Mikel: Mourinho didn't believe in me anymore

The Chelsea midfielder, currently on international duty with Nigeria, is enjoying life at Stamford Bridge once more under Guus Hiddink after falling out with the Portuguese coach
John Obi Mikel has once again hit out at Jose Mourinho’s management style and says the axed Chelsea boss never placed his faith in the midfielder.

The new Nigeria captain made just five Premier League appearances under the Portuguese coach this season, but has become a mainstay in the side under Guus Hiddink.

And Mikel believes he is benefitting from having a manager who trusts him again, suggesting Mourinho overlooked him regardless of how well he performed in training.

“I think confidence is everything, if a manager doesn’t believe in you, trust me there’s no way you can succeed,” the 28-year-old exclusively told Goal while on international duty with the Super Eagles.
Even if you do things right he would always make sure he finds fault.”

He continued: “People change in any walk of life, maybe he decided he wanted to do better in a different way and he didn’t need me anymore.

“He didn’t have the belief that he had in me before, which is fine because every manager has the player that they have trust in.

“It is a tough business, football, so when a manager comes in he wants to have people he believes in. If he doesn’t believe in you he doesn’t play you. And I think it’s all about a manager giving a player confidence.”
Chelsea technical director Michael Emenolo described a “palpable discord” between the manager and the players prior to Mourinho’s departure, when the side languished in 16th place – just one point above the drop zone.

Mikel has previously credited new boss Hiddink with reinstalling a sense of togetherness at Stamford Bridge, and praised the impact the Dutchman has made in such a short space of time.

“Hiddink came in, he spoke to me, he gave me the confidence and now I have played 20 games and we’re in the best position - where we haven’t been all season.”

This is not the first time Mikel has aimed a jibe at his former boss, with the Nigeria international claiming in January that there was a total lack of communication between himself and Mourinho, something Hiddink has changed dramatically.

How we’re re-engineering Delta — Gov Okowa

GOVERNOR of Delta State, Senator (Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa in two interview sessions in Abuja and Asaba speaks on how he has been steering the affairs of the state in the past 10 months,  how he and others broke the myth of Delta Northerner becoming the governor of the state and lots more. Excerpts:

By Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South, Festus Ahon, and Levinus Nwabughiogu

ONE of the issues discussed  at the National Economic Council retreat was the reduction of the cost of governance. How are you applying that in Delta State?
 I think that when political aides are appointed they are appointed to do specific jobs and people don’t understand that. I will give you an example. In my state, you have what they call the water ways and land security committee. People may just feel ‘oh it is just for the boys’. But it is not. If you don’t do that you will just find crises in every part of the state and all kinds of things are going on even in their presence.

Beyond that they are able to have an influence on their peers to get away from committing crime otherwise most of the southern states where you have trouble you will find out that if you do not use some of them to be part of the process to achieve peace and gather intelligence, you will just be lost because within the creeks, all kinds of things go on and the government agencies themselves won’t be able to get such information with the kind of information that comes out.

But I do know that some of them may have their excesses but I know that they play a lot of role especially with issues concerning vandalism, bunkering and issues concerning even kidnapping. They play a lot of roles. Sometimes the situation demands they appoint these aides because they actually have roles to play but in the totality of it, the amount that you use to pay in terms of salaries and allowance for these aides doesn’t actually add up a lot to the cost of governance. The current situation is that in many states, truly, you find a situation where you have what I call an over bloated work force. That is because in the past years, we ran clearly an oil economy.

Over bloated work force

The question is: do we actually need all of them? Even if we don’t need all of them, can you actually retrench people at this moment? It is not political.

It is not the best at the moment to consider. If you put all this together, I believe that the various governments will employ the number of aides that will actually be needed for the course of the duty. Some directly and some are actually needed indirectly to play other roles that are beyond the administration.

So, in figures can we know how you reduced the cost of governance in the state?

Well, we are still in the process of reducing the cost of governance; it is ongoing. When talking about the cost of governance generally, we are looking at the overhead cost, salaries and remuneration to staff. These two put together is what we call recurrent expenditure. What we have tried to do is to reduce to a reasonable level the cost of running the ministries.

That has come down by about 50 per cent; I may not be able to give you the exact figures now. However, we have been able to get top civil servants to buy into the current situation, which is that it is better for us to have a reduced cost than to have irregularities in the releases of funds.    You may never get the funds if you stick to the old figures I guess that the MDAs are operating under very tight conditions, but they have been able to run their ministries effectively.

We have also gone ahead to discuss with security operatives to rework the funding that is necessary for the processes of securing the peace of the state and that is still ongoing. There are seven places government deployed them in the past and those places are no longer in crisis, so we have to go down on those levels of expenditure for which I have their cooperation.

Largely, there had been a lot of spending in the past about what they called non-regular expenditure.

It involved all manner of money spent on the general running of governance, requiring non regular releases; not monthly releases,    but releases that are normally given to ministries to undertake one thing or the other, either foreign trips and various forms of workshops. We had to streamline all these because you need to be sure of what you are doing.

No foreign trip for now

Now, we are not allowing any foreign trip except it is going to be necessary. Even on my part as the governor, I have only had to move out once because I had to go and address the UN on the African Industrialization Bill.

Recurrent expenditure

I had that window of opportunity, which is something that you get occasionally and it is the only foreign trip by me since I came into government.

We are also trying to streamline so many things and as I said, it is ongoing. We have been able to do a lot of cost reduction. It may not have come down too much because within our recurrent expenditure, we also bring in the issue of consolidated revenue funds.

Anyway, we have spent quite a huge sum of money in servicing the debts that we    met and even then,    we have also put processes in place to also streamline and restructure those debts to certain level that we can say the servicing is manageable.    We are spending about N2.7 billion monthly to service debts now as against between N4.7billion to N5.2billion spent on servicing debts on a monthly basis when we came in.

About 10 months in the saddle, what do you have to show Deltans and where exactly are you leading the state?

In the first instance, at the state level, we have stabilized governance. The stability in governance is that we have been able to manage the finances. At least up to February, we have been able to pay salaries and that in itself is all-important.

We have also had to talk with the staff; I had a meeting with the Permanent Secretaries and all Directors on my assumption to ensure that they understand where we are now. The reason is that if you do not give them the opportunity to buy in, they will live in the past as if the state is buoyant.

You know people have this mentality that ‘Delta State is an oil rich state,’ therefore, everybody wants to live big and large. Therefore, we essentially made them to understand that we are in austerity time and we expect that everybody should run government the way government should be and not to be extravagant in what they do. I guess that they have essentially bought into that and we now have stability in government and that is quite important. Then we have also kept faith with our programme but we would have loved to expand beyond what we are doing now.

Educational revolution: Going outside that, we also realized that there is a need to re-jig our educational curriculum. We held an impressive Education Summit, which was very widely attended; a two-day summit where we charted a direction for ourselves. Essentially, we agreed that we need to have a concentration on Technical Education where our children are able to acquire skills. Unfortunately, we had abandoned most of our technical schools; we did not pay special attention to them.

Comprehensive rehabilitation

In this short while, we have been able to have a comprehensive rehabilitation and equipping of three of them; in Agbor, at Ofagbe and the one in Sapele. We tried to build up hostels so that it will be better than what we had in the past with workshops, improving on the level of the teaching staff and providing equipment. We are also trying to create linkages with other persons who can actually come in because it is not just a question of the theory, we need people to acquire genuine skills that will keep them going in life; that we are doing.

The other three Technical schools, this year,  we are trying to put them into proper shape, these include the one at Iselle-Uku, Ozagogo and the one at Ogor, Ughelli North and these are areas we are looking into while trying to create proper linkage between them and our Polytechnics.

Health Insurance policy: In the health sector, we have also the Delta Contributory Health Commission Law. It is actually going to be a partnership between the citizenry and the government. World over, we are talking about universal health coverage. That has not been the case in Nigeria, the National Health Insurance Scheme since 2004 has only managed to capture federal workers and most states have not bought in.

Health insurance cover federal workers and few organizations but here in Delta, we have decided to extend it beyond workers; we are bringing in the informal sector, we are bringing in the organized private sector, and the law actually makes it compulsory for any organized private sector to insure its workers.

We have already appointed the Chairman and the Director General of the Commission; we are working with the National Health Insurance Scheme.  Among the informal workers, what we do is to encourage them to participate in the health insurance scheme.

The money is not going to be burdensome on the families because    rather than    somebody getting sick at a time you may not have money and the person dies or you going to the moneylender, with the little premium that you pay, you will actually find out that you can get good healthcare services in any of our hospitals.

When did it dawn on you that you could be the governor of Delta State?

Well, I cannot say because I already had the ambition before the Ogwashi-Uku primaries. In June 2006, the ambition came into me; just about six months to that primaries and I tried to make many consultations. By October,    I did decide to run for the elections, we thank God for whatever happened, but I did well, I thank God, I came out a strong second and being a party man, I actually supported the party, I supported the immediate past governor and I also became the director- general of his campaign.

Accountability and justice

We ran our effective campaign and at the end of it, I became Secretary to the State Government. Having participated and done well and because I have worked in Delta State, I believe I have a clear understanding of what Delta State should be and how we should relate to our people. With a very strong desire, we realized that we need to unite our people in Delta State and that we must work strongly to create trust between government and the people.

This kept on resonating in my mind and right from that day, even when I lost, I believe that after the governor’s eight years, I was also going to make an attempt. Because for us to create unity, we need equity, you must understand the sensitivities of the people, you need a reasonable level of accountability, and you must be somebody that is able to build relationship, rather than play the politics of power.

It is a very common thing to play the politics of power, when in power, you want to do things in a manner that people fear you, but I believe in uniting people. You will find that where we are today, most of them that contested with me in the primaries are in my government and we are working strongly, even in key positions.

Warm representation for Delta State

People will advise you oh, that is not the best to do, but I do not believe in that, I believe in what you can offer. That is why if you watch quickly now, I have a Commissioner for Finance, he was in the contest, my Senior Policy Adviser was in the contest. These things are quite important and they hold key positions, because I believe that they have things to offer,    that is why they were in the race and,    therefore,    we can work together to deliver with everybody bringing his idea to bear.

So, right from 2006, I had a focus. Of course, I knew there was going to be a break for eight years because I needed to support the governor, who was on seat, and I kept faith with it. By God’s grace, I went to the Senate and throughout the time I was in the Senate, my focus was strongly on Delta. I thank God I had a warm representation for Delta State in the Senate; I am sure that you can attest that I was not a bench warmer in the Senate.

I was a strong voice for Delta in the Senate and I thank God that the people appreciated it and when it came to the issue of election in Delta, to the glory of God, many people did not    think I will survive it,    but to God be the glory,    I am Governor today.

Until date, it is still a mystery how Senator Ifeanyichukwu Okowa, aka, Ekwueme, broke the jinx of Delta Northerner emerging Governor of Delta State, can we know how you and others did it?

I think it is essentially God. God guided us aright and from the beginning I did not preach Delta North, thank God my SSG and Chief of Staff were all there with me in the field. Right from day one in 2006, I have preached that there was the need for us to have someone, who has a good understanding of the state and that our government will run based on equity, accountability and justice.

Because if I did go in the line of Delta North, I would have gotten it wrong, I will turn out to be a sectional governor. I ran for the Senate and became a Senator for Delta North.

Yes, I represented the people well, though I was a voice for Delta, but in running for governorship, you must have a clear vision and it must be about Delta State and not about Delta North. So I think the people understood the message that I was preaching the unity of Delta and,    therefore,    the progress of Delta,    rather than try processes that will lead me to become an ethnic warlord, an ethnic governor, I did not want it to be so. They understood that and I think God actually blessed that.

Contract processes

However, all through my time in government, from 1999 until date, I have seen myself as a Deltan and I keep friends across. I will start from when I was in Water Resources and Agriculture as commissioner; I could sit down and relate with people across the state and the dividends of democracy that came through my office to people.

Not necessarily money, but through contract processes, people who you really knew were competent. I did not care whether you are from Delta North, Central, Ijaw, Isoko, Itsekiri. I related with everybody equally and when I was doing that, I did it just because I had that feeling.

I never thought then and it never crossed my mind that I could ever become governor.    We were still quite young, but I found out at last, when we were doing our campaign that it helped us a lot, because there were many places I went to consult with our leaders, they would remind me about what I did for them in 1999, 2001, off course,    I had forgotten. Even in the remote places, they put in remembrance of some of these things that I did and I said thank God I did well because if I had also done wrong to them, they would also have recounted them during the visits.

So we thank God, its God’s grace, the powers were strong, but once He decides, no man can fault Him.

Ten Things we learnt from P-Square’s Saga

A lot has been said about the recent spat between brothers and entertainers, Peter and Paul Okoye of P-Square, and their elder brother and former manager, Jude ‘Engees’ Okoye.
 The brothers severally took themselves to the cleaners, leading to many fans pleading with them to sheathe their swords and come back together as one big family. Others encouraged their split, and advised them to go their different ways and separate business from family.

At the end of the day, the brothers have apparently mended fences, and they recently apologized to their fans for the ‘misunderstanding.’

Many believe that the whole episode was just a publicity stunt and an expensive prank indulged by the brothers to shore up their relevance and perhaps promote their new record labels and artistes. In this piece, we list 10 things we learnt from the saga.

Never take them serious again.

They crave attention, and would sacrifice anything to get it

Their parents’ death have further set them apart from one another.
There is no unity among the brothers and  may still eventually break up
Peter is the aggressor, and will always be the warring partner in the group
Jude is a problem; he seems to always be at the centre of all their issues
Stop blaming their wives; they have nothing to do with it
Cynthia Morgan doesn’t have the attention of all the brothers
The brothers have divided all their properties.
Their fans have specific favourites.

Gang wars: How Ambode restored peace to Mushin, by APC chieftain

After several years of gangsters’ siege in Mushin, Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode, has restored peace to the beleaguered community, an All Progressives Congress, APC, chieftain, Mr Dawodu Olatunji, said yesterday.
 

For two months now, peace has returned to Mushin. Thanks to our governor, who picked up the gang leaders and their boys disappeared.

“Mushin is now safe, no longer a hotbed of criminality. The hoodlums are killing themselves and not hoodlums versus the people,” he said.

Olatunji, a Mushin chairmanship aspirant for the July council polls, said:“We are grateful to the governor for his intervention; the criminals are not from Mushin, but from other parts of the state.

“I am born and bred in Mushin and like others, we grew up to imbibe some virtues to become responsible citizens. Not everybody in Mushin are criminals.”

He noted that gangsterism, not robberies had reigned in the area, saying “ the supremacy fight between the gangs had always unleashed a reign of terror on Mushin.”

Olatunji, an Area Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, also acknowledged the efforts of an ethnic militia , Oodu’a Peoples Congress, OPC, in helping to rout armed robberies several years ago in the area.

He, however, blamed politicians for allegedly raising armed gangs for elections and advised youths to reject guns and banditry and go for empowerment and jobs.

The Business Administration graduate and erstwhile South-West spokesman of Nigerian students, said:“Youth empowerment is a must for local and state governments because the youths reside in their council areas and states.

“Cottage industries as well as small and medium enterprises to produce school uniforms, shoes and exercise books etc should be established for the youths after their training.”

1m houses annually possible through collaboration — Buhari

The Federal Government is targeting the development of about one million housing units annually in collaboration with states and the private sector.
  President Muhammadu Buhari disclosed this at a two-day National Economic Council retreat in Abuja last week. He said the Federal Government will provide 250,000 units, the 22 States controlled by the All Progressives Congress (APC) are expected to jointly provide 250,000 houses while foreign investors and their local partners would provide the remaining 500,000 units.

“Some estimates put Nigeria’s housing deficit at about 16 million units. In our successful campaign to win the general election last year, our party, the APC, promised to build a million housing units a year. This will turn out to be a very tall order unless the Federal Government builds 250,000 units, and the 22 APC States together manage another 250,000 units. We invite foreign investors together with locally-domiciled big construction companies to enter into commercial housing building to pick up the rest,” he stated.

Buhari identified the concerns of Nigerians regarding housing sector to include severe shortage of housing, high rents, unaffordable prices for prospective buyers, especially middle and low-income earners. “In addition, red tape, corruption and plain public service inefficiency lead to long delays in obtaining ownership of title documents. Again, there are no long term funding sources for mortgage purposes. These hurdles are by no means easy to scale, but we must find solutions to the housing deficit,” he added.

The president declared that government would review the relevant laws to make the process of acquiring statutory right of occupancy shorter, less cumbersome and less costly. He added that court procedures for mortgage cases should make enforcement more efficient while the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing should upgrade its title registration system for greater efficiency.

He also said transparent processes and procedures were necessary for achieving affordable housing for all Nigerians apart from developing strong and enduring mortgage institutions, adding that the Nigerian Mortgage Re-financing Company (NMRC), when fully operational, should ensure adequate support for mortgage financing.

Petroleum sector overregulated by FG —LCCI

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, said, yesterday, the petroleum industry was flawed with over-regulation and lacked clarity in its operations and hampering the growth, investment and job creation in the sector.

LCCI also flayed the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, for fighting the symptoms, rather than addressing the fundamentals.
   In a statement, Director General, LCCI, Mr. Muda Yusuf, lamented that the “current model of managing the downstream petroleum sector is not sustainable. It is at variance with the present administration’s vision to diversify the economy and create jobs. It perpetuates the phenomenal of rent economy and detrimental to economic competition. It is important to stress that the citizens are the ultimate beneficiaries of a competitive market environment.”

He argued that the weak compliance with the regulated price of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, in parts of the country was largely a symptom of much deeper problems and distortions in the petroleum products supply chain.

He noted that “we have concerns over lack of clarity on the deregulation and liberalization of the sector, as the lacuna policy has put many investments in the sector at risk; while many other investment decisions have been put on hold.

“The concentration of petroleum products supply in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, remains a major cause for concern. The arrangement is an inherent entrenchment of the dominance of the NNPC to the detriment of private investors in the sector.”

On way forward for the industry, Muda called on the Federal Government to liberalize the downstream petroleum sector for unfettered private sector participation and investment.

According to him, “there should be a level playing field for all operators, including the NNPC. This would put an end to the perennial problem of fuel scarcity in the country and the hardships suffered by citizens to fuel scarcity.

“It will also attract more investment, generate more jobs and reduce the pressure on the country’s foreign reserves. It should not be an operator and still have regulatory powers, but have a model that would allow for a level playing field for all operators including the NNPC should be adopted.”

He added that the roles of the DPR and the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, needed to be better defined

Examination malpractice worries WAEC —Official

The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, at the weekend, identified examination malpractice as a major challenge militating against its operations in its 64 years of existence.

The council’s Head of Test Administration, Mrs Frances Iweha-Onukwu, disclosed this in Lagos.
       

According to her, the scourge is a canker worm that has eaten deep in the fabric among candidates, not only in Nigeria, but also in member countries.

She, however, noted that the council was gradually winning the war as it kept introducing new cutting-edge technology to stop the ugly trend.

“One major challenge we are battling against, since inception, has been that of examination malpractice, but we are happy that we are winning the war.

“We know that the candidates might want to beat our technology, but we will continue to make sure that we check them in any way they try,” she said.

According to Iweha-Onukwu, another major challenge is the ‘rogue website’.

“Tackling ‘rogue website’ has been a serious challenge the board is facing,” she said.

A rogue website is one that subverts a legitimate web site by appearing to replace it.

Iweha-Onukwu said that perpetrators of such act use rogue website to distract lazy candidates, who, instead of studying hard for their examination, busy themselves logging onto the rogue website.

She, however, said that many operators of the fake sites were being apprehended with the help of security agents.

The official said her desire was to see the council compete favourably with international examination bodies like the Educational Testing Service, ETS, among others.