The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Ganduje: A professorial mess

    Ganduje: A professorial mess

    Hardball

    Why did Abba Anwar, spokesman for Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, rush to announce that East Carolina University (ECU), USA, had appointed the governor as a visiting full professor of e-governance and international affairs?

    Perhaps he was eager to get good publicity for his boss. He may have thought it was a chance to flaunt the governor’s importance.

    But could he have publicised the appointment without Ganduje’s approval?  That’s unlikely. So the governor was probably aware that his spokesman was going to release the information.

    Anwar had quoted the appointment letter dated November 30, which said “Ganduje’s choice is a depiction of close monitoring of his achievements as a governor in the last couple of years.”

    ”You have been a source of motivation to the Nigerian youths both at home and in the diaspora at large. We are amazed at your accomplishments both as the Executive Governor of Kano State, Nigeria, Fellow National Association of Educational Administration and Planning, Nigeria, and your investment in Human Capital Development,” the letter added.

    Based on the appointment, Ganduje would be expected to mentor PhD students, junior lecturers at the institution and also advise the institution’s research centre on academic issues related to e-governance and international affairs.

    But Ganduje was re-elected for another four-year term last year, which will end in 2023. He is expected to concentrate on developing Kano State. Could he have managed to play the role of governor and visiting professor at the same time?

    Perhaps he should have contacted the university to explain the situation and how difficult it would be for him to perform both roles at the same time. That would have saved him from embarrassment following the university’s denial of the appointment offer.

    The university’s Interim Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Dr Grant Hayes, in a December 4 letter to Ganduje,   said Dr Victor Mbarika who had signed the appointment letter did not have the authority to make such an offer. It is unclear why Mbarika sent such a letter to Ganduje when he lacked the authority to do so. The university should sanction Mbarika.  Ganduje is embarrassed. But he could have avoided embarrassment.  The Secretary to the Kano State Government, Alhaji Usman Alhaji, wants Mbarika punished for embarrassing the governor. He claimed the university appointment was unsolicited. There is a need for clarity.

    This mess is bad for Ganduje’s image. He could have avoided the mess if he had been more focused on governance and less interested in distractions.

     

  • Judicial SARS

    Judicial SARS

    Hardball

     

    Before it was disbanded amidst crippling citizens revolt in October 2020, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the police was notorious for its operatives going rouge. The police are essentially law enforcement agents statutorily mandated to keep the citizenry safe. But many SARS operatives plied abuses – including extra-judicial killings, extortions and property hijacks – against the Nigerian public that the police high command was never in a position to own, even though there was initial reluctance to dismantle the squad because of its purported strategic role in fighting violent crimes.

    When fresh curbs outlined by the police leadership to check the abuses could not pacify citizens’ fury against the squad, Police Inspector-General Mohammed Adamu succumbed to pressure and scrapped the squad on 11th October. Even that did not upend public fury and the #EndSars protests raged with highly destructive consequences for some while. How hoodlums hijacked those protests and almost overturned the entire course of the Nigerian nationhood was an experience that will be indelible in memory. It was to regain nationhood groove that government, during the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting on 16th October, ordered the establishment of judicial panels of inquiry on SARS across the 36 states.

    Now it seems the SARS mentality in the police system was not restricted to the disbanded ‘anti-crime’ (read: ‘criminal’) squad, but inheres other divisions: Surprise! Surprise! Even the legal division! A federal high court in Abuja, last week, listed a case purportedly by the police seeking a court order halting ongoing judicial inquiry by states into the activities of SARS before it was disbanded. In a suit filed on 9th November, 2020 by police lawyers led by Oyetola Atoyebi (SAN), the force argued that state governments had no statutory mandate to probe the activities of the police or its officials, hence violated cited provisions of law. It prayed the court to restrain judicial panel proceedings in the states forthwith.

    But the police leadership swiftly came up to disown the anti-judicial panels suit and entered another suit pulling the earlier suit. In the latter suit by its lawyer, Festus Ibude, the force filed a notice of discontinuance, saying: “Take notice that the plaintiff herein intends to and doth hereby wholly withdraws its suit against all the defendants.”  Moments earlier, force spokesman Frank Mba, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, said the police management team had not authorised the earlier suit and IGP Adamu had ordered investigation of the role of the Force Legal Section, including its head, CP Tuesday Assayomo, who had been queried.

    From indications, the force’s legal unit went rouge on the management with the Atoyebi suit. It is good that the unit is being probed already, because the architects of the repudiated suit are nothing other than judicial ‘SARSists’.

     

     

  • Odd police recruits

    Odd police recruits

    Hardball

    Information supplied by the Police Service Commission (PSC) showed that the controversial recruitment of 10,000 constables last year by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, was flawed. Indeed, the details of the blemish called into question not only the process but also the integrity of those who supervised the recruitment.

    A statement by the commission’s spokesman said: “In the cause of screening of the list of the 10,000 successful candidates, the commission discovered that 925 persons never applied for recruitment and did not go through the stages and processes of recruitment. These included screening, aptitude test and medical examinations.”

    Only those involved in the absurdity can explain what happened. They have a lot of explaining to do. Of course, this applies to the said 925 persons as well as those who listed them.

    The discovery of the anomaly followed the verdict by the Court of Appeal, in September, nullifying the recruitment of 10, 000 constables by the IGP. The appellate court unanimously held that the IGP lacked the power to recruit constables for the police force.

    The court also held that the power to carry out the recruitment was exclusively that of the PSC. It declared the recruitment carried out by the IGP “null and void.” The judgement meant that the recruitment done by the IGP was just a waste of time and resources.

    Importantly, the verdict helped the PSC to uncover the irregularities. What would have happened without the verdict? The IGP’s dubious list would have been unexposed. Unscreened persons would have become police personnel, which is unacceptable.

    Based on the court ruling in its favour, the PSC was free to do a fresh recruitment, which would have taken time and caused a delay in increasing the number of policemen.  Its decision to use the IGP’s list is, therefore, understandable.

    There are other important considerations. The PSC said: “The commission however in the overall interest of the nation and considering that resources had been expended in the training of these candidates and that these candidates had been exposed to weapon and weaponry decided to rescreen them. These candidates already rescreened, except those found to be criminally minded (with mutilated certificates) are expected to be absorbed into the Force.”

    What about the 925 odd recruits?  They don’t deserve to benefit from the anomaly.  What about those who listed them?  They deserve to be exposed.   The odd recruits, and the recruiters, demonstrated a lack of integrity that should have no place in the police.

  • Vanished? Escaped? What really is it?

    Vanished? Escaped? What really is it?

    Agency Reporter 

    From the Stella Obasanjo Motherless Children’s Home, the news oozing out is rather troubling.

    The Nation of December 2 headlined the disturbing news: “Five children missing from Stella Obasanjo’s orphanage”.  The story, in the body, further claimed the children “were said to have disappeared last Thursday”.

    Now, which mother worth her breastmilk would snooze as her children vanish — Hardball hopes not without trace? — from under her bosom?  Or aren’t motherless homes supposed to assume some legal function of the loco-parentis?

    Then, deeper in the story, the Ogun government weighed in with its own account — the missing children reportedly escaped.  Waheed Odusile, commissioner for Information, assured the government was “on top of the situation” — on top of what exactly?  Barring the stable gates after the stallion had galloped clear?

    Besides, “escaped”, by the government’s own account, suggests some chill about the loco-parentis.  Why would a child escape from a home filled with love and warmth, even if the parents are great disciplinarians?    Mostly, and other things being equal, only harsh homes suffer such heartache of own children baling on it.  But perhaps the Ogun government should have more carefully picked its words, in managing that embarrassing piece of news.

    Still, disturbing searchlights must be beamed at how the Stella Obasanjo Home functions, if indeed, the children “escaped” from it.

    True, the missing children could well be troubled kids who, despite the best of love and care by the Home managers, were undisciplined enough to want to taste the unbridled freedom and “enjoyment” of the outside world.  That is very possible.

    On the other hand, they could also be victims of home harshness and negative tendencies that could naturally result in such fleeing.  Don’t forget, these are parent-less kids who have little family support outside the home they had lived in, perhaps from cradle.

    Whatever the reason for the disappearance, it behoves the Ogun State government to take a closer look at how the Home functions.  Are the managers harsh on the children?  Or do the children wilfully misunderstand their caregivers, to the extent of embracing such ill-advised action of vanishing?

    It is good the Ogun government has already tipped off the security agencies to kick-start processes to recover the missing children.  That is crucial, in these days of prowling evil, lest these parent-less children come to avoidable harm.

    So, do get the kids back — and in one piece, as fast as you can.  Then, ensure everything humanly possible is done to ensure a hostile atmosphere — if indeed there is any — doesn’t get the kids scurrying away again.

    It is then the Ogun government can really be “on top of the situation” — as that cliche goes.

    The government owes this sacred duty to the children, being among the society’s most vulnerable.  People-centric — that is the hallmark of a progressive government, that Ogun State proudly claims to be.

  • Déjà vu on the tracks

    Déjà vu on the tracks

     

     

    At the spate locomotives are breaking down mid-journey in Nigeria’s rejuvenated system of rail transportation, it is legitimate to ask whether the renaissance is for the long haul or a fleeting, money guzzling fancy.

    Within the space of a week last month, passengers were twice stranded on the Kaduna-Abuja route as locomotives packed up midway – not just frustrating the passengers’ travel plans but also exposing them to safety hazards. On Friday, 20th November, a train broke down some distance from Abuja after taking off from Kaduna, with a video recording showing passengers off-board for fresh air while the fault was being fixed. A journey that was to last two hours took some four hours. Reports cited Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) Managing Director Fidet Okhiria blaming the incident on a failed locomotive’s turbocharger, assuring that efforts were underway to prevent such incident recurring.

    But contrary to promise, the incident did recur, and in no distant time to boot. Barely five days after, there was another breakdown on the Kaduna-Abuja route leaving passengers stranded, this time in the middle the jungle and far from settlements. The notorious hazard of kidnappers’ strikes in that axis was a threatening overhang. Video records showed passengers in the coaches protesting the incident and accusing NRC of operating faulty locomotives, thereby exposing them to danger, while train attendants tried to pacify the protesters.

    New locomotives were only in recent history procured by the Federal Government from China to cater to growing number of rail passengers, but barely five months after being deployed they’ve broken down severally. Following the earlier incident, Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi described the breakdowns as embarrassing and apologised to Nigerians, saying he had directed the Chinese contractor, CCECC, to fix or replace the locomotives as they were still under warranty. “I would like to apologise to Nigerians over what’s happening at Abuja to Kaduna line. It’s worrisome in the sense that they are brand new locomotives. We may be forced to bring back our old locomotives if the breakdowns persist. The locomotives are under warranty. We have called the Chinese to come for the locomotives that are bad, we told NRC to either fix them or get the Chinese to fix them. And if that is happening, then they should bring back the old locomotives,” he stated.

    Anyone old enough to recall the dying pangs of the old Railways can’t help some déjà vu about the new breakdowns, and with acute alarm that they’re coming so early in the renaissance. The old Railways literally wasted out through locomotives packing up on the tracks. Meanwhile, the present revival involved huge mortgage of Nigeria’s future, including the controversial $500million loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. It will be a most damning verdict by history if that mortgaged future falls apart so soon on the tracks.

     

  • Royal blame game

    Royal blame game

    Hardball

     

    IT is understandable that the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, is unhappy about escalating insecurity in the country, especially the North.  But he shouldn’t allow his dejection to overshadow his sense of fairness.

    At the recent fourth quarterly meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) which discussed the challenges of insecurity and COVID-19, the Sultan lamented that the North had become the worst place to live in Nigeria because of increasing insecurity.

    “A few weeks ago, over 76 persons were killed in a community in Sokoto State in a day,” he recounted.  The revered traditional ruler painted a disturbing picture showing a breakdown of law and order. He said: “People think the North is safe, but that assumption is not true. In fact, it’s the worst place to be in this country. Bandits go around in the villages, households and markets with their AK 47 and nobody is challenging them. They stop at the market, buy things, pay and collect change, with their weapons openly displayed. These are facts I know because I am at the centre of it.”

    No one disputes the Sultan’s account. But he got it all wrong by blaming the media.  “Unfortunately, you don’t hear these stories in the media because it’s in the North. We have accepted the fact that the North does not have strong media to report the atrocities of these bandits,” he said.

    It is difficult to understand the Sultan’s blame game. It is puzzling that he introduced a regional perception.  It is simply untrue that the media has under-reported insecurity whether in the North or in the South.  It is a baseless allegation.

    Indeed, the media attention given to insecurity has attracted criticism from certain quarters that the focus is excessive and calculated to embarrass the authorities.

    The reality of rising insecurity across the country cannot be denied by even the most aloof observer.  And the media cannot be detached from the country’s realities because its essence demands professional reporting of real life.

    “We have to sincerely and seriously find solutions to the problem, otherwise, we will find ourselves soon, in a situation where we would lose sleep because of insecurity,” the Sultan was reported saying. He is correct.

    The need to find a solution to insecurity should override unprovable arguments about media neglect.  The Sultan should blame the authorities for encouraging insecurity by failing to deal with it.  The media is not to blame.

  • Trump, America’s tortoise

    Trump, America’s tortoise

    Hardball

     

    IN African folklore, the tortoise had a special place.  He was the preening, conceited and all-clever figure that often over-reached himself; and became all-foolish.

    Why, he once declared he had warehoused all gumption in a gourd; and that common sense was now a tortoise monopoly!  Yet, it took a common palm wine tapper to teach him the most basic of gumption: that you climbed the palm tree with the gourd — even of gumption! — at your back, not dangling on your belly!  So long for tortoise the wise!

    Don’t know about the escapades of the American tortoise.  But the African tortoise, dashing king of African folktales, has so much affinity with Trump — proud, cocky, deluded, clever to the point of stupidity and eternally plotting!

    Before the election, Trump boasted Joe Biden was the “worst candidate” in American presidential history; and it would be a catastrophe to lose to such a person.

    Well, Trump got his dream catastrophe!  But the irony is totally lost on him: that his post-loss tantrums are making him the worst and most graceless loser — to use his own customized hyperbole — in American presidential history!

    And what a parody from Trump’s own mouth!  CNN, his media nemesis, aired a telling video of Trump lampooning someone, who rejected the result of a White House election, even if the election was squeaky clean!  Might embattled Trump, with own mouth, be predicting — or was it prophesying? — his own post-poll collapse, to the embarrassment of peacocky America, the self-appointed global democracy police?

    For three long weeks, Trump suborned the US General Administration Services (GSA), to hide behind contrived election certification technicality, to stonewall Biden’s victory and sabotage the Trump-Biden transition.

    But delaying the transition, many opine, might put America’s security in jeopardy, as its enemies, they claim, could home in with lethal and fatal mischief, seizing the vacuum Trump created.  Besides, it could imperil America’s COVID-19 vaccine roll-out.

    Now, after Trump’s spectacular mishandling of his much-vulgarized “China virus”, making America the worst hit country in the world (12.7 million cases, 261, 000 deaths and still vigorously counting), a botched inter-administration vaccine roll-out could undo Trump’s only glittering COVID-19 legacy: Operation Warp Speed, that has achieved three effective vaccines in record time.

    Still, after the collapse of that gambit and subsequently granting the Biden transition its due, in cash, office accommodation and Intel-briefing, you would have thought Trump would eat crow, accept his well-deserved fate and fade out with the little dignity he has left.

    Not Trump!  He still richly deludes in up-turning Biden’s election — an action that could have been so comic were it not so tragic.  That goes back to the eerie Trump-tortoise parallel.

    In Kurunmi,  Ola Rotimi’s Yoruba historical tragedy, the tortoise, betrayed a spectacular self-ruin conceit.    Asked when he would return from a journey he just announced, the tortoise shot back: “When I’m utterly disgraced”!

    Trump, playing the comical post-poll spoiler, is embarking on a journey from which he won’t return until he is utterly disgraced!  The ultimate 21st century American “Big Man” (to parody “African Big Man” from The Economist) dancing naked and getting a kick out of it!

    For Hardball, it’s so fulfilling Trump is confirming everything the ever-condescending and eternally mischievous western media project and condemn, in the so-called third world and the “non-democratic” other worlds!

    Trump, the American tortoise, is prime time entertainment on the global stage.  Let’s hugely thank CNN for serving it all, realtime, and in rich technicolor!

     

  • Hellish highway

    Hellish highway

    Hardball

     

    WORKS and Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola undertook an inspection of the perennially gridlocked Lagos-Ibadan expressway last weekend to give pep to the construction work that has been ongoing – almost for ever – on that major national access route. He urged contractors engaged for the construction to speed up work and make the artery free and safe for travelers ahead of the Yuletide.

    With the extreme nightmare the highway has become for motorists, it was reassuring hearing the minister affirm commitment by the Muhammadu Buhari presidency to seeing through the construction. “The rehabilitation, construction, and expansion of the Lagos-Ibadan dual carriageway, construction of 2nd Niger bridge and the rehabilitation, construction, and expansion of Abuja-Kaduna-Kano dual carriageway are strategic infrastructure development projects of Mr. President. These projects are financed with the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) funded from the Sovereign Wealth Fund and they are national priority highway projects,” he said. Fashola explained the Lagos-Ibadan expressway project as comprising section 1, which involves rehabilitation, reconstruction, and expansion of the dual carriageway of about 43.6km commencing from the old toll gate at Oregun/Ikosi-Ketu in Lagos and terminating at Shagamu interchange in Ogun State, being handled by Julius Berger contractors; and section 2 spanning 84km beginning from Sagamu interchange on to Ibadan, contracted to RCC. He urged the firms to finish the work on time, so to ease travelers’ discomfort, adding: “You contractors should remember that you do this work for the people, and that you must be passionate in doing it by easing the trauma people go through while on the road.”

    During a town hall meeting with stakeholders at Ogere, Ogun State, the minister directed trailers that park indiscriminately at that section of the expressway to immediately vacate the area and give way for ongoing construction work.

    By all means, the ministerial intervention was long overdue. Anyone who travels on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway knows it is the most hazardous of Nigeria’s major arteries as of today: it takes an average of five hours to travel between Lagos and Ibadan – a journey that ordinarily should be under one hour – with apocalyptic gridlocks at Ibafo and Ogere axes of the highway. And those gridlocks are literally life-endangering, because many fuel tankers have been known to catch fire and incinerate other vehicles while trapped in traffic.

    The contractors, in their presentations, cited high traffic volume and new settlements on the highway as impediments to construction, saying 400,000 vehicles plied the road daily and 3,000 of them per hour. But truth also is: they have been overly insensitive in managing disruptions to traffic occasioned by construction work and thereby made life a hell for motorists. The minister would do well to hold them very strictly to the work order just given.

     

  • Zero percent poverty

    Zero percent poverty

    Hardball

     

    NIGERIA needs to learn a lesson from news that China has been able to eradicate extreme poverty among its people.  That country’s last nine poor counties, all in its southwest Guizhou Province, have eliminated absolute poverty, according to a November 23 report. Independent agencies confirmed that poverty in the nine counties in Guizhou had been reduced to zero percent.

    China had planned to eradicate absolute poverty by the end of 2020. At the end of 2019, 52 counties in the northwest, southwest and south of the country were still on the poverty list. Now there is no county on its poverty list. This is a notable feat, considering that China is the world’s most populous country, with a population of around 1.4 billion in 2019.

    Nigeria’s population is about 208 million, far less than China’s. It is disturbing that more than 83 million Nigerians live below the national poverty line, according to the 2019 Poverty and Inequality in Nigeria report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) this year. Oxfam says about 94 million Nigerians live below the poverty line.

    Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s remarks at the two-day executive-legislative leadership retreat held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on October 6, spoke volumes about how poorly the government has performed concerning eradicating poverty.

    “What is the reality of the context that we operate in today?” he asked.  “We all know our nation has millions of extremely poor people; the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened employment and poverty.”

    Osibanjo added:  “It is time to focus on what we have been elected or appointed to do. This is the welfare of our people… Our people just want food on their table, shelter over their heads, clothing on their bodies, healthcare and education for their children and themselves.”

    In other words, it is easy to identify the markers of poverty.  The President Muhammadu Buhari administration last year set a target of “lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within a 10-year period.”

    The president has inaugurated a national steering committee to oversee the development of the ‘Nigeria Agenda 2050 and Medium-Term National Development Plan (MTNDP),’ which succeeds ‘Vision 20:2020 and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017 – 2020.’

    The United Nations (UN) defines extreme poverty as “a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services.”

    How did China eradicate extreme poverty?  Definitely, it took more than lip service. That is a lesson Nigeria needs to learn.

  • Still on Lekki ‘massacre’ sans bodies

    Still on Lekki ‘massacre’ sans bodies

    Hardball

    Nigerians are great ones for big — if sterile and empty — controversies; and the latest in town, Lekki tollgate “massacre” without bodies, doesn’t appear will fizzle out in a hurry.

    In all the excitement, however, the unfazed devotion to lies is clear: those who would swear by their mothers’ graves that the government is lying over the “massacre” are the same who will believe the transparent fib that a massacre, without bodies, is real and sweetly trending!  Ridiculous doesn’t even begin to cut it.

    The latest excitement was sparked by the so-called CNN expose, which the “massacre” disciples believe is sure smoking gun, belching endless smoke of guilt.  But it ended a damp squid.  Instead of magical facts as proof, what CNN offered was its magical name and brand!

    Pray, shouldn’t that be enough?  Which other global network matches CNN in sheer brand name in news?  Well here, the breaking news: CNN fell flat on facts — no, not in establishing shootings (that is trite) but in proving a massacre, which appears the body language of the grandstanding report, if indeed news could boast any body language!

    What is more?  CNN quietly reversed itself — from a Twitter verified handle, that glumly carried the fib that tens died at the “massacre”, to one dead and tens injured, from its latest “expose”, that just exposed videos and claims already in the public space.  No apologies for previous misinformation?  How dare you!  Does all-mighty CNN look like one that apologizes?  How dare you!

    Well, it did something — latching triumphantly over a military officer’s admission, before the Lagos judicial panel, that the Lekki-bound convoy of soldiers indeed carried back-up real bullets, aside from the blank ones the Army claimed its troops shot in the air, to disperse a curfew-busting crowd.

    CNN, in seething majesty, claimed that confirmed its reportage that the Army carried live ammo — big deal!   Still, did that prove a massacre?  That there were shootings was trite.  That’s a notorious fact (to borrow that legal-speak) in the public space.  What the Army claimed, and which CNN didn’t disprove in own reportage, is that the soldiers used blank bullets, instead of live ones.

    Still, enough of this sterile grandstanding.  It’s time to deal with useful questions.

    Should the Army have shot at the scene — in the air, or at protesters?  No — and that no is near-absolute, other things being equal; without prejudice to secret intel, which the authorities might not be gung-ho making public.  Shootings should have been avoided — and the Army, and whoever gave those troops the operational orders, can’t wash away that stain.

    But could “peaceful protesters” still be that, even after attempting to slap down a legal curfew, knowing full well how their actions, which compelled the curfew, was spiralling into anarchy?  And would the legal and legitimate authorities reward such outlawry with a sweet pelt of flowers?

    So, if you condemn the Army shootings, you must condemn the outlawry that led to it.  Anything short of that is galloping hypocrisy, which no right-thinking soul would take.

    It’s time, therefore, to quit the massacre-tales-by-the-moonlight; and concentrate on useful lessons to avert future crises.  Citizens should know when to call off protests; and the authorities should master how to disperse protesting crowds without creating “massacres”, real or phoney.