second group match at the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023.
 
The President, like other football-loving Nigerians, takes immense pride in the Super Falcons’ impressive performance in the opening match against Canada, a formidable opponent and the reigning Olympic Champion.
 
He firmly believes that the upcoming match on Thursday will be a thrilling encounter that will culminate in victory for the Nigerian team.
 
Acknowledging the Super Falcons’ remarkable achievements as a dominant force in women’s football in Africa, President Tinubu is confident that the blending of new talents with seasoned veterans will propel Nigeria’s success in women’s football to even greater heights in this tournament.
 
He assures the players and the coaching crew of the enthusiastic support of all Nigerians, urging the team to continue exemplifying Nigeria’s spirit of determination and excellence both on and off the pitch, serving as worthy ambassadors of the nation.

[NTA]

The chairman of the Federal Character Commission, Muheeba Dankaka, has finally appeared before the House of Representatives Investigative Committee after the threat of sanctions.

She appeared before the committee on Wednesday and alleged that government officials are notorious for selling job slots.

“Before I came to this place, they were selling slots. The place was like a market, and you can find out from people who live in Abuja if I am lying.

“When I came in, I met all the commissioners, and I told them that they gave us the Qur’an [to swear on]. I don’t want anything that would destroy me or my family,” she stated.

DAILY POST recalls that Mrs Dankaka was scheduled to appear before the committee on Tuesday but claimed that she had a medical appointment.

She was, however, countered by some FCC commissioners, who said she lied about her health status to avoid appearing before the committee.

The chairman of the committee, Yusuf Gagdi, subsequently summoned the Head of Service and Chairman of the Civil Service Commission.

[DailyPost]