Hardball

When bandits-cum-kidnappers struck at Greenfield University, Kaduna State, on April 20, it was yet another terrible evidence of the rising cases of kidnapping for ransom across the country. Significantly, it also showed how much money kidnappers dream of making from their evil activity. In this particular case, they demanded N800 million.

The invaders kidnapped more than 20 students. Tragically, three days after, the bodies of three of the abductees, a male and two females, were found at a location close to the university.

“We are still in shock,” a parent of one of the abducted students was quoted as saying after the bodies were found. “We did not expect the bandits would resort to killing our children because they had contacted us and demanded ransom.”

The concerned parents were negotiating with the kidnappers when the students were killed. “They called us directly and individually, but they demanded a collective ransom of N800 million,” according to the quoted parent.  “So, we met on the school premises and we called them trying to negotiate the ransom, but they insisted on the N800 million. We pleaded with them that the amount they were asking for was too much and beyond our power, but we never imagined or expected they were going to be so cruel and resort to killing our children.”

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According to a study, more than $18 million was paid as ransom to kidnappers in the country from 2011 to 2020, and the greater part of the payment was from 2016 to 2020 when about $11 million was paid. In the local currency, these are huge figures indeed. It shows that kidnapping for ransom is a thriving business, albeit an evil one. Sadly, it is even regarded as a “growth industry.”

It is disturbing that some analysts forecast that kidnap-for-ransom cases will increase in the country as a result of increased unemployment.  This is a worrying scenario, considering that Nigeria already has one of the world’s highest rates of kidnap-for-ransom cases.

The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Kayode Fayemi, recently attributed the country’s security challenges partly to its 33 percent unemployment rate. The country’s difficult socio-economic conditions do not justify kidnapping operations, but show why the authorities should urgently pursue improved socio-economic conditions to discourage kidnapping for ransom.

Predictably, those who kidnap for ransom are inspired by the idea of getting rich quick, which is why their activity is described as “economic kidnapping.”  The recurrent evil suggests that they are unlikely to stop unless they are stopped.

Hardball

Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar, Prof. Is’haq Oloyede, has a reputation for brutal candour and he lived up to that reputation recently. He deplored suffocating presence of parents at Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres across the country and ordered them out of the room.

Oloyede was reported to have directed all CBT centres to henceforth bar parents from their registration halls. A statement by spokesperson for the Ilorin JAMB office, Hassan Lawal, explained that the Registrar made the decision after inspecting some registration centres in Kwara State and seeing them overcrowded. “The Registrar said it has been discovered that parents / guardians are always a distraction to both candidates and the centres, and at the same time congesting the halls by not following the COVID-19 protocols,” he stated.

According to the statement, Oloyede also advised parents / guardians to stop pushing the education of their wards faster than necessary. “For example, a 14 or 15-year-old is not matured enough to undergo the process of registration and university pressure and are vulnerable to exploitation by scammers out there,” he was reported saying. He as well enjoined state ministries of education and other relevant stakeholders saddled with enrolling students into secondary schools to always ascertain their true age before being admitted.

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The JAMB boss can’t be more spot on about the state of Nigerian education, whereby underage studentship has become a blight of the system. Early education syndrome has seen secondary schools become populated by pupils barely above kindergarten age and universities by mid-teenagers, with all tendencies associated with immaturity and childhood naivety characterising those systems. Pupils are so young they can’t be left to handle JAMB registration formalities without parents being on hand; and many universities these days have parents forum similar in preoccupation to parents-teachers associations in secondary schools.

Yet there was a time in our history when admission into elementary school was based on maturity being demonstrated, like asking an intending pupil to reach over his head and touch the other ear. Even as we speak, there are nations that block kid geniuses from university education just for being underage; meaning you do not get admitted into college, no matter your intellectual prowess, until you attain a minimum age and level of maturity. Psychologists would confirm there is a connection between cognitive level and behavioural tendencies like capacity to withstand peer pressure, response to task pressure and ability to cope with unmet expectations, among other things that characterise life of relative independence that university education involves. There might, indeed, be a link between underage studentship and the general standard of education today.

Oloyede rendered good service bringing this challenge into focus. But one would expect it falls within JAMB’s remit to prescribe or, at least, recommend an age criterion for university education. He stopped short of doing that and it is curious.

Hardball

Fela, the “Abami Eda” himself, may not have coined the phrase.  But he sure popularized it: Basket mouth — mouth that yaks and yaks and doesn’t know when or how to stop.

That would appear the current state of Edo Governor, Godwin Obaseki, whose flippant (un)gubernatorial activism just tossed fellow governors, and their states and people, into avoidable storm.

Brimming with financial messianism, Obaseki, bolt-from-the-blues, had alleged the Central Bank of Nigeria, in concert with the federal fiscal authorities, printed via notorious “ways and means” N60 billion to augment shared March federal allocations, in the face of dwindling resources.

Even after Zainab Ahmed, Finance minister, said Obaseki’s claim was “very sad because it is not a fact”, the governor still went on the offensive, with one of his factotums telling Madam Finance Minister not to play the ostrich, but rather come clean that the Federal Government was in financial woes and should seek help.

That felt gubernatorial arrogance must have piqued Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor, who neither confirmed nor denied Obaseki’s claim, but clearly must have considered the governor’s stunt the height of ingratitude, enjoying, as it were with other governors, federal budget support funding.

Emifiele’s pique echoes the Yoruba brat that proclaimed his parents so daft to have fed him so well!  So — apparently — he rolled out the big guns: states must start paying back federal support loans, worth $2.1 billion, he declared in a huff!

Unlike the Yoruba brat-child, however, the loans were no lavish munificence.  But the ration was life-sustaining enough for most of them to panic at the peril of a sudden repayment, thus causing them to launch a counter-media campaign to stop the CBN governor.  The huge cost of a loose tongue — Basket mouth!

Some PDP governors have accused Emefiele of vengefulness.  That may well be.  But it is rather rich carpeting the CBN governor without first rebuking Obaseki for flippancy and recklessness.

The APC governors, on the other hand, have duly knocked Obaseki.  But they should have cautioned Emefiele too, not to do an emotive response to the Obaseki rascality.  States and their long-suffering people shouldn’t take a bashing just because of a governor that lacks a sense of tact and balance.

Read Also: Wike backs Obaseki on alleged printing of N60bn

But maybe the Progressive Governors didn’t — and couldn’t — say so, being sensitive  not to further worsen the already grave situation.

Still, fair is fair.  If Emefiele is indeed angry, he has a good cause to.  But emotive, knee-jerk reaction is no substitute to clinical and reasoned policy thinking, no matter the provocation.  So, rail-roading the states to pay back on the double is a no-no.

The CBN and the federal fiscal authorities did state budget support because of Nigeria’s eerie federalism, which seems more at home with a unitary set-up.  If the states are constitutionally empowered to drive own resources, it’s doubtful if any budget support would be necessary.

If despite all that, a flippant Obaseki is still reckless with his state resources, there would be no federal scapegoat to would burn at the populist stakes.  So, the ultimate solution would be to amend the law for the states to have better and greater control of their resources, in the best tradition of federalism.

So, while the CBN czar should chill, Obaseki must be advised to think before talking next time.  The hefty cost of a gubernatorial loose mouth could be devastating as we all can see.  Playing a Governor Basket mouth is seldom any virtue.

Hardball

Minister of Defence Bashir Magashi, a retired major general, easily attracts attention with his remarks seemingly meant to reinforce the country’s fight against increasing insecurity.

For instance, he tried to boost the morale of counter-insurgency troops he visited at the Theatre Command Headquarters in Maiduguri, Borno State, on April 18.  “You should not be afraid of the bullet because it can even meet you in the house if it means you dying by it,” he told the fighters, adding, “But if you are not meant to die by the bullet, it will never kill you even at the heart of a war.”

It is unclear how many of the fighters he addressed in such fatalistic terms were impressed and inspired.  His fatalism was out of place. His remarks were reckless.

By implying that the fighters might be afraid, he unwittingly drew attention to their reported situation in the theatre of war. It has become clear that the military is ill-equipped, and poorly equipped fighters are likely to lack confidence in the face of better equipped enemies.

As defence minister, he has a role to play to ensure that the troops are not only well equipped but adequately equipped. He should concentrate on remedying this critical deficiency, rather than exhibiting the mentality of a fatalist.

In another instance, in February, Magashi had similarly said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Speaking to journalists following the mass abduction of students from Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State, he asked whether tackling the security crisis was solely the responsibility of the military.  “It is the responsibility of everybody to be alert and ensure safety when necessary,” he declared.

He then went on to give what could be called a public lecture during which he defined the security role of members of the public. He said: “We shouldn’t be cowards. Sometimes bandits come with about three rounds of ammunition and when they fire shots everybody will run.”

He wondered why “people run away from minor, minor aggressions,” saying, “We should stand and face them. If these people know that the people have the competence and capability to defend themselves, they will run away.”

Understandably, many people interpreted his lecture as a promotion of suicide. Asking unarmed citizens to confront armed bandits didn’t sound like reasonable advice. Instead of addressing the security crisis that has given rise to widespread banditry, he ridiculously chose to shift the responsibility for protection onto those who demand protection from the authorities.

What will he say next? He needs to watch his mouth.

Hardball

Were Ikeja Electric (IE) a citizen of flesh and blood, it would glory in multiple outlawry: rape, extortion, blackmail, robbery, among a few.

But underlying all of these serious crimes would be sloth — for that seems to underscore its fanciful and creative accounting, with which it, absolutely without remorse, steals from its helpless customers; and threatens to cut them off if they didn’t rush to pay its extorted bills.

Now, look at the IE rape, from Bill number 0100218678 (in Okota, under its Oshodi business unit), which by the way reflects the outrage IE meets out to millions of its other constantly raped customers, ferociously hassled to pay a premium for supplied darkness, via its notorious estimated billing practice.

For February 2021, IE jacked up its bill from N23, 000 (in that neighbourhood) to N36, 000.  Customer 0100218678, that always strove to pay in full, in spite of IE shambolic services and even ruder and dishonourable conduct, paid N30, 000, duly receipted via transaction date 13 March 2021, 4:30 pm, vide reference no. 202103131630067821. The ticket even quoted 0100218678 (the bill no) as “account no”, aside from providing the IE dealer code: IE6595.

Yet, see the one-way text message IKJELECTRIC sent on March 25: “Dear customer, our record shows you have not paid your February 2021 bill.  Kindly make full payment of current bill and 30% of your outstanding bill to avoid disconnection.  Thank you for allowing us to serve you — which should have read: thank you for allowing us to scam you!

Open sesame — IE indeed jerked awake in its March bill!  In it, it acknowledged the February payment of N30, 000, down-loaded its March bill of N36, 308. 66 and chalked up its new wonder “amount due” as N73, 542. 50!

Well, much of March witnessed the national grid collapse, sending power supply tumbling south, which IE itself acknowledged, with some apologia to customers.  Yet the IE bill, of N36, 308.66, is as constant as the proverbial northern star!  On what basis would billing be the same when service dipped so badly?

To give the devil its due though, Customer 0100218678 has paid N25, 000 to IE, with transaction information: Ref. No. BIL105151122; date: 15 March 2021; time: 09:54:35.  But don’t bet on it some over-fed accounts clerk, paid with cash for supplying pit darkness instead of electricity, would not fire a text saying: by his creative accounts records, the customer had paid no dime!

Besides, trust IE to defend its N36, 000+ March bill, pushing it to customers’ account as “debt”, when it never rendered that level of service — and you can bet it would work such grand forgery into the new pre-paid meter account!  Brazen outlaws!

So, if your accounting system lacks integrity, on what basis would you tell harried customers to do “full payment of current bill and 30% of your outstanding bill to avoid disconnection”?  What is full payment and 30% of voodoo?

But that’s the monthly extortion, blackmail, rape and sheer corporate robbery IE visits on its customers.  That the Nigerian state avails its security agencies to that brazen outlawry is clearly a high crime against the citizen, which must stop.

The cowards and bullies, IE field marketing staff could, reading this, hurry to the customer’s house and disconnect the building on the basis of this complaint.  That was done before; and there is no guarantee it won’t be done again.  But if you duel with a lunatic, why would folks not doubt your own sanity?

Perhaps with pre-paid meters becoming inevitable, IE is ramping up its fraudulent “estimated” billing to game customers to pay for creative bills.  Well, it has the likes of Customer 0100218678 to contend with.  Still, it’s high time the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) dealt this unrepentant corporate cheat.

Hardball

When the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, finally honoured the invitation of the ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives investigating the procurement of arms and ammunition from 2011 till date, on April 12, he exhibited a lack of respect for the committee.  He had failed to honour its invitation on three occasions.

According to a report, the army boss “explained to the lawmakers that his inability to honour several invitations of the committee was due to other engagements on internal security.”  The report said:  “He, however, refused to apologise to the committee, noting that his explanation was sufficient.”  He should have acted with a sense of courtesy.

On the investigation, he told the committee to focus on his predecessors, saying he “took over the mantle of leadership barely two months ago.” According to him, “Issues of procurement that you so demand to know were done by specific individuals. I will rather you call these individuals to come and explain to you very specific issues.” His predecessors include Generals Luka Yusuf, Abdulrahman Dambazau, Kenneth Minimah, Azubuike Ihejirika, and Tukur Buratai.

Worsening insecurity fuelled by terrorism, banditry and kidnapping, continues to expose the incapacity of Nigeria’s military. National Security Adviser (NSA) Babagana Monguno was thought to have given clues as to the cause of the military’s ineffectiveness when he was recently reported saying that “huge sums of money” approved for the purchase of weapons were “missing” and the weapons “were not bought.” He later claimed he had been “quoted out of context.”

The import of the remarks he disclaimed is that the military is ill-equipped to tackle the escalating insecurity.  This is why federal lawmakers are investigating the procurement of weaponry in the face of an alarming security crisis.

Claims that the armed forces are poorly equipped to fight insecurity are not new. It is obvious that an ill-equipped military is a non-starter. But President Muhammadu Buhari, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, has failed to address the issue decisively.

Lt. Gen. Attahiru has indirectly stated that his predecessors should be held responsible for the ill-equipped armed forces the new service chiefs inherited. It was a subtle attack.  It remains to be seen if those concerned will be questioned in order to get to the bottom of the matter.

Apart from finding out why the military is ill-equipped, despite billions of naira approved for procurement of weapons over the years, and punishing those who shortchanged the military, there is an urgent need to make the military better equipped.

Hardball

Of all governors of the northern states most challenged by insecurity, Kaduna  State Governor Nasir El-Rufai stands out in rebuffing any attempt at conciliation with bandits and insists on dealing them the harsh hand of law they deserve.

Late last week, he restated for the umpteenth time that he would pay no ransom – not even if his son were kidnapped. “Even if my son is kidnapped, I will rather pray for him to make heaven, because I won’t pay any ransom,” he said in a radio interview. At another forum, he had argued that bandits have lost their right to life under Nigerian constitution. “The bandits are at war with Nigeria and there is no other way to approach the current insurgency but for security forces to take the war to (them) and recover forests they are occupying,” he said

Earlier, his wife Hadiza advised kidnappers to perish the thought of abducting her. Late in March while visiting her farm, she tweeted: “At my farm today. Anyone thinking of **** me should not bother. The man has already warned me that he will not pay any ****” – putting the words ‘kidnapping’ and ‘ransom’ in asterisks.

El-Rufai’s tough talk was against the backdrop of pressure mounted on him to facilitate the release of students of the Federal College of Forestry and Mechanisation, Kaduna who were kidnapped by bandits on 11th March and are yet to regain freedom. The kidnappers have demanded N500million ransom payment, but the Kaduna governor insists on not playing ball or even negotiating with the criminals.

Parents of the kidnapped students are of a different view and are pressing the governor to soften up. A representative of the affected parents, Sani Friday, said they were afraid the bandits could kill their children should government deploy force to rescue the hostages. “(El-Rufai) made a statement before that he can do anything for the bandits to stop killing, so we want him to do something… The way we want the government to go about this is to negotiate. Even if they want to put any other security measure on ground, it should be after negotiation.” he argued inter alia on a television programme.

From the high ground of societal morality and legality, you can’t fault the Kaduna governor for his puritan disposition; actually, he deserves praise for taking a strong line away from the tendency that has fostered resilience in the bandits and encouraged their criminality. But it might help to tone down the aggressive rhetoric by which sheer non-compromise is flaunted as a badge of honour whereas not much has been achieved to forestall successful attacks by bandits. The Yoruba have an axiom that one does not interrogate the death that killed one’s father when you do not yet have the sword of revenge in your control. Hardball thinks that is one useful counsel to apply in this circumstance.

Hardball

One historic tragedy.  One victim.  Two utterances.  Lost ironies.

That was the situation on April 11, at an Abeokuta Club function referencing June 12: that watershed crisis of 1993, which marked the beginning of the end for Nigeria’s political soldiers; and which, after six years of unimaginable tension, in 1999 birthed Nigeria’s current democracy.

But first thing first: The Nation report claimed MKO Abiola “presumably won” the June 12 election, which Gen. Ibrahim Babangida annulled.  Absolutely no presumption.  MKO won. “Presumed to have won” was the shifty media apologia smuggled into the fray, to explain away that high crime.

But it’s good MKO has received a posthumous honour on the matter, with June 12 becoming Nigeria’s Democracy Day, instead of May 29 that former President Olusegun Obasanjo actively pushed, throughout his eight-year presidency, and among his partisan power successors, before President Muhammadu Buhari got MKO justice.

But back to the Abeokuta Club event, at which Obasanjo was named a club trustee; and MKO, posthumous vice-patron.

The Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo dismissed, as “bad blood”, the high conspiracies that robbed MKO the presidency, despite his epochal win at the polls.  That was spot on.

It was bad blood that penetrated the top brass of Nigeria’s politically ravaged military, which eventually destroyed all of those political soldiers; and left the military itself a mere shell.  The Egba monarch should know, though he retired as a colonel in 1985, well before the high-stake power conspiracies of 1993.

But the irony of the “bad blood” comment appeared totally lost on Obasanjo, made doubly ironical by trying to say nice things about MKO and his June 12 bona fides, after his orchestrated attempts to rubbish the MKO ideals, thinking only that would give his own May 29 emergence historical life.

That plot fell flat, though after being floated for no less than one-and-a-half decades, under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Obasanjo old order.

Which brings the discourse to the ringing, multi-dimensional ironies of Obasanjo’s

own “bad belle” comment, at the occasion.  Though Obasanjo tried to be nice to MKO’s memory, the Ebora Owu was an active and baleful spirit in the anti-MKO June 12 manoeuvres, even when MKO was alive and fighting for his mandate.

Obasanjo’s Pauline morphing, from nastiness to niceness, is appreciated.  But that can’t be at the expense of ghosting history.  He was part and parcel of the “bad belle” he spoke of; and it was really rich trying to push it as the sole fault of IBB and other deluded hot heads.

Then, the costly Freudain slip: Obasanjo’s basic take, in all of the June 12 catastrophe, appears a regret over the non-actualisation of power vanity, personal and collective, concerning Abeokuta and its sons.

His top regret was that “bad belle” robbed the Egba trio, of himself, Ernest Shonekan and MKO, a power hat trick (to borrow that football lingo), to the glory of Egbaland.

Nice — but bad — joke!  In truth, it was two Egba sons (Obasanjo and Shonekan) that actively plotted against another Egba son (MKO) and his historic June 12 pan-Nigeria mandate.

Nigerian history would perhaps have been better off without that plot.  So, let the Ebora Owu not glibly falsify history, and make light of that treachery, after making merry at the Abeokuta Club.

Hardball

An operation to find the killers of 11 soldiers in Benue State should not become an operation against innocent people. Shangev Tiev, in Konshisha local government area, has become unsafe for those unconnected with the killings. The bodies of the soldiers, including an Army Captain, had been found in the area after they were declared missing.

Leader of Tiv Professionals Group (TPG) Prof. Zacharys Gundu said soldiers had taken over St. Lucy Catholic Church, Awajir, Benue State, and were using it as a base. “Why take over a Catholic church and conduct Islamic prayers therein while denying members of the congregation from worshipping in their local church?” he wondered.

Also, he said the army had destroyed houses in Gwer East local government area, “which has nothing to do with the crisis and is about 100 Km from the crisis zone.”

According to a report, no fewer than 10 settlements in Shangevtiev had been reduced to rubble, including Bonta, Tse-Jembe ,Tse-Anyom,  Gbinde, Aku, Gungul, Asoka, Guleya and Shiliki.

“Many locals, who lost their houses to the destruction, were seen walking long distances to look for shelter,” a report said. It continued: “Among them were women carrying babies. Some of them said their houses were burnt after a military gunship flew over, raining bullets on the villages.”

The story of  53-year-old Uganda Ugo who said he and his wife, and their two children,  had trekked for  three miles to get away from  Agidi after it was razed, is touching. “I don’t know where I am running to but just for my safety and that of my family,” he was quoted as saying.

In his response, Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Muhammad Yerima said:  “We are not killing anybody, all we are doing is searching for the people that killed the soldiers and we will find the people. Whoever said we are killing people and destroying properties is telling lies.”

Who is lying? The army sadly lost its men who were killed in the area. But it must go about the mission to apprehend the killers with a sense of responsibility and restraint. A wild and indiscriminate operation to get the killers, and recover the weapons they took from the killed soldiers, is unjust and unjustifiable.

The innocent locals facing the army’s reprisal instinct should not be made to pay for a crime they did not commit. The army should realise that there are innocent people who shouldn’t be punished.