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A British family law firm is urging couples to take a “compatibility quiz” before getting married or deciding to live together.

Bross Bennett’s
compatibility test focuses on key questions about finances, family
ties, children and aspirations that most couples struggle with and
might have to answer anyway if their marriage breaks down and they end
up divorcing.

Partner Ruth Bross
compared taking the quiz to the kind of considerations and research an
employer might make before hiring someone.

“No one who is
truly committed to a relationship will ever mind making the full and
frank disclosure that is asked of them; if they do, you might like to
ask yourself why,” she said in an emailed statement containing the quiz.

The quiz asks
about assets and how each party would like to share them, what kind of
relationships they have with their extended family and friends, whether
they want children, their religious views, spending habits and career
plans:

A copy of the quiz is below:

Finance

Do you know the
extent of each other’s assets? How do you both view the sharing of
these assets? Do you have the same attitude to saving?

Will one of you want to put into a pension what the other wants to put into a new car?

Will you pool your
resources or do you want to keep everything separate? Joint accounts or
separate? Will you contribute in proportion to your incomes, or equally?

Are you going to have to pay off your partner’s debts perhaps from what you thought was going to be the deposit on your house?

Family Ties

What sort of
relationship do you have with your extended family? Are they good at
staying in touch? Are they local? Affectionate? Over-involved? Have you
had any major fallings out?

Children

Do you want
children? How many? How do you want to raise your children? What sort
of values do you want to pass on? Do you have opposing views about the
benefits of state versus private education — and should you be
thinking now about buying in a catchment area for a good state school?

Religion

What are your
religious views — do you agree on what religion you will bring up the
children in? Church/mosque/synagogue? Once a week or once a year? Or no
religion at all.

Leisure and fun

Do you like doing
the same things in your spare time? Do you share common interests? Is
your idea of a holiday lying flat on the beach for two weeks and your
partner’s rock-climbing?

Lifestyle

What sort of
lifestyle are you aiming for? Where do you want to live? Do either of
you have a dream of downsizing at some point and living away from the
city?

Spending

Do you have an
expensive shoe or gadget habit? Does one of you think of a particular
purchase as an essential that the other regards as a “discretionary
spend”? Do you have any other secret addictions: handbags, chocolate,
football? Do you gamble, online or otherwise?

Work

Are your
respective career paths compatible; is either of you going to have to
make compromises? Are you prepared to? Will you want to give up work
when you have children? What does your partner think about this and can
you manage financially? What about part-time working?

Roles – traditional or modern?

Will you expect to
live along traditional lines: woman as homemaker and man as
breadwinner? Who will organise the finances? Will household
responsibilities be shared equally? Who will assume responsibility for
paying bills?

Honesty

Are there any old flames for whom you still hold a candle?

When Nigeria’s former military
president Ibrahim Babangida was forced to ‘step aside’ in 1993 after
eight years in office, he retired to his palatial hilltop mansion in
Minna. He left office as one of the most unpopular personalities in the
country. Similarly, when former president Olusegun Obasanjo left office
after eight years in 2007, he retired to another hilltop palace in
Abeokuta, also highly unpopular. By contrast, when Brazil’s former
president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva or “Lula” left office after eight
years with approval ratings of 80 percent, he retired to a nondescript
apartment in Rio de Janeiro.

At the time Babangida left office, the
country was in serious political and economic turmoil after the longest
political transition anywhere in the world. It is true that his
administration initiated some positive reforms, but the toga of
corruption that hung over his government left a shadow of doubt about
the efficacy and sustainability of some of those reforms. Whatever
vestige of a legacy he had left was eroded by his annulment of the June
12, 1993 presidential elections.

Similarly, credit (if grudgingly) must
be given to some of the initiatives of the Obasanjo administration.
However, the massive corruption that also characterized his
administration and failure to improve infrastructure, particularly
roads and power left serious credibility gaps. The major undoing of
Obasanjo, as with Babangida, was his desire to hang on to power at all
cost. And like Babangida before him, history will not judge them by
what little they achieved, but by their failed bids to remain in power
against popular sentiment and the damage they both inflicted on our
democracy. At least, they both have their huge hilltop (if largely
empty) mansions to console them.

Compare these two leaders to Brazil’s
Lula and one can only reiterate what Chinua Achebe said: Nigeria’s
problem is that of leadership. Before Lula became president, Brazil was
known for its world-class footballers, beautiful beaches and as the
biggest debtor nation in the world. Beneath these facts also lay the
truth that the country had one of the widest economic apartheids in the
world: less than five percent of the country’s elite owned or
controlled over 95 percent of Brazil’s wealth.

Incidentally, Nigeria and Brazil share
certain similarities. (Brazil and Nigeria were joined before being torn
apart by primordial geologic forces). Brazil has the largest population
in South America while Nigeria has the largest population in Africa;
both estimated to hit 200 million soon. Both countries suffered
military intervention in politics. Both countries also have cultural
and ethnic diversities and with huge swathes of the population living
in poverty. Then God gave Brazil Lula. Or put another way, they
discarded primeval instincts and elected a patriot.

Lula created many highly successful
anti-poverty programmes, such as Bolsa Família (Family Allowance) and
Fome Zero (Zero Hunger). Financial aid was given to more than 12
million poor Brazilian families on condition that their children attend
school and get vaccinated. This has become the largest conditional cash
transfer programme in the world, and has reduced poverty in Brazil by
more than 27%. Lula has transformed Brazil from one of the world’s
largest foreign debtor nations to a net creditor.

Brazil is set to overtake France and
the United Kingdom as the world’s fifth-largest economy as early as
2025. And with Rio de Janeiro having won the right to host the football
World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, more development will take
place. With transparent leadership, Brazil is firing on all cylinders
and is currently one of the fastest growing economies in the world. And
that is just the beginning for a country that has vast tourism and
industrial potential. The economy is not dependent on crude oil alone.
Embraer (ERJ) is Brazilian company and is now the world’s third-largest
manufacturer of passenger jets after Boeing and Airbus.

Once the most debt-ridden country in
the world, Brazil’s fiscal budget is now in surplus- she is a net
creditor. Brazil boasts large-trade surpluses and foreign reserves of
about $300 billion. Brazil today is the world’s largest exporter of
coffee, sugar, chicken, beef and orange juice. In recent years, the
country has become the second-biggest destination for foreign direct
investment into developing countries after China.

The message is simple: as the elections
approach, we must elect the candidate that is closest to Lula in terms
of honesty, patriotism and simplicity. Religion and ethnicity must not
befuddle our thinking. One inspired leader can make all the difference.

There is a lot
that is distasteful about Laurent Gbagbo, recalcitrant president of
Cote d’Ivoire, the second biggest country in West Africa and home to 21
million people. For the past ten years that he has been president the
country has fought a bitter civil war and its residents have lived on
edge, divided right down the middle by their support or opposition to
the policies of the Gbagbo government.

Hitherto the most
vibrant economy in the sub-region, Cote d’Ivoire has also taken a hit.
Statistics from the World Bank show that its per capita income has
declined by 15% since 1999. Although it is increasingly reliant on its
growing oil and gas sector, the majority of the populace still depends
on agriculture – especially of cocoa and coffee – and this has been
affected by the political instability brought about by the government
of Mr. Gbagbo.

This also means
that rather than play a positive role in the development of West
Africa, Cote d’Ivoire under Mr. Gbagbo has been a source of conflict
and distraction for regional leaders. Tied up as it were in its
self-inflicted internal battles, the country has not played its part in
the resolution of conflicts in other countries in the region,
especially in the francophone club of nations of which it was the
leader.

Worse, the country
is now host to a United Nations force – and a drain on international
peacekeeping funds. It has also become a net exporter of refugees, who
are now streaming into neighbouring countries such as Guinea and
Liberia that are, themselves, just recovering from crises.

And all of that
was before Mr. Gbagbo decided not to respect the outcome of last year’s
presidential election, adjudged by local and international observers to
have been won by his bête noir and opponent in the race, Alhassan
Ouattara.

Things have
speedily degenerated since then, leading to the inauguration of both
Messrs Gbagbo and Ouattara as president of the country. Of course this
did not tell the true picture, because the reins of government are
still very much in Mr. Gbagbo’s hands and the armed forces of the
country are still loyal to him.

His opponent, Mr.
Ouattara, is left to dawdle in a hotel where he is holed up, protected
by United Nations forces and occupying himself with receiving streams
of foreign dignitaries who drop in to shore up his confidence and
reaffirm his mandate.

A number of these
have been from the West African regional body, ECOWAS which, along with
the African Union has taken a firm stance against Mr. Gbagbo. These
bodies have insisted that power must be handed over to the winner of
the election, Mr. Ouattara and that the end has come to the rule of the
big man in Cote d’Ivoire.

Apart from the
many carrots being dangled before Mr. Gbagbo – including asylum in
several countries – is a hard stick option of military action against
him.

Now, the Ivorien
military is not what it was. It is yet to recover from the bruising
civil war against rebel forces and most of its aircraft had been
degraded by the French after some soldiers of that country died during
an attack on their base by the Ivorien air force during the civil war.
But that does not mean they would roll over in the face of an invasion
by West African countries.

With most of the
army stationed in and around Abidjan, the country’s biggest city and
Gbagbo’s seat of power, a fight to remove the man is likely to be
bloody and destructive. If it finally succeeds, an enthronement of Mr.
Ouattara would then be little more than a hollow victory for his
backers, as he would have to deal with the bitterness of victims of
such an operation.

Plus, the cost of
such a multinational operation would not be small either. Nigeria, the
country that is expected to provide the bulk of such a force, is hardly
in a good position to do so. The country is facing strain in its own
finances and it has a major election coming up in a couple of months.
An invasion will also jeopardise the lives and livelihood of millions
of West African nationals – a large number of who are Nigerians –
living in Cote d’Ivoire.

As President
Goodluck Jonathan said this week, the matter is delicate. The first
rule in conflict resolution is not to aggravate existing conditions.
So, West African leaders should continue to, gently but firmly nudge
Mr. Gbagbo towards taking the decent action of leaving office in the
interest of the country he professes to love. He is already feeling the
heat and will eventually capitulate. It will be a sweeter achievement
for our leaders if this is done without firing a shot.

I’m in the market again shopping for food. I love and hate the process.

I often complain
that the world really belongs to extroverts and in it, we introverts
are marginalised and treated like aliens. Market shopping is an
extroverted affair. The swagger and wit and pretence of casualness; the
false sociability and the endless superficial “how’s your familys”; the
skilful or otherwise haggling and speedy brain calculations of whether
one is hearing an absolute truth, a half truth or a blatant lie is
overwhelming.

In contrast, there
is something soothing about supermarket aisles and their aloofness,
about the inward negotiation of choices.

I much prefer to go
to the market with my neighbour and friend who I call Local Government
Chairman! Everyone knows her and she knows everyone. And with bright
flashing smiles she wraps them round her finger and chops every price
they offer in thirds.

When we first used
to go to the market together, I would walk behind her and pretend I was
her mute relation from Cameroun. It gave my brain the freedom to really
negotiate the sights and sounds. I believe that a necessary organic
relationship with food and the accompanying skill or common sense that
allows one to recognise fresh good produce that has not been tampered
with or force ripened or presented to hide rot or decay, is becoming
obsolete.

A young lady who I
sometimes send to the market astounds me every time by bringing back
the freshest most delicious produce at considerably lower prices. She
has a feel for the market and for food sold in the market that I don’t
have even in an elementary capacity. She can keep her head against the
tide of loud smells and conversations and confusing banter, somehow
project her mind into every tomato and yam and green leaf and know that
it is the best to eat or the very worst. She has a relationship with
food that is significantly more cultured than my weekly urban mute
visits to the market. She has grown her own food.

How I hate that
line: “Aunty Okro no dey,” or “carrot no dey,” or “yam no dey.” I want
to shout at the vendor, “That’s completely meaningless! What do you
mean e no dey!”

The meaning is
plain. It is rarely about whether the vegetable or fruit that one is
attempting to buy is in or out of season. It is more likely that a
scarcity has been declared by the produce vendors in order to get the
best sale price.

Some conversations
I have had in the market are so ridiculous that they confound reality:
Once a goat vendor followed me through the market in an attempt to
convince me that his goat which only looked slightly bigger than a
puppy was a good buy. He told me that I was not to worry; once the goat
had been fed and watered it would increase in size and become
comparable to any other goat in the market.

As much as I hate
the sweltering loud smelly assault on the senses that the market place
is, on Thursdays, you will inevitably find me standing in front of
Mumsie’s smoked and dried fish stall. My head will almost be level with
her reeking roof of suspended stockfish worth as much as the plaster of
Paris ceiling in my house. Mumsie will be standing to the right of a
table piled high with smoked impaled Shinenose, rolled up catfish and
shimmering white crayfish. On the wall behind her, the letters YHWH are
scrawled, yet around her neck she wears a catholic scapular. She will
be hacking into the belly of a smoked Shinenose with a saw, and I will
practically be begging to buy a piece that is falling apart. She will
turn her nose up, hold the piece of fish together with rubber bands and
declare that that one piece is worth the price of one whole smoked
catfish.

WHY?!

If you ask too
insistently, she won’t sell it at all! Or she will ramble on and on
about how the Ijaw men who fish have all disappeared into thin air and,
“fish no dey!”

This is the thing
about the marketplace; its animation is addictive. I have lived almost
forty years but had no clue about the incidental delicacy that the
belly of a Shinenose is. One day, I was in the market, and in an
organic moment, I was introduced to imperfectly smoked fish, one part
dry the other moist, and for this imperfection, one pays an arm and
leg, and pays rapturously. In Okro soup or in Ogbono, this piece of
fish is so delicious; one’s tongue is in perpetual danger of being
bitten in half.

In the last few
months in the markets in Calabar, I also discovered at least three
different genres of Okro; fresh bush pepper berries, red and gorgeous,
harvested from the forest, heavy on stalks before they are dried into
the black sullen pellets that everyone knows as black pepper; edible,
ferociously addictive native chalk the colour of onyx on the outside,
grey dust on the inside, a true enigma when it tastes like one is
eating sand; local pink apples shaped like bells that disappeared off
my radar in some distant point in childhood.

What I am trying to say in effect is that the market is the place
where my inspiration for food is most fired, not among antiseptic
supermarket shelves, but among disdainful traders selling in their
nightgowns and headscarves, inflatable goats, stockfish roofs, absolute
lies and disappearing Ijaw men.

In his book, Africa
Unchained, Ghanaian Economist, George Ayittey writes about Africa’s
Cheetah Generation; a term he describes as a new generation of young
African professionals and graduates who analyse and view the
continent’s problems with a unique and refreshing perspective.

Though restless, he
describes these young people as dynamic, intellectually agile and
pragmatic. According to him, these young people are aware of the
crippling effects of corruption on their countries and eschew trite and
obsolete arguments that blame the continent’s failures on the legacies
of slave trade and western imperialism.

In contrast, he
differentiates them from the Hippo Generation, a class he says is near
sighted, lacking in vision and intellectually astigmatic. Unlike the
Cheetah Generation, which he describes as seeing mainly opportunities
on the continent, the Hippo Generation constantly sees problems and
serves as impediments to the realization of the aspirations of the
Cheetahs.

The late Nigerian
nationalist, Nnamdi Azikiwe explores this same theme in his book,
Renascent Africa. Though written for a different era and a different
struggle, some of his central messages remain strikingly similar and
relevant. In Renascent Africa, Zik tells a tale of two citizens; the
Nigerian youth who was thirsty for political emancipation and members
of the old guard who were sympathetic to colonial interests. At the
time, (as is the case in present day Nigeria), the political leadership
was bankrupt, ineffective and uninspiring and an ideological friction
(as again is the case today) existed between members of the new guard
and the old guard.

In Zik’s case, to
achieve his aim of attaining independence for Nigeria, members of the
new guard rallied around him, espousing his ideals (and in part those
itemized by Nigerian Statesman, Nwafor Orizu in his book, Without
Bitterness) and dubbed them Zikism. Refusing to succumb to the demands
and predilections of the old guard, they championed the ideology all
the way to independence; and they won.

Nigeria’s present
day Cheetah Generation can and should do the same. As was the case
during Azikiwe’s generation, the divergent ideologies of the young and
the old needed to engage in a battle for supremacy. If the old won,
independence would not have been attained. Likewise, in the case of
Nigerian youths, if the Hippo Generation wins, there will be no
socio-economic emancipation for Nigerians. The future of Nigeria
depends on which generation prevails over the other and on which
perspective emerges victorious. The pessimists or the optimists? The
myopic or the future seekers? The old or the new?

Nigeria currently
stands at the cusp of one of the greatest youth transformations in its
history with seventy percent of its population under the age of 35.
According to a recent report on Nigeria’s young generation commissioned
by the British Council titled Next Generation Nigeria, “youth, not oil
will be the country’s most valuable resource in the twenty first
century.”

Nigeria’s young
people (her Cheetah Generation) are currently at odds with the nation’s
Hippos. During the struggle for independence, the Hippo Generation was
reluctant to relinquish power and grant the young Nigerian nationalists
independence. Similarly, Nigeria’s present day Hippo Generation is
reluctant to hand over the mantle of leadership to the Cheetahs. This
is why like the Hippo Generation did in the 1950s, former 2011
presidential aspirant, General Ibrahim Babangida, a member of the Hippo
Generation in an interview with the BBC earlier this year emphasized
that he did not think the younger generation could effectively lead the
country.

President Babangida’s recent resignation from the 2011 presidential
race is a sign of perhaps positive things to come for Nigerian
Cheetahs. Prior to independence in the 1960s, Zikists were ridiculed
for being naïve and overly headstrong in the face of the colonialists
but their resolve eventually won them independence. In the same vein,
if Nigerian youths are able to tap into the Pan-African consciousness
that drove Nigeria’s founding fathers to struggle against British rule,
and continue to demand for free and fair elections and a competent,
forward looking leadership in 2011, then success awaits them.

The so-called
Shield bill, which was recently introduced in both houses of Congress
in response to the WikiLeaks disclosures, would amend the Espionage Act
of 1917 to make it a crime for any person knowingly and willfully to
disseminate, “in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of
the United States,” any classified information “concerning the human
intelligence activities of the United States.”

Although this
proposed law may be constitutional as applied to government employees
who unlawfully leak such material to people who are unauthorized to
receive it, it would plainly violate the First Amendment to punish
anyone who might publish or otherwise circulate the information after
it has been leaked. At the very least, the act must be expressly
limited to situations in which the spread of the classified information
poses a clear and imminent danger of grave harm to the nation.

The clear and
present danger standard has been a central element of our First
Amendment jurisprudence ever since Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s
1919 opinion in Schenk v. United States. In the 90 years since, the
precise meaning of “clear and present danger” has evolved, but the
animating principle was stated brilliantly by Justice Louis D. Brandeis
in his 1927 concurring opinion in Whitney v. California.

The founders “did
not exalt order at the cost of liberty,” wrote Brandeis; on the
contrary, they understood that “only an emergency can justify
repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with
freedom. Such … is the command of the Constitution. It is, therefore,
always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and
assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it.”

On the other hand,
the First Amendment does not compel government transparency. It leaves
the government extraordinary autonomy to protect its own secrets. It
does not accord anyone the right to have the government disclose
information about its actions or policies, and it cedes to the
government considerable authority to restrict the speech of its own
employees. What it does not do, however, is allow the government to
suppress the free speech of others when it has failed to keep its own
secrets.

We might think of
this like the attorney-client privilege. If a lawyer reveals his
client’s confidences to a reporter, he can be punished for violating
that privilege – but the newspaper cannot constitutionally be punished
for publishing the information.

There are very
good reasons why it makes sense to give the government so little
authority to punish the circulation of unlawfully leaked information.

First, the mere
fact that such information might “prejudice the interests of the United
States” does not mean that that harm outweighs the benefit of
publication; in many circumstances, it may be extremely valuable to
public understanding. Consider, for example, classified information
about the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Second, the
reasons that government officials want secrecy are many and varied.
They range from the truly compelling to the patently illegitimate. As
we have learned from our own history, it is often very tempting for
government officials to overstate their need for secrecy, especially in
times of national anxiety. A strict clear and present danger standard –
rather than an unwieldy and unpredictable case-by-case balancing of
harm against benefit – establishes a high bar to protect us against
this danger.

And finally, a
central principle of the First Amendment is that the suppression of
free speech must be the government’s last rather than its first resort
in addressing a problem. The most obvious way for the government to
prevent the danger posed by the circulation of classified material is
by ensuring that information that must be kept secret is not leaked in
the first place.

Indeed, the
Supreme Court made this point quite clearly in its 2001 decision in
Bartnicki v. Vopper, which held that when an individual receives
information “from a source who obtained it unlawfully,” that individual
may not be punished for publicly disseminating the information “absent
a need … of the highest order.”

The court
explained that if the sanctions now attached to the underlying criminal
act “do not provide sufficient deterrence,” then perhaps they should be
“made more severe” – but “it would be quite remarkable to hold” that an
individual can constitutionally be punished merely for publishing
information because the government failed to “deter conduct by a
non-law-abiding third party.” This is a sound solution.

If we grant the
government too much power to punish those who disseminate information,
then we risk too great a sacrifice of public deliberation; if we grant
the government too little power to control confidentiality at the
source, then we risk too great a sacrifice of secrecy. The answer is
thus to reconcile the irreconcilable values of secrecy and
accountability by guaranteeing both a strong authority of the
government to prohibit leaks and an expansive right of others to
disseminate information to the public.

Geoffrey R. Stone
is a professor of law at the University of Chicago and the chairman of
the board of the American Constitution Society.

© 2011 The New York Times

Nigerian football appears inured to crisis.

In this New Year
as nations prepare for a loaded football season, the spectre that
brought the game to its nadir last year, rears its head again.

As Nigerians will
remember, 2010 was a year wracked by conflict with members of Nigeria’s
football community going freely for one another’s jugular. In that
year, football administration reached its lowest with key federation
officials facing trial on charges of financial misappropriation while
others had their legitimacy challenged.

In the midst of
all of this, the game suffered with the highpoint of underperformance
being Nigeria’s uninspiring performance at the FIFA 2010 World Cup in
South Africa.

That disgraceful
outing, which underlined the ineptitude of the leadership of the
Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) then headed by Sani Lulu, was to have
consequences, not the least of which was the run in Nigeria had with
world football governing body, FIFA. On that occasion the ruling body
banned Nigeria from its association for what it said was government’s
meddling in the affairs of the NFF.

But more than
perceived government interference by FIFA, it was the rash of
litigations on the football landscape that more than anything else
stymied progress for the game last year.

The National
Association of Nigerian Footballers headed by Harrison Jalla, went to
court to prevent elections into the executive committee of the NFF from
holding without state football association chairmen who would vote at
the elections first subjecting themselves to election in their states.
While this was happening, Rumson Baribote, former chairman of Bayelsa
United FC, went to court to challenge the election of Davidson Owumi as
chairman of the Nigeria Premier League insisting that his nomination
was flawed.

The effect of
these cases was that while the football federation was left without
substantive leadership for months, the premier league began well behind
schedule. Nigerians were thus relieved when the combatants agreed to
sheath their swords in the interest of the game.

That relief
appears short-lived, as old wounds have been re-opened. Jalla, who in
October had withdrawn his case from court following a settlement
brokered by suspended FIFA executive Amos Adamu, has headed back to
court. Jalla claims that the NFF has breached the agreement it reached
last October.

He is thus praying
that the order of the Lagos High Court, given on September 6, 2010
annulling the NFF elections of August 26, 2010, be revisited and that
NFF president, Aminu Maigari and other members of the federation’s
executive committee be removed from the premises of the football
federation. Additionally Jalla is asking that contempt proceedings be
initiated against Maigari and his team.

Aside the Jalla
suit the ante of conflict has also been upped by the decision of the
NFF to sack Owumi as chairman of the NPL. Two weeks ago, the football
federation at the end of its Annual General Meeting in December decided
to uphold the decision of the Akin Ibidapo Obe-led arbitration panel
which, in June last year, ruled that Owumi was not qualified to contest
election as chairman of the NPL. Owumi has ignored the decision by the
NFF insisting that he remains head of the premier league board.

This development
is clearly disturbing. With so much on our football plate this year
(the Super Eagles continue their qualifying matches for the 2012
Nations Cup, our Flying Eagles, if they do well at the Africa youth
Championship to be held in March, will be at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in
Colombia while the Super Falcons will be at the FIFA Women’s World Cup
in Germany) we cannot afford the distraction that these conflicts
create.

Our football
administrators must find a way of rising above petty and narrow
self-interest and rally to pull the game from the morass their blind
ambition has cast it in. They must realise that as they bicker, the
lives and livelihoods of young Nigerians who play the game and the
millions of fans who have invested emotionally in it, are at stake.

At a time like this we call on the National Assembly, specifically
the Senate and House Committees on Sports and elder football statesmen
to intervene and persuade the combatants that their interests would be
best served if the game is allowed to flourish.

His Excellency Commander-in-Chief,
ministers, security chiefs, DGs, special advisers; my name is Victor
Ehikhamenor, a natural citizen of Nigeria. I thank you for the
opportunity to address this emergency meeting filled with security
honchos. Many of you may be wondering what a newspaper columnist knows
about national security. And you are right because I am not an
ex-police man nor do I even come from a lineage of military men.

But one thing I can tell you is that I
was in America when 9/11 happened and changed the world order as we
used to know it. I observed keenly the way president George Bush
handled the unfortunate terrorist act. I have also lived to see the
after effect of the decisions that were hurriedly made in the shock of
those dark moments; the world is still suffering from those decisions
as we speak. Since we learn from life more than we do from classrooms,
it is my experience in America and other places too numerous to list
now that made me decide to speak here today.

First of all, it is a monumental
mistake for us to keep politicizing the spate of bombings in recent
months, because politicians come and go while unchecked terrorism
remains a constant. If I tell you we are going to be able to totally
eradicate terrorism from this country, I might as well be saying we can
generate uninterrupted power supply in the next few years. It is also
tantamount to saying that politicians can be stopped from dipping
sticky fingers into our excess crude account at will. But one thing is
certain; we can manage terrorism and prevent future colossal damage if
we honestly and truly work with the man that has called us here today.

Since we’ve already come face to face
with enemies of our country who have no qualms crossing the Rubicon to
defecate in our already soiled land, we must act. And if we do not
carefully de-politicize and act fast we should be ready for the worst.
We cannot fold our hands as usual or say a million and one novenas to
wish away this insanity. And we must not put on the same old attitude
of “it is not my problem because I have security details to protect me
and my family”.

Let me tell you a chloroquin truth, car
bombs going off in political rallies, crowded parks or mami markets are
a different animal from armed robbery or outright political
assassination. Ask Iraqis, Afghans or Pakistanis whose suns have been
clouded by constant bomb smoke.

I must plead with old security chiefs
here that might see the president’s decision to appoint a terrorism
adviser as an indictment of them. If you were the president you’d do
the same. When a car bomb was detonated in Warri, the president
believed it would be a onetime thing but less than a year later people
were killed a few metres away from where he was sitting. He also
expected that the mountains and valleys of Jos to be crawling with
plain clothes security operatives, yet less than a year later scores of
lives were blasted to eternity.

Only a foolish man keeps whistling
while his mother is being beaten, we really should not expect the
president to rely solely on those of us in this room. We have failed
too many times and the price for future failure can no longer be funded
by innocent blood. However, we must work together and set our egos
aside to avoid being annihilated by dormancy.

Need I state that if we don’t roll up
our sleeves, remove our agbada, red hats, rounded fedoras and find a
panacea to this wound called terrorism it will be the gangrene that
will finally eat away the wobbly legs on which the country stands? Need
I remind us that this no time for knee-jerk reactions, where we
hurriedly install non-working scanning machines in our airports and
employ morons who’d take N500 and allow nuclear war heads in the
overhead compartments?

Since we have decided to appoint a
special adviser we must resist thinking along political lines and
choose the right candidate. We must remember this is not a position to
we can allow a sycophant to undermine, lying to the president on daily
basis just to keep the job. We must pick a candidate who will not tell
his friends and families “it is my time to chop”: Remember, our beloved
country is burning.

If we must call our western allies for
help, at least we must show some level of seriousness by dusting our
comatose forensic labs for a start. We should not encourage him to
witch-hunt innocent political opponents. Elections come and go and we
are left to face reality again and that reality should not be grim.
Let’s outsmart the perpetrators. And if our chosen one fails us, we
must remind him that a god is as good as its potency.

Long live Nigeria.