Monday, 17 September 2012
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Monday, 4 October 2010
NIGERIA IS ON RED ALERT
NIGERIA ON RED ALERT
By CAMERON DUODU
The Nigerian capital, Abuja is slowly growing into one of the more beautiful cities in Africa. Since a serious effort was made in the late 1980’s to actualise a decision -- taken in 1976 -- to make it Nigeria’s capital, Abuja has blossomed.
The transfer from Lagos finally occurred in 1991 and a conscious effort has been made to plant trees on the city’s sidewalks, while the skyline has been brightened with many impressive buildings.
One of the most graceful buildings is a huge mosque, whose gleaming, gold-tinted minaret can be seen miles away. And then, there is Aso Rock, headquarters of the Government, where a group of tastefully appointed villas house the offices and residence of the President.
To mark Nigeria’s 50th anniversary of independence, banners and bunting were to be seen everywhere. Eagle Square, scene of the huge parade that was the climax of the celebrations, took on a celebratory mood even before Independence Day itself, when President Goodluck Jonathan declared, at a joyous rally, that he would seek the nomination of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2011 presidential election.
Unfortunately for President Goodluck, his declaration has not been universally greeted with enthusiasm. It is no secret that powerful interests in the North of the country regard the President’s decision to contest the election as a ‘swindle’, in that in 2007, the presidency was “zoned” to a Northern politician for both that year’s election and the subsequent one to take place in 2011.
The “zoning” meant the PDP would field a Northerner as its candidate in both 2007 and 2011. The Northerner who benefited from the arrangement in 2007 was Umaru Yar’Adua, who, however, expired in May 2010 -- with one year of his term remaining to be served. Mr Goodluck Jonathan, as Vice-President, automatically assumed the presidency to complete Yar’Adua’s term. But once that term ends in May 2011, say the Northerners, it is a Northerner who should become president for the second half of the “zoning” arrangement, not the Southerner, Mr Goodluck.
Because Mr Goodluck Jonathan has repudiated this “zoning” arrangement, some Nigerians suspect that the bombs that exploded in Abuja on 1 October 2010, the death toll in which is now put at 14, were meant to convey a message to him. No evidence, however, has emerged linking any Northerner with the bombing, although the campaign director of ex-President Ibrahim Babangida's bid to win the PDP candidacy, Mr Raymond Dokpesi, chief executive of the television station, AIT, was detained for some hours on 4 October. Security sources told newsmen he was interrogated on "suspicious text messages" allegedly exchanged between him and some of the people arrested in connection with the bombing.
President Jonathan himself seems to believe that although an organisation called MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Delta) warned beforehand that it would create trouble for the Government on Independence Day, it was not MEND that carried out the explosions. According to the President, the explosions were the work of a “small, terrorist organisation” based outside Nigeria. However, the President has not fully explained his reason for exonerating MEND.
In fact, the President’s take on the explosions has confused the public. They are awaiting the results of the official police investigation into the explosions. But they fear that the police investigation may be prejudiced by the President’s statement on the bombing. And they can’t help asking: If MEND did not do it, why would it issue a warning five days before the event, that it would do it? And if MEND did do it, then why is the President accusing another organisation of having done it?
Meanwhile, the Nigerian police have published the photographs of two persons they say they want to interview. Apart from giving their names, the police did not state what organisation(s) the two men belong to, or in what way they may be connected with the bombing.
Another development is that the Nigerian State Security Service (SSS) has stated that it had arrested nine people after foiling “a larger plot to detonate at least six car bombs close to key government and security buildings in Abuja, days before the Independence Day attacks”. The State Security Service added that “those responsible had planned a larger attack for Wednesday Sept. 29,” in which “at least six car bombs” were to have been detonated “in the zone made up of the presidential villa, Parliament and the Supreme Court”.
The SSS further revealed that "all [the nine arrested persons] have direct links with Henry Okah… and some unscrupulous prominent elements in society".
The Henry Okah mentioned by the SSS is reputed to be one of the leaders of MEND. He was arrested in Angola three years ago and sent to Nigeria. However, he was released under an amnesty reached between the Government and MEND in August 2009, and went to live in South Africa.
Okah was arrested by the South African police and taken to court, after the Abuja explosions, and was remanded in custody till 14 October. The South African authorities had searched his house in Johannesburg five days before the Abuja bombings. But they found nothing and let him go, only to go back and arrest him as soon as the explosions occurred in Abuja on 1 October.
The three Northerners who are vying with President Jonathan for nomination as the PDP’s presidential candidate are ex-President Ibrahim Babangida, ex-Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, and Lieutenant-General (retired) Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, former National Security Adviser to both ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan.
The Northern section of the PDP has set up a council of “elders” to examine all three candidates and choose one to be endorses the North’s choice for PDP candidate. It is understood that all three have agreed among themselves that each will “collapse” his campaign and support whoever the “elders” eventually choose.
It is not known exactly when the “elders” will announce their choice, but it would help President Jonathan a great deal if he could be made to face just one opponent in his own party. As the case is, he can expect attacks from any of them. Vice-President Atiku, for instance, has accused the President of unfairly using state resources to campaign for adoption as the PDP candidate.
And ex-President Babangida, for his part, has issued a statement sharply critical of President Jonathan’s handling of the nation’s security, following the bomb explosions.
Babangida said that what the President ought to have done immediately was to have ordered a high-powered investigation into the explosions.
Instead, “at different times, Nigerians have read different versions of the heinous crime, coming from government officials. While the President hastily exonerated the MEND, saying he knew those behind the act, another government official blamed the incident on one Mr. Henry Okah.”
Babangida charged: “It is unpresidential for Mr. President to quickly exonerate MEND, which had earlier claimed responsibility for the dastardly act, bearing in mind that the State Security Service had also reportedly received tip-offs about this dangerous act. Mr. President should have immediately ordered a high-powered investigation into the matter,” rather than alluding to terrorists’ attack to give the country a bad image in the international community.
In a swift reaction, the Director of Media and Publicity of the Jonathan Campaign Organisation, Mr Sully Abu, said Babangida was insincere in his comments.
“Trying to make political mileage from this sad event can only be the provenance of people whose staple is the violation of the lives and property of Nigerians. Why, if we may ask, was Babangida the only former head of state absent from the Independence Anniversary celebrations?” Mr Sully Abu asked.
One thing we can be sure of, then, is this: the political scene is going to be pretty rough in Abuja, from now on.
Friday, 1 October 2010
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
SPEAKER OF NAMIBIA'S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ON BASIL DAVIDSON
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Monday, 6 September 2010
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Monday, 30 August 2010
how rotten it is to cheat at sports
HOW ROTTEN IT IS TO CHEAT AT SPORTS!
By CAMERON DUODU
Modern sport has become almost a religion to many people.
This is because politics is often crooked and dull. Education reaches a saturation point after which new information is not as welcome as when we were young. Sex ditto.
But sport is for ever exciting. When you are young, you go into it with gusto and try your best to excel in it. There is nothing like starting a race with eight other people and finishing ahead of all of them. Or starting a football match and scoring more goals than your opponents.
Even in later years, when you may not be physically capable of partaking in sport in any meaningful way, you can sit in your sofa in front of a television set and take part in sporting activities -- in your mind!
Sitting around and watching others do it can arouse as much passion in one as one used to experience when one was taking part in the events oneself. In a way, it is even better, for one can get a panoramic view of the whole event, whereas when one was participating, one’s view was limited to just one‘s own perspective of it.
Better still, when one is only taking part in one’s mind, one can be as creative as one likes and shout to indicate how good one would have been, had one been on the field.
“Shoot to the right!…Oh silly boy -- he shot to the left and sent it straight to an opponent. Look back! Look back! Oh --- he didn’t look back and he’s been felled. I told him to look back and he didn’t, and now he’s on the ground!”
Apart from football and athletics, one of the sports I enjoy most these days is cricket. It looks as if it is a lazy game -- long drawn out, with very little happening most of the time, and a lot of the same thing happening most of the time. The bowler bowls, the batsman tries to stop the ball from hitting his stumps; often the ball passes harmlessly by, and is harmlessly caught by the wicket-keeper. And the wicket-keeper gives the ball back to the bowler, who bowls again, past the batsman, to the wicketkeeper, and so it goes on and on and on.
If you do not understand the game, you will think that anyone who spends time watching it is potty, honest! But if you understand it, it is extremely breath-taking, for something unexpected --anything -- can happen at any moment. Instead of the ball bowled by the bowler sailing harmlessly past the batsman, it can whizz past his bat and hit one of the three stumps in front of which he stands.
There are two pieces of wood on top of the stumps and if these are dislodged when the ball hits the stumps, the batsman is OUT! He has been “bowled” and he goes away for another batsman to come and take his place.
Meanwhile, if the bowler has bowled six balls -- and all of them have been “good balls”, in that they have not been called by the umpire as being a “wide” or a “no-ball” -- then another bowler takes over and tries to do what the previous bowler was trying to do, namely, get the batsman “out”. In won’t go into “maidens” and “overs” at this time, but who knows, one day I shall get an opportunity to do so! Right now, I don’t want to satiate your poor mind.
Eleven players on each side play the game, and they are divided into batsmen and bowlers. All the bowlers have to bat as well, but not all the batsmen have to, or can, bowl. The aim of each side is to use its bowlers to get all the batsmen of the other side out.
Apart from being clean bowled, a batsman also goes out if a ball that has touched his bat is caught by any of the players of the opposing side, before it touches the ground. He is also out if the ball hits his leg and is thereby stopped from hitting the stumps. The umpire has to decide this
-- and it causes no end of controversy!
Now, all these things can happen after the ball has been bowled, and that is what makes cricket exciting. A catch can be made by one of the players scattered around the field (they are called fielders) or by the wicket-keeper, who stands right behind the batsman. Some of the catches are difficult because the ball travels very fast after the batsman has it hard. Some balls also go up very high and there is a special technique for catching them which, when executed perfectly, is very beautiful to watch.
So a lot of different skills are deployed in cricket, and many of these skills are not found in games like football or hockey, so it is the complexity of cricket which makes it specially appreciated by its followers.
Because of the peculiar skills required of its players, good cricketers are almost worshipped by their fans. If you have ever seen a guy called Viv Richards -- for example -- bat for the West Indies; or Brian Lara (also a batsman of the West Indies); Shane Warne (Australia) and Muttai Mutalitharan (Sri Lara) spin the ball whilst bowling; or Curtley Ambrose (West Indies) or Malcolm Marshall (West Indies) or Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan) bowl the ball at about 100 mph and get excellent batsmen out -- the thrill is only slightly less than when you see Ussain Bolt leaving the field behind after only ten paces, in a 100-meter race.
So imagine the anger cricket fans have been feeling, on hearing that Mohammed Amir, a young Pakistani bowler, who took six wickets at Lord’s cricket ground in London last Friday in a match against England, cheated during the game. A newspaper called The News of The World managed to get a middleman to offer a huge sum of money, £150,000, to Amir to bowl four “no-balls” at certain stages during the match against England.
He did play the no-balls. The payback was that if anyone had betted that those no-balls would occur at those particular times during the match and they did, he could have made a fortune. And, apparently, such complex bets are made in East Asia frequently -- mostly underground -- during cricket matches.
Now, in the current case, the no-balls did not affect the match. Pakistan was losing and would have lost anyway, whether the no-balls were played or not. But the big question is: if a Pakistani player could be induced to take money to play a “no-ball”, what other things could he -- or indeed the whole team do -- to satisfy betters during a match? Could they ”throw” a whole match? Could good batsmen deliberately get themselves “out” whilst building up a good innings for their team? Could bowlers deliberately bowl wildly and allow the opposing batsmen to obtain a lot of runs?
The issue has dealt a very big blow indeed at international cricket. There have been other instances of corruption in cricket before, the most notable being the confession by the captain of South Africa, Hansie Cronje, in 2000, that he took a large sum of money from bookmakers in exchange for information about a match in which he was playing.
The International Cricket Council has been making efforts to stamp out corruption from the game since then, but apparently, it hasn’t yet succeeded.
I am enraged by this incident because it couldn’t have come at a worse moment for Pakistan. The country is fast disappearing under water, after a huge flood caused by the monsoon rains. All that could cheer Pakistanis up was the excellent performance of their cricket team against England. Now, that too has been snatched from them.
I am also annoyed at The News Of The World, for if it had not entrapped the young player, he would not have fallen victim to corruption. To have deliberately set out to ensnare a vulnerable young man whose mind would have been on his flooded home back in Pakistan, with huge wads of easy money, was particularly heartless of the paper. What he did cannot be excused, but there is always a giver before there is a taker.
The only positive thing that can come out of the sad episode is that the International Cricket Council will redouble its efforts to stamp out corruption from the game, so that we can full-heartedly believe that the results we see in matches are genuine results.