Category: Hardball

ISA Ali Patami, the minister of Communications and Digital Economy, sent many a subscriber’s heart fluttering, when he read out the riot act, with a deadline of five working days to boot: Telco networks must crash their data price; and the industry regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), must see that it is done pronto!

That was more like it! — many a subscriber may have enthused.  These days, data just appear to vanish, no sooner than they are loaded.  Yes, the networks, across the board, ring out sweetheart data “yanfu-yanfu” din — sorry deals! But the deals are exactly what they are: empty din that promises much but delivers painfully little, like a mirage, in a scorching desert, to a thirsty throat!

At the end of the deadline, however, the minister’s definite order has suddenly turned hee-haw.  A strong one-week deadline has morphed into indefinite huff and puff.  The regulator and operators have been told to do a deal, not exactly at their own pace but at no definite time either.  Meanwhile the customer, that complains of being ripped off, is for now, left on his own, after a dramatic splash of hope from virtual nowhere!

That certainly doesn’t look good, at least from the perspective of the subscriber.  Still, a statement by Uwa Suleiman, the minister’s spokesperson, explained the latest development.

The NCC, according to Suleiman, had “assured the minister that it has been working assiduously round the clock to enforce the Federal Government’s directives and has requested the good graces of the minister to extend the deadline which expires today, 8th November 2019, to enable it properly re-strategize and fully implement long term solutions as directed, to the challenges.”

What a mouthful!  So much formulaic verbiage, just to bring down data price?  It would appear such a Herculean task!

Besides, it is rather amusing that the NCC, which appeared comfy with the situation, until the outrage from the minister, who came virtually yesterday, is asking for more time! Did subscriber cries ever reach the regulator?  If they did, and NCC wasn’t moved enough to act, how can it be trusted to act with speed and despatch now?  But maybe these are technical nitty-gritty that data-crunching plebs can’t understand?

No matter! The minister is in a gracious mood: “Dr. Patami,” reports the loyal Suleiman, “has graciously granted  an extension with the understanding that the commission will resolve these issues within the shortest time possible.” Done deal!

Then, the parting kiss: “The minister hereby assures the general public that the current administration will neither tolerate acts of injustice nor the short-changing of its citizens, at it is working tirelessly to ensure that subscribers get full value for their money.”

Of course!  But haven’t we heard all of this before?

Why does Hardball feel like hollering: subscriber, you are on your own, much in the same line as the ill-fated Steve Biko’s famous quote: “Blackman, you are on your own”, during those dark days of apartheid in South Africa?

Those who blow hot and cold, over Nnamdi Kanu, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader’s “right” to return to bury his parent(s?), despite earlier jumping bail, will do well to compare his situation with Ikemefuna’s, in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

Yes, Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s most famous book, is fiction.  But not a few believe — and justifiably so — that though its face is literature, its essence is sociology and anthropology, thus offering a clear-eyed window into Igbo pristine life: its mores, customs and laws.  Even back then, and the tragic Ikemefuna was proof, you were impressed by the grim immutability of the law.

Ikemefuna was ransom to avert war. Some reckless neighbours had killed some maidens, natives  of the war-like Umuofia.  To stave off war, Ikemefuna became a prisoner of (averted) war.  The POW was therefore resident in the household of Okonkwo, Things Fall Apart’s tragic hero.

Ikemefuna, the lad, progressively became a hit in Okonkwo’s household.  Though the rather taciturn Okonkwo didn’t expressly say so, there were times he felt Ikemefuna, all verve, was the son he didn’t have in Nwoye (his first son, considered too effeminate); and the direct opposite of his father,  Unoka (considered too lazy and unassertive, as a man should).  Ikemefuna was therefore the secret object of Okonkwo’s admiration.

But then came the dire decree, from the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves: Ikemefuna must be put to the sword!  Okonkwo, though he loved the boy, complied, even dealing the fatal machete blows.  Though Obierika rebuked Okonkwo for having a hand in the death “of a boy that calls you father”, the law was the law, even in the Igbo pristine world, and it must be obeyed!

Now, fast track from Ikemefuna in Umuofia, to Nnamdi Kanu’, in contemporary Nigeria: as the law was immutable then, so it is immutable now.

The luckless Ikemefuna lost all privileges under the extant laws of his time, the moment he became POW.  He couldn’t dart to his village to see his siblings, bury his mother or father, or grace a wedding.  The law took all those away — and that law was Igbo pristine law, not Nigerian modern laws.

But the reckless Kanu, by jumping bail, rid himself of all the privileges of a citizen under Nigerian laws, until that rupture, of the legal process, is fixed.  That much was restated in the ruling of the Abuja Federal High Court, which has ruled Kanu is safest in prison!

A fugitive from the law, which Kanu has made of himself, can’t logically claim traditional or filial “right” to bury his parent(s) as “first son”, any more than a convict in Nigeria’s present-day prisons, or even Ikemefuna, in the Igbo order of his time.  That “right” is gone, with Kanu’s cynical rupture of the judicial process.

Indeed, even a convicted prisoner has a better chance to winning such compassion from the law.  For one, his guilt has been proven.  For another he has earned his sentence and submitted himself to the grim majesty of the law, as expected of every citizen.  Besides, he could have earned a parole.

But a person that jumped bail, during a court process?  Perish the thought! That is judicial anarchy that forebodes social anarchy, that threatens all.

Still, back to Things Fall Apart: Kanu, in his present bind, seems to have caught the Okonkwo syndrome — that penchant to act before thinking, which baked the Okonkwo profound tragedy.  It isn’t pretty!

Oyo — beg your pardon — Ibadan politics! Have we not seen all of this before?

Each time the Ibadan muscle their way to the gubernatorial diadem, no matter the party of consideration, the all-too-clear shortfall of clannish politics comes mocking with a savage laugh.

Now, Femi Lanlehin, African Democratic Congress (ADC) gubernatorial hopeful in the 2019 general election, who nevertheless withdrew for PDP’s Seyi Makinde that eventually won the tie, has started moaning, alleging non-consummation of pre-election support terms.

After that would come a groan, then a curse, then a growl, and finally a fit and a roar: To your house, o Ibadan! Let everyone bear his political father’s name! Makinde has ruptured the alliance!

Now, that sentiment won’t be peculiar to Makinde. Exchange his name with Lam Adesina, Ladoja or Ajimobi, that sentiment would still hold true, if you flash the story back to 1999!

And it is fitting too, that Lanlehin could well be the face of this now dormant volcano that might soon erupt, if Makinde didn’t do the needful — and fast too! Aside from former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Lanlehin is perhaps the most peripatetic politician in partisan wanderings, except that Atiku plays at the centre, while Lanlehin has been limited to two states, Lagos and Oyo states.

Lanlehin, in 1999, started as Lagos State Governor, Senator Bola Tinubu’s aide, under the Alliance for Democracy (AD). By 2003, he had crossed to Oyo State, in support of Ladoja, under PDP. Under ACN, he became senator in the 7th Senate. Then, he teamed up with Ladoja, under Accord Party (AP) to wrestle — but failed — to scuttle second term-aiming Ajimobi. His perennial bust-up with Ajimobi, and the need to teach the rather razor-tongued former governor a nasty lesson in political gang-up, made him to surrender his ADC guber ticket to back Makinde, the PDP candidate.

The covenant, according to Lanlehin: “In order to prevent the reoccurrence of the Oyo State gubernatorial election of 2015, in which a governorship candidate won the election with a minority vote of 32 per cent, I, Senator Olufemi Lanlehin, the governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) … decided to drop the mandate of my party in order to support the candidature of Seyi Makinde of the PDP …”

Then, the Lanlehin expectation of legitimate pork: “This in essence meant that at the end of a victorious election, unity government would be formed, comprising the coalition parties in the ratio agreed upon before the election.”

Makinde had better jump off his high horse and do the needful. Otherwise, the whip that so badly tanned Lam, Ladoja and Ajimobi, now menacingly nestling in the rafters, may come whipping down with a whish!

But where would that leave Ibadan politics — and politicians — in the eternal grabbing for Oyo’s political soul? Back to square one, with old clannish combatants feuding to the death in new political wars!

It’s high time Ibadan crowed less about its sheer number and think more about a cohesive ideological bloc, among Oyo State’s other power centres. There is a limit to clannish politics, driven by the demographic accident of huge numbers.

Hardball

It was a scene straight out of a movie: a 23-year old, in a strange play with a four-year old girl, in an Awka market in Anambra State — except that this one was real.

At the end of it all, one of the actors ended up lynched, by an angry mob, for a perceived “fetish ritual” on the poor girl.  A beast appeared to have met a beastly and grisly death.  But it was no judgment any civilized commune would be proud of, even if the provocation was extreme.

As reported by The Nation of November 5, Ginika Eze, mother of the four-year old, had momentarily left her stall to buy bread and beans for her hungry daughter, on mid-term break from school.  But no sooner had she left her stall than the bizarre drama started.

Hear Mrs Eze’s shocking testimony: “Later my attention was drawn to my stall where my daughter was struggling with a man almost half-naked.  He was kissing and fondling her” — a four-year old for God’s sake! — “while muttering: I must drink your blood.”   What!  And right there in the open, in the market!

The helpless mother continued: “Some boys within the area ran to the scene and rescued my daughter from him.  By then, blood was already dropping from her face as the man held her tight in his arms.”

Of course, the tragedy was predictable.  With extreme loathing and rage, the mob pounced on the man, said to be a driver with a private school in the locality, and he was reportedly lynched.  But that was after their poor girl had been rescued from his grip.  An unnamed witness even swore the dead man was about sucking the girl’s blood before he was lynched, thus lending credence to the “fetish ritual” story and perhaps justifying the lynching.

The police had a more practical angle to the tragedy. Haruna Mohammed, the police spokesperson, reasoned the deceased was probably under the influence of drugs: “He seized the little girl and was molesting her before being accosted by irate civilians who beat him to death.  When the police arrived at the scene, the boy who was probably in his late 20s, was lying motionless on the ground, while his assailants had dispersed. He was taken to the hospital, where he was confirmed dead.”

End of story?  The story did not say.  But the police should still investigate the case, though not a few, rocked with rage, would hiss good riddance!

That may be so.  But lynching, no matter the crime, provocation, rage or loathing, should never be an acceptable mode of justice, in a polity governed by law.  Aside from vengeance not exactly justice, it is imperative that folks are not further socialized into blindly taking laws into their hands.  That could well be the grave of many innocent souls, falsely accused of crimes, in the heat of the moment.

But aside from crime and punishment, the police should get to the root of the dead man’s strange and ultra-reckless behaviour.  Was it really a ritual play for money?  Or it was dangerous drugs playing yo-yo with his unhinged mind?

Stories like these point to the creeping heart of darkness of present-day Nigeria.  What really is afflicting us as a people?

What does ASUU, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, in its present anti-Integrated Personnel Payment Information System (IPPIS) campaign, reminds Hardball of the tortoise in that Yoruba folktale?

The tortoise, crafty and haughty, had declared he had every gumption warehoused in an exclusive gourd.  Meaning?  He had acquired the patent over even the most routine of thinking!  Still, just a mere palm wine tapper it was, that told the tortoise, it was hare-brained climbing a tree with a calabash — the same vital warehouse! — dangling on your chest, instead of nestling on your back.

It is the Yoruba ultimate putdown for being clever by half!

Yet, being clever by half was all ASUU manifested in its spirited crusade to reject the IPPIS October-end deadline, for its members to get registered or get chucked out of the pay system.

ASUU started the battle with scholarly exceptionalism, claiming though the IPPIS might be good enough for other sectors of Federal Government workers, it certainly was not robust enough to cater for Nigerian dons, doing yeoman’s work, in the university system.  It had pushed a similar pitch against the Treasury Single Account (TSA), aimed at halting the multiplicity of public accounts that bred so much sleaze.

But the anti-IPPIS pitch hardly washed, reportedly with a good number of its own members; and certainly not with what appeared the general majority out there.

Then, ASUU tried what appeared as legalistic subterfuge, still based on nothing more than conceit: the Federal Government didn’t  employ lecturers.  Only the university councils did. But rid of its sweet sugar-coating, the lecturer-employees were pushing their democratic, if not divine, right to dictating how the employer must pay them!

When the pushing was about morphing into shoving, ASUU got into its default bully setting — threatening to go on strike to push its latest crusade.  It didn’t matter that it didn’t even manage to convince a substantial number, if not the majority, of its members why the strike was necessary, or why even the members should not fill the IPPIS form, beyond the fact that it is union “order from above”.

Right now, the October window and deadline have closed; and many who have obeyed the ASUU directive risk their salaries being stopped.  ASUU itself, seeing little or no support for its hare-brained strike threat, has soft-pedalled.  It’s a most humbling juncture for ASUU.  But it is one that the dons union must learn from.

Hardball just hopes the temporary ouster from the payroll won’t lead to extensive anguish to innocent academics, who obeyed the ASUU directive, not because they agreed with its reasons but because of their solidarity with their union.

But how would Fela, the Abami Eda himself, no friend of the establishment to be sure, have reacted to ASUU’s self-inflicted predicament?  He probably would have cleared his throat, a savagely pun ASUU as “aasuu” (Yoruba for the pidgin street lingo, e go tire), and break into a long hearty guffaw!

“Aasuu” — ASUU go tire for this one! It is fitting desert for being clever by half!

JUST as well Seyi Makinde, the Oyo governor, has reversed himself on his rather impulsive stop-work order, on the 32-kilometre Ibadan circular road project, on alleged slow pace of work.

He alleged, for good measure, that the ENL Consortium, the contractors handling the project, had done less than 6 per cent of the work, even if the contract was signed in 2017.

First, it’s one of the quiet gains of democracy, that a governor can swiftly reverse himself.  If “military president” Gen. Ibrahim Babangida had had such strength, the tragedy of the June 12, 1993 presidential election annulment wouldn’t have consumed the country.

Neither would accomplished reporter and politician, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, have risked losing the Sketch managing director position, which he had earned via a stellar performance at the job interview, because Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, then outgoing military head of state, wrongly succumbed to corporate old wives’ tales; and found it a sign of extreme weakness for a military ruler to reverse himself, even when wrong.

All that drama, and how Osoba eventually triumphed, is in Battlelines: Adventures in Journalism and Politics, Osoba’s just released memoirs.

So, Makinde swiftly reversing himself is fresh and refreshing.  But regardless of that earned praise, the governor must have learnt his lesson: the danger of his all-too-established propaganda plot, to always tar the Abiola Ajimobi governorship.

Since Makinde took over, his projected accomplishments aren’t complete without projecting how useless the Ajiimobi tenure was!  The Ibadan circular road project was to follow the same paradigm.  The emotive byte of the contractors doing just  some five per cent of the job, after two years, was destined the ultimate propaganda pitch!

But with the Ajimobi side fighting back, that pitch badly backfired.  The governor found himself on the defensive, reeling under potent and credible flak!  It’s indeed the needed, if brutal, sucker punch to teach the gubernatorial lesson that a public proclamation is made after the sobriety of the policy chamber, not after the hung-ho passion of the political street.

Still, grant the governor his due.  A shallower person would perhaps still have held on to his “stop” order, even if that bad decision would come back to haunt him, in the ever-shifting quicksand of politics, elections and allied matters.

Even then, the governor savagely marked himself down by his loud grumblings, about reactions from the Ajimobi camp.  Pray, what did he expect?  That the opposing camp would dumbly surrender to be slaughtered, by the governor’s own propaganda machine?

This tit-for-tat has attained a public good: scuppering the governor from, playing to the gallery, halting a crucial public project, so critical to Oyo’s socio-economic future.

Ironically, the governor too is complaining about a partisan play to the gallery, by the opposition camp.  But wasn’t that what the governor himself was doing, by his impulsive “stop work” order, right on the site, even before the full project briefing that should precede every official public pronouncement?

Perhaps, the governor’s angst arose from what he later made public: that the ENL Consortium allegedly first quoted N14 billion for the job but that the job got awarded for N67 billion.  Now, are all these figures confirmed gubernatorial facts?  Or the routine old wives’ tales of sleaze and alleged sleaze that make the rounds in partisan blackmail and counter-blackmail?

Still, the important thing is that the government has courageously reversed himself.  Now, the Makinde and Ajimobi camps can headline renewed public monitoring of the project, and put ENL on their toes.

The Federal Government to regulate the social media?  That is like flinging the red flag at a raging bull — the raging bull of the rights lobby.

Since Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, announced that step as new government policy, not a few have bristled with rage and threatened Armageddon.

To be sure, that is not without reason.  The government and the rights lobby, in any modern state, are at the extreme opposite of the same continuum.  Scowling on the citizen security end, of that continuum, is the government.  Sneering at the citizen freedom end, of that same continuum, is the human rights ensemble.

Each zealously guides and guards its turf!

So, if the human rights lobby raises hell, when government talks of regulation, even of the anti-social end of the social media, the ideologues in the rights ensemble would kick.  The first reaction, which is instinctive, is ideological.  But the second, to be fair, is practical.

The notorious fact is when the government seizes control, it never holds back and would love to grab more.  Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty is no empty talk!

Still, that can be tweaked, as the rights lobby too is known, all too well, to essay waywardness and recklessness, under the guise of citizen rights under the law.

So, that is why the security-conscious government scowls; and the rights lobby sneers right back.  To your turf, o Israel!

Still, this reckless penchant to turn sacred rights under the law into a brazen, wayward abuse of the process is firing the (anti) social media, breeding fake news, reckless rumours and heinous lies.  It is such an ugly gargoyle that the society is collectively the worse for it.

Take, for instance, the fictional Aso Rock wedding that never was.  Or the Jubril Al-Sudan vicious tale.  Or even the Onitsha tanker blaze, which IPOB instantly claimed was deliberate and savage attack by northern Muslim vandals, on a repressed and helpless southern Christian community?  Pray, which part of the country does not experience tanker fires?

Now, evil thoughts are not new.  By Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, they reside, in their most concentrated form, in the id.  Because the conventional media is properly structured, it filters the news through its institutional ego (internal quality control).   If that fails, it knows the severe consequences of societal super ego (legal sanctions: libel and allied torts) on its brand equity and institutional prestige.

The so-called social media — otherwise called the new media — isn’t  bothered with such strictures or niceties.  Whatever rumour or evil fabrication flies on its reckless wings — fact, fidelity and decency be damned!  That is where the social media gets its notoriety from; and that is where it becomes anti-social media,unfazed by the social tension it regularly unleashes.

If things get to a head (as they are clearly getting now), it would give the governing order the justification to move from its security fort, to invade the rights forte, at the other end of the continuum.  The end result might be good or bad, depending on the motive of the government.  As a rule, however, democracy teaches huge skepticism, whenever the government goes regulating the media.

As it is, however, ideological rage and bluster, from the rights ensemble, are not enough.  Rather, the rights groups must instil or even impose a sense of nobility, moderation and responsibility on social media channels, making them less anti-social.

A mission impossible?  Then, government regulation might be inevitable — and that could easily spiral into control.  Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty!

Wonder why Insurance in Nigeria struggles with trust issues?  Welcome to the odyssey of the holder of Policy 401-0010116, an investment-linked insurance policy, with NSIA Insurance.

No, it had nothing to do with payment, after the policy had matured.  NSIA indeed paid.  But it had everything  to do with how the payment was calculated, with the policy holder holding the end of the stick; and NSIA not only sitting pretty but also making a pitch for more business — what chutzpah!

Policy 401-0010116 is a yearly savings plan.  At maturity, it is worth N600, 000, with a monthly premium of N50, 000.  But that is if the policy holder stays true to his monthly premium commitment.

The banks would call it savings, even if unlike the premium, there is neither a guarantee nor expectation that the monthly deposit would be as prompt and regular as the premium.

Still, both premium (Insurance) and savings (banking) experience the same market dynamics: the trading houses invest the money.  The proceeds are then shared by the “trading partners”: profit to the bank/insurance company; interest earnings to the depositor.  In other words, the money would have worked for both.

Well, policy 401-0010116 didn’t fulfil its premium obligations.  Out of 12 months, it only delivered four months.  So when it terminated, it only grossed only N200, 000, instead of the expected N600, 000.

Still, the holder would expect his N200, 000, with a little interest, right?  No! — at least by NSIA logic.  What the insurance company paid was N194, 000.  So, instead of earned interest, the holder only incurred a levy?

What really happened?  Did NSIA just bury the premium in a safe?  If it indeed invest the money, how come nothing from the proceeds accrued to the fund’s basic owner, so much so he had to endure a levy?  O, did it make a loss?  Is the “levy” punishment for cramming its choked coffers with “useless”funds?  Or was it punishment, for not staying true to the premium regime?  Questions!

Don’t forget: in a bank, even if the savings did not fetch interests (and it should have), the depositor won’t take back anything less than his original deposit.  Yet, in routine savings, he can exercise the right to withdraw his money any time he pleases.  So, what’s this investment holder’s gain for not being able to access his premium, until the investment plan matures?

But even after this skewed deal, which short-changed the policy holder, the image NSIA could project is a hustler zealously rubbing his palms and asking the “maga” to come do more business!

How else do you interpret this single pitch, sent twice by text messages?  The first, sent on October 3, announced the maturity of the plan, urged a renew under the same term, but told the receiver to ignore the message, “if payment has already been made.”

The second, dated October 29, after it had paid N194, 000 from a deal that totalled N200, 000, also came, urging a renewal!  So, NSIA would just sit pretty, do business with your funds, hand you the “change”, and smirk it’s been great doing business with you?

How, in the name of God and common sense, does it expect a repeat business?  And where is the industry regulator — snoozing and snoring, while helpless citizens and customers are victims of these routing rip-off?

Nigerian Insurance and trust?  Perhaps two parallel lines that would never meet!

IDRIS Abdulkareem, in his musical heyday, set the charts blazing with the number, Mr. Lecturer — the ribaldry of the scholarly mentor that turned the female student under his care into some sexual fringe benefit!

Flip back to the Old English era of Geoffrey Chaucer, and hear the distant rebuke of the upright but humble Parson, pastor at some rural parish of his day, in Catholic England: if gold rusts, what would iron do?  That was golden query, en route to Canterbury, in Chaucer’s Prologue to Canterbury Tales.

Both Eedris and Chaucer just echoed in the University of Lagos, as a lecturer was caught in a BBC undercover video, crooning of a cold room, in that university’s Staff Club, where tender girls were alleged taken for forceful fondle, in an unequal quest for the forbidden to fruit that sent Adam scuttling from the magical Garden of Eden!

That sting operation, of a stunning documentary, has stung everyone into new restlessness, over the loud silence on sex-for-mark scandals, in our universities and other tertiary institutions.

It sure is not pretty!

Unilag has suspended the lecturer in the eye of the storm.  The church, where Mr. Lecturer pastors (with due acknowledgement of Eedris’s trademark!) has also thrown Mr. Pastor under the bus.  Lechery, the church declares, has no place in its holy tabernacle!  The university has even slammed shut the area housing the so-called cold room, seething with hot illicit pleasure!

Even Kiki Mordi, the BBC reporter — call her the slay queen of Mr. Lecturer-Pastor if you will! — has even been reported hinting at reportage mimicking grim, ugly reality: how she could possibly have been a victim of such lecherous foray, which had reportedly halted her degree programme.  Meanwhile, reported death threats were her lot, for her present laudable odyssey of exposing sexual bullies — or at worst sexual perverts — preying on students under their care!

Still, before you throw the first stone and zestfully demonize Unilag as hated bastion of hateful Mr. Lecturers, just remember that cynical Nigerian quip: all of us are rogues; but he caught red-handed is the barawo!

This condemnable practice has been around for eons; and is more wide-spread and reckless as most care to admit, being protected by conspiratorial silence and institutional conspiracy to protect the culprits, on sickly peer esprit de corps.  Imagine this outrage: a lecturer set on “slaying” his female student (or fail her if the girl refused), ordering the victim to book and pay for the hotel space!

It’s even more depressing that, from the BBC expose, the abuse appears to be fast becoming a West Africa epidemic, as another don, from a Ghana university, was also caught, in riveting Technicolor, rolling under the illicit hay!

As a journalistic feat, this BBC documentary is another proof for the imperative of adequate capitalization, if the media must do its bit in ridding the society of its vices.  How many local media houses could muster the staying power that sustain this BBC sting reportage?

Sexual abuse of female tertiary students must be frontally attacked and stamped out.  Universities should be centres of academic excellence, not bastions of sexual perverts.

• This article was first published October 9