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When I was a kid my Uncle Robert, for
whom I was named, used to say that blacks needed to “fight on all
fronts, at home and abroad.” By that he meant that while it was
critically important to fight against racial injustice and oppression,
it was just as important to support, nurture and fight on behalf of
one’s family and community.

Uncle Robert (my father always called
him Jim – don’t ask) died many years ago, but he came to mind as I was
going over the dismal information in a new report about the tragic
conditions confronting a large portion of America’s black population,
especially black males.

We know by now, of course, that the
situation is grave. We know that more than a third of black children
live in poverty; that more than 70 percent are born to unwed mothers;
that by the time they reach their mid-30s, a majority of black men
without a high school diploma have spent time in prison. We know all
this, but no one seems to know how to turn things around. No one has
been able to stop this steady plunge of young black Americans into a
socioeconomic abyss.

Now comes a report from the Council of
the Great City Schools that ought to grab the attention of anyone who
cares about black youngsters, starting with those parents who have
shortchanged their children on a scale so monstrous that it is
difficult to fully grasp.

The report, titled “A Call for Change,”
begins by saying that “the nation’s young black males are in a state of
crisis” and describes their condition as “a national catastrophe.” It
tells us that black males remain far behind their schoolmates in
academic achievement and that they drop out of school at nearly twice
the rate of whites.

Black children – boys and girls – are
three times more likely to live in single-parent households than white
children and twice as likely to live in a home where no parent has
full-time or year-round employment.

In 2008, black males were imprisoned at a rate six-and-a-half times higher than white males.

The terrible economic downturn has made
it more difficult than ever to douse this raging fire that is consuming
the life prospects of so many young blacks, and the growing sentiment
in Washington is to do even less to help any Americans in need. It is
inconceivable in this atmosphere that blacks themselves will not
mobilise in a major way to save these young people. I see no other
alternative.

The first and most important step would
be a major effort to begin knitting the black family back together.
There is no way to overstate the myriad risks faced by children whose
parents have effectively abandoned them. It’s the family that protects
the child against ignorance and physical harm, that offers emotional
security and the foundation for a strong sense of self, that enables a
child to believe – truly – that wonderful things are possible.

All of that is missing in the lives of too many black children.

I wouldn’t for a moment discount the
terrible toll that racial and economic injustice have taken, decade
after decade, on the lives of millions of black Americans. But that is
no reason to abandon one’s children or give in to the continued
onslaught of those who would do you ill. One has to fight on all
fronts, as my Uncle Robert said.

Black men need to be in the home,
providing for their children. The community at large – including the
many who have done well, who have secured a place in the middle or
upper classes – needs to coalesce to provide support and assistance to
those still struggling.

Dorothy Height, the longtime president
of the National Council of Negro Women, who died in April at the age of
98, always insisted that blacks “have survived because of family.” And
she counseled: “No one will do for you what you need to do for
yourself.” There are many people already hard at work on these matters,
but leadership is needed to vastly expand and maximise those efforts.
Cultural change comes hard, and takes a long time, but nothing short of
a profound cultural change is essential. Let the message go out that
walking down the aisle carries with it great responsibilities but can
also be great fun, and watching your kid graduate with honors is a
blast.

Black children can’t wait for
Washington to get its act together. They don’t have time to wait for
the economy to improve. They need mom and dad and the larger community
to act now, to do the right thing without delay.

This is not a fight only for blacks.
All allies are welcome. But the cultural imperative lies overwhelmingly
with the black community itself.

© 2010 New York Times News Service

As the battle for
the soul of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP rages on it may be time
for new thinking. Obviously, the major point of debate is about the
rotational presidency. On the one hand are those who say the party
zoned the presidency and other political offices between the North and
South. These people base their arguments on the fact that the
arrangement is actually captured in the party’s constitution.

On the other side
are those who want to dump zoning. All sorts of arguments have been put
forward to defend the stance that zoning is anachronistic. But no
anti-zoning proponent has ever claimed that zoning is not clearly spelt
out in the PDP constitution.

Unfortunately,
instead of Nigerians seeing through the whole imbroglio for the
political smokescreen that it is, the debate has taken on a regional,
ethnic, even religious tone. For a country like Nigeria, that is a very
dangerous turn of events. But the politicians and their handlers who
stand to benefit from the growing chaos are not above this kind of
reckless brinkmanship.

It is obvious that
President Goodluck Jonathan and his handlers tragically mismanaged the
entire affair, especially as regards the North. The regional champions
supposedly fighting for the North are only struggling to ensure that
their personal interests are protected. The Jonathan team should have
conceded that zoning exists, but sought an understanding that would
protect these interests. . As it is, the confrontational stance assumed
has hardened both positions to such an extent that a clearly more
strategic option has been left unopened.

But that aside,
since the North is finding it difficult to select a consensus candidate
to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan in the PDP primaries, why not
settle for a compromise candidate, preferably outside the big four of
Ibrahim Babangida, Abubakar Atiku, Aliyu Gusau and Bukola Saraki? If
none of these candidates is unable or unwilling to step down for the
other, perhaps they may be willing to step down for someone else– the
proverbial dark horse.

There are many
Northerners and PDP members who are qualified for the presidency,
though they may not have stepped forward or even indicated interest in
the office. Prominent among these are people like Mallam Nasir
el-Rufai. A candidature like his would settle the issue of consensus
with a compromise and ensure the emergence of a nominee that has a
national outlook, international exposure and general acceptability.

If Nasir el-Rufai
or any other credible ‘’dark horse’’ could be persuaded to join the
race for the PDP presidential ticket, the raging crisis in the PDP
which is capable of having a multiplier effect on the polity generally,
would easily be doused. Compromise has been adapted in the past to cool
tensions within the ruling PDP when election or selection of the
National Chairman of the party reached feverish points.

Such a candidate
who has not been part of the mudslinging between pro and anti zoning
groups would be assessed on his/her merits. Although el-Rufai in a
recent Facebook posting reflected that he might not vote for the PDP in
the 2011 elections, such a statement appears to be borne out of the
frustration the rudderless state of the ruling party has inflicted on
its members across the board. The fact remains that el-Rufai has not
made any public declaration for any other political party.

If the PDP settles
for a compromise, the division would subside without any major negative
consequences. The two sides would eventually have a face saving
situation. While the consensus side would be elated about having had
their way the other side could equally bask in the euphoria that they
had succeeded in achieving a change. And even within the pro-consensus
group – the big four contestants currently campaigning could equally
subsume their ambition under the compromise candidacy.

Thus it would be
manifestly clear that the tension generated by zoning would have been
obliterated, as the pro-consensus group would be able to field a
relatively unbiased candidate to slug it out with the incumbent who
stands as a candidate with the proposition that zoning even if it
existed is inconsequential.

Adopting of this
option would leave the PDP primaries, for the number one job more
keenly and objectively contested on profound issues of national ethos
rather than primordial sentiments as currently being witnessed.

In view of the
foregoing, the compromise candidate must be one that fits into other
major criteria Nigerians yearn for in the 2011 elections such as the
generational change – someone outside the recycled group of 1966; a
highly detribalised Nigerian without any trace of religious bigotry and
one who is brilliant, intelligent, a team player and a great
bridge-builder who can effectively steer the ship of the nation aright,
not only as a president but as a statesman.

A compromise
rather than a consensus is what the ruling PDP needs if the polity is
not to be overheated beyond a level that the fall-out would put the
2011 elections in jeopardy.

Ajayi Olatunji Olowo writes from Abuja, Nigeria.

That the original
inhabitants of Abuja had to be moved out for the emergence of a brand
new capital city speaks volumes about our way of doing things. Yet,
they are luckier than the Bakassi people, whom former president
Olusegun Obasanjo signed off to Cameroun. The mass relocation of the
natives has left one indubitable fact: a fundamental element of the
city – indeed, its very essence has been uprooted. At no time is the
soulless nature of Abuja more exposed than during religious or national
celebrations. Give any public holiday, and the city is deserted in
droves.

Sallah provided
another opportunity to yet again examine this phenomenon. The streets
were so empty that for those getting used to the growing traffic chaos,
Abuja felt eerie. Driving around the empty streets almost gives the
impression of being alone in the entire city. The sight of other
vehicles is cause to cheer. The people who chose to spend Sallah in
Abuja hardly serve to provide any air of festivity.

Sallah in Abuja is
a soulless, sterile affair. It seems that the only people who suffer to
remain in the city during public holidays are those who are unable to
raise transport fares, or money for a full tank to bail out.

Not in Abuja will
you see thousands of excited children decked out in their best clothes
exuberantly celebrating the festival. Not in Abuja will you see the
Emir and his palace guards decked out in full royal regalia proceeding
to the Eid grounds. Not in Abuja will anyone participate in the
exhilarating durbars and horse-riding competitions that make Sallah
such an exciting festival. Spending Sallah in this city without the
spirit and energy that characterises Sallah in Kano, Zaria, Katsina and
other places is missing the essence of the festival.

But missing the fun
of Sallah apart, the dry empty streets of Abuja raise some fundamental
questions about our new capital city. Abuja is nicknamed ‘the centre of
unity’. But when the essence of a city is lost, when the bonds of
humanity that binds people together are missing, then the basis for the
talked-about unity is defeated. Abuja no doubt has some of the best
streets in Nigeria. The city has homes that can fit snugly into Beverly
Hills or the French Riviera. (And just outside the city centre, you’ll
also find some of the debilitating slums and poverty that will
thoroughly roil your innards).

So where are the
people to give Abuja colour? Where is the soul of the city? Beautiful
houses and wide streets do not give a place that intrinsic humanity or
character. Structures, leafy, breezy vegetation and plenty of
automobiles contribute little to the emergence of the much touted
centre of unity. It is only when Nigerians of all hues can become a
part of the new federal capital experience that a centre of unity can
emerge.

Because the
original inhabitants have been relocated, the only colour in Abuja
during festivities and public holidays is provided by political exiles
– former governors, ministers, senators and other top public officials
who are on the losing end of whatever political struggles they may be
engaged in back in their home states. For them, Abuja is a safe haven
from where they can plot political strategies. As it is, there are
quite a few former governors wanted by Interpol for whom Abuja remains
the last, and some cases only resort. The Ibori debacle in Dubai has
provided a lesson or two.

However, due to the
influx of these moneyed political exiles, even ordinary citizens are
being pushed further away to the outskirts. Residential property has
been rented out for N25 million per annum, and paid for two years. The
majority of public sector workers who man the wheels of government and
the bureaucracy are moving further and further away from their places
of work; a two bedroom apartment in the city centre goes for N1
million. The estate agents demand for two years, in addition to 10
percent agency fees. Few civil servants are able to pay these sums,
even with the new minimum wage. So, out they move.

And because efforts
to introduce a public transport system have not received sufficient
government attention, traffic in Abuja is becoming a nightmare. Very
few residents can say ‘see you in 10 minutes’, and keep the promise.
Distances than used to be covered in 10 minutes a few years ago can now
take an hour or more. Abuja, already lacking a soul, is fast becoming a
jarring, jumpy, jungle.

I woke up on
Tuesday morning and told myself I wasn’t going to wish anybody Barka da
Sallah. If you like, call it a mini-rebellion against oneself. I just
needed some quiet moment in my stuffy room to reminisce about our
leaders and those of us that are being led or misled, if you want to
look at it that way.

Give me a second
please, let me quickly digress here – on Monday evening while returning
from the office, I saw a man dragging an unwilling ram towards the boot
of his parked car. The ram was giving him a rough and tough time but
the man was winning – and suddenly it occurred to me that there will be
millions of rams sold during the Sallah period and none would have a
say in the fate that would befall them.

Suddenly I found myself praying violently in tongues, not for the ram of course:

Jehovah jaire,
Jehovah shekenu, the Lord that made heaven and earth, the alpha and
omega, the beginning and the end. God of Abraham that provided the
sacrificial ram when Isaac was about to be deleted by his obedient
father; the God that perished the Egyptians that wouldn’t give up on
enslaving the Israelites –let the fate of Nigerians in the 2011
elections not be like the Sallah ram that has no say in matters that
have to do with its life and death. The God that never sleeps please
give us voice to speak and speak clearly even when some people’s mouths
would be stuffed with dollars and pounds so they can fraudulently stuff
ballot boxes for a leader that would lock the future of our country in
the boot of his Prado…Amen.

As I was saying, I
wanted to sit at home and stare at the stagnant fan blades and probably
have a one on one conversation with them on how they feel about not
being able to function due to lack of power. Talking to immobile fan
blades is what you do when your laptop is dead and you cannot write a
column about senators and legislators whose salaries keep skyrocketing
as if on helium, whereas those of ordinary citizens keep going down as
if strapped to a lead weight.

One of the other
questions I wanted to ask my moribund fan blades was if they knew
exactly what happened to the capital project that the finance minister
promised would be executed with some of our 50th anniversary budget
allocation. Remember the billions set aside to turn the nation around
come Independence Day? We were categorically told that Murtala Mohammed
International Airport would receive a facelift, but my brethren the
place still look worse than Uselu Motor Park in Benin city. Anyway
these things take time, let’s wait and pray.

This was my state
of mind when my friend called from Abuja to brief me on our president’s
Sallah message. He said the president has asked Nigerians, especially
the hoi polloi to tighten our wrappers, rope our trousers properly and
sacrifice more to rebuild this falling nation. In his own, that is
Presido, words “If all of us will make little, little sacrifices, this
country will be great. We should make sacrifices for the development of
this country and for us to leave a legacy for our unborn
generation…Every Nigerian must have that commitment and willingness to
transform this country. May God change our minds to do things that will
positively change our country.” Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan’s
words brought tears to my very two eyes; I get emotional like that when
my president hits the nail on the head like that to reveal to us the
unusual. Also, finally we have a leader whose rallying cry to nation
building trumped John F Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for
you…” speech.

I went straight to
the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror and said – shame on you
Victor, what sacrifice have you ever made for this country other than
to complain until your eyes are red like a bulb suffering from half
current? Do you even know what sacrifice means? Does the president have
to remind you every time?

The next thing that
will come out from your mouth now will be that you buy petrol for your
generator everyday and also pay exorbitant PHCN bills even though you
have no power. Or do you think paying N5, 000 security fees in your
estate and coughing out money each time a policeman stops you is
sacrificing?

So you really think
the borehole you sank behind your house just to get water or the taxes
that get deducted from your meagre salary is enough to build this
nation? Oh so you think the recharge cards you spend thousands of naira
on because of non-availability of subsidised landlines is commendable?
Do you know how much the presidency spends on these things you just
mentioned, or don’t you think that is sacrifice?

Victor don’t be an
unpatriotic Gargantuan. Go out there and sacrifice for your country
like our leaders in Abuja are doing day and night, which is the same
thing our president is demanding from you.

We have had cause, in a previous editorial, to
call it the “stuck” exchange. Now we have the dubious honour of
contributing another description: the “candy floss” exchange.

All the while we assumed it was a place for
creating, trading and multiplying wealth, and generally advancing the
frontiers of the free market.

While the party lasted, the doors seemed open to
all and sundry. Nigerians fell over themselves to be a part of it,
pumping funds into the market. Wealth, as well as local and
international awards for profitable capitalism multiplied, as expected,
and there was much joy in the land. Wasn’t this, after all, the
exchange that put two Nigerians on the Forbes List?

Until we discovered, far too late, that what we
had on our hands all along was a candy floss party, full of fluff,
totally lacking in value. It wasn’t a stock exchange, it was a puppet
theatre, a gathering of magicians, who conjured figures out of thin air
with the same aplomb with which they made them vanish.

Presiding over this depraved organisation, which
showed no capacity for restraint and was voracious in its appetite for
stealing, was Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke, The ‘crooked’ madam of Kakawa
Street, along with her senior officials, spared no effort in the raping
and pillaging of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

We are in possession of a copy of a forensic audit
(available to be downloaded from our website, 234NEXT.com) into the
affairs of the exchange under Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke. The audit was
commissioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and produced by
the law firm of Aluko Oyebode in conjunction with KPMG.

It is a sickening report. The recklessness with
which executives of the exchange paid out huge sums of money from its
administrative funds is matched only by the absurdity of what the funds
were spent on. It is, amongst other things, a tale of luxury tastes
that can only be acquired outside of a honest day’s job: lavish events,
expensive cars, Rolex watches, a yacht, even. The report also is a
treatise on the Manual of Creative Accounting.

One example, taken at random from several: N342
million paid to a front company owned in fact by the head of the
Corporate Affairs department of the exchange, to organise a Long
Service Award in 2008.

The name of the company (you will not find a more apt name): “Candy Floss Limited.”

Another example: N186 million spent buying 165
Rolex watches ostensibly for presentation to long-serving staff. At
least half of this money went to Candy Floss, and 92 of those watches
remain unaccounted for, as there is no evidence they were actually
purchased, to say nothing of giving them to anyone. Another N100
million paid to Candy Floss for the supply of cars, some of which have
never been seen by anyone.

The sum of N450 million was “reported” as overseas
travel expenditure in 2007, well in excess of the N60 million budgeted.
In 2008, the reported figure leaped to N615 million. The forensic audit
reveals that the actual amount expended – according to the books – was
N1.9 billion: that’s not a typo — the amount spent on foreign trips by
Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke’s gang, in the year of our Lord 2008, was
N1,900,000,000.00. By an act of creative accounting, N1.3 billion of
this “was reclassified under different expense description/classes.”
Indeed the report is a fascinating compendium of accounting tricks.

These are only a fraction of the report’s
findings. It also says that Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke paid herself more than
half a billion naira in productivity bonuses in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It
appears that, in between supervising public offers and raising funds
for Messrs Obasanjo and Obama (whether solicited or not,) she found
time to supervise a transformation of personal fortunes on several
fronts.

Laden with instances of over-invoicing, multiple
payments, gross breaches of financial guidelines, unaccounted-for
purchases, falsification of accounts, illegal sharing of funds,
flagrant disregard for budgets and expenditure limits – the report’s
contents are nightmarish.

But then again we have to acknowledge that they
are only nightmarish if you discount the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)
report that nailed Bode George, or the several EFCC reports indicting
political office holders, now sadly gathering dust in unknown places.
After all, none of our law enforcement agencies, least of all the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has seen fit to haul in Mrs.
Okereke-Onyiuke and her cabal.

Acts of monumental corruption have ceased to be a
surprising phenomenon in our country. But that doesn’t make them any
less deserving of censure. Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke has a lot of questions
to answer. Before now she had been accused by Mr. Aliko Dangote, a
former president of the exchange, of mismanaging it to the point of
bankruptcy. Mr. Dangote, like many others associated with the exchange,
also has questions to answer.

In addition to Mr. Dangote, the Exchange council
was led by a long line of captains of industry, including Oba Otudeko.
They all need to tell us what they know, and when they knew it. This is
not the time to start screaming about ‘victimisation’ and ‘the antics
of enemies’.

This is not the time to start running around in
search of absurd court injunctions (which, admittedly, and with enough
cash on or under the table, are not all that hard to obtain.)

The facts are clear, unambiguous; and if anyone has contrary
information, we’ll be the first to provide them with a platform to
demonstrate it.

It is a long, long,
time since I visited London last so this may sound old hat to many, but
bless me if the first poster I saw as I exited the train wasn’t ‘Good
people Great nation’, courtesy of GTB. Just the kind of welcome message
you need when ‘escaping’ Nigeria! The wonders and signs did not end
there. I spent the next 13 hours waiting to board a plane to Brussels.
This was due to something called fog that goes with Britannia, only
when you have been away for a decade you tend to forget. So there was
I, practically reliving those old days at Ikeja airport when departure
time was a closely guarded secret, just as it was open knowledge that
if you left Lagos by road at the crack of dawn you could make it to
Enugu before the first flight landed.

After the departure
time for the 12.50 flight to Brussels had been changed for the fourth
time and the gate for the second, the sign was removed completely and
we found ourselves seated next to a growing queue of people bound for…
Munich! The native gentleman sitting next to me explained it all very
carefully. “This means they have no idea where the plane is, not to
talk of telling us when it will land so we will have some sense of when
it might take off for Brussels. This is England!” he declared laughing
and skipped away to seek his fortune elsewhere.

Driving down
Kingsway Road, Ikoyi a couple of days ago, I had another memorable
encounter with a political campaign poster, this one displaying the
arresting features of our former vice president Abubakar Atiku, clad
surprisingly, in a suit and promising Lagosians ‘better dey come’.

The thing with
these posters is that the message, in order to be memorable, has to be
short, so one has no space to seek clarification from Mr. Atiku as to
when that ‘bettah’ comes at whose door will it land? But since
Nigerians have experienced his leadership before, albeit as a number
two man, the question might be moot.

But there is also
another possible explanation for the happy choice of phrase. Mr. Atiku
has long years of service in the Customs and Excise Department. His
Wikipedia entry reads: “Atiku joined the Customs and Excise department
in 1969, serving in Seme, Kano, Maiduguri, Kaduna, Ibadan and Lagos. He
rose to the rank of Deputy Director (second in command nationwide),
with a notably impeccable service record…” so, the meaning of the
slogan might just be literal.

It was Yemisi Ogbe
who last week reminded one of that Nigerian gem, ‘idea is need’, so one
must, in light of this, laud the honesty and accuracy of Mr. Atiku’s
campaign crew. They are not trying to feed us some new line, some
brazenly false election gimmick.

In fact there is a
rich vein of realism that runs through Nigerian sloganeering. You Chop
I Chop or I Chop You Chop has to take the baba nla award for most
imaginative Nigerian political party name ever. The party founders
called it the way they saw it. Coming a close second, if not calling
for a category of its own is Charles Taylor’s, “He killed my Ma, He
killed my Pa, but I will vote for him”. Chilling, yes, I mean you
better vote for him. It is not evidence his lawyer is likely to use in
marshalling a defence for the former president of Liberia currently
standing trial at The Hague for war crimes.

You might think
that since Nigerians do have the franchise, a campaign for one man one
vote might be redundant, but that would mean you were MIA when the
verdict in the case of against erstwhile Delta State governor Emmanuel
Uduaghan was handed down stripping him of the post of chief executive
because as the judge ruled, no election actually took place.

In the city of
Chicago in the US where political corruption has legendary proportions,
there is an old joke about citizens being urged to wake up in good time
so they could vote early and often. In contemporary Nigeria, the
imperative of enforcing the one-man one vote system is even more
important than fooling around trying to implement a one-man one-wife
policy. Mind you, not that anyone is trying; the comparison is used
simply to make a point that some things do matter.

Sometimes a popular
song has the line that just fits the times. The Gamble and Huff chart
topper of the 80s, Ain’t no stopping us now, fitted the mood of the
gravy train days of the NPN, just before that locomotive came crashing
to a stop, militarily instituted by Mohammed Buhari’s New Year’s eve
intervention in December 1983.

History has an
awful repetitive habit. November 2009 was a chilling month for Nigeria
and set in motion the events that led to Mr. Goodluck Jonathan stepping
into the breach. There were no slogans then, just hopes and prayers
that Nigeria was on a different road at last.

We do not seem to have travelled very far.

Female football
in Nigeria has a relatively short history, dating back to the late 90s,
but in that short period the female national teams have done a great
deal to enhance Nigeria’s image.

The recent
victory of the Super Falcons in South Africa, who defeated defending
champions Equatorial Guinea to win the African Women championship is
only the latest in a string of successes recorded by the team. In a
competition that has only been played seven times, the Falcons are
six-time winners, and they have qualified and participated in all World
Cups till date. They will be making their sixth consecutive appearance
in the Women Mundial in Germany next year.

Unfortunately,
these sterling records have not earned respect for the women who have
brought so much honour and prestige to the country. When the team
arrived in Lagos after their victorious outing in South Africa, they
were paraded aboard a ramshackle trailer that even cows would have
sniffed at. Despite this, the footballers were happy to have been
received at all; In 2008, no arrangement was made to received the team.
It was so bad that on arrival in Nigeria, the players each had to use
their own money to charter cabs from the airport.

The truth is that
our ladies have not been accorded the respect they deserve for their
achievements over the years. Will it be too much to ask that they be
remunerated accordingly? Yes, the men’s game still has more prestige,
more money, but that should not take anything away from what the
Falcons, Falconets and the Flamingoes have done to re brand Nigeria in
the eyes of the world.

While the Super
Eagles (and one wonders if they still deserve that appellation) collect
on the average $10,000 (N1.5million) as match allowances in
international tournaments, the female team gets a paltry $1,000 and
$500 for the junior teams. The disparity in these allowances is too
wide to permit rational discourse.

When the Eagles
won the 1980 Nations Cup for the first time, they was a deluge of gifts
for the players ranging from cars to houses and national honours. Yet
our women have now won the female version for a sixth time and the best
we could do for them was parade them in a trailer used to transport
cows to the abattoir. Such actions reveal a clear disregard, even
disenfranchisement of our women. This has to be remedied quickly as it
could easily kill the motivation and the morale of the players and also
that of youngsters that may want to follow in their footsteps.

It is true that
by the time the team reached Abuja, the Nigeria Football Federation
quickly moved to remedy the shoddy handling of the Falconet’s reception
by conveying them in a Marco Polo bus to the Presidency, but the
football house still needs to do more to encourage and motivate the
players.

First, there have
always been allegations – unproven as of now – that some male officials
of the team try to use their positions to harass female players
sexually. These have to be taken seriously and investigated. And if any
male official is found to be guilty, he should be prosecuted. This will
reassure aspiring female footballers, they will know that they will be
protected when and if they get to play for the national team.

Also, there had
been subtle threats that Eucharia Uche, the coach, will be replaced
before the World Cup in Germany next year. This is a woman who chieved
what a male coach could not do in 2008, beating the superb female team
of Equatorial Guinea. She also showed in all the matches that she was
not afraid to ring the changes as the case of Loveth Ayila plainly
showed. Ayila started the first match against Mali but she did not get
her act right. The coach made her sit out the rest of the tournament
with her replacement doing the business. That showed a coach who did
not allow sentiments to cloud her judgment and who was also thinking on
her feet, ready to make corrections on earlier devised tactical
formation when they are not succeeding.

The coach has now
been assured by the federation that her job is safe but they could do
more by assisting her in getting quality club attachments where she
will improve her skills.

The Federation
should also intensify efforts to get sponsors for the female local
league, where development has been hampered by a lack of direction and
finance. If this is done the reservoir of players will increase and we
will see an improvement in the quality of football played by the female
players.

In preparing for
Germany 2011, there is a need for incentives that are clearly spelt out
so the players know what they have to gain by performing well. The
match allowances need to be improved and more friendly matches should
be organised to keep them in match form. The women are important and
must be made to feel important.

They have won six
African crowns and have appeared in all World Cups, that should be more
than enough to get them the respect and plaudits they deserve.

At the Beijing
Forum, which I attended last weekend, one of the participants from
England told me that he had been invited to give a talk on what lessons
Africa can learn from China, and wondered what my views were.

What could one say
that hasn’t been said before? The truth is that most of the lessons we
need to learn from China are the same lessons we should have learned
from Malaysia, from Singapore, from South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia or
Lao. They are the same lessons that the Nigerian Economic Summit,
Vision 2010, Vision 2020, Vision 2020:20 and any number of other
development plans produced right here in Nigeria have absorbed; plans
that we beg our governments to implement.

Beg, to little discernible effect. Most of our people, and too many across Africa, remain poor in a richly endowed continent.

I haven’t yet laid
hands on Greg Mills’ book, “Why Africa is Poor: and what Africans can
do about it”, but according to the review, Mills asks why Africa is
poor despite the fact that its people work hard and the continent is
blessed with abundant natural resources. Mills concludes that Africa is
not poor because of bad infrastructure or lack of trade access,
development or technical expertise – or even corruption – but because
our leaders have made the choice that we should be poor.

That is not the
choice made by China’s leaders. Whether it was Mao Zedong who actually
said it, there is no doubt that it was Deng Xiaoping, China’s de facto
leader throughout the 1980s, who set in motion the reforms inspired by
the phrase “To be rich is glorious”.

I’d been thinking
about this decision by our own leaders – that we should be poor – when
I found myself spending 50 minutes waiting to turn left under the
infamous flyover at Ota in Ogun State. The surrounding roads are in
such a terrible condition that the newly-opened flyover has – if
anything, worsened traffic. I thought about it again on my way back,
taking the ‘shake, rattle and roll’ alternative route on state roads.

It baffled me that
anybody in government would dream of making a fuss over the
long-delayed completion and opening of that wretched flyover, let alone
subject the nation to an unseemly struggle to claim credit for it! The
Obasanjo administration had refused to complete it for reasons best
known to itself. Accusations of improving the road to President
Obasanjo’s own front door (Obasanjo Farms lies on the Idiroko road
which starts beneath the flyover) may have been avoided, but perhaps
the ex-president should take a ride in the buses plying those routes,
and hear the salty language in which he is described.

The resulting pain
to countless other road users is surely concrete evidence of the
propensity of our ‘big men’ to measure their height – not by how close
they are to the sky – but by how large the gap is between them and
those below. Unable to achieve healthy growth themselves, they must
hinder others so that they can continue to ‘walk tall’.

The state
government refused to repair the alternative roads, perhaps because
heavy lorries might use and destroy them. But this beggar-my-neighbour
attitude was completely indifferent to the fact that it was the people
in Ogun State who suffered.

The contrast
between that glaring example of a decision that the people should be
poor, and the decision of China’s leaders that their people should be
rich (and didn’t consider provision of a decent road network a special
favour) struck me as the main lesson that Nigeria could learn from
China.

And then to return
home to an even better example: the three-day strike! Labour’s demand
that the agreement on the national minimum wage should be implemented
not only came against the background of the grossly inflated
remuneration of legislators (as well as presidents and governors), but
also coincided with the decision to heap Scylla on Charibdis by piling
obscene presidential pensions onto the riches already enjoyed by former
heads of state.

President Goodluck
Jonathan is reported to have said that a difference of a mere N1,000
(between the N17,000 being paid and the N18,000 being demanded) ought
not to lead to any industrial action “for good people that have been
friendly”. I don’t blame him. Although N1,000 is over 5% of N18,000, it
probably wouldn’t appear as even a fraction of a percentage point on
the presidential take-home pay calculator.

That statement –
which, for sheer inability to understand the lives of ordinary people,
is right up there with Marie-Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake” advice to
18th century France’s starving bread-less poor – can hardly be what
labour leaders were referring to when they praised Jonathan for his
‘humility’ after his five-minutes-to-midnight rush to hold talks about
the strike. But if he cannot understand the meaning of N1,000 to a
worker in today’s Nigeria, how is he going to get his head round the
idea that the people of this country might – for their labour and
effort – also want to be rich? Or at least, to climb out of unnecessary
poverty?

Angela
Ajetunmobi

After weeks and
months of something akin to a bloodbath in the Stock Exchange, a
process that was unravelled with the help of diligent, objective
newspaper reporting across the board, it is understandable that the new
leadership wants to avoid the banana peels that tripped its
predecessors.

However, barring
journalists from covering the daily activities of the Exchange, as the
executive of the NSE announced two weeks ago, is plainly pig-headed and
certain to make all but the most crooked investors shy away from the
market. According to reports of this revolutionary new way of running a
stock exchange, capital market journalists would no longer be allowed
to observe trading activities.

It appears now
that bourse officials, following understandable public outcry, are
backing carefully away from this misguided notion that secrecy is the
best way to run an Exchange. That they even thought of it at all is
certainly a cause for concern.

The major issue
that the Exchange now faces, as prices continue to plummet, is one of
confidence: specifically, investor confidence in the activities of the
Exchange and how its leaders are managing its affairs. Surely, given
the upheaval-and steep losses-in the market over the past two years, it
makes little sense to exacerbate investor fears and foster a mood that
leads many to wonder what exactly, if anything, anyone is trying to
cover up.

As the National
Chairman of an investor advocacy group called the Progressive
Shareholders Association of Nigeria rightly notes, the NSE’s decision
is not good for the market because it negates the canon of
transparency, which is the lifeblood of any Exchange and which the NSE
“claims to be preaching”.

Beyond the general
‘global practice’ given as justification for this abrupt proposition,
it is curious that there is no particular rationale given for it or
indeed any indication of how allowing journalists in the gallery has
impeded the growth or functioning of the Exchange in the past.

Indeed, when the
pioneers of the Exchange built a gallery to allow investors and
journalists have access to the trading floor and witness daily
transactions, there was utility to it: especially one that aids a
normally disengaged public to become more familiar, and presumably more
comfortable, in a yet evolving financial system. The gallery was opened
in recognition of the fact that the Exchange is not like the chamber of
the Supreme Court. I It is a public domain, an open market. Therefore
it stands to reason that if its administrators are working in the
public’s best interest, there would be no need to shut out the press,
and by extension the public.

It is particularly
shocking that the new leadership of the NSE should be so tone deaf. The
Exchange has been exposed in the past couple of years, as details of
insider dealing, back room brawls, criminal activity and just plain
theft came spilling out in the open, as a place where the ordinary
investor had a high likelihood of being swindled by insiders. Tales of
so-called markets makers, and of collusion among the high and mighty to
give themselves unfair advantage, came to define the activities of the
Exchange.

It was with
relief, therefore, that the public greeted the recent cleaning out of
the long-entrenched leadership of the NSE, in particular its director
general, Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke.

So this strange
and clumsy attempt to boot out the press was made even clumsier in the
manner in which it was to be implemented, with fiat and without
engagement with stakeholders.

Under the proposed
ban, journalists who file stories from the press centre in the Exchange
building would have had to relocate to business centres in the
vicinity. Also, capital market reporters who need clarification and
interviews on issues from NSE staff would have required something
called “adequate clearance”.

The Exchange will
now only invite the press to cover ‘important occasions’ such as
specific placements, presidential visits, and other activities. In
order words, the press will only be allowed in when the Exchange
believes the information to be passed is favourable to it and its
image. Disclosure of any other activity is essentially censured. It is
hard to see how this could have lead to investor confidence. We welcome
the decision of the exchange to back down and hope that in the future
it will be more mindful of the need to build confidence taking
decisions.