Category: Hardball

Without question, the partial collapse of a floor in the new eight-floor library being constructed at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), in February, was scandalous. The House of Representatives Committee on Public Procurement had visited the university in May to investigate the accident.

The committee’s report, released recently, was shocking.  It suggested that those supervising the construction lacked the necessary expertise. According to the report, “to avoid further damage to the ongoing University New Library Project, the contractor should go back to the site with immediate effect and backfill the foundation and remove the debris of the collapsed framework under the strict supervision of competent experts.”  The committee advised that “The Federal Ministry of Education, TETFund and UNILAG should jointly review the project and make additional funds for it so that the project will not be abandoned.”

The project consultant, Mr Oreoluwa Fadayomi, was quoted as saying he was awaiting the university’s reaction to the report before making comments. But he had said to the investigators:  ”The management of the contractor as it was (as at the time of the incident) cannot handle the continuation of the project. Here is a job we should have handed over in November last year and we are still on the first floor… If it is the same persons and process… my firm will withdraw from that project because we cannot continue to supervise at that level.”

The first Vice President, Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), and past president of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), Mr Kunle Awobodu, observed: “The fundamental question is whether the contractor is competent to continue… What happened was a result of inexperience.”

If the contractor isn’t competent to continue the project, and wasn’t competent to start it, how did he get the job?

Following the committee’s report, the contractor, Mr Olatunde Runsewe, CEO of Dutum Construction Company Limited, was quoted as saying: “We intend to put more hands on the project. We will clear the debris; we will be careful to put more people to monitor the steel props that we are using for the decking.  What happened was an accident.  We have told the University that we are very sorry for the embarrassment this has brought.” The N1.9 billion building was only 25 per cent complete when the collapse happened; and the contractor had been paid N444million.

Obviously, the contractor’s apology doesn’t answer the question of alleged lack of expertise. Incompetence is inadequate where competence is needed.  The contractor’s plan to involve more people in the construction work after the partial collapse had occurred shows that it is easy to be wise after the event.

That sleaze abides still, in the blasted memory of Sani Abacha, 21 years after his controversial expiry, shows the futility of a life devoted to corruption and venality.

And it is instructive: just on the virtual eve of the full rehabilitation of MKO Abiola’s memory, with the inauguration of June 12 as the yearly national Democracy Day, all that whiffed back, from Abacha, is stinking sleaze, which motive you can’t even understand — even if you try.

Did the man plan to live 10 lives — 10 lives without work but with decadent joy, for which he must steal and steal and steal, to be assure his comfort?

Or how do you explain the latest Abacha loot find, worth £211 million, held in a Jersey, Channels Islands bank, in the account of Doraville Properties Corporation, a British Virgin Island company?

Twenty years after his death, Abacha still has public money buried in his name.  As this insane greed swelled his pocket, many lives shrivelled and died; public infrastructure collapsed, millions sunk into poverty — just for one man to satisfy his greed!  And what insane greed, that makes nonsense of legitimate need?

Could this be the manifestation of some mental illness, to primitively accumulate what you wouldn’t need in 10 lifetimes; yet suddenly expire to leave yourself and the loved ones you left behind the butt of jokes, with their patriarch slammed, by one and all, as an unfazed thief?

Is that  mindset driven by spiritual poverty which, no matter how bulging your pocket is, you feel you’re still as poor as the proverbial church rat, and must continue to steal?

Abiola and Abacha — what a contrast!  While MKO was alive, before he strayed into the politics that claimed his life but also preserved his name for national honour, his fervent wish was to give, give and give.

Indeed, his abiding drive was to eliminate poverty and put smile on people’s faces.  What his presidency would have been is now an eternal conjecture, but his “Farewell to Poverty” presidential campaign byte sure tickled not a few, resulting in a roaring pan-Nigerian mandate, that Gen. Ibrahim Babangida criminally annulled and Abacha outrageously sustained.

Abacha was the diametric opposite: grabbing, grabbing and grabbing, in a classical manifestation of primitive accusation.  But what he hoarded and hoarded in life, has earned him, in death, shame and disgrace.

The Nigerian government must ensure that when this latest loot is finally repatriated, it should be spent to lift the poor; and give succour to  the general public, under the government’s special intervention programmes (SIP); and through infrastructure repair and uplift.

Meanwhile, Nigerians must guide and cherish their democracy; and swear never to be plagued by a governmental system that would vault up an Abacha, with his insane greed.  Never again must democracy leave this land.

Abacha was classical example of the ruin military and unaccountable government brings.  Never again must this land face should blight — never again!

It is understandable that the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara State is traumatised on account of the May 24 Supreme Court ruling that voided the February 23 and March 9 election of all APC candidates in the state. The party was expected to learn from the big blow. But it looks like the party has not learnt a lesson from its blunder.

Affected by the judgement were the governor-elect, Alhaji Bello 1Matawalle; and three senators-elect, Tijjani Yahaya (Zamfara North), Aliyu Bilbis (Zamfara Central) and the then outgoing governor, Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara West). Seven House of Representatives members-elect and 24 House of Assembly members-elect were also affected.

Justice Paul Galumje, who read the unanimous judgement of a five-man panel, said the APC “never conducted primary elections.” Consequently, he declared, “the party that had no candidate in the 2019 general elections cannot win.”  This made all the votes credited to APC candidates “wasted votes, “the judge said.

By the judgement, candidates of the parties other than the APC that polled the highest number of votes and the required spread became the valid winners.  The judgement favoured the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidates.

News that a faction of the Zamfara State chapter of the APC had expelled the senator representing Zamfara Central, Kabiru Marafa, for alleged anti-party activities, showed the party’s post-traumatic confusion.

News that another faction of the APC in the state led by Marafa had expelled a former governor of the state, Abdulaziz Yari, who was believed to be behind the other faction, further showed the party’s post-traumatic confusion.

The Yari faction also expelled the immediate past deputy governor of the state, Ibrahim Wakkala, and member representing Kauran Namoda/Birnin Magaji Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Aminu Jaji. Those expelled were punished “for violation of the constitutional provision and engaging in acts inimical to the interest of the party.”

The Marafa faction also expelled the Deputy National Chairman (North) of the APC, Lawali Shuaibu.  Those expelled were punished for allegedly working against the party in the state.

Is this the APC’s response to the shattering verdict?  The factional expulsions perpetuate the intra-party conflict and disunity that resulted in the party’s failure to organise valid primary elections, without which it could not have produced valid candidates.

By continuing on the path of disunity, the party is continuing on the path of failure.

The news came — and went — suddenly, like the Biblical thief in the night.  At the end, however, it was about echoes and rumours of “true federalism”, as the popular Nigerian cliche goes.  But pray, is there anything like “false federalism”?

Well, the news hit the wires — President Muhammadu Buhari had “approved” the establishment of state and local government police.  If true, that would be a good one for federalism.

Still, local government police, if suggested and pushed from the centre, mocks the federal doctrine.  But if it flows from the delegated laws of the state, with the federal government having absolutely no hand in it, aside from the National Assembly partnering with state legislatures to okay such a move, it would have been practical manifestation of the classical federal doctrine.

Either way, the news echoes a correction of Nigeria’s skewed federalism, ridding it of its unitary drawbacks.

Shortly after, however, the Presidency issued a caveat: the president had not “approved” state police.  He only set up a committee to look into its recommendation by a body.  The committee would report back after three months; and then the government would return to the matter.

There you have it: an echo just got reduced to a rumour!  Except the committee plays spoil-sport, in which case the PMB government would have opened itself to a charge of working to an answer to truncate the re-federalization move, it is still some progression, towards the right direction.  Better a rumour than nothing at all!

More earnestly, however: the move on re-federalization is a right one.  Aside from being the right thing to do — the Nigeria federal set-up is well and truly awry —  it would have sucked oxygen from some lobbies, whose means of public life — and mischief — is “restructuring”.

Why?  Because the rug would have been pulled from right underneath their feet — not unlike Saddam Hussein’s elite Republican Guards waiting to join battle.  Meanwhile, Operation Desert Storm had blown Iraq away!

Still, the way to go about re-federalization is by solid legislation, not by presidential approval or disapproval.  If one president endorses, another can disavow.  But Nigerian re-federalization is too important to be left to presidential whims or hubris.

So, let the committee do its work and make the right recommendations.  Let the government come up with a white paper, which will form the basis of a constitutional amendment, to reflect the new tamper.

While doing that, however, the federal government can’t be dabbling into local government matters.  The other day, a news source quoted the Vice President of saying INEC might soon be saddled with conducting local government elections — wrong move!

While that could have clear short-term value (given the clear abuse of the electoral process at that level by state authorities), local government elections are strictly states’ business, as it is currently done.

Let the status quo remain, for it is perfectly federal to do so.  Those abuses would gradually disappear as democracy further deepens.

In any case, it would be far worse to risk a central government, using INEC to impose elected local government officials .  That would be recipe for disaster.

A June 3 report quoted one of the soldiers fighting terrorism in Borno State as saying: “Soldiers in the frontline are not finding it easy. The allowances given to us are very poor. We expect that if the insurgency war started in 2014, by now, there should be increment in allowances so as to boost our morale. But what do we get? What do our families gain if we die?”

The lament continued: “Boko Haram strikes every moment and they can still strike our bases. If any soldier dies, who takes care of his family? Who sends his children to school? I believe the allowances given to us should be reviewed.”

Some other soldiers serving in the North-East theatre of terror echoed the complaint, saying their Ration Cash Allowance had become “grossly inadequate.” The troops are paid N30, 000 monthly.

When terrorism fighters complain about poor pay, resulting in low morale, it suggests that the war on terror might not end soon. Unmotivated soldiers can’t be expected to win a war quickly.  Perhaps this is why the war has dragged on.

The situation is compounded by the case of scores of soldiers declared missing, following terrorist attacks on army bases in Metele and Baga, Borno State. In November 2018, Islamic State West African Province terrorists had attacked the military base in Metele, northern Borno, belonging to the 157 Battalion.  The army had confirmed the death of 23 soldiers, while 37 soldiers were injured.  Many soldiers were missing after the attack; they are believed to have been abducted by the terrorists.

In December 2018, terrorists also attacked Baga, which is the headquarters of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF). They are said to have abducted a large number of soldiers.

Over six months after the said mass abduction of soldiers, the MNJTF explained that its operation, Yancin Takfi, “is progressing steadily and is committed to rescuing all personnel who were declared missing in action.”

It is unclear whether the missing soldiers are still alive. It is clear that the soldiers fighting terrorism are exposed to danger daily.  The soldiers who called for a review of their allowances must know what they are talking about. It is said that no one knows where the shoe pinches, but he who wears it.

The authorities should treat the complaints by the front-line troops with seriousness, and demonstrate that the country is serious about winning the war on terror.

Amadioha!  That is the Igbo god of thunder.  Creatively, thunder could be the god of invention and creation.  The flip side?  It could be a god of wanton destruction.

Lexical connoisseurs can’t, of course, resist the euphony between the Igbo god of thunder and the name of the new governor of Imo State.

Amadioha!  Ihedioha!  The pun and the rime!  The alliteration and the assonance! It’s sumptuous sound feast, made for poets!

Yet, were Iheodioha to be Amadioha, what sort of god of thunder would he be?  From the opening salvo of his governing days, the omens are not so good.

It tilts towards the destructive — except,nor course, the new governor is cock sure of erecting grander edifices, figuratively speaking, after the ruins of opening Hurricane Ihedioha, leveling everything in sight — figuratively speaking too!

The Akachi Tower demolition is a classic example of how not to start a tenure.  No sooner had the new governor taken office than some elements started bulldozing the base of the controversial tower.

Hardly any surprise: like the confused voices emanating from the Biblical Tower of Babel, initial media voices jumped into conclusion: Iheodioha begins demolition of Okorocha’s tower!  The Ihedioha government cried back: the demolition wasn’t from us!  A third, among other varied voices, jumped in: You can tell that to the marines!

Whichever way, it was a needless PR disaster for the new government.  Even if the new government had no hand in the hurried demolition, is Imo such an anarchic environment that anyone, for whatever reasons, can just move a bulldozer to demolish a public monument, no matter how controversial?  And the governor is caught napping, like everyone else?  Please!

Now a controversial tower, built with scarce public money for tourism (economic) purposes, faces double jeopardy.  It’s now defaced, and completely useless to everyone.  Either pull it down completely or repair it, you still spend more money.

It’s the wanton waste of public resources that has brought Nigeria to the present unhappy pass.  If the Akachi handling is proof of how Ihedioha would manage Imo resources, then Imolites sure had better brace themselves!

Akachi apart, other troubling news seeped through.  First was the claim that EFCC had arrested former governor, Rochas Okorocha.  It turned a hoax.

Then, the reported invasion, by gunmen, of the former governor’s country home, reaching for his bedroom, thus suggesting an assassination bid.  That de-markets Imo, security-wise.

Then, the prattling over the state of the Imo State House.

All these have brought forth a sterile controversy, between the new government and the old; with the Okorocha camp even alleging the new government can’t tell intelligent lies!

These are needless controversies a new government can’t afford.  Except the Ihedioha government needs to put the records straight, Hardball suggests it stays focused; and shun all these distractions.

Okorocha has done two terms.  Warts and all, his scoreboard is in the heart of the people.  Ihedioha should give himself the chance to build his own legacies.  Four years is but a short time!

Ihedioha, get to work!  As few crucial days are already gone, never to be regained.

President Muhammadu Buhari just made two telling points: that he rated low, leaders of the outgoing 8th National Assembly, Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara — for not promptly passing the budget, all through their four-year legislative tenure.

At another occasion, during the visit to him of some Ecobank top shots, the president adduced the present socio-economic debacle to, as The Nation captured in its headline, “decades of neglect and resource mismanagement …”

Slack approach to budgets, the revenue generating and spending plan for a financial year, has a close bearing to mushrooming poverty and insecurity, over the years.  That simply means the state had been loose at its budgetary duties, thus causing avoidable citizen angst.

Also closely connected to this problem is tardiness, at budget passage, by the legislature.  Indeed, the president pointedly accused both Saraki and Dogara of deliberate delay; hoping that by allegedly delaying the budget, they were personally hurting the president.

No!  — the president, in triumph, homed in: they only hurt the people.  That is absolutely correct, without necessarily queuing up behind the president on this one.  Indeed, hurting the people, in spoiling for cheap political points, is grand betrayal of the legislative — and political — mandate.

That refocuses the budget as the core of efficient and effective deployment of state resources, to avert neglect and resource mismanagement, causing future poverty and insecurity.

Still, the federal executive, which the president heads, has not been totally blameless in the budget delay fiasco, that plagued the Buhari administration in its last four years.

The 8th National Assembly could well have earned fair notoriety, given the way Saraki and Dogara emerged as leaders, very much against the will of their then ruling party; and how the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) merrily goaded them to ground the Buhari government, for illicit political gains.

Yet,  the executive themselves provided the tinder, for the illicit blaze.  It was agreed the budget estimates be submitted to the National Assembly by September, to fully make it a January to December financial year.  But the Buhari presidency never met this deadline.

In 2017 (for the 2018 budget year), it submitted the proposals in November.  In 2018 (for Budget 2019), it submitted the documents in December.  Now, you don’t in a relay race, hand over the baton as a laggard, and expect the anchor to zoom to the tape before everyone, do you?

Yes, the 8th National Assembly stands condemned for its bad faith but the executive too shares part of the blame.

Beyond praise and blame, however, this new mandate, that started yesterday, offers fresh opportunities for a fresh start.  Between the president and the National Assembly, the voters have spoken loud who they trusted more; and the right lessons have been learnt.

That sacred mandate must, therefore, be utilized to chart a new productive path, by swift budget approval and implementation.  Let both the Presidency and the in-coming 9th National Assembly seize the moment and consummate a new detente, on  budget collaboration.

The present generation would be glad they did.  The future generations too could just be saved from avoidable neglect and resource mismanagement.  That could well avert mass poverty and insecurity.

Last-minute sales of office items to outgoing federal lawmakers at ridiculously low prices reflected a culture of waste. The items included computers, scanners, photocopying machines, plasma television sets, microwave ovens, standing fans, deep freezers, refrigerators, furniture and rugs.

Those who bought them are expected to pay with money deducted from their severance package.

A piece of information exposed some of the lawmakers as greedy for gain.

According to a report, “Although some of the lawmakers gave the acquired items to their aides and supporters, others chose to sell theirs to willing buyers within the National Assembly complex.”

Of course, those who sold the items they bought were business-minded and interested in profit. It was profitable for such lawmakers to buy and sell because the items were sold to them at giveaway prices.  Eleven office items were said to cost a total of N367, 479.33.

The report said: “The breakdown showed that a Samsung double door refrigerator was given out for N25, 000; HP Envy Core 13, N49, 000; Apple Ipad Air computer, N41, 980; LED TV Samsung UA4600AR 50, N59, 500.

Shredding machine, N19,800; Water dispenser with bottle, N8,990; Photocopying machine Sharp Copier AR 6021 N57,172.00; Scanner HP Scanjet Pro 3900 Fi N20,130.00; HP Laserjet Pro M201 N10,038.00; Desktop Computer Model Envy 233  Touch screen;  and Suit hanger N1,900.00. Any member taking the entire 11 items would pay N349, 970, 50, with N17, 498.83 as VAT for items.” This means the cost of  the 11 items is less than N400, 000.

However, the report said the current market value of the 11 items was over N3m. This is a list of some of the items and their market prices: “LED television, N300, 000; HP Envy Core 13, N400, 000; HP Desktop Envy233 , N420,000; Samsung double door refrigerator, N315,000; Sharp Copier AR6023, N380,000; HP Laserjet M201 dw, N120,000; HP Scanjet Pro 3500F1, N195,000; and Cway water dispenser, N50,000.

It is convenient for those involved in the transactions to argue that the items were used items. But can this justify the low, low prices?  The point is that the items were still usable. Indeed, even though they were tagged “used,” the items were unlikely to go for such giveaway prices outside the National Assembly, observers argued.

Now that the items have been sold to outgoing legislators, incoming legislators will need to be provided with new items. That’s how a culture of waste is perpetuated.

The Ebora Owu, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, just latched on to an opportunistic West African “Fulanization” and African “Islamization” theory.

Only those unfamiliar with the Obasanjo ever-humming factory of mischief would be surprised — which is a big wonder, how many who should know better, are falling for Obasanjo’s latest racket, of crying wolf.

Well, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Information and Culture minister, has issued a fitting retort — something about divisive tendencies from a former military head of state, two-term elected president and the receiver of the Biafrian surrender in 1970, beating the drums of division, based on ethnic and religious baiting.

Except Alhaji Mohammed was damning Obasanjo with feint praise, the statement itself was based on a grand illusion.  With his pettiness and his petulance, Obasanjo had never been a “statesman”, except when there is something in there for him.  So, for the minister to have roasted Baba Iyabo on the altar of statesmanship is rather rich.  You can’t be rid of what you never had!

Ebora cares for nobody but Ebora himself.  Still, those who want to be deluded are free to claim their democratic rights.  With Obasanjo’s latter-day perpetual misjive, however, that famous Greek saying floats in the air:  the truly happy are those that are dead.  One second to the grave, you just still might unravel!  But it just might be morning yet on Obasanjo’s unravelling.

Speaking of unravelling: the real riposte to Obasanjo’s “Fulanization” theory was from Sule Lamido, the Jigawa Obasanjo protégée.  Short and sharp, Lamido told Obasanjo not to turn bigot, just because Nigeria had some current challenges.  But didn’t the psychologists say folks reveal their true selves in moments of crisis?  So long for the self-named “founder of modern Nigeria” — whatever that means!

The fact is Obasanjo’s latest screech is not only a gambit but a fraud.  Take the link between Boko Haram and “Fulanization”.  Boko Haram started as a Kanuri conflict, result of a former Borno governor using and dumping some political roughnecks.  Even if that has snowballed into some Islamic State of West Africa (ISWA), what is the connect between that and the so-called “Fulanization”?

Is Obasanjo suggesting every Fulani is a bandit; and his so-called “African Islamization” a sole Fulani business?  What terrible ethnic slurs, from the so-called Mr. Nigeria!

Besides, what stake do the Fulani have in Islam, that other ethnic groups — Hausa, and the Kanuri, the North East pillar of Nigerian Islam — don’t have?  It’s the all-too-common folly of contemporary Nigeria: to ethnicize criminality instead of attacking its root.

In any case, when did Fulanization suddenly become evil?  Before making Obasanjo military head of state, “against my personal wish”, as he claimed in Not my Will?  Or after the same Fulanization packaged him as willy-nilly candidate to placate the Yoruba in 1999, even if Obasanjo was right at the heart of the conspiracy to negotiate away MKO Abiola’s sacred mandate for Ernest Shoknekan’s doomed Interim National Government (ING)?

MKO!  That explains everything, in the Ebora’s latest excitability.  June 12 is about to shame May 29 (Obasanjo’s contraption) as National Democracy Day.  So, the Ebora is obliged to try another gambit to divert attention from his shame!

But as Obasanjo does his ethnic-and-faith baiting, and other bigots go berserk dancing to the ruinous music, just know that Obasanjo is on his departure lounge.

Let him and his orchestra beware of sowing the wind, which could snowball into a whirlwind, to plague an innocent future generation, after Obasanjo is conveniently gone.