AHIA MGBEDE: Stephen Keshi, A Hurdle To Clear (3) And Moving On

BY AMBROSE EHIRIM

Ahmed Musa (L) and Stephen Keshi. Image: Paul Gilham/Getty

In my first prediction, I had said the Super Eagles would beat the Balkan state of Bosnia-Herzogovina. They did. In my second prediction, captioned "Stephen Keshi, A Hurdle To Clear (2) And Thus Far," I said the Super Eagles would win by looking closely to the Argentinian-Iranian encounter and which by if Stephen Keshi studies the tapes carefully, that an Emmanuel Emenike-led attack to weaken the Argentinaian defense  shouldn't be a big deal if the focus was worked on; to demolish the guarded walls of  Ezequiel Garay, Marcus Rojo and Pablo Zabaleta by disorganizing their strategic defense patterns and opening chances at the goal. There were, however, some few chances though the breakthrough came with Emenike's assist to Peter Odemwingie who striked for the goal, beating the Balkan state by a lone goal. 

Argentina wasn't a tough crack. It had no strong defense as assumed and the Super Eagles couldn't penetrate, though, by a stroke of good luck, they were able to clear the hurdle at the mercy of Bosnia-Herzogovina that had sent Iran home in a game played simultaneously for favors not be given a chance.

With some of the game's powerhouses---Portugal, England, Italy, Spain---in early exit accompanied by Africa's Ivory Coast and Ghana, and luck not on Africans' side, the Super Eagles, no question, has all it takes to withstand the French forces when they clash on Monday at the Estadio Nacional Stadium in Brasilia. France, another powerhouse of the globe's sports festival which begun in 1930, in Uruguay, on commemoration of Uruguay's 100 years constitution and, having won the Gold for the 1928 Olympic Games,France will test its skills with the Super Eagles.

So far, the Brazil 2014 football festival has been a great success. Quite an interesting World Cup with lots of surprises and emerging brilliant football playing nations like Costa Rica, Bosnia-Herzogovina and Iran, despite sanctions and a pariah status over the years, Iran proved it's a nation to be reckoned with and not to be brushed aside when it comes to the game. Yes, Iran did not go down as had been anticipated; giving its group partners---Argentina, Nigeria and Bosnia-Herzegovina---runs for their money. Argentina in particular will attest to that, save for its powerful striker in Lionel Messi.

Last night, I had called my brother for a gist on the ongoing tournament and his take particularly on the upcoming Monday, June 30, Nigeria-France match. He really wants Nigeria to beat France, and Algeria beating Germany so the two African nations could meet for the first time in the tournament's history; and he was confident "soothsaying" it would happen. I was on his side, not on prayer lines, but for the fact that the Super Eagles is a better team in addition to its reign as Champion of the continent's Nations' Cup. We talked into the night in a relative discourse that had taken us aback to when the tournament began and when the magnificent Edson Arantes dos Nascimento (Pele) at 17, had featured in the World Cup representing his country, standing out as the youngest to tap the leather, following years of what would be a stigma attached to the living legend, Pele. We talked among others, the best organized and entertaining in the tournament's history, the 1970 festival Pele had helped the Selecao lift the trophy for the third time, in Mexico City.

My brother had questioned why Keshi had not been playing the multipositional Victor Moses. "Keshi is already a veteran," I said, "he has been around and knows his boys very well." With the Stoke City striker, Peter Odemwingie, as replacement, it's never a lost enterprise. He scored the first goal for his country in the tournament and with a combination of Emmanuel Emenike, there's hope for deliverance. All they have to do, like I previously said regarding its attack on Argentina, would be to stop midfielder Morgan Schneider and Yohan Cabaye who returns to the French starting line-up for Monday's encounter.

Enter the CSKA Moscow winger, Ahmed Musa. His focus and ability to shoot straight at the goal earned him two quick goals against Argentina. He should never stop capitalizing on those chances like he did with Argentina, aiming at the goal post.

Nigeria beating France shouldn't be seen as an upset. The Super Eagles is a better team. Losing only comes when their craft is combined with recklessness, and when Keshi declines to play key players at the right time as the changes demand.

Now that Egbon Goodluck Jonathan kept his word and stashed the players' pockets with a long awaited cash bonuses, keeping focussed and intact with the games' framework, I see Keshi lifting the trophy. I love this game and up the Super Eagles.

Spying Drop-Off In Iraq Preceded Fresh Insurgency

 A portion of the new U.S. embassy under construction is seen from across the Tigris river in Baghdad. In 2014, by contrast, CIA officers have been largely hunkered down in their heavily fortified Baghdad compound since U.S. troops left the country in 2011, current and former officials say, allowing a once-rich network of intelligence sources to wither.

WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA officers in Iraq have been largely hunkered down in their heavily fortified Baghdad compound since U.S. troops left the country in 2011, current and former officials say, allowing a once-rich network of intelligence sources to wither.

That's a big reason, they say, the U.S. was caught flat-footed by the recent offensive by a Sunni-backed al-Qaida-inspired group that has seized a large swath of Iraq. "This is a glaring example of the erosion of our street craft and our tradecraft and our capability to operate in a hard place," said John Maguire, who helped run CIA operations in Iraq in 2004. "The U.S. taxpayer is not getting their money's worth."

Maguire was a CIA officer in Beirut in the late 1980s during that country's bloody civil war. He spent weeks living in safe houses far from the U.S. Embassy, dodging militants who wanted to kidnap and kill Americans. In Iraq, where Maguire also served, the CIA's Baghdad station remains one of the world's largest. But the agency has been unwilling to risk sending Americans out regularly to recruit and meet informants.

Iraq is emblematic of how a security-conscious CIA is finding it difficult to spy aggressively in dangerous environments without military protection, Maguire and other current and former U.S. officials say. Intelligence blind spots have left the U.S. behind the curve on fast-moving world events, they say, whether it's disintegration in Iraq, Russia's move into Crimea or the collapse of several governments during the Arab Spring.

Without directly addressing the CIA's posture in Iraq, agency spokesman Dean Boyd noted that 40 officers have died in the line of duty since September 2001. He called "offensive" any suggestion that "CIA officers are sitting behind desks, hiding out in green zones, or otherwise taking it easy back at the embassy."

Boyd said the intelligence community provided plenty of warning to the Obama administration that the insurgent Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, known as ISIL, could move on Iraqi cities. "Anyone who has had access to and actually read the full extent of CIA intelligence products on ISIL and Iraq should not have been surprised by the current situation," he said.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House intelligence committee, agreed, saying, "This was not an intelligence failure — this was a policy failure." However, while U.S. intelligence officials predicted that ISIL would attempt to seize territory in Iraq this year, they did not appear to anticipate ISIL's offensive on June 10 to seize Mosul, which created a momentum that led to other successes. Officials also expressed surprise at how quickly the Iraqi army collapsed. And military leaders contemplating quick airstrikes said there was not enough intelligence to know what to hit.

A senior U.S. intelligence official who briefed reporters this week acknowledged that "a lot of the (intelligence) collection that we were receiving diminished significantly following the U.S. withdrawal in Iraq in 2011, when we lost some of the 'boots on the ground' view of what was going on." Under rules for such briefings, the official spoke on condition that her name not be used.

In the same briefing, the official disclosed that U.S. intelligence did not know who controlled Iraq's largest oil refinery. And she suggested that one of the biggest sources of intelligence for American analysts is Facebook and Twitter postings.

The U.S. spent nearly $72 billion on intelligence gathering in 2013. It was telling that President Barack Obama sent 300 special operations troops "to help us gain more intelligence and more information about what ISIL is doing and how they're doing it," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said — an implicit admission that American intelligence-gathering about ISIL has been insufficient.

No one suggests that the CIA carries all the blame. After American troops left Iraq, the State Department abandoned plans for a huge diplomatic staff at a network of facilities. Kevin Carroll, a former CIA operations officer with Middle East experience, said it's unreasonable to expect the agency to collect "from a fortified war zone embassy the breadth and depth of information collected when U.S. military bases and troops throughout Iraq helped support CIA operations."

But for Maguire and other former intelligence officials, it's clear the CIA has allowed its espionage muscles to atrophy. CIA officers lived in well-guarded bases all over Iraq during the U.S. occupation, and met frequently with Iraqis. But even then, it wasn't traditional spying. Often, agency operatives would travel to meet sources in highly visible armed convoys. They knew that the U.S. military was somewhere over the horizon if things went wrong. And security concerns often left case officers confined to their bases, several former CIA officers said.

The agency operates the same way in Afghanistan, where it is also closing a series of remote bases as the U.S. troop presence there draws down. Intelligence collection there is expected to suffer as well.

The CIA's approach is designed, current and former officials say, to prevent the sort of thing that happened in 1984, when Beirut station chief William Buckley was kidnapped from his apartment by Hezbollah and tortured to death. But bases can also be attacked, as in 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, when two CIA contractors were among four dead Americans.

Other intelligence services accept more risk. In Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, most case officers operate outside of embassies, posing as civilians under what the U.S. calls "non official cover," said Ronen Bergman, who covers intelligence affairs for Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth and is working on a history of the Mossad.

In countries such as Iran where Israel does not have an embassy, the Mossad sends deep cover operatives to live and gather intelligence, knowing they could be executed if discovered, Bergman said. But Israel can call upon a large population of native Arabic speakers whose appearance allows them to blend in. U.S. intelligence leaders have been talking for years about the need to recruit case officers who look like they could blend in and train them in difficult languages, but current and former officials say it just hasn't happened at the level anticipated after 9/11.

The intelligence budget document leaked last year by Edward Snowden shows that after 11 years of war in Afghanistan, just 88 people in civilian U.S. intelligence agencies got bonuses for speaking Pashto, the language of the Taliban and its allies.

AHIA MGBEDE: Stephen Keshi, A Hurdle To Clear (2) And Thus Far

BY AMBROSE EHIRIM

Final Draw of the 2006 FIFA World Cup: Coaches of Switzerland Koebi Kuhn, Togo's Nigerian Stephen Keshi, France's Raymond Domenech and South Korea's Dutch head coach Dick Advocaat (L-R) shake hands after the draw for the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals in Leipzig, eastern Germany, December 9, 2005. The four countries were drawn in Group G for the World Cup finals. Date: December 9, 2005. Image: Wu Xiaoling/Xinhua Press

Nigeria's first major FIFA World Cup attempt began in 1976 with the Preliminary Rounds of the African Zone; and, in 1977, when the Final Round of the Preliminaries was played on a league schedule drawing Tunisia, Egypt and Nigeria together as the finalists with one of the three teams to represent Africa. With a home court advantage, Nigeria needed just a win against Tunisia for a spot at the Argentina tournament. 

When it comes to Ahia Mgbede, Nigerians are known to be totally united neverminding the archrivalry between the front-running clubsides of the day and its key players---the IICC Shooting Stars Football Club (Ibadan Investment Credit Corporation) of Ibadan and the Rangers International Football Club of Enugu. There were other picks from the minor clubsides like Haruna Illerika and co. destined to promote Ahia Mgbede spirit in the country, the only source and key ingredient to national unity.

With a nation united on Ahia Mgbede, the death squads ceased to exist in their operations over rival ethnic teams. The consultation of the Babalawos and images of the rivals picked to be pinned during encounters had to be waved for a national call. So, too, was the Oracle visits to the shrines on the Eastside where concoctions of the shrines' red soils and decayed mammals are mixed in drinks for supernatural powers, cast away and done with. There were no more invocations of "Agwuishi na Amadioha" with the chants of "Isee o, Isee o" and things of that nature that the enemy must fall and be destroyed by the gods of nd'amala. And on the Westside, the gods of ifa had also been cautioned to cease and desist as well, regarding its voodoo deities' "eleda" to come through and destroy its enemies before the battle begins. No god was much better. They had come to terms with reality. That what was needed was collectivity for ultimate utopianism.

A dialogue reached between spirits of the land. 

And they arrived.

One nation under God, indivisible with destiny, and oneness becomes the ideal. Folks from all ethnic localities would meet at the pubs and drink in unism. They would drink together on the sidewalks chanting "one nation under God; we shall overcome our predicaments," following calls for more booze and in euphoria, that never had there been a team assembled in the nation's history to play as one with the passion of the sport and a display of patriotism.

On the drive toward Argentina '78, the team built by the Yugoslavian "Soccer Bully," Father Tiko, had nothing in comparison to all of the African continent and what was up and about to unfold on the playgrounds heading to Latin America. So close, and if it wasn't for Godwin Odiye's miscalculated intercepting header, that finest squad would have gone to Argentina and made Nigeria proud. In fact, bring the trophy home. Yes, that's how Tiko's boys were in the day and time they had to be feared and notably, the clubside, Enugu Rangers, defeating Germany's Dundee United in that classic friendly, showing the world they belonged.

The FIFA World Cup had been the treat; the lost, and yet again, Odiye becomes a national nightmare on which the nation is yet to recover.

Then and again, the Eagles had expected to be compensated for that loss---to win the African Cup of Nations for the first time which was held in Ghana, in 1978. It never came. The Chairman Christian Chukwu-led squad had lost to Uganda in the semis while my fellow school mate, the wizard dribbling Ahmed Polo, captained the Black Stars to lift the trophy for a record fourth time.

Playing at the World Cup had become a mirage for a nation so huge in human capital and buoyant in its natural resources to be able to produce an outstanding team on national calls. As of that time, in 1978, a young lad named Stephen Okechukwu Keshi was tapping leather at St. Finbarrs College, and before then, the Iponri neighborhood had been his hangout where folks tested skills in the event of academic scheduled mandates or national calls. The Nations Cup was coming up, and the "bully trainer" Tiko, had kept his men intact save for some new addition which included the youngest to tap the scene on national call; an energetic, athletically combined left-footed striker by the name of Henry Nwosu. The vibrant press had warned the nation's football organizing body not to field him. They called on Tiko to drop him; that he was too young and lacked experience in a tournament Nigeria wanted its trophy bad, on a life and death situation. Nwosu was not dropped; he became the nation's youngest striker and among the cast that brought Nigeria the African Cup of Nations Trophy. Keshi had not been seen or surfaced anywhere he could be identified as a national treasure.

With Nations Cup in the books from a Chairman Chukwu's-led campaign victory, the Jules Rimet Trophy became an immediate target. Appearance at the World Cup never came. it was still a mirage. All sorts of national coaches began to emerge until the employment of Brazilian Otto Gloria Nigerians thought he would deliver not realizing he was an arm chair coaching specialist, not the type wanted by the nation at its desperate hour.

Yes, a mirage and a very distant Trophy from view. 

But then, came Clemens Westerhof and a football clinic that generated and prepared the finest cast for the showdown of nations, clearing the hurdle, eventually. Winning the African Nations Cup Nigeria gained its spot at the 1994 World Cup held on the shores of America. Great representation which overnight catapulted Nigeria as an emerging powerhouse in global football. Keshi was on the roll call in Nigeria's first ever appearance on FIFA's global football festival held around the cities in the United States. Equal to the task and in its rookie year, the Eagles gave its best and slugged it out with the robust playing Roerto Baggio-led Italian team.

The aftermath of the FIFA 1994 USA wasn't favoring Nigeria on the global arena when Westerhof had left and a team determined to reach the top on its level began to lose its steam. Keshi left and came to California for a brief stunt with aging players and a take at coaching. On the squabbles for a national coach after going down the hill on performances, a suspension by the presidency and a Nigerian obsessed with foreign coaches, nothing worked until Keshi was considered for the top coaching job after years of neglect which had him look elsewhere---Mali and Togo---he coached successfully to be given attention.

Like in the first part of this piece, Keshi had been called for a "high tech" lynching by a Nigerian "wild, wild," fanatical mob when his chances became very slim in last years nations cup in South Africa until he turned things around and coached the Super Eagles to victory, winning the trophy as a player and as a coach, and first of its kind in the nation's history. Now the history maker is about to complete another mission and add more credits to boost his resume. I had predicted victory for the Eagles before the Bosnia-Herzogovina encounter. 

Looking closely to the Argentina-Iran encounter, it doesn't take too much probing to come to terms that Argentina is beatable. Without much ado, a fierce Super Eagles attack enforced by the magnificent Emmanuel Emenike would for sure weaken the defense of Ezequiel Garay, Marcos Rojo and or, Pablo Zabaleta and, open up chances for the "spoiled brats'". Victory then, would be easily theirs.  On the Super Eagles defense, like the Iranians did, neutralizing the firepower of its forwards---Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Gonzalo Higuain and or midfielder Maxi Rodriguez---they will smile all the way to the Knockout Rounds. Again, the firepower of the Argentinian forwards must be neutralized and its defense weakened.

The line for the Nigeria-Argentina match Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at the Estadio Beira-Rio Stadium, Porte Alegre will be in favor of the Super Eagles. With more opening chances, Nigeria by two.

Bomb Under Car Seat Kills Somali Journalist

Somali journalist Yusuf Keynan sits in radio station center in Kenya. No group has claimed the responsibility the Assassination of Yusuf Keynan, the editor of Mustaqbal radio in Mogadishu, who was killed as a bomb planted under his car exploded as he attempted to travel to work in the morning, a colleague of the murdered reporter has said.

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (AP) — A journalist in Somalia's capital says a bomb planted under the car seat of a Somali reporter exploded and killed him.

Abdinasir Mohamed Ali said that his colleague at Mustaqbal radio, Yusuf Keynan, died when the bomb exploded as he started his car to travel to work in Mogadishu on Saturday. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Keynan is the first journalist murdered in Somalia this year following a series of attacks against journalists over the past two years. Targeted attacks against journalists were common in 2012 and 2013, but most of those murders were carried out by gunmen.

Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries to be a journalist, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

AHIA MGBEDE: Stephen Keshi, A Hurdle To Clear

By Ambrose Ehirim

In February 2013 which is exactly 16 months ago, Stephen Keshi was a national hero and an African icon having head-coached the Super Eagles to victory at the Nations' Cup in South Africa. He came from behind on the scorecards with an uncertain fate and eventually changed his flawed strategy and, took the last laugh on which his boys, the Super Eagles, came out celebrating a trophy no Nigerian ever thought was possible. Vibes from the "negative press" had written him off and a die hard football fanatics, the raged but flamboyant supporters had been demoralized and hopeless, as a result, until Super Eagles lifted the trophy.

Turning out to a point Keshi and his boys would be mobbed upon return, a loser, from the tournament, his efforts and change of strategy alongside a very good luck that came on his side, the Super Eagles pulled it out lighting up the spirit of the nation that was once down. There was no mourning. The Super Eagles won.

I had joined the bandwagon to talk down on Keshi and his boys, neverminding applauding my boy, the magnificent Emmanuel Emenike, I had awarded an asterisk branding him a spoiled brat due to the way he celebrated his goals, which I thought he overemphasized. Nigerian mobs came after me for calling Emenike and his colleagues "Spoiled Brats." It was just my heartbeat. It's the nature of the sport and nothing, absolutely nothing, buys that. the ladies, for sure, knows that, too.

Yes.

The Super Eagles victory at the 2013 Nations' Cup brought along with it, all sorts of fanfare---joyous festivities and merry making---a free sex festival and all that you can handle. I missed it. Cash was pouring in from every corner. Gifts were overwhelmingly given. Structures were named after them. Keshi, in particular, stood the test of the moment. He smoked all the way to the bank and, even by the time the Globacom Chairman, Mike Adenuga, knew it, he had already lavished Keshi with fleet of cars and millions in any currency.

Here we go again. Keshi, about to be lynched from a game his country folks thinks he's to blame, the speculations now is that Keshi had already planned his relocation and not nearing his home country knowing the consequences of throwing the country into serious mourning after a devastating FIFA World Cup performances. In fact, the speculation is alleging Keshi is coming out here, the City of Angels, to hang with us and save himself from a "wild, wild," unforgiving Nigerian Football fanatics. Godwin Odiye knows better and we all bear witness.

In tomorrow's game against one of the Balkan states, the Bosnian-Herzegovinaians, Nigerians must come out and throw support...lift up the spirits of these youngsters for a must win. The Super Eagles will win and, it's our call; we the people!

The Super Eagles must attack
like its cousin, the Hawk
The Super Eagles must fly
over the mountains and over the seas
Like its buddy, the Dove
Like the Dove, they must show
compassion, love and oneness
The Super Eagles must win...

For a guy who helped lift the trophy as a player in 1994, playing from the bottom of his heart; coached his national team to victory during the 2013 African Nation's Cup Finals and represented his country very well at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States, he deserves no mob lynching but courage!

Long After Move To US, Nazi Suspect Faces Charges

The main gate of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz I, Poland, which was liberated by the Russians, January 1945. Writing over the gate reads: "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes free - or work liberates). Johann Breyer, 89 faces possible extradition. A German court has charged him with aiding in the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children during World War II. Breyer was arrested Tuesday outside his home in northeast Philadelphia. He has lived in the U.S. since 1952. Breyer has admitted he was an SS guard at Auschwitz in occupied Poland.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A decade after a court ruling allowed him to live out his quiet, middle-class life in the U.S., an 89-year-old Philadelphia man faces possible extradition to Germany on charges he aided in the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children at a Nazi death camp.

Johann "Hans" Breyer, a retired tool-and-die maker, is being held without bail on allegations stemming from his suspected service as an SS guard at Auschwitz during World War II. U.S. marshals arrested him Tuesday outside his home in northeast Philadelphia, acting on a warrant signed last week by a federal magistrate. Prosecutors said the district court in Weiden, Germany, had issued a warrant on June 17, 2013, charging him with 158 counts of complicity in the commission of murder. Each count represents a trainload of Nazi prisoners from Hungary, Germany and Czechoslovakia who were killed between May 1944 and October 1944.

Attorney Dennis Boyle argued Wednesday in federal court in Philadelphia that Breyer is too infirm to be detained pending his Aug. 21 extradition hearing. Breyer, wearing a prison-issued jumpsuit, appeared frail and carried a cane as he was helped to his seat. He has mild dementia and heart issues and has previously suffered strokes, Boyle said.

"Mr. Breyer is not a threat to anyone," Boyle said. "He's not a flight risk." But Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice ruled the detention center was medically equipped to care for Breyer. The elderly defendant appeared to comprehend questions about the nature of the hearing, though one of his grandsons testified Breyer's dementia has worsened recently.

Breyer has been under investigation for years by prosecutors in the Bavarian town of Weiden, near where he last lived in Germany. He has resided in the U.S. since 1952. Breyer has admitted he was a guard at Auschwitz in occupied Poland, but he told The Associated Press that he was stationed outside of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp part of the complex. He denied having anything to do with the wholesale slaughter of about 1.5 million Jews and others behind the gates.

"I didn't kill anybody, I didn't rape anybody — and I don't even have a traffic ticket here," he told the AP in a 2012 interview. "I didn't do anything wrong." Thomas Walther, a former federal prosecutor with the special office that investigates Nazi war crimes in Germany, now represents family members of some of Breyer's alleged victims as co-plaintiffs in the case. He called for a speedy extradition.

"The German court has to find late justice for the crimes of Breyer and for the victims and their sons and daughters as co-plaintiffs," Walther wrote in an email to the AP. "It is late, but not too late."

The U.S. government tried to revoke Breyer's citizenship in 1992 after discovering his wartime background. His American citizenship stems from the fact his mother was born in the U.S.; she later moved to Europe, where Breyer was born.

The years-long legal saga appeared to end with a 2003 decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found Breyer had joined the SS as a minor and could therefore not be held legally responsible for participation in it.

As he was being arrested Tuesday, Breyer asked law enforcement officers to retrieve papers in his home that document his right to stay in the U.S., according to deputy marshal Daniel Donnelly. Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, said he hoped there would be no obstacles to Breyer's extradition and trial overseas.

"Germany deserves credit for doing this — for extending and expanding their efforts and, in a sense, making a final attempt to maximize the prosecution of Holocaust perpetrators," he said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report. Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson

BOOK REVIEW: A Common Man's Political Character



By Ambrose Ehirim

In The Shadows of Politics:

Reflections From My Mirror

By Sylvester A. Mensah

Author House, London; 163 pp., $14.95 Paperback

Leopoldville, Congo: His arms roped behind him, ousted Congo Premier Patrice Lumumba (center) is roughly handled by soldiers here. Lumumba, attempting to flee to his stronghold at Stanleyville, was captured by troops of Congolese strongman Col. Joseph Mobutu and returned to Leopoldville. on Dec. 6th. A Soviet effort to have Lumumba's treatment debated at the United Nations was defeated. Date: December 6, 1960. Image: Bettmann Collection

Sylvester A. Mensah's memoir "In The Shadows of Politics: Reflections From My Mirror" is full of stories dating back to the administration of Kwame Nkrumah in which he talks about his father's involvement from when Nkrumah took the mantle of leadership to its collapse, when Nkrumah was chased out of power from what was said to be threat he had posed to the international community, and, to the Western Hemisphere, in particular.

One can read Mensah's memoir in a take of a coffee break or sit under a tree, that is if you have the time for the leisure at the beach to read the fascinating story which tells the tale of a humble beginning that eventually sours, then picks up through stories of learning the traditional way, and growing up, emulating the foundations of leadership to propelling the ideal to the forefront--taking the lead to effect changes and what would pay off by way of hard work--living a dream--from around which there was no substitute. I read his book in a take and had to reread it again for this review.

Mensah begins each chapter and sub-chapters with quotations from men he had admired and followed--Benjamin Disraeli, Bruno Bettelheim, Sir William Hamilton, Chad Varah, Georges Pompidou, William Shakespeare, Napoleon Hill, Jim Yackel, Vinve Lombardi, Colin Powell, Abraham Marshlow, Mahatma Gandhi, George Orwell, the Biblical Corinthians 29, and other sayings of wisdom--that had inspired and guided him through his philosophical nurturing and political upbringing.

Starting his story with his father, Lovelace Mensah, who had registered as a party member affiliated to the Convention Peoples Party, the CPP, becoming Nkrumah's errand boy, sharing time and private moments with Nkrumah, a man he had admired and committed himself.

In Congo, Ghana had opened its foreign mission and Mensah, Sylvester's father, had among his other colleagues been assigned to the new diplomatic office during which time Sylvester's father met Patrice Lumumba and established a cordial relationship which was held strong until Lumumba became the prime minister of the Congo republic upon Congo's independence. Lumumba, according to Mensah,  "Africanized the Congo military" and promoted Mobutu Sese Seko to head the military, which in a few months upon that appointment, coupled by an "ensuing" anarchy, Sese Seko would seize power, sack Lumumba and place him under house arrest. When Lumumba was arrested, Nkrumah, disturbed, and of losing a very close ally sought ways and means to rescue the prime minister, overthrown by the military junta.

Nkrumah with the plan to rescue Lumumba handed Mensah a handwritten letter to be delivered to Lumumba in his guarded residence. The letter had detailed out some techniques of maneuver to escape, but a suspicious military guardsmen who kept vigilant where Lumumba had been restricted to move freely at a time Lumumba was reading the letter from Nkrumah. With the soldiers advancing where Lumumba was kept, Mensah quickly "snatched" the letter from his friend, Lumumba, and chewed and swallowed it.

Mensah was beaten by the soldiers and arrested, tortured and interrogated  for clues that may lead to where the letters came from and its content. Mensah's arrest was published in Ghana's major newspapers wired from Reuters: "An official of the government of the Congo Coordination Committee has confirmed that a diplomat, Mr. Lovelace Mensah, has been arrested in Leopoldville. He said United Nations authorities were arranging to secure his release."

Despite all the efforts and the strategies by Nkrumah on Lumumba's rescue, the plan failed and Lumumba was not spared by his captives. Lumumba was executed and thus begun the Congo civil unrest and prolonged civil war.

In what had been why Mensah (Sylvester's father) was detained as published in the Congolese dailies on allegations of Ghana's plans to invade the Congo, though denied by the Ghanaian government, the anti-Lumumba Province of Katanga insisted, escalating the Congo-Ghana squabbles from Nkrumah's personal letter to Lumumba and an official letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, asking for United Nations intervention in the Congo and release of Mensah.

Sylvester Mensah was born in Conakry, Guinea, on December 28, 1963 to Christiana Essie Atwel Mensah and Lovelace Mensah during his father's shuttle as a Ghanaian diplomat around the world. Mensah obtained his B.Sc. degree in Administration from the University of Ghana and his MBA in Finance from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. With his first degree, he dabbled into Ghanaian politics swaggling his way into parliament serving the La Dadekotopon Constituency at the age of 33 and, being the youngest ever in the country to attain such position.

At La, Mensah found a place he could play local politics on which he was deeply involved, and meeting with prominent Ghanaian politicians and at the same time, sitting as MP, he became an "article 71" official bestowed by the "President of the Republic" and whose assignments included among others the Consolidated Fund of Ghana.

Initiating the Dadekotopon Education Trust Fund, the DRTF, with beginning sum of three thousand five hundred Ghanaian Cedis, its purpose was to help students who needed assistance financially for "educated-related activities that enhance learning."

Among the social programs and other welfare-related projects, a poverty alleviation fund, Roads and Drainage maintenance Projects, the Eastside Game Projects, the Cantonment Social Center Projects, the Dadekotopon Stadium Project, the La Market Rehabilitation Project, and the La Lorry Park Project were created and implemented under the leadership of Mensah as MP for the La Dadekotopon Constituency; and, also, on the poverty alleviation fund project aimed at "proving financial assistance to improve the livelihood of distressed members of the constituency.

In a Parliamentary order of democratic fabrics, Mensah's National Delegates Congress, the NDC, was defeated by the opposition party, the New Patriotic Party, the NPP, in an overwhelming landslide which left him redundant, broke and a hopeless future as he leaves the Ghanaian Parliament.

Mensah did not save enough cash during his MP years, had no house built he could call his own given that his MP years was open with every opportunity to amass wealth, enough to sustain his out of parliament life and at the same time able to have enough cash for other related investments common with politicians when in power. Mensah had decided to be honest, hard-working in performing his duties giving accounts of his stewardship transparently. That honesty cost him a whole lot which did open up options and other opportunities." as he moved on.

That misfortune of losing his seat in parliament paved way for his attempt to leave for England in order to advance his education since a bachelor's degree was not enough to fair well in Ghana in elevation of his status and the ability to meet up with the nation's current demands in the quest of thoroughness in the system and upholding democracy and the rule of law.

Leaving Ghana with only ninety British pound sterling in his pocket, he enrolled for the masters degree program at the University of Leicester, majoring in Finance. Soon, his wife joined him in the UK and both collectively worked to help each other. Mensah would teach here and there, in different colleges, had some money saved and moved back to Ghana to continue his political career while his family stayed for the meantime, as he gets things situated in Ghana. Securing a job at the Intercontinental Bank as Head of Service, Public Service Banking he eyed other opening opportunities.

Mensah's second coming as a political heavyweight was not an easy call. He had consulted with many Ghanaian personalities and government officials which included President John Dramani Mahama, then MP for the Bole Bomboi constituency and the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, then the party's flag-bearer for advise and guidelines in his quest to bounce back. He had also expected a better reception from poet Kofi Awoonor while exploring the possibilities of reentering politics and running for a position. He was not impressed with his encounter after meeting Awoonor who had told him that he came way too late. In my interview with Mensah, and asking him about his experiences during his second political attempt and especially regarding what he had expected from Awoonor, Mensah said:

'Professor Kofi Awoonor’s view was a disappointment at the time. But I took it as a candid opinion expressed by respectable man who always spoke his mind. Therefore, I chose to regard his opinion as an unspoken hint [from someone I respected] to double my effort if I really wanted to win. However, the eventual winner of the elections [Mr. Johnson  Asiedu-Nketia] has proved to be a real asset to the party as General Secretary, and this I acknowledge with humility. In hindsight, perhaps l should have given him my support rather than contesting him."

Ghana's attempt at reform and good governance went through a long haul of trials upon lowering of the Union Jack by the colonial administrators and the overthrow of Nkrumah's government by the Emmanuel kotoka-led military juntas. I was a living experience of Nkrumah-led administration alongside my childhood friends--Teddy Onyeji, John Bull and others, including President Mahama, at the Kanda Estate playgrounds and amusement parks which was a stonethrow away from the Flagstaff House, the state house where Nkrumah presided on the affairs of state.

As a tradition introduced into the African continent, and like Ghana, military coups and in-between short-lived civilian rule became the norm. From the Kotoka-led regime to Joseph Ankrah, after kotoka was murdered in a cold blood by counter coupers and, the sudden assumption of A.A. Afrifa charge d' affairs before a general election that saw the election of Kofi Busia, Ghana fell to its bottom low following years of uncertainties and bad leadership.

As it would happen, a young Airforce officer named John Jerry Rawlings would intercept what had destroyed Ghana's economy from years of bad governance. In my continued interview with Mensah, I had sought his thoughts on what had happened and why it was allowed to happen,  and what had gone wrong with a system of government engineered by the Nkrumah cabinet supposedly to have been emulated by other African states as a model to profound leadership and the deterioration upon fall of the First Republic. And if Rawlings should be justified in carrying out a revolution where three former Heads-of-State were murdered in his revolution, Mensah again:

"Jerry Rawlings was very much a product of his time, which you describe as ‘Ghana’s troubled past and revolution.’ Harsh as the events were, it is important to recognize that we all contributed to the turmoil of those times in our own ways! We need to learn the lessons of those days as we make strides into our new democratic future, and vow never again to allow things to degenerate to those levels. We must also ensure that the lessons of those times are thoroughly taught to future generations. That is the only way to protect our fledgling progress and avoid mistakes of the past."

In Mensah's own words, Rawlings came in because of the time and the necessities for a sense of purpose and belonging' which in its aftermath, a terrible cost paid in the Ghanaian revolution.

Mensah came from a home that's large, of polygamous making by a diplomat father. He did not find life as easy as it should have been considering the fact that his father was a Nkrumah ally and should be assumed all would be very well why he grew up. In a large family of his and rearing likely to be rowdy, grand in mischief and competition, at five, he had already seen much around him, and upon return from Rome, Italy, where his father had served as an attache under the Nkrumah administration, and from what would follow as "economic hardship," though survived the culture shock, adapted and assimilated into the Ghanaian culture of his ancestral home, all that came after was a fairy tale and a life of its future not really certain.

Going through school itself was a journey of confessional grades at a point. A house full of many siblings denied him privileges to obtain quality education, and, despite all the stumbling block from family hiccups, he gave it his best and eventually, overcame what had clouded his ability for profound scholarship. But as in determination and commitment to succeed, encountering the usual difficulties with the prospects of a better future that seemed to have vanished as a result of his father's expulsion as a diplomat and party affiliated political engagements, Mensah never gave up his dreams even though responsible for taking care of the family from his meager income which oftentimes could hinder every opportunity for growth, he secured a scholarship at the Cottbus Political College in Germany to study "Political Economy." There, he completed his brief course and returned home to his native Ghana.

Upon return to Ghana, he was admitted for the public administration program at the University of Ghana, Legon, where he obtained his diploma. Not enough in his academic pursuits and a bright future and while in the Ghanaian parliament representing the La Dadekotopon Constituency, he seized the moment and enrolled in a degree program earning a BS. in Human Resource Management.

Elsewhere, playing significant role in local politics at his constituency, and as Chief Executive Officer, the CEO of the National Health Insurance Scheme, the NHIS, and despite the challenges it posed, he worked tirelessly in "improving data integrity, employing the Consolidated Claims Processing Center", the CDC, to "full capacity," and the implementation to "enforce the directives of the Ministry of Health," by way of medications and prescription levels, and a thorough management of all related accounts to effect the changes demanded and why the Insurance scheme he headed had to be created on which he gave it his best shot, reviving what seemed to have been impossible. With all the difficult tasks, Mensah took a measure, according to him, that saw an "increased inflow of revenue" under his care and relocation of the department to a bigger complex in order to locate other necessary needs to enhance the schemes' programs.

As it would turn out from his efforts and the diligence to yield results positively in the insurance scheme he had held as CEO for four years, Mensah, noted with dignity that "the pillars of progress erected in the four years of my tenure, with the help of the able management team assisting me, ranges from a NHIS law  (Act 852 of 2012), a single payer system, and a medium term development plan these achievements are firmly anchored in a redefined vision and mission, both designed to stand the test of time, and both consistent with our objectives."

In the books' forward, Professor kwamena Akwoi of Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, describes Mensah with vigor and the ambition that shares similar traits of "99 Days In Agege," the book about an optimistic individual during the 1980s Nigeria political crossroads and President Barack Obama's ideal of a "New dawn" in "Yes We Can."

Besides my interview with Mensah and questions regarding previous military regimes in his book and declining responses in detail, to fault the juntas as part of what had destroyed Ghana in its entirety after the fall of Nkrumah's government and upon Rawlings revolution which paved way for the Third and Fourth Republic, one presumes he had left the subject to be written and questions answered by others who probably have better insight in what had transpired during that era. 

Mensah's 163 page book is a fun read from a "kid" who grew up in a political environment, turned out a politician, justifying his every move and interest for a political career, even though there were other options to pursue something else. His dream and passion worked out to his timing, which also enhanced his book writing career, beginning with this biography.

For one with big ideas from the concept of the book and, now highly intelligent, thoughtful and principled, the sky is the limit and a shot at the presidency shouldn't come as a surprise. He would have earned it.

Iraq Sunni Militant Group Vows To March On Baghdad

Iraqi men gather outside of the main army recruiting center to volunteer for military service in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, June. 12, 2014, after authorities urged Iraqis to help battle insurgents. The al-Qaida-inspired group that led the charge in capturing two key Sunni-dominated cities in Iraq this week vowed on Thursday to march on to Baghdad, raising fears about the Shiite-led government's ability to slow the assault following the insurgents' lightning gains.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ (AP) — The al-Qaida-inspired group that led this week's charge in capturing two key Sunni-dominated cities in Iraq vowed Thursday to march on to Baghdad, raising fears about the Shiite-led government's ability to slow the assault following lightning gains.

Signs emerged that the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant is backed in its campaign by former military officers and other members of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's regime — including a force led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the late leader's former deputy who escaped the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and eluded U.S. and Iraqi forces ever since.

In the north, Kurdish security forces took over an air base and other posts abandoned by the Iraqi military in ethnically mixed Kirkuk, a senior official with the Kurdish forces said. He denied they had taken over the oil-rich city.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked parliament this week to declare a state of emergency that would give him increased powers to run the country, but the lawmakers Thursday failed to assemble a quorum to do so.

As world leaders expressed alarm over the destabilization of large parts of the country by fighters from the militant group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the U.N. Security Council scheduled consultations on the crisis.

The Islamic State aims to create an Islamic emirate spanning both sides of the Iraq-Syria border. It has been able to push deep into parts of the Iraqi Sunni heartland once controlled by U.S. forces because police and military forces melted away after relatively brief clashes.

Two senior intelligence officials told The Associated Press that an armed group led by al-Douri, the Naqshabandi Army, and other Saddam-era military figures joined the Islamic State in the fight. In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit that was overrun by militants Wednesday, witnesses said fighters raised posters of Saddam and al-Douri. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

The involvement of Saddam-era figures raises the potential to escalate the militants' campaign to establish an al-Qaida-like enclave into a wider Sunni uprising. That could only further the momentum toward turning Iraq's sectarian and ethnic divisions in to a geographical fragmentation.

The Islamic State issued a triumphalist statement declaring that it would start implementing its strict version of Shariah law in Mosul and other regions it had overrun. It said women should stay in their homes for modesty reasons, warned it would cut off the hands of thieves and told residents to attend daily prayers. It told Sunnis in the military and police to abandon their posts and "repent" or else "face only death."

"People, you have tried secular regimes ... This is now the era of the Islamic State," it proclaimed. Baghdad does not appear to be in imminent danger of a similar assault, although Sunni insurgents have stepped up car bombings and suicide attacks in the capital recently.

With its large Shiite population, the capital would be a far harder target for the militants. So far, Islamic State fighters have stuck to the Sunni heartland and former Sunni insurgent strongholds where people are already alienated by al-Maliki's Shiite-led government over allegations of discrimination and mistreatment. The militants also would likely meet far stronger resistance, not only from government forces but by Shiite militias if they tried to advance on Baghdad.

Iraqi officials and analysts said the ISIL assault is being helped by sympathetic Sunnis, including former army officers and other remnants of Saddam's regime, which fell after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Skirmishes continued in several areas overnight and into Thursday. Two communities near Tikirt — the key oil refining center of Beiji and the city of Samarra, home to a prominent Shiite shrine — remained in government hands, according to Iraqi intelligence officials.

They said ISIL fighters managed to take control of two big weapons depots holding some 400,000 items, including AK-47 rifles, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, artillery shells and mortars. A quarter of the stockpiles were quickly sent to Syria in order to help the group's comrades there, they said.
Officers from the army that was disbanded after the invasion are helping coordinate the fight with the Islamic State, they said. Other armed groups involved in the attacks include the Army of the Men of the Naqshabandi Order, which is led by the top fugitive from Saddam's regime, Izzat al-Douri, and another known as the Iraqi Resistance Group, they said.

The officials provided the information on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge it publicly. After Mosul fell Tuesday, al-Maliki asked parliament to give him the "necessary powers" to run the country under a state of emergency — something legal experts said would include powers to impose curfews, restrict public movements and censor the media.

After parliament failed to reach a quorum, Hakim al-Zamili, a lawmaker affiliated with firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, played down the apparent lack of support for the vote, saying al-Maliki already has enough power to take the necessary action.

"The problem is that soldiers are not resisting the armed groups," he said. "No soldier is ready to fire a shot against the gunmen." The stunning advances by the Sunni militants are a heavy defeat for al-Maliki. His Shiite-dominated political bloc came first in April 30 parliamentary elections — the first since the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011 — but failed to gain a majority, forcing him to try to build a governing coalition.

Al-Zamili, a member in the parliament's defense and security committee, said armed groups such as Naqshabandi army, and former Baathists and army officers are fighting along with the ISIL. Gunmen in Mosul continued to hold hostages at the Turkish consulate there.

Turkish officials are talking to militants in Mosul about freeing 80 people being held there, according to an official in the Turkish prime minister's office. The captives include 49 people who were seized in the Turkish consulate Wednesday, including the general consul and 31 truck drivers, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to reporters.
In addition to Mosul and Tikrit, the Islamic State and its allies among local tribesmen also hold Fallujah and other pockets of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province to the west of Baghdad. Online video showed some Tikrit residents celebrating the takeover. As Islamic State fighters drove through largely empty streets in a captured military Humvee and a pickup truck mounted with an anti-aircraft gun, what appeared to be a few dozen people shouted "God is great," and celebratory gunfire could be heard. The video appeared authentic and was consistent with AP reporting.

The Islamic State's spokesman vowed to take the fight into Baghdad. In a sign of the group's confidence, he even boasted that its fighters will take the southern Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, which hold two of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims.

"We will march toward Baghdad because we have an account to settle there," he said in an audio recording posted on militant websites commonly used by the group. The statement could not be independently verified.

Meanwhile, Kurdish fighters from the ethnic group's autonomous enclave in the north showed signs of taking a greater role in fighting back against the Islamic State. Their role is a potential point of friction because both Sunni and Shiite Arabs are wary over Kurdish claims on territory outside their enclave.

Kurdish security forces known as peshmerga took over an air base and other posts abandoned by the Iraqi military in the ethnically mixed flashpoint city of Kirkuk, Brig. Halogard Hikmat, a senior peshmerga official told the Associated Press. But he denied reports the whole city was under peshmerga control.

"We decided to move ... because we do not want these places with the weapons inside them to fall into the hands of the insurgents," said Hikmat. Iraqi government officials could not be reached to confirm the account.

A force of 20 pickup trucks carrying Islamic State militants attacked peshmerga positions near the town of Sinjar, on a highway between Mosul and the Syrian border. The two sides battled for four hours late Wednesday night in a firefight that killed nine militants and wounded four peshmerga, Hikmat said.

Militants also attacked an Iraqi security checkpoint in Tarmiyah, 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Baghdad, killing five troops and wounding nine, said officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Hundreds of young men crowded in front of the main army recruiting center in Baghdad on Thursday after authorities urged Iraqis to help battle the insurgents. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif offered his country's support to Iraq in its "fight against terrorism" during a phone call with his Iraqi counterpart, Iranian state TV reported.

Shiite powerhouse Iran, which has built close ties with Iraq's postwar government, has halted flights to Baghdad because of security concerns and has intensified security measures along its borders. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani blasted the Islamic State as "barbaric" and said that his country's highest security body will hold an immediate meeting to review the developments in neighboring Iraq.

The White House said Wednesday that the United States was "deeply concerned" about the Islamic State's continued aggression. Human Rights Watch expressed concern about the group's advances, noting its history of violence and other abuses. The rights group also called on Baghdad to deal with the crisis "without the brutal tactics for which civilians elsewhere in the country have long been paying a heavy price," deputy Middle East director Nadim Houry said.

There were no reliable estimates of casualties or the number of insurgents involved, though several hundred gunmen were involved in the Tikrit fight, said Mizhar Fleih, the deputy head of the municipal council of nearby Samarra. An even larger number of militants likely would have been needed to secure Mosul, a much bigger city.

Mosul, the capital of Ninevah province, and the neighboring Sunni-dominated province of Anbar share a long and porous border with Syria, where the Islamic State is also active. In addition to being Saddam's hometown, Tikrit was a power base of his once-powerful Baath Party. The former dictator was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole in the area and he is buried south of town in a tomb draped with the Saddam-era Iraqi flag.

Schreck reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Paris, Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Nasser Karimi in Tehran and Desm

My Ambition Is Not Worth The Blood Of Any Nigerian -- Jonathan

By Ugochukwu Onyeocha, Daily Times, Nigeria

 

President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday reiterated his earlier position that his political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian citizen.

The President said this while addressing politicians at the All Political Parties Summit, holding in the Federal Capital Territory.

He decried the discordant tunes from politicians since the advent of terrorism in the country and called on politicians to join hands with the Federal Government if the war against terror must be won.
Emphasizing the need to place national interest ahead of personal ambition, he also decried what he called anti-democratic tendencies of some politicians and the tension being created. He advised that no one should play into the hands of extremist elements that use the campaign of terror against the country.

The President also applauded the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the   establishment of the Inter-Party Advisory Council and the transformation of the electoral process and called on politicians not to take this for granted.

The organisers of the event chose the very significant June 12 to meet, and uppermost in their minds was how to effect inter party collaboration, national stability and democratic consolidation.
The organisers chose the theme following discordant tunes in the polity following terrorism and abduction of Chibok schoolgirls.

The Chairman of the occasion, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, brought his understanding of what it takes to midwife the democratic process to bear, as he spoke about how politicians could sustain the Nigerian democracy especially in a charged atmosphere.

Also, security was said to be very important if democracy must thrive, as political upheavals in the country would bear serious consequences if the political class do not conduct themselves with decorum, no matter the political divide.

At the last count, over six major political parties in the country had their members represented, including some past Nigerian leaders, heads of state, and members of the diplomatic corps and other friends of Nigeria.

Also present were the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki; Special Adviser to the President on Interparty Affairs, Ben Obi; PDP National Chairman, Adamu Muazu and the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Attahiru Jega, who urged political parties to play by the rules.

Several goodwill messages poured in from the political parties present.