Category: Hardball

Hardball

Even 23 years after his death in 1997, Fela, Himself the Abami Eda (Uncommon Creature), continues to boast living vibes, that stand out as quotable quips, in almost all theatres of life.

“E don beg me,” was one of those.  The military government back then had thrown Fela into the can, for alleged currency offences not a few swore were trumped up, to silence the maverick.

But then, after a chance meeting with his gaoler, Mr. Justice Okoro Idogu, at a hospital, Fela, still serving his time, claimed an allegedly remorseful judge, perhaps quaking with guilt for alleged miscarriage of justice, had profusely apologized to him.

Enter, “e don beg me” into Nigeria’s ever rambunctious street lingo, in all its pidgin majesty, gripping and cutting with laconic humour! The poor judge would later vehemently protest he did nothing of the sort.  But that did nothing to deny Fela his latest street glory.

E don beg me — could that be the emerging news from Oyo State, over the local government crisis there?  Governor Seyi Makinde had dissolved the councils; and replaced elected chairmen and councillors with appointed aides.  But the federal Attorney-General and minister of Justice, referencing a December 2019 Supreme Court judgment, had told the governor to change tack; and advised the Oyo Police to ensure compliance.

Though many of the “sacked” councillors appeared to be resuming peacefully, the state government sprung another judicial joker — an injunction, from a high court of Oyo State, for resumptions to freeze, until the matter before the court was disposed of.

But between the injunction and next hearing date, a lot had flared.  There was violence, claiming one life, and a few limbs, in a fracas sparked by to-resume-or-not-to-resume tension, in one of Ogbomoso’s local councils.

Then, the Oyo legislature, clearly in the governor’s partisan camp, neighed and whined: accusing the embattled councillors of “gross misconduct”, a charge the Oyo Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) promptly dismissed as laughable.

In-between had come gubernatorial tantrums that the elected councillors, fighting for their mandate, were only ogling the huge deposits, in the councils’ coffers, from the Federation Account — all is fair in war!

But then came the court hearing and the government side came waving the white flag —  e don beg me?

The government counsel announced his clients were exploring an out-of-court settlement on the matter.  Though the councillors’ lawyers didn’t oppose, they insisted they wouldn’t accept anything that would obstruct the smooth dispensation justice — a clear euphemism that anything other than  the full restoration of the councillors’ mandate was a unacceptable.  The court then adjourned till February 12 for feedback.

By this offer, could the Makinde government be backing out of the case, after much executive bluff and judicial stratagem to stall the final verdict of the Supreme Court?  Time will tell.

But even before then, a universal democratic truism: no executive hauteur, no matter how misguided, can trump the majesty of the law.  So, the earlier the Oyo government stopped stonewalling, the better.

Hardball

IT seems the latest strategy of the leadership of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP is to whip up sentiment and cry wolf. The party has been acting rather shamefully over the composition of the leadership of the House of Representatives especially the choice of Ndudi Elumelu as the minority leader of the House. The PDP insisted that Elumelu was not the choice of the party but Kingsley Chinda from Rivers State.

The party had since been threatening the Femi Gbajabiamiala-led House warning the Speaker to ‘steer clear of its members’. They are dragging Gbajabiamila into the internal crisis of the PDP. But the Speaker didn’t unilaterally appoint or ‘impose’ Elumelu.

Elumelu emerged through a democratic process in tandem with the House rules. It is illogical for the PDP leadership to sit at the Wadata Plaza and dictate to the House. The party may whip its members to line to support anointed candidates.

The Speaker followed the House rules on July 4, 2019 when he read the list from the conglomerate of opposition parties in the House. That is fairness, equity and broad regard for other minority parties represented in the House rather than adopting the PDP’s list.   The House rules state that MINIORTY PARTIES shall elect or appoint amongst themselves their leaders not just PDP.

Where has Gbajabiamila erred? The PDP should not transfer aggression to an innocent speaker but rather put its House in order. The attempt to create anarchy and foist Kingsley Chinda-led minority team on the House of Representatives has failed ab initio. The PDP till date  has not accused the speaker of manufacturing the list read on the floor of the house that endorsed Elumelu as minority leader. Again, why is PDP getting uneasy? Is Elumelu not a bona fide member of the party? Why fighting as if the ruling party stole its slot?

Strangely, PDP which was once a strong advocate of legislative independence  during the 8th National Assembly insisting that the APC cannot impose Senate President and Speaker of the House, now wants to impose a caucus leader for its members in the parliament. That is height of hypocrisy.

The unwholesome meddlesomeness of the PDP in the House business is worrisome. Traditionally, members are bonded with collegial responsibility of advancing laws and other legislative interventions in the interest of the people regardless of political leanings. Why does the PDP want to upset a tradition that has strengthened one of the nation’s critical democratic structures?

It will be in the best interest of spokesman Kola Ologbondiyan and his PDP to note put cat among the legistive doves. He should stop hounding the Speaker of the House and the entire House to avoid getting its erring members in legislative “soup.” There are more urgent and serious matters that the main opposition party should focus on and not on settled matter of the leader of minority caucu

Hardball

TYO-MU, Ihyarev and Kparev, what the hell are all these all about?  Good question!

Suffice it to say they are all a manifestation of the heart of darkness (apologies to Joseph Conrad, he of maverick prose) that seems oozing from the smelly underbelly of contemporary Nigeria, thus echoing another English great and Nobel Prize for Literature winner, William Golding and his Lord of the Flies.

Indeed, in Tyo-Mu, and its denizens of Ihyarev and Kparev, present-day Makurdi, in Benue State, Nigeria relives the worst of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

According to a report in The Nation (January 31), Tyo-Mu is a suburb of Makurdi, the Benue State capital, “a rich stretch of land”, on the bank of River Benue, choice arable land “suitable for fadama farming, yielding bountiful harvests of yam, cassava and rice in the wet season.”

Entrenched in this agricultural trove were the Kparev (Tiv for settlers), said to have been moulding bricks, at Tyo-Mu, for no less than a century.  But another group, the Ihyarev (Tiv for indigenes), are not quite comfy with the so-called settlers — settlers of 100 years! — and therefore want them out.

Why exactly?  The story wasn’t specific on that, except that tension started only in 2015.

Might the Kparev not have been sensitive and respectful to the customs, traditions and mores of the Ihyarev?

Could the Ihyarev too have been ogling the prosperous trade of the settlers, so much so that the bragging right of being a native is only a smokescreen for greed, powering an economic crime to muscle the so-called settlers out of their legitimate — and thriving — businesses?

Well, things just got to a head in form of a communal clash: no less that 30 houses were razed; with hundreds of others, most of them the settlers, fleeing for dear life, displaced.

How do you explain that in 21st century Nigeria, a community that had lived together, for no less than one of these centuries, would just blow up, just like that, starting five years ago?

The police in Benue have earned some knocks for not picking up intelligence to avert this avoidable crisis.  But now that the crime has been done, emotive crap about indigenes and settlers should be discounted, as the Police go after those that could be behind what looks like a brazen economic crime.

Tyo-Mu is yet another sorry proof of the Nigerian heart of darkness.  It is worse than dog eating dog.  Which is why the law must crack down on the criminals involved, give the victims justice, and avert a future recurrence.

Hardball

The lessons of history are instructive. Politicians ought to learn, but  they are poor learners. They are always optimistic.  As far as they are concerned,  a dead person, already buried, can come back to life.

Politicians stoke crisis, which sometimes come back to consume them. Unless their interests align, they relate as permanent enemies. In the moment of crisis, wool is drawn across their eyes. They see the truth, they deny it. They know the reality. They evade it.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) is deluding itself into thinking or believing that all is well in Edo. It is about blowing its chances in the Southsouth state, its newest theatre of intra-party war. Governor Godwin Obaseki has challenged national party chair Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to a duel. The two leaders are flexing muscles. Both are loyalists of President Muhammadu Buhari, who appear to be helpless, or unable to put his feet down.

Obaseki has rejected the Reconciliation Panel set up by the party. He wants a second term. Oshiomhole is the obstacle.

The veteran labour warrior too is on the prowl. He wants to devour the governor.

Edo APC has become a war zone. The division permeates the ward, local government and state chapters of the ruling party. APC is waging a war against itself. Violence is now the watchword. Things have fallen apart.

Was that not the situation in Zamfara, Imo, Bauchi, Adamawa and Rivers states ahead of last year’s elections?

In Zamfara, due to the rift between Abdulaziz Yari and Kabiru  Marafa, APC lost all the elections it won – House of Assembly, Representatives, Senate and governorship. It has not recovered from the self-inflicted wounds.

To Obaseki, Chairman Oshiomhole has been suspended. The comrade still calls the shots at the national secretariat in Abuja. He will soon spoil for a pound of flesh.

If Oshiomhole survives the plot to pull him down, the battle will become fiercer in Edo. As national chairman, he will be effectively in charge of the politics of governorship nomination. The comrade will not leave the APC. He will not abdicate. Will Obaseki survive when Oshiomhole is still in the saddle?

If the governor pulls out of the APC, will the decimation not affect the chapter at the poll? Will the two factions not play into the hands of their foe – the PDP?

The cost of ego may be burdensome.

Does that mean that APC cannot put its house in order? Why is reconciliation a herculean task in Edo APC?

Hardball

IN Oyo, Governor Seyi Makinde orchestrates a high-octane drama, which name could be “Blowing Hot and Cold” — all to escape doing the right thing.

Yet, right won’t vanish, simply because you buy the illusion you can avoid doing it.  You can’t; and no matter how much or how long you fudge, you are condemned to eventually doing the right thing.

With the Supreme Court’s definitive pronouncement that state governors cannot sack elected local government officials, a showdown was imminent on January 28.  After the federal attorney-general’s legal advice to the governor, using the apex court’s verdict as ground, the governor found himself in a bind.

The judgment absolutely removed the legal plank of his local governments’ dissolution of 29 May 2019.  With the attorney-general’s advice, coupled with a nudge to the Police to do the needful to enforce obedience, the Oyo government was well and truly worsted.  It was the triumph of one bully (the police, as part of the federal security architecture); over the other (the governor, that figured he could, with executive whims and caprices, scatter and gather local government, as His Excellency wishes).  Not so!

Still, it must be said: good sense prevailed on January 28.  The elected chairmen and councillors appeared to have duly resumed their truncated terms.  That was far better than frontal confrontation, that could have left everyone bruised.

You were even at a point of commending the Oyo authorities for executive nobility  when they emerged with another legal legerdemain — a court injunction to freeze the victorious parties from enjoying the fruits of their victory.  Wow, wow, that was the judicial equivalent of a military ambush!  Shorn of all its legalistic foam, it’s another stonewalling, hiding behind legal procedures — vexatious, to the elected councillors but hardly a crime, until the court rules one way or another.

But, that trickery has forced Governor Makinde on foxtrot, pushing a charm offensive.  The other day, he was reported on a sortie to the Inspector-General of Police.  Hear the touring governor: “I came to brief the Inspector-General of Police that this is the situation.  We do not want chaos in Oyo State.  I am a law-abiding person — hear! hear! — if there is a court judgment, I will obey.”

That was an excellent piece of gubernatorial cant, if ever there was one!  After all the empty verbal grandstanding , what was clear was a governor desperately waiting on executive fiat — or put more brazenly, force — to stonewall an extant judgment, while gambling on a future judgment!  Crafty, isn’t that?

But only the governor and his co-partisans are taken in.  No future judgment can erase the crux: no governor can sack elected chairmen and councillors.  So, the cup of compliance will not pass over the errant government.  All the governor can do is buy time.  But the longer he does that, the longer governance at the grassroots is buried under a thick, dark legitimacy cloud.

Not a few have made a meat of the federal attorney-general throwing the state government into a whirr because of his advisory, which came with the notice to the Police to do the needful.  Indeed, the optics of that, in a federal state, is awful.

Still, wouldn’t that be delving into ego, leaving the substance of the matter?  If the governor had self-corrected, after doing the wrong thing, would the federal AG have intervened, on a matter as clear as democratic local governments, clearly entrenched in the 1999 Constitution?

And just imagine if the governor had the Police to enforce his clear outlawry, in this case?  He probably would have turned up his nose, stamped his foot, and barked: Supreme Court, my foot!  Such intransigence arms those dead set against state police.

Hardball

Losers want to be on the winning side. That’s why Imo State House of Assembly Speaker Collins Chiji and six other lawmakers defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). They abandoned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in a move that showed they couldn’t bear being on the losing side.

Their dramatic rejection of PDP on January 28 further underlined the reality that power had changed hands in the state. The Supreme Court decision of January 18 had removed Emeka Ihedioha,   the immediate past governor of Imo State, and made Hope Uzodinma governor. Ihedioha’s loss was also PDP’s loss. Uzodinma’s victory was also APC’s victory. Majority Leader Chigozie Nwaneri also left PDP, and joined APC.

The defections changed the numbers, and made APC the majority party in the 26-member legislature. The APC, with 18 members in the legislature, now controls the executive and legislative arms of government in Imo State.

Earlier, Imo State PDP Chairman Charles Ezekwem had crossed over to APC.  He said in his January 25 resignation letter: “Given the prevailing circumstances within my party, vis-a-vis my present standing as the state chairman of the PDP, and after due consultations with my family and with the approval of my supporters, I hereby tender my resignation as state chairman of PDP.” More PDP members may well leave the party for the ruling party, demonstrating the power of success, and the powerlessness of failure.

The mass movement from PDP to APC because of the new power structure suggests that those who moved are adventurers. Would they have moved if Ihedioha hadn’t been removed?  It’s unprincipled politics by unprincipled political players.

Imo State PDP Secretary Nze Ray Emeana made allegations that showed the defectors in a bad light.    According to him, “All those who have defected to APC we learnt were lured with the offer of N50 million and two plots of land in Owerri.”

Whether the messy allegations are true or false, the defectors will face image problems. Their defection is suspicious, and exposes their desperation to be on the winning side.

Politicians should be made of sterner stuff. When they win, they should appreciate that winners can be losers the next time. When they lose, they should appreciate that losers can be winners the next time. Jumping from the losing side to the winning side as if losing is a permanent condition blinds them to the reality that winning isn’t a permanent condition.

Hardball

THE Yoruba and their picturesque expressions!

One, the hubris-stricken Aafa (Islamic cleric) that carries his saara (communal feasting, especially of neighbourhood children, to aid a prayer point) beyond the precincts of his mosque.

Another, the mud carving, suddenly craving for a bath at the stream!  Who doesn’t know that carving craves for own doom?

The Yoruba and their picturesque expressions!

Yet, these ancient sayings may well have had Seyi Makinde, the governor of Oyo State, in mind, with his ill-advised bluff to flex gubernatorial muscles he doesn’t have, in the face of a clear Supreme Court verdict, on the inviolability of the tenures, of elected local government chairmen and councillors.

The Oyo chapter of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) rolled out the bazooka, blazing with the Supreme Court judgment and the federal attorney-general’s advisory to the governor to reinstate Oyo elected chairmen and councillors, he had purportedly sacked two hours after assuming his own mandate on 29 May 2019.

“This is legitimate,” Oyo ALGON quipped, “after the attorney-general of the federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami, has again called the attention of Oyo State government and the Inspector-General of Police to the subsisting Supreme Court judgment reinforcing Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and pronounced as illegal and unconstitutional the dissolution of elected local council administration by state governors or state assemblies in Nigeria, with no court order to back it up.”

But the embattled Oyo government had returned fire, threatening, as reported by The Nation of January 27, the “full observance of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) regarding the ongoing controversy surrounding the dissolution of the 68 illegal local councils”.  But illegal — says who?  The court or the governor and his cronies, over-reaching themselves, and pronouncing where they lack legal powers?

But the Oyo gubernatorial party upped the ante and raised the threat decibel: again quoting The Nation’s reportage: “individuals threatening to derail the peace of the state to desist from such ruinous path or face the full wrath of the law.”

It’s the classic ad-baculum resort — threatening force, after losing reasoned argument! It’s the oldest trick in the book.  But what if the outlaw, in this case, is the thundering and puffing Oyo government itself, making all the row, just because it must back out from its illegal LG dissolution, after a clear and definitive judgment by the Supreme Court?  Clearly, there is a limit to bluff, when the law is clear?

Of course, if the Oyo government has any issues with the conduct of the elections that brought the present LG officials to office, let it proceed to court.  Indeed, not a few have held the polls were bad faith from the outgoing Biola Ajimobi government; and that a wholesale APC-dominated LGs won’t go well with a PDP-controlled state government.  An APC Oyo government could probably have held to the same position too, had fortunes changed — universal politics of convenience and no principles!

Even then, the law is the law, and every office created by law should hold the law as sacrosanct.  So, until Makinde can get a counter legal order, he has no choice but to comply.  Honestly, continued bluff at this point sounds being plain stupid!

Hardball

YET again, the Federal Government rejected Transparency International’s (TI) assessment of corruption in the country. Nigeria was 146th out of 180 countries, according to the organisation’s 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Also, Nigeria was ranked the fourth most corrupt country out of 19 countries in the West African region

According to TI’s head in Nigeria, Auwal Rafsanjani,  “From fraud that occurs at the highest levels of government to petty bribery that blocks access to basic public services like healthcare and education, citizens are fed up with corrupt leaders and institutions.”

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) described the rating as “jaundiced and illogical,” saying, “We insist that the rating is a far cry from the evident strides and achievements so far accomplished by the anti-graft agency in the fight against corruption, particularly under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.”

It’s bad news that corruption is still a serious problem in Nigeria, despite the anti-corruption war of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the last four years plus.

Significantly, TI’s rating is supported by a public survey by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) last year  involving  2,549 respondents across  the  country’s six  geo-political zones and  covering eight states –  Ondo, Enugu, Rivers, Lagos, Adamawa, Kano, Kaduna and Kwara- which  showed that public opinion on corruption was bad.   Abuja was added as a sampling area because of its status as the country’s capital.

According to the survey, “96.2% of the respondents believed corruption remains a serious problem in Nigeria today. There was no significant difference in opinion on this issue across the different geo-political zones surveyed.”  Also, the survey found that “84.5% of Nigerians believed corruption affects them.”

The most disturbing aspect of the report was that “Almost half of the respondents (43.5%) surveyed do not believe that corruption can be successfully fought in Nigeria.” This suggested that the public believed the Buhari administration’s anti-corruption effort was going nowhere. Worse still, it also suggested that corruption would always be a big problem in Nigeria.

If TI’s CPI is perceived as a foreign report, the same thing can’t be said about SERAP’s survey. It’s significant that the two organisations, one foreign, and the other local, reached similar conclusions on the state of corruption in the country.

Critics of TI’s low rating of the country shouldn’t expect a dramatic improvement when there has been no dramatic victory in the war against corruption.

Hardball

Who listed Lagos routes where commercial motorcycles (Okada) and tricycles (Keke Marwa) shouldn’t operate?

A January 21 report said the Lagos State Government had installed 2,000 signs indicating the areas where such motorcycles and tricycles were prohibited. According to the report, “Commissioner for Transportation Frederic Oladeinde said a good number of the road signs indicated areas where tricycles and motorcycles operations were prohibited, warning that any one that violates the law after this effort, would be punished in accordance with the dictates of the law.” The operations of commercial motorcycles and tricycles are supposed to be regulated by the Lagos State Traffic Laws.

Curiously, the following day, a conflicting report quoted the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, as saying the state government hadn’t taken a definite action on the operations of Okada and Keke Marwa. He said: “We have just concluded our routine security meeting, during which the issue of Okada and tricycles was discussed. For now, no major decision has been taken on the matter.”  Omotoso added that the alleged list of restricted routes was false and unofficial, and should be disregarded.

There is a need for clarification, considering the conflicting comments by the two commissioners. The lack of clarity doesn’t help matters. It’s a cause for concern that the police are exploiting the unclear situation.

A commercial motorcyclist at Idi-Araba, Mushin, lamented: “The policemen collected my bike on Sunday morning. I paid N10, 000 to retrieve it. In the evening, another set of policemen arrested me and collected my bike. They demanded N20, 000. How do I make a living with these extortions?”

Another one, Mohammed Idris, said:  ”I don’t ply highways. The street where I do park my bike was where police came to arrest me and told me to pay N20, 000. I am using the bike to take care of my family.”

According to Linus Benedict, who said he had been a commercial motorcyclist for 12 years, “Police in Surulere and Mushin have seized the opportunity to extort us. They are arresting Okada riders and collecting N20, 000 each to retrieve our bikes.”

It’s condemnable that the police are taking advantage of the unclear situation resulting from the state government’s unclarity. Omotoso was quoted as saying a definite position on the issue would soon be made public through the official media channels of the government.

The Lagos State Government should quickly get its act together on this issue.