The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Yeah, Nigeria needs a new tribe

    Again, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (PYO) just gave the right vibes for the moment.  On the occasion of Nigeria’s 58th anniversary, Nigeria does need a new tribe — a new tribe that believes in Nigeria.

    PYO spoke while declaring open, in Abuja, the federal capital, a photo exhibition the organizers call ANISZA — an acronym, from three Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa words meaning oneness: Anoko Onu (Igbo for togetherness), Isokan (Yoruba for unity) and Zaman Tare (Hausa for one tribe).

    You could counter that “unity” is a resident whoop in the Nigerian power chamber, and that has not made Nigeria any more united.  That is valid observation.  So, the latest PYO whoop is the latest cant from the power suite?  Maybe.

    Still, PYO struck a rather welcome note, when he touched on the imperative for sacrifice — “A tribe of men and women who are prepared to make the sacrifices and exercise the self-restraint that is crucial  for building a healthy society and who are prepared to stick together to fight injustice …”  There, you have it!

    Indeed, as Nigeria marked 58, and the slew of radio and television stations brought forth the so-called analysts, it was nothing but jeremiad galore.  Listening to all these analysts, you would think even the air, you need to stay alive, had departed the Nigerian space!

    Everyone was just lamenting.  But hardly anyone touched on the needed sacrifice, by everyone, needed to pull the country out of its current quandary.

    As the lamentation went on, you heard what you already knew.  But if an analyst would tell you what you already knew, what value is (s)he adding?  Then you have, added to your listening and viewing dissonance, a bevy of amateurish presenters, asking leading, if not mischievous, questions!  The more the guests try to ignore the questions, the more insistent the the unfazed amateur became!  When did Nigerian broadcasting sink this low?

    Yes, Hardball agrees with PYO Nigeria needs a new tribe.  The direction the Vice President is looking is fine.  But much more pressing, Nigeria needs a new tribe of deep and clear-minded public commentators.

    If commentators are nothing but plebeian, how can they guide the hoi polloi who look up to them for direction?  If all you have to offer is thunder how bad or hopeless or irredeemable things are, and you are proud — and even cocky — you don’t boast any winning ideas as to turn things around, what value are you adding?

    Nigeria, at 58, needs a new tribe of thinkers who, though acute and gifted, are humble enough to listen and appreciate other ideas.  That way, in mutual respect, they can engage other Nigerians — in or outside government — to plot the way out of Nigerian problems.

    That would be much more productive than the present yakking-with-no-end, which after the thunder and fury, imperiously conclude Nigeria’s problems are unsolvable. That is not true.  With right thinking, every problem has a solution.

  • Serious sophistry

    Minister of Communications Adebayo Shittu must be thinking about his disqualification from the governorship primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State. Did he think he could get the party’s leadership to think like him on the question of his non-participation in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme?

    Nigerian university and polytechnic graduates under the age of 30 are expected to participate in the programme, which was created “with a view to the proper encouragement and development of common ties among the youths of Nigeria and the promotion of national unity.”

    Sixty-five-year-old Shittu, who studied law and graduated under the age of 30, was expected to have participated in the year-long NYSC scheme. His non-participation in the programme became an issue. Skipping the compulsory national service is an offence under the NYSC law, punishable with up to 12 months imprisonment. Indeed, under the law, those who participated in the scheme are required to present their certificate of national service when seeking employment.

    Shittu had argued that he considered his service at the old Oyo House of Assembly as “a higher service.”  His argument: “And the Constitution says anyone who qualifies to contest an election or who has gone through an election and wins, he is obligated to move through the House of Assembly which I did for four years. So it is a form of higher service as far as I’m concerned, and even now, I am still in service. I don’t think I have violated the law except someone has a superior argument and can prove it.”

    Well, his party is unimpressed. The APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, said:  “But for us as a party, we know that NYSC is a mandatory scheme…So, for us, not participating in the NYSC raises very serious moral issue as well as legal issue… we were convinced that if he did not do NYSC, that for us was enough to disqualify him and we had to find the courage to do so.”

    Shittu must be disappointed.  It is unclear whether he still believes he had a superior argument.  Clearly, there was something wrong with his line of reasoning.   It is surprising that he followed that path, but not surprising that the path led nowhere.   Even sophists ought to know when the situation is too serious for sophistry.

  • Of Chinese hawks and Western crows

    By way of an entrée, an ancient wisdom posits that the sky is capacious enough for all the birds to fly in without any incidence of collision. They actually have in mind that the earth is so large to the extent that if we cannot be friends, we don’t have to be enemies.

    In other words, if ever we are assailed by differences of pathological magnitude, we could simply carve our separate paths and stay in our different lanes. The earth affords us humans that privilege as the sky, the birds.

    Or so our fathers imagined. But earth is earth and man is man. The sky is the massive unfathomable expanse above and birds are the winged, little organics planes coasting freely in it. Though our sages of yore must never be said to have erred, but the juxtaposition of these earthly and aerial elements may be a stretch.

    Well, let’s stretch it. While birds would rarely collide in the air; well unless there be carry-over libidinal aggro taken too far (or too high if you like), thereupon one bird may make to torpedo another mid-air.

    But it is not so for man. Hardball wagers that if the earth were a million times larger than it is, the British for instance would still have forded all the seas and brackish waters in between to seek out the spice isles of India. Marco Polo, the restless adventurer and merchant seafarer, wasn’t content sitting in his native Venice; he found the sea route to the Indies, navigating the wild oceans and cold seas.

    Columbus was restless until he found and conquered the Americas and part of Africa. Man, therefore, is a restless animal who is never content sitting quietly in his backyard no matter how commodious.

    Back to now and the issue of the day: why would anyone leave a place such as the confounding expanse of China, half of it uncharted and seek so voraciously, to ravage another continent? And why is Europe and North America so jittery at China’s rapacious incursion into Africa?

    The reason is simple. While Europe and America view Africa as a vicious conundrum and an irretrievable basket case; China seems to burst forth with a new paradigm: throw in enough money to create a bonded colony in perpetual peonage.

    The Euro-America colonial conglomerate seeing their perpetual tokenistic strategy in Africa in jeopardy is in a quandary. It can’t stop China shovelling billions of dollars into Africa so it resorts to ruinous propaganda…

    Hardball sees interesting new times ahead when the skies would truly be too little for the  birds…

     

  • BOT versus Wike

    A tussle over convention venue, baiting a bitter civil war?  That might just be the threat, given the latest excitement emerging from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    According to newspaper reports, the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT), has rejected Port Harcourt, as venue for the party’s convention to choose its presidential candidates for the 2019 elections.  The BOT appears wary of Governor Nyesom Wike, too eager, perhaps to play the loving and generous host and blazing fire, should Port Harcourt’s right to host be revoked.

    From the PDP BOT to the party, as quoted by an unnamed member: “From what the aspirants presented to us, Port Harcourt as our convention venue cannot guarantee a free, fair and transparent process.  Some of the presidential aspirants have pleaded with us to intervene.”

    But a furious Wike, clearly unimpressed, countered that Port Harcourt, as convention venue, was done deal — settled with absolutely no opposition, when it got the nod.

    Well, it would appear that was during the pre-defection days, when high octane office hunters started crossing over from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), to actualise their presidential dreams.

    The triad of Abubakar Atiku, former Vice President, Bukola Saraki, sitting Senate president and Rabiu Kwakwanso, sitting Kano senator and former Kano governor, among others have crossed over.

    But that deluge would appear to have tipped the balance of influence, with not a few of the defectors resisting Wike’s rather thick shadow over the party, particularly with unconfirmed reports quoting him as saying the party’s ticket was not for fortune-seeking defectors but for loyal party members that stayed behind, while those defectors were making hay with APC.

    Might the BOT then be pushing the case of high-profile defectors, as a parallel and rival axis of power to the Wike-backed and funded Uche Secondus, thus making the total chairman less total, as in the pre-defection days?

    Whatever it is, an angry Governor Wike appears unimpressed, with his swashbuckling threat: “Let me warn the party, if you dare, Rivers State will teach you a lesson.  Those days have passed when they took Rivers State for granted.  Nobody can use and dump Rivers State.”

    But how so?  The governor points to the economic lane: “Those who are against Rivers people making money to improve their businesses will not get our support,” he threatened.  “We never lobbied for it, we never asked for it but it will boost the economy of the state.  People will make money”!

    Is that so?  Such gubernatorial patriotism!  In his rage, the governor even huffed at all the noise over “restructuring” suggesting it just be humbug, vis-a-vis the rejection of Port Harcourt as convention venue: “You come here to deceive us about restructuring.  Just  that Rivers State is a venue, you fight it” — hardly any logical link, save gubernatorial Freudian slip over “restructuring”, the latest pre-vote harvesting lingo, en route to 2019.

    Well, who blinks first: Wike or BOT?  And how total is the hold of Total Chairman, Uche Secondus, torn between Godfather Wike and the BOT — perhaps the guarding angels of the powerful defectors?

    Is PDP heading toward another bruising civil war?  Time will tell.

  • Enemies of progress

    It took an ultimatum by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to get billionaire tax evaders to pay overdue taxes. They paid up less than a month after they got a warning to pay up or face sanctions.

    The fear of sanctions prompted payment of about N12.66 billion into the treasury. FIRS Executive Chairman Tunde Fowler supplied the information when Finance Minister Hajia Zainab Ahmed visited FIRS Headquarters in Abuja recently. Fowler said: “FIRS wrote to all commercial banks in May 2018, requesting for a list of companies, partnerships, and enterprises with a banking turnover of N1 billion and above. This activity is aimed at ascertaining those companies that are compliant with the tax laws and those that are not compliant.”

    Why did the tax debtors wait until FIRS issued an ultimatum before paying what they should have paid?  From the look of things, they probably didn’t intend to pay their taxes. It is inexcusable that these billionaire tax dodgers failed to pay their taxes until they were forced to do so. Of course, non-compliance with the tax laws is illegal, meaning tax debtors are lawbreakers.

    When billionaires evade tax, they encourage others who are not so rich to contemplate tax evasion. When billionaires dodge tax, they discourage those who want to pay tax. Ultimately, tax evasion amounts to subversion of the tax system.

    There are good reasons for taxation. So it is bad that there are billionaires who are not paying taxes. Taxation provides money to fund government spending for the benefit of the populace. Taxes are useful for governmental spending in various areas, including education, healthcare, housing and infrastructure. Taxpayers contribute to social development with the taxes they pay. Tax evaders contribute to underdevelopment by not paying taxes.

    It is reassuring that Fowler promised to continue pursuing the enforcement of compliance with the tax laws. He was quoted as saying:  “The FIRS will continue to implement initiatives that will drive compliance and generate revenue by continuous taxpayer enlightenment, implementation of the Auto VAT Collect in other sectors of the economy, simplification of the tax processes, especially for small taxpayers, strengthening collaborations with other agencies such as CAC, States Boards of Internal Revenue, ministry of Trade & Investment, Nigeria Customs Service.”

    By dodging taxes, the billionaires forced to pay their taxes were hindering the country’s development. They can be described as enemies of progress.

  • Secure parliament…

    Seek  ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” admonishes the scriptures in Matthew 6:33, “and all these things would be added unto you.”  That was the Christ Jesus telling the multitude to shun mammon, and glory in godly living.

    If people’s faith is their way of life, then politics is the life of citizens in a democracy.  Even if you are not an active politician, you’re periodically being called to exercise your franchise by those politicians, for whom politics is a way of life.

    Whatever your attitude, even more than the hyper-visible executive positions of president and governors, just know that securing the parliament is key.  If you did that, you just may have secured the political equivalent of the biblical kingdom of God, and frankly, you can expect every other thing to follow.

    How so?  Ask All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole.  He has been reported in the news, saying his ruling federal party would reward loyal party members in the National Assembly, and do away with opportunists and traitors.

    Ha, Comarade Adams should know!  Since 2015, his party had endured a pair, at the helm of its parliamentary machine, who answer Dr. Jerkyl, representing APC during the day; but no less zealously, answer Mr. Hyde of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at night.

    The duo of Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara ensured a slowdown, if not outright sabotage, of legislative backing for President Muhammadu Buhari’s programmes — in delayed budgets, padded budgets, rogue bills forged to ensure own selfish interests, threat to abandon parliamentary confirmation duties as rogue protest, sundry cynical filibustering and allied parliamentary rascality, that tend to de-market the government in which they both served.

    The latest phase of that enemy-in-the-house-war-of-attrition took off when Saraki announced senatorial defections to the opposition, hoping to build a new rogue majority that would still retain him as senate president, even in PDP colours!  Talking of Mr. Hyde finally coming out in the open!  Since that backfired, it’s been parliamentary shutdown — maybe until new stratagems are forged?

    Dogara has, more or less, pranced in Saraki’s wide and merry way.  As he has crossed over to PDP, he stands degraded, by the standing numbers, as a minority lawmaker.  Yet, he holds on as “Speaker”.  Well, the bastion of this 8th National Assembly is hardly honour!

    Hardball’s concern is not parliamentary personalities per se.  Politicians of several hues would still be politicians and would play politics — euphemism for cynical opportunism, if they can get away with it.

    Hardball is rather concerned with getting the people a good deal.  That is what the 8th National Assembly, under the duo of Saraki and Dogara, are not doing.

    That is why, as we build up to another bout of elections, the parties must ensure that, whoever their candidates are, they are not just another band of opportunists, who would feed fat, mouth cant but leave the people’s job undone.

    Which is why it is imperative to secure the parliament.  It starts, first with the parties to present their best minds — diligent, honest, industrious and loyal to their party’s programmes.  Then, the stage moves on for the people to choose right.

    Those done, there would be assurance that both the executive and legislature are on the same page, double-charged to delivering a renascent Nigeria, where the people come first, and not the antics and whims decadent leaders, no more than vicious power dealers.

  • Cowboy capitalism

    Capitalism is a two-faced animal. Never mind looking that up, it’s a Hardball original. Imagine for a moment, a fellow who bears two heads – one of the faces wearing a smile and the other grim and mean looking.

    This is Hardball’s nearest estimation of capitalism as a human. Here is another dimension of the same theme. A salesman is trying to sell you a commodity: take any hot deal – a beautiful mansion for instance. He is all gay and full of beautiful words as he makes his pitch. You are an Arab sheikh for instance or a Nigeria looter and you have so much cash to offload.

    And here’s someone offering you a grand mansion, taking you in with much sweet words while he is ripping you off remorselessly. There and then, he has devised all sorts of schemes to make you pay more than double the price. And there you are paying with a smile.

    Capitalists kill by stealth; they suck your blood and infuse you with syrup. The capitalist character is bloody-mindedness, exploitation, wanton accumulation and maniacal aggrandizement. No compunction.

    Of course wealth is created rapidly and innovations are done speedily. Indeed, capitalism brings out the best in man – and the beast tool.

    Hardball has been roused on to this well-worn path by Forbes magazine which has its slogan as ‘The Capitalist Tool’. Of course, Forbes is an American citizen, the home of capitalism. Though still largely a family business, the 101-year-old journal has become a global media conglomerate with over ten international editions among numerous other media offshoots.

    But Forbes Africa operations have been most yeomanly in its arch-capitalist tendencies. It major activities portray it as nothing but a capitalist predator that couldn’t care about the negative outcomes it invokes on its operating environment.

    Some examples: Forbes current offering, which it calls ‘research’ presents Nigeria as the best economy in Africa today. How could that be unless the so-called report is terribly compromised?

    Secondly, a few years ago, Forbes handed a most dubious award to the then Petroleum Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke; a megalomaniac fingered for earth-shaking graft. Another questionable award went to the do-nothing current Group MD of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Maikanti Baru. Yet between these two, in nearly a decade, Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is still a mess of inefficiency and graft. Nigeria still imports most of her petrol products. She is at sea about crude oil exports and stumped by subsidy payouts on products imports.

    How could Nigeria’s economy be best in Africa: an economy roiling in negative growth, with double-digit inflation, a net food importer with massive youth unemployment? It’s also touted as being the new misery capital of the world.

    Isn’t this a case of a cowboy capitalist foraging the offal of a prostrate country?

  • Vote-buying as new fall guy

    Hurray, there is a new electoral scapegoat in town, and the way everyone hollers about it, you would think it just descended from Mars — vote-buying!

    Yet, that stiff-necked electoral son of a gun, bitch of voters and darling of politicians whoring for votes they don’t deserve, has been with Nigerian elections almost forever.

    Just track back to the golden days of Ibrahim Babangida’s new breed, when the new breed were trying to dislodge the old guard, just as, in Greek mythology, the sleek Olympian gods overthrew the mighty but clumsy Titans — what was vote-buying called then?  Sandwich!

    Sandwich?  Yeah, sandwich!  That meant  party smart alecs (compassionate souls!) invade voting lines — remember Option A4? —  with loaves and loaves of bread, and hand such over to the tired and hunger voters.

    And surprise, surprise!  The grateful voters discover some crisp naira notes, inserted into the loaves, in lieu of mashed sardine and butter!  It was a sandwich to remember, as the voters, then jaded, now re-energised, went ahead to deliver jumbo tallies to their benefactors!

    Then came the Peoples Democratic Party era of electoral decay, when a sitting president boasted the vote would be do-or-die, to thunderous cheer of partisans!

    Then, the sandwich became too laborious, and the voter, salivating at the prospect of selling his vote at a huge profit, just wouldn’t be bothered with bread as cheap camo.  Besides, what assurance was there that the promised cash was buried in there, in the miserable loaf?

    So, it was an open bazaar!  The queue was willing and happy, the agent, currency-laden was daring, armed enforcers prowled around to ensure safe transactions and even the electoral umpires had their own jumbo thrill!  That was the disgraceful picture in many parts of the country.

    In both Ondo (2016) and Ekiti (2018) gubernatorial elections, there were allegations of vote-buying; while partisans, across the political divide in Ekiti, tackled one another with vote-buying allegations.

    In the Osun governorship election, held last Saturday, such allegations also flared, with reported arrests by the police of some alleged culprits.

    The question is: why does vote-buying appear so durable as to survive all the media outrage against it?  It is simply because it appears ingrained in the electoral psychology.  The politician appears willing to buy.  The voter appears willing to sell.  And the vote — who cares?  Just bring the money, now that it’s the height of the season!

    It’s the making of an illicit market and it’s doubtful if, with rogue politicians and a cynical electorate, a media blitz or even a growl by the law could stop the practice, though the new blitz against it is rather welcome.

    A solution?  Let Nigeria adopt the Brazilian model of compulsory voting.  If that happens, how many votes can you buy?  It would simply be economically too suicidal an attempt!

    So vote-buying will not just vanish.  Something drastic must be done to make it infeasible!  And folks, quit pretending it had not always been there!

  • Farce without end, amen

    OF course you must have heard about Theatre of the Absurd. The term was actually first deployed by Essayist Martin Esslin in a 1960 essay of the same title. Esslin wrote about the dominant theatre movement of the time; a theme that dwelt on the absurdist and farcical. It was a period of a flight of reason; plays and characters were purposeless and nonsensical. It was thought that life was meaningless and absurd at the end of the day anyways. Plots were overly absurd and unrealistic; the real was decidedly torpedoed for parody and the crass.

    That theatre of that age was drama re-enacting life. They wanted to show through plays, what life could be.

    But today, Hardball is consistently assailed by a reverse of the absurdist era. In Nigeria of this age our very life and living is a long running farce requiring no rehearsal – it is an unscripted absurdity. And it is a serial which has been going on since the advent of our post-colonial history – long-running repetitive farce; farce without end. Someone say amen!

    Two quick recent examples will illustrate.

    In the run up to the 2015 general elections, a strange group known as Transformation Agenda of Nigeria (TAN) emerged. It was a motley crew of popinjays, scallywags and jobbers who in a decent clime would only represent the lower cadre rabble. But this group became the fulcrum of a ruling party’s national campaign (if that was campaign).

    With access to the national treasury, they were raucous and boisterous as denizens of hell let loose in their unfettered itinerary across the land. They left so much dust in their wake wherever they invaded. It was an unfurling of existential malady, comic relieve made into serious political strategy, and statecraft even.

    So were Nigerians’ psyche tanned almost to death by a brainless bunch.

    A few days ago, the ‘Ambassadors’ returned; this time in a subtler guise. A group by another awkward and farcical name: Nigerian Consolidation Ambassadors Network (NCAN) vouchsafed to have purchased election nomination form for President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Life seems to embrace farce here in a bear hug: our president pleads being too indigent to afford his party’s nomination form; pronto, a faceless group jumps in,  purchases the form and presents it to the President; the President accepts wholeheartedly inside the Villa. Like TAN of yesterday, they are also AMBASSADORS.

    Isn’t that the hallmark of the absurdist – repetitiveness ad nauseam? Is it the end of thought or rather, a season of no thought?

    It’s farce without end, amen.

  • Past choices, future ruin

    A Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation document, entitled “The Goalkeepers Report”, released on September 18, gave a rather sour-sweet predication about Nigeria in the next 30 years.

    Going by the sour — and the grim — Nigeria, with Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), two of the richest countries in natural resources in the world, would be home to 40 per cent of the world’s most poor.

    In simpler statistics, that means two out of every five poor persons in the world would be living either in Nigeria or in DRC.  That is quite a disturbing pestilence to approach, though the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation thought that could be reversed, if Nigeria, DRC and other African countries started investing heavily in human capital.  That way, their population glut could well be turned into human dynamos, to fiercely compete in a new global economy.

    Looking back, however, DRC and Nigeria have quite some history in rulership ruin, with both sharing a long bout of military rule.  While DRC (then Zaire) had its own Mobutu Sese Sekou Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (the military strongman that ruled the country from 1965-1997), Nigeria had its own relay of military despots, with things plumbing the nadir under the pair of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Sani Abacha.

    Even after the exit of military rule in 1999, what has followed is a post-military era in Nigeria, and not much difference scenario in CDR, with power passing from the assassinated father, to the son, in the era of the Kabilas.  These periods also witnessed a criminal neglect of infrastructure, both physical and human.  That rotten past choice is the purveyor of the sorry present, which now is even presaging a grim future.

    Had better past choice been made, the present Buhari presidency wouldn’t have to start “re-infrastructure”, as if from a vacuum.  Rail was completely paralysed.  The roads were a sorry sight, and you just need to travel by road , all over the country, to feel the years of cumulative criminal neglect.  That is physical infrastructure.

    In human capital, it took a state with lean resources, like Osun under outgoing Governor Rauf Aregbesola, to start a schools feeding system that the Federal Government, which all along had the money but just wouldn’t be bothered, bought into.  It also ramped up its investment in educational infrastructure.

    Then, financial inclusiveness to all classes of citizens, aptly captured by the Market Moni N10, 000 a-piece loan, to the humblest of traders.  In the paralysing rot of the moment, many would even swear that the educational system is absolutely irredeemable while Nigerian universities would continue — forever — to be tragic mimics of their counterparts worldwide.  Arrant nonsense!

    The fact is if you don’t fix these problems — and no human problem can defy solution, if the thinking is right and sound — the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations doomsday scenario would happen, without the escape window it has suggested with it.

    Most annoying, the media that are supposed to seize this historic developmental opportunity and show the light to galvanise everyone out of poverty, are themselves marooned in the miasma that claims the situation is beyond redemption.  It is not.

    If past bad choices led us to this sorry present, smart choices from now could positively reverse the situation, faster than anyone thinks.

    It is that new thinking that we need.  Who knows?  Gates’s new Malthusian warning could again lead to an economic boom, if things are approached differently.

    The media must lead that new thinking, instead of morbid fixation with how unworkable things are.