The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Uncommon time, uncommon farce

    It must have been in the strangest of moments that wise old men of the orient conjectured that the poor mangy dog would grow horns. Consider for a moment, a dog totting horns! Imagine the majesty of the canine stock in the animal kingdom being desecrated by some ungainly stump right in the middle of the head.

    Did you see any noble stock of the jungle species bearing horns? Those obnoxious outgrowths must be made for the unthinking herd. Dogs, like the feline family, are thinking broods, they are probably second to humans in terms of intelligence and cognitive abilities. Dogs are therefore in a class by themselves.

    To therefore find one bearing horns would amount to an abomination of which fables are made of. This must explain the origin of the saying of old about a dog growing horns.  In the advent of a strange occurrence of unspeakable magnitude, they would simply encapsulate it all in the memorable imagery of a dog bearing horns.

    The politics of the time might as well be likened to a dog growing horns. Each day we wake up, there is a new twist. A man who throws up in his political party and slithers away telling some sodden tale about the group is soon reported to have traipsed back to that fold by the next dawn even as the smoldering pile he left is yet cold.

    But politicians may swirl all they want and get tossed in the winds of opportunism to their hearts content; they may even choose to lose sight of the abhorrence of their behavior in the eyes of right-thinking Nigerians. That is okay; history is sure recording it all in its flimsy footnotes where their sordid little tales would be brought up only to buttress the stupidities of tomorrow. They would never be yoked among great men of history; they remain the downtrodden of their age.

    Even then, these desperadoes would not be allowed to insult, nay, assault our minds. Consider that Senate President Bukola Saraki had told the world that he and his co-travellers left the ruling party to save the country. Now, Senator Godswill Akpabio who jumped recently seems unable to stop talking. Few days ago in Enugu, he told his listeners that his new party would overrun his state, Akwa Ibom the way Hitler overran Warsaw, capital of Poland.

    How shockingly strange! Why would any leader make a joke about the horrific history of another country? In September 1939, the German Air Force carried out one of the worst terror air raids in history. It left about 25,000 dead and about half of Warsaw devastated.

    It’s a most insensitive yammering.

     

     

     

     

  • Ibadan: The king vs the bard (2)

    With lightning speed, the Ibadan King had moved to scupper the Ibadan bard — or how else do you explain the Oyo government’s pulling down of the disputed part of Gospel Juju maestro Yinka Ayefele’s  Music House?

    Hardball was only yesterday suing for calm and tact: the government should rein in action, given that the embattled Ayefele has sued; and the Ayefele side should stop further sensationalising the matter, to whip up public sentiments that further puts the government in bad light.

    Should anything untoward happen, Hardball warned, the emotive sentiments would amount to near-nothing, as Ayefele would be forced to bear his heavy cross all alone!  How prescient!

    When that piece was written last Friday, to be published yesterday, it was taught the Ayefele suit would freeze the matter and somewhat, tact would reign on both sides.

    The reverse has been the case, since the government has moved fast to demolish the offensive section of the building, with a stunning image of Ayefele, on his wheel chair, watching bulldozer demolish his years of sweat!  How sad!

    But even immediate post-tragedy, the reaction has been more of passion — unsurprisingly so!  Many wail Ayefele was physically challenged; and it was most wicked for the government, the all-powerful Leviathan, to crush his business.  Indeed!

    Others claim, even from the wheel chair, Ayefele employs and feeds many, from the many ventures in the Music House, part of which is the popular Fresh FM radio, as well as recording studios.  Tragic!

    Still, would Ayefele have any defence, if the structure well and truly contravened urban planning laws?  That is where soft emotions dry up and hard reason takes over.

    Still, that hardly justifies the Oyo government’s seeming rush to pull down the allegedly offensive section of Music House.

    “Seeming rush”, because the government side claims the matter has dragged on for more than one year; and that the final demolition notice was a final warning to a recalcitrant Ayefele side, who instead of approaching the government for some amicable settlement, was  playing to the gallery, whipping up anti-government public sentiments.

    This line suggests even the last-minute approach of the courts was in bad faith, since it was allegedly a cynical move to hold off the government from enforcing the law.

    Still, if the Oyo government had waited for one year, for a matter that had dragged on for much longer, why didn’t it exercise yet more patience, and wait for the courts to adjudicate the matter?  If it did, and it was right, it would still have got judicial cover to do the needful.

    Both sides have tragic faults, in this needless tragedy.  The government allowed itself to be provoked to a rash action, when a further wait would have been more dignifying. The Ayefele side also goaded disaster, by playing to the gallery, on a crucial asset. Both sides must have learned from their terrible mistakes.

    But to the courts both must return.  God save the government, if it has demolished Music House in error.  It may have committed taxpayers to a needless though grievous expense.

    But God help Ayefele too, if he truly infracted on the law.  It would amount to cruel double jeopardy.

    But this debacle, better managed, is totally avoidable.

  • Ibadan: the king vs the bard

    In Yoruba culture — and in many African cultures as well — the tension between the king and the bard is always real, almost palpable.

    On the power lane, the king is sovereign.  But on the psychological lane, which needs music to fully attune, and access the right mood, the bard is near-Leviathan.  That explains the rascality of gangan drummers who often, with impish pleasure, could strafe the Oba with coded warnings, even as the Kabiyesi executes his royal dance, to thunderous cheer.

    It’s a traditional cohabitation built on mutual respect, and a strict check-and-balance system, anchored on culture.

    That brings  the discourse to the current excitement in Ibadan, between the Oyo State government and Juju music ace, Ayefele, over a notice to demolish the musician’s Music House at Challenge by-pass, over alleged town planning infractions.

    Now, Ayefele jumps at you as the blind seer, in King Odewale’s presence in Ola

    Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame.  When the seer tried to say he was blind, the king told him to shove it.

    The cock claims it has not teeth, yet gobbles polished corn.  The goat that has teeth, but what does it eat?  Common grass!  The seer might be blind, but he sure saw more than most full-visioned folks!

    Though wheelchair-ridden, no thanks to an auto crash that almost took his life, Ayefele has carved a niche for himself, with his infectious juju gospel genre, where his stupendous good looks complement his audacious melody, in sheer musical poetry.  That has proved a crowd catcher; which has made him some living legend in his Ibadan community.

    So, when such a popular star and folk hero tussles with the powers-that-be, over whatever issues, it’s bound to generate intense public attention.  Unfortunately, these controversies would often degenerate into a top dog versus underdog emotive spat, from which the truth is the first casualty.

    It is good Ayefele has headed for the courts to adjudicate the matter.  That’s a sane path to tread.  But it is neither an advantage or a disadvantage.  The courts would establish which party — Ayefele or the state government? — is wrong or right; and would rule by the force of facts presented before it.

    That is why escalating the issue into a public controversy makes no sense.  Neither is it wise for presenters on Fresh FM to whip up emotive sentiments.  The artiste must know his hard-earned asset could be at stake here.  All those rippling and thundering over the matter would vanish, should there be any unpleasant consequences.  It’s the artiste that would bear his cross — all alone.

    As for the Oyo government, isn’t there a way the problem could be rectified, without demolition?  Inasmuch as the government could be under duty to tilt to whichever side the law and public safety tilt, both sides should explore possibilities of some mutual accommodation.  And Ayefele should please squarely face his music.  That’s his calling and should leave politics to politicians.

    We need the king to assure us all that we are secure.  But we also need the bard to guarantee our collective sanity.  Both should work together for the good of the people.

  • Kudos to the dead, challenge to the living

    Akinwunmi Isola, professor of Linguistics, actor, playwright, immense man of culture and icon in the deeper realm of Yoruba contemporary film industry, perhaps did as much as anyone to mainstream the Yoruba cosmos, in a hostile contemporary world of cultural imperialism and actual capture.

    His collabo with ace film maker, Tunde Kelani of Main Frame (Opomulero) in films like “O Le Ku”, “Thunderbolt”, “Saworo Ide”, “Agogo Ewo”, all classics in themselves, is abundant proof of his passion for the Yoruba universe.  He shared that passion with the late Ayo Faleti, seasoned broadcaster, public administrator and fervent soul mate in that endevour of high culture propagation.

    Prof. Isola died on February 17 in his Akobo, Ibadan, Oyo State, home in the loving hands of his wife, Adebola.

    Akinwunmi Ambode, governor of Lagos State, chartered accountant and public administrator, is a man of numbers, hardly of letters.  Yet, he just pulled off perhaps the most decisive punch for Yoruba, as an active medium of the future, in the life of Lagos, a Yoruba city which is nevertheless Nigeria’s prime cosmos of business, culture and opportunities, into which other Nigerians pour in numbers.

    By that law, a candidate must have a credit in Yoruba language before qualifying for admission into any of the state-owned tertiary institutions.  It’s as audacious a push as any, to mainstream Yoruba in Nigeria’s prime economic hub.

    Could another Akinwunmi be challenging the present and the future, on the Yoruba cause, continuing where the old Akinwunmi stopped, in a stellar campaign for a Yoruba cultural renaissance, in the context of a federal Nigeria?

    That somewhat reinforces the wisdom in Prof. Isola’s life-long activism, that one’s culture is one’s life; and how dead you are without it.  Ironically, Prof. Isola’s first degree was in French, before embarking on his life-long Yoruba campaign, so much so that his widow recalled that a few days after their wedding in 1969, he gave out his wedding suit.

    He said he wore it to please his bride!  Left to him, he would have had both of them wear “aso ofi” — a Yoruba native garb — in all of its traditional flourish and majesty, despite that the couple numbered among the modern elite.

    There are different sides to Ambode’s new language policy.  It would further boost Yoruba consciousness among the native speakers, so much so that it could curb the empty conceit of many looking down on their own mother tongue, as it is common among not a few families.  That would be very good, for it is a strong blow for ethnic federalism.

    But it could also limit the cosmopolitan outlook in Lagos State-owned schools.  If non-speakers cannot gain admission into these schools without a credit pass in Yoruba at the O’Level, it could well mean that less and less non-Yoruba would gain admission into them.

    That might not be too good, although many have raised the point that when Nigerians travel to non-English countries to study, they first study the local language of instruction.  That could well be.

    Still, Prof. Isola’s cultural activism clearly showed you could be proud of your essence without becoming a bigot or irredentist.  That is the prime essence of his legacy — showing off the best of yours without being offensive.

    That is the challenge to the living, as Lagos State starts implementing this new language policy.

    Adieu, foremost ambassador of Yoruba culture.  The living will drink deep from your rich — and ever living — well.

     

     

  • From SARS to FSARS

    Folks, it is transition from Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) to Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS).

    Will this preceding “F” (normally meaning “failure” in conventional educational terms) leap into an ironic success, in the operation and perception of this otherwise vital arm of crime-fighting, which nevertheless had acquired some notoriety of late?

    A few months ago, there was an impassioned campaign on the social media asking for the scrapping of SARS.  But with absolutely no prejudice to the campaign’s strong points, it was at best an emotive campaign.

    If you scrapped SARS, and armed robbery, kidnapping and allied violent crimes for which it was set up were still alive, what might be the logical reason to scrap it?  If you did, would it not logically follow, other things being equal, that those crimes would soar — with disastrous consequences?

    But that the campaign was emotive didn’t equal it was wrong.  Now, if police personnel were detailed to fight a certain crime, and they seized that platform to commit sundry abuses and crimes, then that particular effort is wasted.  But it still doesn’t cancel out the need to face down on the crime.

    Acting President Yemi Osinbajo eventually figured that out when he, on August 14, ordered an “overhaul” of SARS.  The result is FSARS , thanks to the admirable speed, with which the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, responded, ringing out changes in the new FSARS structure.

    No one should get excited over the new FSARS — its new centralised line of command: from the Federal Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (FCIID) to the Office of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) Operations; its new head, a brand new Commissioner of Police (CP), as against a slew of local police potentates; and its newfound intelligence-drive and restriction to prevention and detection of robberies and kidnappings.

    That would be as good as the new personages to drive the outfit are ready to turn a new leaf.  It can’t be open sesame, the instant snapping of finger and things falling in line?  No.  The new structure is nothing to be excited about. After all, one former IGP changed the Nigeria Police Force to Nigeria Police.  But how much has changed?

    Still, there is an exciting thing about the new set-up: a psychological examination of FSARS operatives nationwide and the creation of a human rights desk.  The one would determine the wellness and emotional balance of the the troopers.  The other, to act as human rights check.  These are two welcome initiatives.

    What FSARS needs is sweeping reforms and not scrapping.  This is a good re-starting point to wean the old SARS from its old notoriety.  Whoever emerges the new FSARS CP has a good opportunity to build a legacy — from the notorious SARS of old to the new, popular new FSARS.

    Still, the transition won’t be easy.  Indeed, it might be as difficult as as turning “F” in educational terms, to “Excellent”.  That could take some doing¡

  • Ibadan booze, Brookings brew!

    Tere is a barroom joke you will love. It is told of a group of boisterous Igbo men who were in Ibadan for a social function.  Ibadan is the expansive capital city of Oyo State, southwest of Nigeria. The old city can be described as a self-effacing sprawl; part academic, part urbane and part urban rust.  For its size it can be said to be sedate and staid compared to some other large metropolitan capitals in Nigeria.

    These young men apparently found Ibadan quite accommodating and serene, devoid of typical hustle-bustle of Lagos or Onitsha. They had repaired at a comfortable corner pub for an after-hour binge. It was told that one of the visiting team members had reached a state of near-inebriation when he stepped away to pass water.

    A miss-step had apparently landed him in a shallow puddle whereupon he relapsed into soothing somnolence. It took a while for his mates to notice his longer-than-usual absence. A search found him in his wretched recline in a puddle.

    Hey, what the heck are you doing in that bathtub, they jibed at him.

    And he responded so coolly: could it be that Ibadan booze is so tepid a guy can’t get drunk on it? After quaffing so much all day, here I am so cool and calm. He said with as much hint of derision of Oluyole brew as only a drunken bum could manage.

    Now let’s segue to what Hardball would loosely term the Brookings brew. For the unenlightened, The Brookings Institution is an American public policy think-tank organization based in Washington D. C. it is founded over 100 years ago and remains prestigious and pristine.

    Brookings is unabashed in strengthening American democracy and up- holding the grand ideals of the free world. It is bent rigorously over economic studies, foreign policy, governance studies, global economy and development. Hardball can safely say Brookings thinks it thinks for the rest of us.

    But it must be more so for unthinking entities like Nigeria and other dullards her ilk. Brookings recent verdict on Nigeria would have caused civil war or loosed anarchy in many places where there is still a modicum of self-esteem.

    But Poor Brookings may well have been kicking a dead hippo when it declared in its latest report that Nigeria has just earned the odious title of the poverty capital of the world. Nigeria, the dumb giant of Africa has gleefully nudged good old India off that ignominious perch.

    Half of Nigeria is stupid poor, Brookings dare suggest. And the  misery demons rage raucously, the report says.

    Yet nothing moved; not a whimper from any quarter…and Hardball surmises: could it be that Brookings brew sef no dey shack?

     

     

  • Ekiti is in pains

    Ekiti is in pains” — isn’t there some deja vu hue about that one?  Have we not heard that before, word for word, whimper for whimper, groan for groan?

    “I’m in pains, I can’t bear this any more …” that was Ekiti outgoing Governor Ayodele Peter Fayose in one of those comical election-eve stunts.

    After the infantile boast, the coarse bragging and the empty thunder, of a “special anointing” that turned Ayo the Man, to Peter the Political Juggernaut, with its merciless and all-smashing rock, it all turned a damp squib, when it mattered most.

    O, could it be the transferred epithet, of good, old poetic analysis?  Quite!  In that case, the once garrulous governor, now turning as gentle as the dove, could just be transferring his own comical, if tragic, election-time stunt, to some faceless Ekiti collective.

    Even then, there is no mass replication, of a neck brace worn upside down; and a broken neck that nevertheless lugged the agonising weight of a broken arm, in what has got to be the greatest bit of gubernatorial tomfoolery, since the “student unrest”, and the biting Fanta, Coke and 7up ”minerals” Bakin Zuwo jokes, in the 2nd Republic (1979-1983).

    Receiving a band of Ekiti Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) partisans, Fayose attempted to shore up their spirit — no crime, for that’s what leaders do, in a period of depression; more so after an electoral defeat, with another bout of elections virtually knocking on the door.

    But again, trust the governor, whose greatest strength isn’t emotional equilibrium.  The one that boasted and bragged his side-kick and candidate, Prof. Kolapo Olusola Eleka, as dour as Fayose is chaotically bubbly, would clear the ballot with blistering pace, is now erecting another solid mirage, yakking with some indecorous certainty, on the possible outcome, at the election tribunal.

    Yeah, Peter was one of the disciples.  But when did Ayo become one of the judges, to so pontificate?  Or is it just another bluff and bluster to falsely warm up “the boys”?

    The governor further prophesied: “Verily, verily I say unto you; Eleka’s triumph at the tribunal would be as stunning as my second coming, despite all the obstacles put on my way”!  Really?

    And Herr Governor’s proof?  The Ekiti had been in grief since the electoral umpire declared Kayode Fayemi as winner.  Why are they not celebrating?  Is it not because Eleka was robbed?  What else could have been the reason?

    Well, the judicial umpires would do justice to the petition at the tribunal.  Until they reach a verdict, no one can say what will happen, since each party would argue its case.

    But Fayose’s newfound, post-poll, pre-tribunal activism is somewhat reminiscent of the Yoruba farmer that planted five yam seedlings but claimed he planted 10.  Come harvest day, he would feast on five tubers and five lies.

    The words of our elders, as that old jingle on the Radio Nigeria of yore, are indeed words of wisdom!

  • All the king’s men…

    Who doesn’t know that famous rhyme? The one about a certain clumsy, egg-shaped fellow sitting on a wall and tipping off his perch to a great fall. And it is said that… all the king’s men could not put the guy together again.

    ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall’ is the favourite nursery rhyme of every kindergarten kid across all ages and indeed all spaces, if we might add that. If you never chanted it, you probably lived in a bottle growing up – or somewhere even more rarefied.

    But what is it about this enigmatic, character of unknown progeny that would catch hardball’s fancy. Nothing big. Just that a line from the rhyme is in sync with current situation at one of Nigeria’s supposedly elite schools.

    King’s College, (KC) Lagos, one-time foremost public school in Nigeria reminds one today, of the fabled Humpty Dumpty. The 120-year-old premier public secondary school has seemingly gone to pieces and just like in the aforementioned rhyme, all the king’s men of yore could not help hapless Humpty Dumpty; in like manner current King’s men (as KC ‘boys’ are known), may never be able to pull her out of the muck in which it has sunk.

    Founded in 1909 in Lagos by the British colonialist government in the tradition of the best English public schools, it was a breeding ground for generations of new leaders of Nigeria. But like nearly all else in the country, KC has gone south and suffered putrescence.

    Successive poor leadership in the land bred all sorts – rampaging population growth; lack of basic planning and projections and all the ancillary viruses conspired to make KC among the worst places to educate a child in Nigeria today. Again, successive lazy elite having hijacked the old British treasure were neither able to improve nor replicate it effectively.

    Not much thought has been brought to bear on the right framework for a quality education system for the burgeoning new nation across board. Now population has surged like a wild tsunami, submerging almost everything of note in the land; corruption has been voracious.

    The scramble to get into the now constricted classrooms in KC and few such schools of privilege borders on paranoia. Parents would pay a king’s ransom or give an eye even to squeeze their kids into KC regardless that good old KC had become a dreadful camp.

    Hear a former principal on over-enrolment crisis in KC: “… Admission was monetized, parents were willing to pay; students were brought in through backdoor and windows and through the roof…”

    And hear the class of ’88 who seek to put KC together again: we are in shock that a class set of 1988 which was 60 is today 600.

    The same infrastructure! It’s Humpty Dumpty universe here ain’t it?

     

  • Defection war

    Since Senate President, Bukola Saraki, planted the defection bomb on July 24, reeling out a list of All Progressives Congress (APC)-to-Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defectors, the polity has rocked with canons and bazookas, signalling the great Defection War.

    Believe Hardball, it isn’t for the faint-hearted!

    As Saraki let go the opening salvo, claiming 15 APC senators had thrown away their broom to take cover under the umbrella, there appeared sinister glances and glum, devilish stares that those were only mere skirmishes.  A few days hence, the conspiracy-conspirator(s?)- theorists, with sweeping contemptuous scowls, all but suggested, the ruling party would lie prostrate, pending a total electoral slaughter in 2019.

    Proof?  Can’t you see, you blind fellow?  Without their all-mighty senators and no less vital members in the House of Representatives, are they not all political dead meat?  Come on, the war is lost and won!  Blow the alarum for the final victory flourish!

    Not quite — for it would appear the battle has just started and the war still raging hard!  In the savage fire-fighting and ferocious strafing of enemy lines, the hunter would appear fast turning the hunted.

    The PDP that started it all — was it a badly planned war? — appear jittery, groaning more than the original victim.  The capture — yeah, isn’t that what they do in war? — of the rather loquacious Godswill Akpabio, former Akwa Ibom governor and sitting senator who just resigned as Senate minority leader, and campaign ground “shekem” exponent, seemed to have reached for the PDP very jugular.

    Indeed, old war horse and Lagos wonder boy, Pa Bode George, declared himself in serious pains — l’m in pains, can you hear the old Fayose cry, with a broken hand hanging on a broken neck? — the old warhorse reportedly condemned the PDP leadership for allowing the APC raid and capture of their treasure!

    Meanwhile, the war still thunders and roars, and no one really knows how it would end.  Still, like the PDP when the war broke out, there are dark signs from the APC camp that  it’s just morning yet on raid and capture day, suggesting more PDP pearls are set to jump!

    What yo-yo — but who knows?

    The lover of combative political drama would be breathless now, counting how many heads, across the divide, have been scalped as war trophies.  Just as well!

    Maybe too, those who started the war, if they survive — and even the APC — would by now have learned the bitter lesson that election-eve defectors, to win power, don’t necessarily translate into being comfy in power.  If you doubt, see the havoc Saraki’s arch-perfidy has wrecked on the ruling party.  Yet, Saraki was one of the high-calibre defectors that crossed over to nail the rather sorry Goodluck Jonathan, and PDP with him.

    Also, the PDP should have realized that trying to launch a defection war, as an opposition party, is dumb political strategy.  Nigeria still revolves round the charm of central power; and whoever holds it appears to hold the ace.  It was precisely such all-muscle-no-brain tactics that it flung itself from ruling party to opposition wilderness.

    Every party must realize the essence of the party system is shared values, group discipline and just intra-party governance.  No polity — and for that matter, no political party — gains by last-minute electoral whoring.  When the noise of the moment quietens, everyone would appear a net loser.

     

  • Ebora Vs Kongi

    Then Kongi, the ruthless harvester, goes after the Ebora, ripest fruit that becomes saddest, because it knows it is for the picking (you sure remember Wole Soyinka’s poem, “Abiku”?), then you sure know the jungle, and even allied bushes, would violently rock.

    That virtual earthquake is drawing a third body, the Yoruba Consultative Forum (YCF), into the fray, and Hardball just wonders if they are not picking up the wrong fight.

    But of course, that is without prejudice to YCF’s democratic right to pick its friend or the freedom to fight its cause.

    Well, no prize for guessing right.  Kongi is Prof. Wole Soyinka, perhaps Nigeria’s most notable living campaigner for human right and justice. Kongi has been at it virtually from the cradle; and there is nothing suggesting he would stop until the grave which, by the way, his teeming admirers pray won’t come for a long time.

    Ebora, on the other hand is former President Olusegun Obasanjo aka Ebora Owu who somewhat finds a way to cotton up to any political development.  He piously swears he just wants the best for his “baby” Nigeria.  But his traducers dismiss him as nothing but an arch-opportunist, fired by nothing but a craving for willy-nilly relevance.

    Indeed, for some weeks past, Kongi has been shellacking Ebora on that same ground — that his latest political activism, which the Ebora claimed was to “save Nigeria”, but which Kongi counters it’s another self-serving racket.

    YCF, in a statement by one Prof. Tejumade Rhodes, just weighed in on the side of the Ebora, fuming Kongi had crossed “the bar of decency and civilised literary grace.”

    “In Soyinka’s warped cosmology,” YCF further roared, in puritanical rage, “he insists [not without merit, Hardball can quickly add] that Obasanjo is not the fit and proper person to lead the new movement against the warped national polity.  This is malicious, undignifying, spurious, a drooling mechanic twaddle bound for literary garbage.”

    Whao, that’s quite a mouthful!  It’s so reminiscent of the Ebora himself, a grandmaster of tumbling and searing adjectives.

    But YCF wasn’t quite done yet.  “Soyinka has now eroded his once Sterling Heights of great crusader and crashed his status to a Lilliputian pamphleteer, angry at the world and pouring venom everywhere without tactical purity.”   What a flourish!

    But wait!  Despite the constant Kongi constant barrage, mum has been from the Ebora himself, the famed and magical letter writer of our times.  Why?  Did he for once fear a terrible blitzkrieg, from the master wordsmith himself?

    If that were so, might YCF be recklessly treading where even the Ebora himself had feared, some lexical amateurs zealously waving a Dane gun, when the real McCoy’s least arsenal boast the AK-47?  Or could it be a David versus Goliath showdown?

    However it pans out, Hardball would be at the ring side report.  Very soon, there just might be a lexical rumble in the jungle!  Who blinks first?  Kongi for real, or the Ebora, by proxy?