The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Ace globalist, a Nigerian

    Ace globalist, a Nigerian

    Hardball

    In the murky swirls of global communalism, any positive standard bearer from a particular country should be a representative to be celebrated by that country. This is especially so when the country, like Nigeria, tends to be more on the radar for negative profiling that is never a true reflection of the essential nature of the bulk of the citizenry.

    Not that Nigeria lacks luminous icons on the global stage: like United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed, current President of the United Nations General Assembly for the 74th session, Professor Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, and African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina to mention a few. But there is this icon not attached to one office and is keenly sought after across international borders and by multilateral bodies, namely Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) penultimate week enlisted Okonjo-Iweala as special envoy for newly inaugurated Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator – an international collaboration aimed at hastening the development, production and equitable distribution of Covid-19 drugs, tests kits, and vaccines around the world. She is to serve in that capacity alongside British business captain and chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, Sir Andrew Witty. At the launch of the initiative via webinar from Geneva, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus said their mandate is to mobilise global commitment to that initiative.

    It was the fourth international job for Okonjo-Iweala in under two months. On 7th March, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed her a member of the country’s Economic Advisory Council comprising indigenous and international experts who advise Pretoria on economic policies aimed at advancing inclusive growth. Barely a month later, on 10th April, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva named her a member of the fund’s External Advisory Group, which has on board prominent individuals from around the world who will serve as Georgieva’s special advisers. And just two days after that, the African Union (AU) listed her as one of four special envoys charged with soliciting the support of the Group of 20 Nations (G20), the European Union and other international financial institutions for African response to the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Okonjo-Iweala is a globally reputed economist and development expert who was once Managing Director of the World Bank. Here at home, she previously served under governments of a political party now in opposition as economy minister and foreign minister. From the way she is being sought after, however, it should be obvious her expertise has neither partisan nor indeed nativity limitation. In these very difficult times in Nigeria – as elsewhere – isn’t there some value she could be enlisted to add, or is it a prophet being without honour in her own country?

  • NDDC mess

    NDDC mess

    Hardball

     

    HOW long will it take to complete the forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to be carried out on President Muhammadu Buhari’s order?  More than six months after the president’s order in October 2019, the exercise was reported to have started last week.

    The Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently approved a contract of N318 million for engagement of a lead consultant for the audit, and some members of the agency’s staff have been sent on mandatory leave pending the conclusion and outcome of the exercise.

    President Buhari has now “extended the tenure of the Professor Keme Pondei-led Interim Management Committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) from May 1 to December 31, 2020,” according to a statement by his spokesman, adding, “The extension is to cover the period of the forensic audit of the NDDC.”

    It is ironic that President Buhari’s move to deal with the NDDC’s failure by ordering a forensic audit of the agency’s operations from 2001 to 2019 has been complicated by twists and turns encouraged by the president himself.

    It is curious that President Buhari had ordered the audit after approving a new governing board for the agency in August 2019, subject to Senate confirmation, without waiting for the Senate to confirm the board. Logically, he should have waited for Senate confirmation of the board, and then ordered the audit under the new board.

    By the time the Senate eventually confirmed the new governing board, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, had further complicated things by setting up an interim management team to oversee a forensic audit of the agency.

    Another complication arose when the Senate declared that it would not recognise the interim management committee in processing the 2019/2020 budget proposals of the NDDC. The upper chamber also ordered its Committee on Niger Delta to interact only with the NDDC board it had confirmed.

    Strangely, after the Senate confirmation, rather than inaugurate the board he had initially approved, President Buhari did a somersault.  In December 2019, his spokesman said he had approved that the NDDC board “be recomposed and inaugurated after the forensic audit of the organisation.”  He also directed that the agency’s interim management team “shall be in place till the forensic audit is completed.”

    However, there are allegations of continued corruption at the agency.     The interim management committee and the supervising Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs are faced with credibility challenges, and this means President Buhari’s intervention is meaningless.

     

  • Livelihood threatening life?

    Hardball

    On the virtual eve of lifting the COVID-19 lockdown in Lagos, FCT Abuja and Ogun states, scary figures tumble from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) test laboratories.

    That looks rather ominous since, going by the upsurge, livelihood (which is what the lifting of the lockdown amounts to) appears set to snuff out the very life itself!

    That is the grand irony of the COVID-19 pandemic season.  It is as perplexing as it isn’t pretty!

    As at April 29, NCDC tests revealed 196 Coronavirus cases, one more than the 195 of April 28, hitherto the highest on a single day.  Now, the question: is the country now fated to rising COVID-19 cases, effect from April 28?

    Will April 30 cases be higher than the previous day, but lower than the subsequent one?  When then will we flatten the curve, and lower cases of the infected?  Now that the lockdown is being lifted, will livelihood then not become a threat to life itself, given the unruly attitude and general indiscipline among our people?

    Take Lagos, the hustling capital of Nigeria and the national epicentre of the virus.  By the April 29 figures, Lagos had 87, compared with Kano (24), Gombe (18), Kaduna (17), FCT (16), Katsina (10), Sokoto (8), Edo (7), Borno (6) and Yobe, Ebonyi and Adamawa (one each).

    While Kano appears to be on a hot chase to elbow FCT as the second most affected area, Lagos remains firmly at the top of the national burden.  Yet, the lockdown is about to be lifted in Lagos!

    After a 35-day presidential lockdown, the cases in Lagos keep rising though there were two days in-between when Lagos recorded zero cases.  Also, Lagos has achieved good and robust records in nursing COVID-19 patients back go health.  Still, what would happen after anyone can go anywhere, as the lockdown is gradually lifted?

    True, players in the formal economy would put in control measures.  But who controls the huge informal sector: the pulsating Oshodi and Oke-Arin markets, the ever-unruly and hygienically challenged Danfo operators, the neighbourhood mechanics/car spray workers/vulcanizers, the auto spare sellers who have virtually been “starving” at home all through the lockdown period, and the million and millions of fatalistic city denizens, still living in denial, with their brusque dismissal: “Olorun lo nso wa jare”! (Only God can protect!)

    Who will moderate the commercial bus drivers and their blind greed?  Who will control desperate passengers, that grimly pack themselves like sardines, in a desperate bid to hit office or home fast? Who will give hustling Lagos urgent tutorials on social distancing to beat Coronavirus?

    Lifting the lockdown could be welcome freedom to go ye and hustle, after being cooped, in a pen, for 35 days.  But it could also mean Lagos bracing itself for far, far more COVID-19 cases!

    The government, both federal and Lagos State, should just blitz the mass media with helpful emergency enlightenment, while the authorities try to enforce some sanity.  Still, COVID-19 Lagos enters uncharted territories.

    May legitimate livelihood not snuff out life itself!

     

  • Umahi’s angst revisited

    Umahi’s angst revisited

    By Hardball

    Rebuttals ordinarily are a legitimately exercised right to present ‘alternative facts’ to presumed statements of facts that pre-existed. Now, the administration in Ebonyi State has taken this practice to a level of obfuscation that should pose behavioural scientists a rich subject of study.

    The administration last week denied widely reported pronouncement by Governor David Umahi that he was banning two journalists “for life” from state functions, after they were briefly arrested by security agents at his suspected instance over reports the administration found offensive. Chijioke Agwu of Sun newspapers was nabbed on 19th April over his report on Lassa fever in the state, while Peter Okutu of Vanguard was arrested on 21st April for reporting military invasion of a community in Ohaukwu council area of Ebonyi.

    In an address aired live on the state’s broadcast stations on Wednesday, 22nd April, Governor Umahi also said the safety of the two journalists could no longer be guaranteed in the state. “If you think you have the pen, we have the koboko (horsewhip),” he threatened.

    It was curious enough the governor overreached by banning the affected journalists ‘for life’ when he has an expiry date in government. Besides, industry stakeholders have noted there is something called ‘Right of Reply’ that his administration could exercise, and which concerned media would be obliged by industry code to publish. Worse case, he could resort to the courts for redress; only he had dismissed that option in his tirade, saying, “Let’s leave the court alone.”

    Curious got more curious when the administration repudiated audio and video clips of the governor’s broadcast on social media, saying they were ‘doctored.’ A statement by his media aide, Francis Nwaze, alleged the recordings were aimed at misleading the public. That statement, however, reaffirmed the government’s grouse that “there is no case of confirmed death caused by Lassa fever recently in Ebonyi, neither was there any killing by the Nigerian military last weekend in the state.”

    Did the media aide mean Mr. Governor’s broadcast never occurred, or that his words in that broadcast were at variance with what was reported? He did not make bold to say. He only alleged “a delicate attempt to smear the hard-earned reputation and good relationship of the governor with the media.” What obfuscation! It’s either the governor spoke or he didn’t. Possible ‘doctoring’ of clips couldn’t make much difference to substance.

    The governor had also upbraided the leadership of the local chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, threatening to “seize their allowances for two months because they have failed to discipline their members.” That is an area we as industry practitioners must introspect: how ethical is this kind of relationship, and how helpful for press freedom?  He who pays the piper will always seek to call the tune.

     

  • Dead whale

    Dead whale

    Hardball

     

    MEDIA pictures of people enthusiastically cutting parts of a decomposing whale on Bonny coastline in Rivers State were food for thought. Were they so desperately poor and hungry that it did not matter to them whether the carcass was unfit for human consumption?

    “The residents ignored fears of suspected massive pollution of the Atlantic Ocean, which recently led to death of thousands of croaker fish in the Niger Delta region, “an April 26 report said, adding, “the whale, which was already decomposing, was butchered and shared by adamant residents, who reportedly believed it was a blessing from God to cushion the hardship caused by the COVID-19 lockdown in the state.”

    According to the report, the whale  “was massive and intimidating but by the time machetes, knives and electric saws worked on it, all that was left of the creature was a skeleton.”

    Where were the health authorities when this was going on? If those who saw the decomposing whale as food did not care about the possible health risk, the health authorities were supposed to protect public health by preventing the consumption of the carcass.

    The scramble for a piece of the whale reflected not only the poverty of the people but also poor public enlightenment.  A resident of the area, Peter Awajis, was quoted as saying:  “This is a natural occurrence that happens every year. Ask any native of Finima, Bonny local government area, Nembe, Brass, Bayelsa State and especially people in Oyorokoto, Andoni fishing ports of Rivers, they will tell you same thing.”

    He added: “It is not new and can’t be linked to recent dead croakers in our waters. This wild whale is original manna from God to cater for the poor, especially in the season of Coronavirus.

    “Last year same incident occurred in Nembe, Bayelsa State, and in less than three days before the Bayelsa Ministry of Health could mobilise to the scene, what was left was a mere carcass of the animal.”

    If this is the thinking in the community, and beyond, then the health authorities need to do more to enlighten the people on public health. In addition, health officials should be quick to respond when such a case that could pose a threat to public health occurs.

    Not every sea creature washed ashore is fit for human consumption.  This point must be emphasised; and there must be prompt action by the authorities to prevent contrary action by those who are too poor to resist such a temptation.  It is a cause for concern that such poor people live among us.

     

  • Corona lessons from Kano

    Corona lessons from Kano

    Hardball

    Kano is in the news, all for the wrong reasons.  The focus is on the state’s (mis)management of COVID-19.

    As expected, stock thinking has sent flak going Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje’s way, for his handling of the situation, which could well be heading for a catastrophe, if immediate rescue steps are not taken.

    The governor dilly-dallied on a lockdown, only to bow to a waiver to hold Friday Jumat prayers.  After those prayers, Kano COVID-19 cases flared.  One thing wasn’t clear, though: was the flare directly linked to the mass gathering at prayer venues; or to the scaling up of Kano’s testing capacities?

    Then, the governor was accused of placing his daughter to head the Kano COVID-19 Task Force.  Not a few have bleated: see, she’s his daughter, so “nepotism” shut down the efforts, ab initio — maybe.

    But does the woman in question have cognate qualifications and experience?  If she does, charges of “nepotism”, open and close, would appear emotive gas.  The woman shouldn’t be discriminated against simply because her father is governor.

    If she doesn’t, the governor would appear fairly charged.  Even then, riveting solely on “nepotism” would have shuttered the mind from x-raying other faults in the Kano COVID-19 response, beyond emotive rage against governor and daughter.  The state’s public health would have been the worse for it.

    Then, the Kano governor virtually clambered out of bed to demand a N15 billion COVID-19 federal grant, just because Lagos had benefited from an earlier N10 billion grant!  How did His Excellency, very far from excellent and rigorous thinking, come about this calculation?  Again, the Nigerian states’ penchant for central parasitism, hiding behind a health emergency!  It’s certainly not the governor’s finest hour.

    Still, not all blame should go Ganduje’s way.  He is governor, yes.  But he is no magician, with supernatural powers to think –and act — for adults that, for sundry reasons, put selves in arm’s way.

    If the governor dithers between waivers for Friday Jumat prayers and maintaining a total lockdown, it would be because that sentiment is popular among his people.  Now, which people would, even for religious fatalism, risk to buck clear scientific advisory to protect them from a pandemic?

    And when the result comes haunting everyone, why should such a people suddenly become as white as snow, and the governor, the only devil fit to be nailed on the cross (apologies to Kenyan novelist, Ngugi wa Thiong’o)?

    Okay, prayers are powered by faith, which even science may not challenge.  But what of youths, tragically — if not fatally — misguided, launching into a so-called “Corona Cup”, a football tournament, bang in the middle of a global health emergency, with no known cure, aside from crowd control to limit its spread?

    It would appear the wages of wilful and combative ignorance come to plague Kano; and hardly is anyone thinking of taking responsibility, beyond scapegoating the governor.

    This is the juncture where other states must learn from Kano.  There are consequences for actions.  So, governors being swayed, by sundry sentiments, to buck COVID-19 advisories had better watch it.

    Learn, from Kano, the hard lesson!  Take responsibility!

  • Floatable lockdown

    Floatable lockdown

    Hardball

     

    LOCKDOWN ideally is lockdown. It involves curtailment of movement as people stay in their homes except for necessitated outings like going to stock up food, congregations are outlawed to forestall mass contact in pursuit of the social distancing rule, and virtual platforms adopted for the conduct of operations that previously involved people meeting face-to-face. That is the lifestyle forced upon us at this time by ongoing efforts to flatten the curve of Covid-19 infection.

    But Niger State has shown the way in how lockdowns can be made floatable – that is, with lockdown being in force; then, suspended momentarily to allow certain routines proceed largely as was the case before the pandemic; and then, slammed back into place after pre-stipulated expiry of the temporary suspension. In other words, it’s some stop-go-stop arrangement. How ingenious!

    Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello had penultimate week imposed a two-week lockdown, following confirmation of the index case of coronavirus infection in the state. Last week, that lockdown was temporarily lifted to allow Muslims observe Juma’at congregational prayers. The government said the lockdown would be back in place immediately after the prayers. A statement by Information Officer to Secretary to the Government of Niger State and chairman of the state task force on Covid-19, Lawal Tanko, said the prayers should be held under strict precautionary measures and be conducted within 30 minutes.

    The statement read: “This is to inform the Muslim Ummah that the state government has lifted the suspension of congregational Friday prayer (Juma’at) for today Friday, 17th April 2020.

    “The Juma’at prayer is expected to hold between 11am to 3pm under strict observance of all the precautionary measures, using hand sanitizers, face masks, hand washing facilities (soap and water), maintaining social distancing and avoiding contact base greetings. The sermon and prayers are to be conducted within thirty minutes; Muslims are advised to adhere strictly to the precautionary measures taken by government on the containment of coronavirus pandemic in the state. The lockdown however continues immediately after the Juma’at prayers.”

    Not that Niger State is alone in harbouring the idea of floatable lockdown. Some state governments – for instance, Ondo – were reported to have contemplated relaxing the lockdown in their respective domain for the observance of Easter Sunday worship by Christians penultimate week, but they changed their minds at the last minute.

    Ideas to lighten the crushing effect of the lockdown on the citizenry are by all means welcome. But such ideas must factor in the collective health of society and aim at its long-term gain, not appeal to sentiments that only deliver political capital. Stop-go-stop lockdowns hardly serve the purpose that lockdowns are meant for in the first place.

     

     

  • Conspiracy of seven

    Conspiracy of seven

    Hardball

    In the politics of Borno State, there are many layers. We have the obvious one of Boko Haram, and the unending war that has taken blood and treasure, but also what seems like commonsense. We have the conundrum of an apparently small and foreign country helping us best the militants because our army is weak and off-course.

    Of course, the ritual battle between the two principal parties, PDP and APC. But the latest tiff is not essentially partisan, but a fight between a set of people who have lost a battle for the soul of the state massed together in a gang up. Recently a concerned body announced that they were plotting against the former governor and now Senator Kashim Shettima. The source of their sour grapes is simple: they lost in 2019, again.

    This group is led, Hardball gathered, by Shettima’s predecessor, who has become pathetic as a peripatetic politician. His name is Ali Modu Sherriff, who was in APC and wanted to overtake it before he drowned. He was rescued into PDP, and he is still unhappy. He is working with a few others who are angry that they could not defeat the incumbent governor Professor Babagana Zulum.

    They decided to take on Shettima because Shettima became stronger than they, and they are not happy that the person they regarded as small fry has now fried them in the hot sun of Borno politics.

    According to the reports, they want to demonise the former governor and make him look like a moneybags who boasts that he has $900 million to invest in a fight against them. Shettima has kept mum, while the seven are plotting in the shadows.

    They forget politics is not just about plots but about connecting with the people. To succeed against Shettima and Zulum in 2023 is to pray that Zulum loses a sense of direction. Right now with the way he has handled Shettima’s legacies, the way he is building his own, his show of common touch, his fight for the people of Borno in a time of extreme danger, it will be hard for the seven men to pass muster.

    The plot calls to mind the Greek play, Seven Against Thebes, by Aeschylus. It has three features in common with Borno’s conspiracy of seven. One, it is a story of seven people against one person. Two, it is a battle for power and the throne. Three, it ended in tragedy. The seven fellows, who are trying to also entangle Shettima in 2023 fight at the centre, should be wary not to overstretch themselves. They have lost many times. Disaster is familiar to them, so it probably does not matter if they crash again.

  • Governance by muscle-flexing

    Governance by muscle-flexing

    Hardball

    Want a taste of governance by muscle-flexing and its dramatic collapse, at the sight of harder(?) muscles?

    Hop on the next jet to Nyesom  Wike’s Rivers, and see, in full technicolor, the swaggering rise but woeful crash of melodrama, when simple, routine dialogue could have done the trick.

    It’s the euphonic tale of eating crow, after a loud crow!

    In two short weeks, the Wike Triumphant Army against COVID-19, out for enemies of Rivers smuggling in the disease, announced the capture of such implacable enemies.

    First, were pilots from a private aviation firm, that flew oil workers into Rivers, against local imperial authority.  Well, the central government might rule the aviation waves.  But terra-firma, everyone knew the undisputed emperor!

    So, the captured pilots and crew bitterly found out: the muscle-flexing Rivers authorities, with the governor himself leading the prowl, snatched them, right from the proverbial lion’s den — a military base, under the control of same federal authorities.  That feat was grandly announced, via a state-wide broadcast: Wike wins Round One!

    Pronto, the “captured” were trotted to a magistrate’s court, which promptly ordered detention, pending bail proceedings.  That prompted compulsory isolation, according to Rivers COVID-19 emergency procedures — hardly a crime, except that the pilot and aviation workers union growled, warning Wike to beware of victimizing its members on legitimate duty; and giving stiff notice of a strike.

    Then, second: another highly publicized capture of oil workers, in a Toyota Coaster bus, inwards Rivers from the neighbouring Akwa Ibom State.  Again, the imperial local authorities had triumphed over deluded federal authorities, and their insistence that even as COVID-19 ravages the land, oil workers must keep the economy buzzing.

    Again, for the captured oil workers, marched to isolation centres, the Rivers law must take its course, as the governor roared, on state media, bawling to all that the fight was in him; and there would be no retreat, no surrender, until “enemies” importing COVID-19 into Rivers, were worsted.

    Wike wins Round 2?  Hardball wished!

    A few days later, all that macho had vanished — like dew, at the earliest sight of the morning sun!  First, the pilots were granted bail (face-saving?) — apparently after some belated dialogue, that could have averted all the empty thunder and dramatics.

    Then PENGASSAN — Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria — the oil union that, with Frank Kokori’s NUPENG (National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers), came onto its own in the classic June 12 face-off against the Sani Abacha dictatorship.

    To the PENGASSAN roar came the Rivers moan: the Exxon-Mobil 22 were to be released without charge, according to Rivers Attorney-General, Zaccheaus Adangor.  To return the favour, PENGASSAN called off its strike notice.

    See the futility of governance by muscle-flexing and allied dramatics, when quiet dialogue would do?

  • Unexemplary examples

    Unexemplary examples

    Hardball

     

    ONE of the most basic things in leadership is role modeling. The leader ordinarily offers an example that followers are expected to emulate – never mind it does not work like that in a clime where you have a preponderance of bad leaders. The role-modeling factor is even stronger in spiritual leadership where there is implicit assumption of divine unction on the leader. That is why spiritual leadership tends to be more commanding and authoritative than secular leadership.

    But in recent times we have seen behavioural examples unbecoming of any kind of leader, far less spiritual leaders. Amidst ongoing lockdown across Nigeria over the Covid-19 pandemic, some clerics have engaged in shenanigans that you would wonder if they could in good conscience invite followers to emulate their example.

    Some clergymen got entangled with the law on Easter Sunday for holding congregational assemblies in violation of the lockdown respectively imposed on states to ensure social distancing aimed at containing the spread of coronavirus. In Delta State, six pastors were reported arrested in Sapele and three in Warri, allegedly for disobeying the sit-at-home order of the state government by leading worshippers in congregational services at their different churches. In Ondo State, a pastor was arrested, and that after a botched attempt to evade the law. A week earlier in Kaduna State, two clergymen were arrested and subsequently arraigned before a Chief Magistrate’s Court by the state government for conducting Palm Sunday services in violation of the lockdown.

    More intriguing are the circumstances of some of these arrests. At a church on Ugberikoko road in Sapele, the pastor reportedly fled along with his wife and some church members upon sighting approaching policemen, but the assistant pastor was arrested. In Warri, the three clergymen arrested were alleged to have presided over services each having more than 100 congregants in attendance. But two of them were reported arguing that they rather held closet fellowships and not full worship services.

    In Akure, the Ondo capital, a pastor reportedly scaled over the fence of his church to evade arrest for flouting the ban on religious gathering before he was eventually arrested. The pastor had locked the church doors on himself and worshippers to conduct the Easter service. And when personnel of the task force raised by government to enforce compliance arrived, they forced the doors open and found the service ongoing within. Sensing he was in deep trouble, the pastor reportedly tried jumping over the church fence to evade arrest but members of the task force stationed around the church apprehended him before he fled.

    When ‘their holinesses’ are making themselves such delinquent fugitives before the law, what would they advise their followers otherwise?