The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Marching backward

    Marching backward

    Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha took another curious step towards his political dreams on February 26.   During the inauguration of members of Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (ISOPADEC) at Government House, Owerri, Okorocha revealed his thoughts about his political future.  Okorocha will leave office next year after a second four-year term.

    Okorocha was quoted as saying: “If Uche Nwosu will be home for governor, I will tell the deputy governor to go to Senate. I told you earlier that my interest is the Presidency but since President Buhari will be running in 2019 I decided to put my ambition on hold until he completes his tenure. But I have decided to run for the Imo West Senatorial zone because if I don’t, bad people will take the position…If my name appears on the ballot paper as contesting for Senate, it will boost APC chances in the state. And many from my Senatorial zone have come to me and said they will not contest if I am interested. “

    By restating that he would prefer to have his chief of staff and son in-law, Chief Uche Nwosu, succeed him as governor, Okorocha appears desperate to remain in power after his tenure. Beyond that, it is ridiculous that Okorocha seems to believe he can impose his political designs on his deputy.

    Okorocha, going by his words, doesn’t care about his deputy’s ambition. It is interesting that the deputy governor, Eze Madumere, has rejected Okorocha’s ideas. His response came in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Uche Onwuchekwa.

    A report said: “According to the statement, Mr. Madumere restated his resolve to contest for the office of the governor in 2019. He said it is not just about his ambition but about the entire Owerri zone which, he said, has been side-lined and marginalised. “God’s given vision to better the lot of Imo people is in no man’s hands.” He described the Senate position offered to him by Mr. Okorocha as an act of betrayal, adding that “If Jesus Christ could be ill-treated by those he called his friends and was later betrayed by Judas, how much more a mere mortal like me.”

    It is obvious that Okorocha is thinking like a kingmaker who doesn’t understand that kingmaking has its limits. As Okorocha marches on, he seems to be marching backward.

  • Oliseh praises self

    Oliseh praises self

    Sunday Oliseh, former Nigerian international and former coach of the Super Eagles, somewhat reminds Hardball of the lizard, in one of Chinua Achebe’s novels.

    “The lizard that falls from the high Iroko tree,” goes that saying, “praises itself, even if no one else did”.

    And just like the lizard in that tale, Oliseh would sound it loud and clear that the revival that the national team is experiencing, en route to the World Cup in Russia, would not be complete without folks mentioning his part in it.

    In a way, that is not untrue.  Yes, Oliseh first invited the duo of Kelechi Iheanacho and Alex Iwobi, to join the team, after inheriting the rump of the Stephen Keshi team.  The pair would make a definitive contribution to a breezy Mondial qualification, under Gernot Rohr.

    Indeed, apart from the two youngsters kickstarting Nigeria’s qualification with a goal each, away to Zambia, Iwobi would make qualification sure with his sweet winner against the same Zambia, even with a match to spare, away to Algeria.

    But Oliseh easily forgets — and clearly would also want everyone else to forget — how his needless rift with Vincent Enyeama, team captain and number 1 goalkeeper, and the juvenile manner he passed the captaincy to Ahmed Musa, ruptured the team and, even before the World Cup African zone elimination, rendered the team’s campaign in tatters.

    Oliseh himself fled from the gargoyle he had created, resigning most sensationally, if not cowardly, thereby leaving the team in the lurch.

    But then came Rohr, who perhaps nobody, maybe except his Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) employers gave a chance; and everything came together for the team.  The rest, they say, is history!

    If Oliseh had stayed with that team, with its unity totally shred as it was, would we be talking of a World Cup ticket today?  Nobody can say for sure.  But, except a miracle happened, everything would probably have turned a debacle, given the then ongoing trend.  Still, thank God and thank the NFF, Nigerian ball fans were spared that agony.

    Oliseh is a big name in Nigerian football.  He was part of that champagne party that set Africa agog in 1994,before setting USA 94 ablaze, at Nigeria’s debut at the World Cup.  If he had made a good show of his Eagles coaching assignment, he probably would have equalled Stephen Keshi’s record, as both player and coach, to have lifted the African Nations Cup.  But alas, that dream crashed before it took off.

    Oliseh has earned his stripes as one of Nigeria’s golden generation of internationally acclaimed footballers, going after to enjoy a rich professional career in Europe.  Though his famed knowledge of the game is not in doubt, being a much sought after pundit and highly respected member of the FIFA technical family, his actual delivery as a coach has been limited.

    His flaw has always been his temperament — a tad too stubborn and rigid — and his failure to always build a consensus (preferring instead to ram things down the throat of his players and employers), infuse unity in his team and push that team to greater heights.

    That is what he should learn from Rohr who, with a team Oliseh almost doomed, snatched success and fame from the jaws of failure and odium.

    Enough of all these self-serving claims!

  • Homogeneous reciprocity

    Homogeneous reciprocity

    Some stories simply defy linear logic. They are so entwined in the cross fire of rules, principles and concepts craftily knit in one small bundle. Let’s call them stalwart stories.

    This may well be what Hardball is confronted with here as a seemingly simple idea takes so much meaning from the arcana of Quantum Physics, Biology, Photography and even Mathematics.

    My roadside mechanic once brought much illumination to bear on this principle that Hardball secretly thought the grimy fellow should have been a professor in the combined studies of genetic biology and radiation engineering. In fixing a portion of the engine of my cranky old Mercedes Benz, he told me that certain spare parts must necessarily be changed in tandem.

    Why is that so, I asked? Won ngbe’se fun ra won ni was the succinct response which must be rendered in the native Yoruba he spoke. In other words, the parts work in reciprocity.

    Two stories this week remind of this principle.

    One is the thrilling saga of former first lady, Dame Patience Jonathan who is facing much trouble as a result of her cash haul  that one wagers she probably wishes the cash should disappear.

    In a long-winding deposition about how so much cash ($15.5m) was amassed in such a short life time, Patience’s chief domestic hand, Dr. Waripamo-OweiDudafa (didn’t you think ‘Dr.’ was a high academic accomplishment?) said his madam had such quantum of cash gift that she had to consult former chairman of the EFCC for advise on how to managed it.

    Hear: “Consequently, I was then invited to a meeting between myself and the then Chairman of the EFCC Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde and the plaintiff (Mrs. Jonathan) at the Presidential Villa…

    “Sequel to the advise given to the plaintiff by Ibrahim Lamorde, the plaintiff instructed me to coordinate the opening of accounts for herself and her family members.”

    The other story, at once homogeneous and reciprocal in nature concerns Sen. MusiliuObanikoro who did a back-flip into the ruling party recently.

    He was reminded in an interview that his return to the party of the day might not be unconnected to the desire to escape prosecution for his activities as a chieftain of the fallen party.

    Hear him: “Let me first say that I have not committed any crime to warrant being prosecuted… All we did was to play politics and there is no politician in this country today that can claim to be immune from what you can call using government resources for political interests.”

    Now can you see the homogeneous reciprocity between Patience and Lamorde; Obanikoro and Magu?

    As the poor mechanic said: won ngbe’sefun’rawonni.

     

  • Overconfidence

    Overconfidence

    Clearly, the latest evil by suspected Boko Haram terrorists shows that Islamist terrorism is alive and well despite contrary claims by the country’s military authorities.

    A shocking February 26 report said: “The Federal Government said yesterday that 110 pupils of the Government Girls’ Science Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi are unaccounted for…Dapchi is the headquarters of Bursari Local Government Area of Yobe State…The school was on February 19 attacked by suspected Boko Haram terrorists in military fatigues who took away the girls in 11 trucks.”  The school authorities said there were 906 students in the school on the day the abductors struck.

    This attack happened after Chief of Army Staff Lt-Gen Tukur Buratai restated his order to troops to capture Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau dead or alive. Buratai had visited troops at Camp Zairo in the Sambisa Forest, which had served as headquarters of the terrorists before the military seized the camp in December 2016.

    It is noteworthy that in 2017 the army chief gave his men a 40-day ultimatum to capture Shekau, and the army recently offered a N3 million reward for information on the elusive Shekau.

    Buratai was quoted as saying to his men: “Let me say congratulations. But we must move across to wherever this criminal, Shekau, is and catch him…I want you to get him…You all know these criminals are still on the run; these guys are on the run, you must make sure that you get them wherever they are around this area…You must not allow them to escape. Every day, you must go on patrol, lay ambush for them and you go on raids.”

    Less talk and more action is needed as the Dapchi abductions have compounded the still unresolved Chibok schoolgirls’ kidnappings in Borno State in April 2014.  Many of the Chibok captives are still in captivity.

    It is disturbing that the terrorists were able to carry out the Dapchi attack and kidnap over 100 schoolgirls. It raises serious questions about the effectiveness of anti-terrorism troops in the region.  The northeastern states of Borno and Yobe have been vulnerable to Boko Haram attacks since the insurgency started in 2009, meaning there was always a possibility the terrorists would strike again like they did in Chibok as long as they had not been defeated.

    Indeed, the Dapchi incident has exposed the overconfidence of the authorities that the worst is over.

  • AI and one-shoe-fits-all advocacy

    AI and one-shoe-fits-all advocacy

    If you ever lived through military rule, of the most venal, destructive and irresponsible hue as Nigerians did, you’d cherish Amnesty International (AI).

    But with the return to the democratic order, you’re often amazed at the naivety, at worst, or ideological fixation, at best, of AI reports, even with the old military dictatorship’s negative impact on the present undemocratic “democratic” players themselves.

    That about captures the Nigerian Defence Headquarters, DHQ’s angst, with the latest AI report (2017-2018) on the Nigerian military, on its security duties, response to terrorism and allied matters, and even the vexed issue of gays and lesbians, in spite of extant Nigerian law.

    A crucial preliminary point: both AI and the Nigerian DHQ are each fixated with their terms of engagement.

    AI’s focus is to let off as many as possible, on the maxim of “human rights” (read amnesty), perhaps with the injunction that it’s better to free nine guilty persons, than to punish, in error, one innocent person.

    On the contrary, DHQ appears to operate from the strict code of crime and punishment — and for good reasons, when its security duties are related to terrorism.

    There is always an ethical question, to which perhaps no one has given an adequate answer: must a terrorist that killed and maimed hundred of innocent citizens enjoy the same “human rights”, as his victims, that perished for no cause?

    AI, fixated with “amnesty” — and from the tenor of its reports — would say yes.  But the military, which routinely loses some of its members to this lunatic fringe, would thunder the contrary.

    In other words, while AI always sees a bottle perpetually half-empty, the military, with its vision coloured by the gore of the frontline, sees the same bottle as half-full.

    Each needs to act as check on the other.  The DHQ needs AI’s constant stricture to moderate the excesses of some of its own ranks, in torture and brutality, when dealing with captured “terrorists”.

    But AI itself must know that inasmuch as its terror “victims” in military captivity have rights under the law, innocent citizens that the terrorists “victimized” too do have rights!

    So, in its one-shoe-fits-all strategy, AI cannot lionize killers but demonize those the state put in charge to curb their menace.

    Inasmuch as everyone should get justice, mounting special “human rights” for Boko Haram criminals, who at will abridge the most vital right of other citizens — the right to life — sounds rather hollow, even if AI is duty-bound to point out other military operational excesses.

    Which brings Hardball to cases of gays and lesbians.  A liberal attitude would posit these are private decadence that have nothing to do with anyone, if not made public.  That is the philosophy AI follows, though latterly encoded as “fundamental human rights” in Washington DC and most other western capitals.

    But the last time Hardball checked, Nigerian law has taken sides with its religious lobby, which frowned at those decadence as “crimes” that must be sanctioned.

    So, under what ambit is AI charging the Nigerian military for denying gay and lesbian rights — American or Nigerian law?

    This is international charity as its most dangerous, morphing from a legal watch dog into cultural and legal imperialism.

    Until Nigeria alters its laws on the matter, AI has absolutely no basis to push such charges, except it accepts that it’s contemptuous of Nigerian law — and that would be tantamount to arrogant outlawry.

  • Reckless reprisal

    Reckless reprisal

    Was the February 20 demolition of a building in Kaduna owned by Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi politically motivated?  The demolished property at 11B Sambo Road was used as the secretariat of a faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai is at the centre of the drama.

    A February 21 report said: “The APC’s “Restoration” group promoted by the senator last Thursday queried El-Rufai and suspended three of his aides, including Special Adviser on Political Matters Uba Sani and Commissioner for Finance Suleiman Kwaru, for similar offences. The Hunkuyi-led faction suspended El-Rufai for six months, for “failing to reply to the query” three days after it was issued.”

    The faction’s Director of Administration, Yahaya Shinko, who spoke at a news conference at the demolished secretariat, shed light on the alarming incident:  “It is no longer news that today 20th February, 2018 at around 4am, the governor accompanied by heavily armed soldiers believed to be from 1 Division Nigerian Army, stormed the new secretariat and carried out the dastardly act.”

    Shinko said the reason given by the government was that the owner of the property, Senator Hunkuyi, had failed to pay ground rent for eight years. He countered: “But we know that, the offence of the lawmaker, his supporters and all other members of the APC with them in this secretariat is aligning ourselves with the position of the National Headquarters of the party to the effect that Danladi Wada is the recognised Deputy Chairman of the APC in Kaduna State and stands as the Acting Chairman until a substantive Chairman emerges at the next state congress of the party.”

    It is a curious coincidence that the demolition was carried out in the context of the party’s factionalisation. It is curious that Governor El-Rufai reportedly supervised the demolition. It is curious that soldiers were reportedly involved in carrying out the demolition.

    The Director General of Kaduna Geographic Information Service (KADGIS), Ibrahim Husseini, in a statement, was obviously referring to the use of the demolished building as a faction’s secretariat when he said, “This illegal violation of use had begun to distress neighbours who were being forced to endure an influx of thugs and blockage of the road.” Would the building have been demolished if it wasn’t being used as a faction’s secretariat?

    Husseini added: “The land has now been allocated to KASUPDA for the purpose of developing and maintaining a public park that will provide a green area and a serene place for recreation in that residential neighbourhood.”

    It looks like the El-Rufai administration thinks it can achieve serenity through reckless reprisal.

  • Kudos to the dead, challenge to the living

    Kudos to the dead, challenge to the living

    In Yoruba language, literature and culture, it is kudos to the dead; and challenge to the living — both incidentally, symbolised by two Akinwunmis.

    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.

  • Fashola vs. lawmakers

    The Senate and its younger cousin, The House of Representatives, have a fashion of summoning ministers, heads of agencies and chief executives of sensitive companies. The chambers’ committees then assume the toga of a monarch, tossing questions at the invitees as though addressing a school boy.

    They act as though they are the arbiters of the people’s will. They pose for the press, speak with grandiose morality and dramatise an ownership of protocol. For instance, in the last visit of members of the National Assembly to the office of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Hameed Ali, they expected the Customs chief to walk down to receive them on their arrival.

    But the old soldier was not a man to bait. He retorted that he was not a jellyfish to be tossed about and insisted that the lawmakers were received according to protocol. After all, it was not as if the agency did not assign its officials to receive them. The legislative comedian, Dino Melaye, roared his protest over what he saw as an act of institutional contempt.

    The man of Customs had to remind them of their earlier sins when he visited. No one treated him with such courtesy. In one word, the lawmakers were hypocrites. They do so all the time. They invite heads of agencies, even for inconsequential reasons.

    Hardball has learned that they want those they invite to “drop.” When they don’t “drop,” then there is trouble and the lawmakers bicker and rant and ask for this document and that paper and insist vaingloriously as though they were fishing for something.

    They did so not so long ago with the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), when they harangued the man with questions and it seemed they were more patriotic than the minister.

    What happened between Fashola and the lawmakers is like the vacuous quarrel between husband and wife in which outsiders wonder over their pettifogging over inconsequentials. But the real issue is known only to the sparring spouses.

    Hardball learned that the lawmakers had requested Fashola’s ministry to fund their overseas trips, and the minister did not agree. He said he did not want to contravene the protocol of this democracy that forbade one arm of government to fund another. The minister had wounded their vanity.

    They also bombarded him with scores and scores of companies for contracts. The minister said they did not bid and it was against the protocol of due process to grant any such deals. They also wanted to acquire a high percentage of the contracts for rural electrification of the universities, and again the minister said no.

    May the Almighty save us from our mighty lawmakers.

     

     

  • Fashola vs. lawmakers

    Fashola vs. lawmakers

    The Senate and its younger cousin, The House of Representatives, have a fashion of summoning ministers, heads of agencies and chief executives of sensitive companies. The chambers’ committees then assume the toga of a monarch, tossing questions at the invitees as though addressing a school boy.

    They act as though they are the arbiters of the people’s will. They pose for the press, speak with grandiose morality and dramatise an ownership of protocol. For instance, in the last visit of members of the National Assembly to the office of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Hameed Ali, they expected the Customs chief to walk down to receive them on their arrival.

    But the old soldier was not a man to bait. He retorted that he was not a jellyfish to be tossed about and insisted that the lawmakers were received according to protocol. After all, it was not as if the agency did not assign its officials to receive them. The legislative comedian, Dino Melaye, roared his protest over what he saw as an act of institutional contempt.

    The man of Customs had to remind them of their earlier sins when he visited. No one treated him with such courtesy. In one word, the lawmakers were hypocrites. They do so all the time. They invite heads of agencies, even for inconsequential reasons.

    Hardball has learned that they want those they invite to “drop.” When they don’t “drop,” then there is trouble and the lawmakers bicker and rant and ask for this document and that paper and insist vaingloriously as though they were fishing for something.

    They did so not so long ago with the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), when they harangued the man with questions and it seemed they were more patriotic than the minister.

    What happened between Fashola and the lawmakers is like the vacuous quarrel between husband and wife in which outsiders wonder over their pettifogging over inconsequentials. But the real issue is known only to the sparring spouses.

    Hardball learned that the lawmakers had requested Fashola’s ministry to fund their overseas trips, and the minister did not agree. He said he did not want to contravene the protocol of this democracy that forbade one arm of government to fund another. The minister had wounded their vanity.

    They also bombarded him with scores and scores of companies for contracts. The minister said they did not bid and it was against the protocol of due process to grant any such deals. They also wanted to acquire a high percentage of the contracts for rural electrification of the universities, and again the minister said no.

    May the Almighty save us from our mighty lawmakers.

     

     

  • Baba wan commit suicide!

    Baba wan commit suicide!

    Have you heard?

    Heard what?

    Baba wants to commit suicide!

    Which Baba?

    There are no two Babas now!  The Ebora Owu!

    Whaaaat!  But why?

    He says for him it’s self-guillotine, anytime he feels Nigeria is hopeless.

    O, that!

    Is that all you’ll say — o that?

    What else?  That’s a very safe threat now!

    But how?

    Well, who gauges what is hopeful and what is hopeless?

    Seriously?  Are you real right now?  You don’t expect Baba to put his neck on the block and not have a say as to when the time is ripe?

    Exactly!  It’s a very safe threat — or if you want to be politic — pledge.  It’s like that rogue prophet, Brother Jero, prophesying someone would live for 80 years.  If it comes to pass, fine.  If it doesn’t, who cares?

    Naaaaa!  It’s not quite the same thing.  Baba says anytime he feels Nigeria is hopeless, he goes kaput!

    Meaning?

    Meaning exactly that — kaput!  You should at least praise him for love of country

    About time too!  But how about praising country, for love of Baba?  Nigeria has given Baba too many lollies.

    What do you mean, lollies?

    Exactly that, lollies.  What does OFN mean, do you know?

    Operation Feed the Nation.

    To me, it is Obasanjo Farms Nigeria.  But to others, it could also be Operation Fool the Nation!

    Haba! Nobody fooled anyone now!  Now, you’re getting too creative for your own good!  That is just a mere coincidence!

    Exactly!  No one has fooled anyone.  But it also shows Nigeria’s abiding munificence  for Baba.  Operation Feed the Nation, you must remember, led to the Land Use Decree, which made the other OFN, Obasanjo Farms Nigeria, possible!

    Mere coincidence!  Conspiracy theory!

    True.  Maybe you’re right.  But what of the Presidential Library?

    What about it?

    Would Baba have had it if he wasn’t president, or had OFN, if he wasn’t military head of state, even if he didn’t stage any coup?

    Hen-hen?

    Even NOUN!

    Are we talking parts of speech now?

    No, NOUN as in National Open University of Nigeria, not as noun, adjective, or adverb.

    He did wrong by founding NOUN too?

    No.  I didn’t say that.  He did real good.

    So, what are you saying?

    He did good for all — and for himself too!  NOUN just awarded Baba a PhD in Theology — after his robust scholarly defence of course!

    And what’s wrong with that?

    Nothing.  It only proves the latest lolly Nigeria has thrown into Baba’s mouth.  So, if he wants to commit suicide for Nigeria, Nigeria has pumped him with enough — in fact, too much — goodies to earn it.

     

    You sef!  Poison dey your mouth!

    Not poison.  Just the truth.