The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Royal rubbish

    Royal rubbish

    What actually happened between the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Adewale Akanbi, and the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, on January 30 during the meeting of traditional rulers in the country held in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital?

    Oba Akanbi said in a statement: “The bodyguard of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, in what seemed to be an errand message, pushed Oluwo at the public gathering of the first-class paramount rulers held at the Presidential Hotel, Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State last Tuesday. Dignitaries at the event were taken aback by what they considered as a desecration of the crown as the bodyguard of the Ooni pushed a first-class paramount ruler, Oluwo.”

    Oba Akanbi continued: “As shown in the pictures, the Ooni was called to make a vote of thanks as the Oluwo was engaging the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, who came to represent President Muhammadu Buhari. While the Ooni was coming to his seat, his security guard descended on the Oluwo and asked him to give way or he would push him. Oluwo tried to plead with him to be patient, but he (bodyguard) resisted. He then pushed the Oluwo. The monarch excused himself in order to maintain peace. The Ooni was observing and he felt satisfied with the action of his guard. Oluwo stepped aside and thereafter revisited his conversation with the minister.”

    But Ooni Ogunwusi reportedly described Oba Akanbi’s account as untrue. A statement by his Director of Public Affairs, Mr. Moses Olafare, said: “There was no altercation between Oluwo and anybody at that venue at all. Kabiyesi Ooni went to make his speech in his capacity as a co-chairman of the National Council of Traditional Rulers. On his way back to the seat right beside the representative of the President, General Dambazau (retd.), on sighting Oluwo who had come to the high table to take pictures with some dignitaries while the programme was still ongoing, he waited for some minutes to allow Oluwo leave the way to his seat.”

    Since both accounts can’t be true, it means one of them must be a made-up account. Why would Oba Akanbi present a false picture, if he did? It is noteworthy that the Ooni’s statement said Oluwo “had come to the high table to take pictures with some dignitaries while the programme was still ongoing,” meaning Oluwo wasn’t supposed to be where he was when he claimed the incident happened.

    Traditional rulers are expected to command respect. This is not a story that attracts respect.  Traditional rulers should behave like traditional rulers.

  • Schools sports? No, future jobs

    Schools sports? No, future jobs

    Not a few were excited by the wonderful exploits of Dele Ajiboye, between the sticks, as the Nigerian Eagles brushed aside Sudan to book the final ticket — their very first — in the current African Nations Championship (CHAN).  The final is against hosts Morocco on Sunday.

    Ajiboye sure made exciting saves, in the absence of injured captain and safest pair of hands, Ikechukwu Ezenwa.

    But how many remember the no less exciting “Ajiboy”?  That was Ajiboye’s famous moniker, courtesy one of the excited pundits and commentators, watching the young Nigerian braves, under Coach Yemi Tella (God bless his soul!), brush aside the rest of the world to emerge the FIFA World Cup U17 champions, in South Korea, 2007.

    At 17 or less, Ajiboye was U17 World Cup champion.  Now, in 2018, he has helped put Nigeria in the final of CHAN.  Why, on a Brilla Sports Radio phone-in programme, not a few are calling for Eagles manger, Gernot Rohr, to include Ajiboye among his final 23, bound for Russia, for the FIFA World Cup in June.

    So, Ajiboye had a passion as a youth.  Now, as an adult, he has a job — and exciting one at that!  That is the promise of schools sports, with a philosophy to catch them young.

    True, the Nigerian Schools Sports Federation has the mandate to nurture sports — athletics, swimming, football, basket ball, tennis, ping-pong (called table-tennis here), volleyball, etc.

    So, each time the federation stages a national schools sports festival, it is developing sports, very early in the lives of young Nigerians. That is the right path to follow.

    Doing that, you instill so early, discipline, sacrifice, focus and determination, vital traits everyone needs to successfully navigate life.  You also build friendship and fair-mindedness, also key sports components, in youths from all over the country, gathered in a particular state, at a particular spot, over a number of days.

    By such gathering, you could be eliminating, very early, future ethnic chauvinists and irredentists, fed negative tale of others, by their parents and guardians.  Again, that is the way to go, using sports to burn off these steady problems, plaguing contemporary Nigeria.

    Still, on the economic plane, you are doing much more.  You’re providing future jobs, in which youths like Ajiboye would cash in on their passion, to make a future living.

    Among those teeming youths are future Ajiboyes, Kelechi Iheanachos, Azizat Oshoalas, Rasheedat Ajibades, among the myriads of other promising young Turks, set to discover their niche as professional sports people, and drag themselves and their parents and other descendants outside the poverty line.

    That is what the Nigerian Schools Sports Federation does, each time it stages its championships, which really is a function of funding by sponsorship — developing the ethos of sports-with-education and education-with-sports.  It’s a complete package in youth development.

    And the sponsors that positively respond?  They not only cash in on a short-term niche to advertise and sell their products and services,  they also create the elite of a future market, that have enough purchasing power to buy their goods and services.

  • Talking too much

    Talking too much

    The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, probably thought it was a good opportunity to play politics, but he has found out that political opportunism can bring problems.

    When he visited the hometown of the late former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme, on January 28 “to inspect the facilities in preparation for his burial,” Ngige said things to impress members of the public and promote the ruling party.

    He was quoted as saying at Ekwueme’s hometown in Oko, Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State: “I can tell you authoritatively that Mr. President (Buhari) is committed and passionate in ensuring a befitting burial for Ekwueme. If he does not come for the burial himself, I am sure the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, will be here for the burial, as a matter of right.”

    He continued: “I can tell you that I am satisfied with the progress of work. The Federal Government is doing rehabilitation works on Amawbia/Ekwulobia road, up to Uga and Akokwa, in Imo State. We are also doing road rehabilitation on Oko/Umunze road, up to Ibinta in Abia State. I know the cost of all this, not less than N480 million. The Federal Government is building the mausoleum, which will contain a modern library and other facilities, and I also know the cost of that too.”

    Ngige didn’t say why it took Ekwueme’s death to get the government interested in fixing the mentioned roads. Why must road rehabilitation be tied to the burial of a VIP?

    Ngige added: “And remember that the Federal Government took up all the medical bills of flying him abroad and bringing him back to Nigeria from London, upon his death. The cost of hiring an air ambulance is not a joke. So, Buhari has honoured this Igbo son in all ramifications. He has committed not less than a billion naira in this project, because he is passionate about it.”

    This figure attracted public criticism, and the minister’s Special Assistant on Media, Nwachukwu Ngige, needed to defend his boss. A defensive statement said:  “For the avoidance of doubt, what he did as a member of the Burial Planning Committee was to give the details of the road rehabilitation projects from the Awka end of the state and from Abia and Imo State axis, all leading to Ekwueme’s hometown of Oko, as well as the medical services, the mausoleum and others.  But at no time did the minister attach a figure of one billion naira.”

    Was Ngige misquoted? Or did he talk too much, perhaps unthinkingly?

  • Hubris Vs arrogance

    Hubris Vs arrogance

    It wasn’t exactly like Fela’s immortal “wahala sleep yanga go wake am”.  It was more like Hubris doing provocative struts in Arrogance’s liar.

    That was one wahala doing monkey business with another.  It was fated to be explosive.

    So when Dino (you know who), with the rest of his ad hoc Senate committee on “Economic wastes in the Nigerian Customs Service” in tow (sounds like custom-made senatorial wahala, if you’d permit the pun), started running his mouth about why Customs’ Hammeed Ali didn’t exactly come hopping down to the gate, and prostrate before Dino’s committee members (if you’d excuse a Dino-esque hyperbole), he knew he was fishing for trouble.

    When finally Dino crashed down the gavel, to signal the Senate of the Federal Republic had descended on the Customs, and that the sub-humans there must begin to shiver, that clear act of intimidation was tantamount to waging red flag in front of a raging bull.

    Hammeed Ali, military conceit and all, swiftly called his bluff, and virtually plastered Dino’s face with rotten tomatoes.  He ought to have known: his adversary, who had kept a Senate, distracted over inanities, at bay over the empty battle over Customs uniform, takes absolutely no prisoners!  It is to Dino’s eternal shame that he picked a wrong battle, at a wrong venue.

    The facts?  Dino Melaye, leading his Senate committee to the Abuja headquarters of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), accused the Customs boss of breaking protocol, since he met the  visiting committee, not at the gate (as “protocol demanded”) but right at the meeting venue.  He therefore charged Ali with lack of decorum and courtesy.

    Ali lost no time to call his bluff, retorting that since no senator comes over to the gate to usher in any citizen invited to its chamber, the Senate could not, in all good conscience, expect citizens to roll before it, when it goes visiting other chambers.

    The truth is decorum is win-win; and civil society thrives on common courtesies.  But no laws enforce these courtesies.  Only reciprocal respect does.

    So, while it sounded arrogant for the Customs boss to virtually tell Dino and his committee to go jump inside the nearest lake and get drowned, it was the height of hubris for Dino to give such a stentorian, school masterly lecture, on an alleged protocol, no more than a convention, which you cannot legally enforce.

    To Hardball, this is another needless distraction.  While Nigerians, corporate and individual, should hold the Senate and other democratic institutions in high esteem, these institutions too should be wary of standing on their institutional dignity.

    Mutual respect is it.  The Senate is no god to be worshipped, willy-nilly, by the people, on pains of dire repercussions.  It rather should earn the people’s respect, even awe, by its exemplary conduct.

    This particular Senate hasn’t conducted itself with such grace.  Neither has Dino, with his often maverick comments and acts, the decorum expected of a senator.

    Still, now that senatorial hubris has clashed with military conceit, it is hoped both sides have learnt customized (ah, that word again!) humility.

    But democratic ethos demands that both parties work together, not for the hurting Senate, as it is wont, to withdraw into its laager to plot further anti-Customs mischief; and Customs’ Ali, with swashbuckling deering-do, to plot further anti-Senate rebellion.

  • Beyond imagination

    Beyond imagination

    When did the police start using cutlasses?” This question came from a puzzled citizen who experienced police brutality on January 19. The victim, Xsmart, described as “a popular Raypower FM radio disc jockey,” said policemen attached to Meiran Police Station, Lagos, assaulted him with a cutlass.

    His account as reported:  “A man hit my car, 19th of January night, on my way going out to get fuel, along Meiran Command Road. And there was a woman who didn’t know what happened but called police officers to come and arrest me. When the accident happened, my car was parked and waiting for traffic officers to come and check what happened. The policemen came in mufti and without asking any questions, they started beating me with cutlass and hit me with their guns. I work at DAAR Communications Plc, owner of AIT/Raypower FM… As I speak right now, I’m in pain.”

    It is true that the police usually complain of being under-funded and under-equipped, but it is beyond imagination that policemen have allegedly adopted cutlasses as weapons of law enforcement. What will they think of next?

    This story shows that the police need help.  First, policemen need to understand that violence should not be an automatic response to a situation. Second, policemen need to appreciate that even when someone commits an offence, enforcing the law cannot mean battering the offender. Third, it is bad for the public image of the police force that policemen who are no better than brutes are accommodated by the authorities.

    The reported assault needs to be investigated, particularly the introduction of new weapons, cutlasses specifically.  Who authorised the use of cutlasses?  Who supplied the cutlass used in this particular incident? Is the police force marching forward towards modernity or marching backwards towards primitivity? It is laughable that a 21st century police force has policemen who rely on cutlasses to carry out their duties.

    It is helpful that the victim identified the policemen involved in the violent drama, saying that they were attached to Meiran Police Station. Those in charge at this police station should treat this report about cutlass-wielding policemen with seriousness if they are not part of the mess.

    Repeated cases of police brutality show that police reforms are long overdue. The need for reformation is even more urgent now that policemen are beginning to employ crude cutlasses against citizens in a display of unprofessionalism that is simply beyond imagination.

  • Softly, softly Avengers

    A propensity to resort to violence is a function of at least two things: either you don’t have the capacity to think (and raw braggadocio rushes to your rescue); or you’re simply a bully.

    But what did Chinua Achebe say about bullies, via Igbo proverbs, in many of his works?  When a bully (or coward) sees somebody he can beat up, he becomes hungry for a fight!  The snag is: the bully’s calculation could go awry — and it does go awry some times — and he ends up having the most humiliating thrashing of his life.

    Well, this no Monday morning homily, employing literature as bully (that word again!) tactics!  It is rather a serious concern about Niger Delta Avengers, and that body’s penchant to rush to violence, apparently without much reason.

    Its latest threat, to resume bombings, suggests exactly that.  Why is it so gung-ho about bombing?  Because it lacks the brain to think through the many problems of that region?  Or because it harbours the supreme confidence, bordering on conceit, that it could always bomb at will and get away with it?

    But what if that swashbuckling conceit turns ashen illusion and costly delusion?  What then happens to the Niger Delta cause, that legitimate angst against the Nigerian state, for treating its economic honeypot with such shabbiness over the years?  Would that too just vanish, if peradventure, Avengers’ bombing stumbled and the body got humbled?

    Under a previous federal government, militants muscled an amnesty programme which, shorn of its fanciful dub, would appear no more than hefty payout to some warlords and allied hustlers, even if some of the lowly placed in the “struggle” also got some crumbs?

    But what happens if a future federal government subdues these rash campaigns and muscles the now vanquished militants?  Under such a chastened state, could today’s amnesty payout morph into a future reparation, for wilful destruction of public assets?  How would such fit in, for a people, that have always cried for justice?  That a band of unthinking and rash so-called “youths” have come to undo the sweat of years?

    The latest release by militants, threatening to resume bombing, is nauseating, to say the least; the way it tried to get mixed up with the Benue crisis, to justify inflicting wilful destruction on its own Niger Delta ecology.

    These guys should be told to snap out of their delusions.  Bombing oil installations, while temporarily hurting the country’s economic interest, can’t be a solution to the Niger Delta problem.  But every roar of bomb could well be de-marketing and de-legitimatizing the Niger Delta cause, long after sweet emotions had burned out.

    Enough of these childish threats.  It’s time to bring reason to the table.

  • Playing games

    Playing games

    What is happening in Ekiti State?  Here, a January 24 report:  “The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has accused the Ekiti State government of blocking his efforts to get the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the report of the Judicial Commission of Enquiry, which barred him from holding office for 10 years. Fayemi said the Ayo Fayose administration had been frustrating his efforts to get the report, more than one week after it was made public with release of its White Paper. He accused the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Dr Dupe Alade, as well as the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Kolapo Kolade, of ignoring his written applications for the CTC of the panel’s report.”

    This is a curious development as the panel released the report on December 13, 2017, while the White Paper was endorsed by the State Executive Council and made available to the media on January 15. The White Paper barred ex-governor Fayemi and his Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Oladapo Kolawole, from holding public office for 10 years, and also said that the two men should refund over N2 billion to the state.

    Fayemi’s lawyer, Rafiu Balogun, told reporters that his client needed the CTC of the panel’s report to challenge the recommendations in court. According to him, “We caused a letter to be written to the Secretary to the Commission, Mr. Gbemiga Daramola, but he asserted that having submitted the report to the governor, the commission had concluded its assignment and wound up. He, therefore, directed us to the SSG.”

    Balogun said: “We quickly wrote to the SSG on January 11, and it was received on January 12. We also wrote to the Attorney General of Ekiti State, requesting for the report, since he chairs the committee to review the report and advise government on the White Paper.”

    Fayemi’s legal team, which described the government’s attitude as “lackadaisical,”  had given the officials seven days to make available the CTC of the report of the commission of enquiry and other documents submitted by the seven-member panel headed by Justice Silas Oyewole (retd).

    From the look of things, the Fayose administration is playing games, but this is not a game.  Rather, the government should play the game, meaning that it should do what is decent and honourable.

  • Lassa laser

    Lassa laser

    It has come to a crunch, when lassa fever, in many parts of the country, now kills with laser precision. It’s nothing but another sickly ode to our general laxity in basic things that cost nothing; yet cost as dear as irreplaceable life, if not cultivated.

    Suddenly, Lassa fever has acquired the gory reputation of a periodic, seasonal killer, to which no antidote has been found.  Aside from the casualty figures in Ebonyi, the disease has just claimed five lives in Ondo, forcing the state to strengthen facilities in the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Owo, its referral and isolation centre.

    Yet, all this tizzy would have been needless, had the citizens acquired better personal hygiene and environmental sanitation culture, that lessen the contact of rats — carriers of the Lassa virus — and humans.

    Indeed, to manage the breakout of the disease in Ondo, Yemi Olowolabi, the state’s commissioner for Information and Orientation, is pledging a public enlightenment blitz against unhygienic habits, aside from improving medical facilities and emergencies to contain the spread.

    So far, the outbreak has spread in four local government areas:  Owo, Akoko Southwest, Akure North and Akure South.  Apart from the five reported dead, 24 others are in critical condition, according to a report in the January 24 issue of The Nation.

    But it is in Anambra that the full drama of an avoidable disease break-out fully comes out, because it touches on how sloppy living could just as casually be very fatal.

    Dr. Joe Akabuike, Anambra commissioner for Health, has sensationally warned the people of the state against gari-drinking.  Indeed, this newspaper claimed the commissioner had announced a “ban” on drinking gari!  That must be serious, mustn’t it, barring such common staple, the ever faithful culinary companion of the economically humble!

    But why? Because the state cannot, in all good conscience, vouch for the wholesomeness of its preparation.

    “Those gari you see spread along the highway, while you’re travelling,” he reportedly told Anambarians in Awka, on “Anambra Talks”, a radio programme, “is very risky to consume, especially when you drink it.”

    From the way the commissioner sounded, it would appear spreading gari to dry, on some surface under the sun, was a long held practice that is very rampant. But this same environment is home to teeming rats and allied rodents.  Did it ever occur to anyone, before Lassa fever outed, with its laser-precision killing and anguish, that this was an especial risky way to prepare gari, which another would purchase?

    In some households, it is just carelessly exposing gari to the fatal piss of a rat — and an otherwise safe staple becomes, well, rat poison!

    It is needless disasters like this that expose us for what we are as a people — manifesting tardiness when we should be earnest and attentive.  Just a little bit of attention to the right details, and Lassa fever may well become history.

    Yes, it’s no rocket science.  Yet, that careful routine seems beyond us.  Shame!

  • Adams goes to church

    Adams goes to church

    After the National Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Chief Gani Adams, became Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yoruba land, it was interesting to hear from him how he clinched his new position. Adams was on January 13 installed as the generalissimo of the Yoruba people by the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, at an elaborate event at the Durbar Stadium, Oyo.

    Adams spoke about some things that happened behind the scenes before he was chosen for the centuries-old traditional title last October.  It was at a special thanksgiving service on January 21 to mark his installation at the Genesis Parish of the Celestial Church of Christ (CCC), Alakuko,  Lagos.

    Adams was quoted as saying: “Pastor Israel Ogundipe predicted my emergence as the Aare Ona Kakanfo. That is one of the reasons I respect him as a man of God. He was at my former office at Palmgrove and he made three predictions which all came to pass in less than two weeks.”

    He added: “I saw humility and the holiness of God in him. He is one of the few pastors that I respect. When we started jostling for the post, I told him to pray along with me and promised him that I would do my thanksgiving in his church if the Lord answered my prayers.”

    No doubt, this is good publicity for the said pastor and the said church. Adams’ message was simple and easy to understand:  If the pastor correctly predicted that Adams would be selected for the position, then it must be a sign that his selection was divinely ordained, and it must also be a sign that the pastor is a genuine man of God.  Whether Adams got the title through divine intervention is food for thought.

    According to Adams, “25 of us contested for the position and I was the least wealthy among them. The Lord imposed me on all of them.” Adams didn’t mention the names of his rivals, which would have helped to situate him and his wealth in the contest for the title.

    Curiously, a January 22 report said: “Also, Adams worshipped yesterday at Ijo Orunmila Adulawo in Ebute Meta, Lagos, for his successful installation as the 15th Aare Ona Kakanfo of the Yoruba. He arrived at the church at 11:15 a.m. with his wife, children, family and members of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in a convoy of about 20 vehicles.”

    This means Adams worshipped at two different churches on the same day for the same reason. Going from church to church does not show where Adams belongs.

  • Winning business line

    Want a winning business formula in the new year?  Look no farther than DSTv and its Multichoice content; and Ikeja Electric (IE), the proud dispenser of darkness, in lieu of the electricity it is set up for.

    The formula?  Well, it’s a one-way text traffic to harass for bills, without  any corresponding text line to counter-harass for service.  Blessed are those, the saying goes, that carefully cover their corporate sins!

    Any time your subscription is due, DSTv harasses you with texts — one-way texts — telling you how perilously close you are to being cut off; and tantalising you with its idea of a movie, documentary or even live sports broadcast that you would be sorry to miss, should your subscription lapse, and you’re off the network.

    It’s its own way of goading its subscribers to “good conduct” — resubscribe, or else!

    In fairness to DSTv though, it makes a motion of presenting some exciting fare in its bouquet, even if its most prized premium package is often a repetition of jaded movies; it takes forever for its screen computer to reboot to rejoin programmes when NEPA strikes (lE again!), or it simply, without remorse, projects itself as a corporate shark, which cares only about its pay; but nary about its service.

    But then, such is the hubris of monopolies, that won’t adjust until the market is gone and its too late.

    Still, if DSTv makes a show at some service, IE won’t be bothered by such stupid chores.  It has a winning formula for billing for darkness, and not a few even accuse it of deliberately not metering a segment of its customers, just to push its growth area of billing for darkness, and making hay!

    So, IE would just take off — hours, days or week at times — and there is absolutely no explanation why.  So, there is neither rime or reason to its disappearing act; and there is absolutely no question of carefully planning your electricity consumption.

    But the moment it distributes its bills — which it claims it meters from street transformers — it starts sending texts that by its records you are owing (never mind, most times for darkness); and that you should endeavour to pay before your are disconnected!  Can you imagine such crap?

    Perhaps, it would have been tolerable if it had created a two-way line, through which you could send a complaint about non-service, and receive feedback, but no!  It is one-line harassment for payment for services mostly not rendered.

    The regulators should call IE to order, on this ultra-provocative conduct.  But that would not have been possible in the first instance, if new DISCOs had not shared out, among themselves, the old monopoly of PHCN, albeit whittled down into smaller business territories.

    The sane way to attack this injustice is not only to meter every customer, but also to, in each jurisdiction, bring in a rival player.  Perhaps with intra-territorial business rivalry, IE would sit up, and be less sanguine about its bad corporate conduct.

    DSTv?  Every monopoly, legal or operative, would take its chances.  But as the Yoruba say, you don’t tell the blind the market has closed.  The vanished din would do just that.

    The market eventually teaches every monopoly a hard lesson!