The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • From Ikeja Electric: Voodoo business model

    From Ikeja Electric (IE), one of Nigeria’s pampered electricity distribution companies (DISCOs), having a harsh and grating disco party, by recklessly raiding helpless consumers, for services proudly un-rendered.   It is nothing but a voodoo business model.

    That model is simple: be the last to render service — if any.  But be the first to tender the bill for payment — or else?  It’s a formula that works like mad; and why change a winning formula?  Indeed, why?

    IE is just flush from dispatching bills, for electricity allegedly consumed, for the month of September — and the DISCO from Ikeja would appear even more prompt than prompt.  Yet, (dis)service for the month was as laggardly — if at all — as it could ever be.

    Why? IE even has the audacity to quote electricity allegedly consumed, in the worst tradition of a corporate unarmed robber — or in which sort of business would you deliver little or no service but demand full payment, with a threat of disconnection?

    The allegedly consumed electricity?  Voodoo, pure and simple.  Just take a casual look at the bill demand, courtesy of a telephone text, sent to a customer:

    “Dear account number (specific number deliberately omitted)” goes the message, “Your consumption for September 2017 is 210.00Kwh (pray expert electrical engineers, how many hours of darkness does that translate into?).  Current charge is N, 696.65. Arrears is N18.21.  Please pay to avoid service disruption.”

    Holy Moses!  But IE’s “service” is mainly disruption, if any!

    Now, if you study the so-called “arrears” of N18.21, it was for darkness consumed for a certain month in 2016, after which IE rolled out a uniform bill.  That was September 2016; and back then, there was such a howl of protest that even IE realised its greed had gone too far for the consumer it routinely cheats not to notice.  So, it cuts back on its bill the following month, but greedily chalks away the so-called arrears as part of the voodoo and phantom debts, it carries in its books!

    By the way, this strategy of bill-and-threaten IE specially reserves for the helpless customers it has refused to meter, against the instruction of the industry regulator.  For those adequately metered, they have ceased to be helpless pool of fraudulent nourishment for IE.  The question is how long would IE continue this reckless gambit without something giving?

    The regulatory authorities should call IE to order before things go out of hand.  You can’t be cheating customers and vaulting it at their faces.  You can’t be distilling darkness, and yet be sending disconnection gangs to threaten customers each time you roll out your voodoo bills.

    The regulators should act fast and compel IE to meter its customers, so it can bill for electricity consumed.

    It is the right thing to do.  Besides, it is absolutely impossible to be hostage to corporate un-armed robbery as a profit strategy.  It’s nothing but voodoo strategy that will end in grief.

  • Miracles still…

    The Holy Scriptures are full of miracles. No; better to say that scriptures are built (based) on miracles. For the faithful of most religions therefore, miracles are the condiments for divine repast. In other words where would faith be without the various supernatural occurrences that accompany worship and buoy belief?

    For the hard of heart who stick up their noses to stories in the realm of miraculous exploits, one happened recently in Ebonyi, southeast of Nigeria. It is actually akin to the one in the Bible that was enacted by the great apostles Paul and Silas.

    Bad belle people (no better way to describe them) who couldn’t stick the piercing truth of the gospel seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the magistrate on false accusation. “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city…” (Acts 16:16). And the magistrates, historical perverters of justice had them stripped and striped without as much as a question asked. Thereafter, they ordered that they be thrown into jail.

    As the story goes, the jailer did not only put them in the innermost part of jail, he fastened their feet; taking no chances.

    At midnight, Paul and Silas sang hymns and made fervent prayers to their God. They ministered to the other prisoners too. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake which shook the foundations of the prison; all doors were flung open and every prisoner’s chains loosed.

    The jailer woke up and seeing all doors open, thought there had been a jail break; he thought all the prisoners had escaped and made to commit suicide. Hold it, Peter told him calmly. We are all here. The jailer obviously never witnessed such a marvel. He trembled and fell before Paul and Silas crying: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” such is the power of miracle.

    Back to today, back to Nigeria; in a community called Okpokueze Nkomoro, in Ebonyi State last Sunday, a similar miracle as told above happened. Some dare-devil young men invaded a Catholic Church (St. Mary’s Parish) and abducted the Priest, Rev. Fr. Timothy Nwanja. They took his cook as well. They also carted away communion wine.

    They were said to have let go the cook and held on to Father Timothy whom they tied up in their hideout and made a ransom demand of N100 million. They had then proceeded to guzzle the communion wine after which the armed trio passed out in deep slumber. Father Timothy reportedly unshackled himself and made good his escape through the window. The police later raided the hideout apprehending one of them.

    If this is not a miracle…

  • And Peavey peeves Power Minister

    Our brothers from much more ordered climes often visit us with a mindset that is sometimes as derisive as it is warped. Their oft distorted worldview about us could a times, graze on the fringes of idiocy. Here is a joke told us long ago in school by one of our American-trained don which will explain our point today.

    At an international scholars’ seminar in the States, a Chinese scholar, let’s call him Wang, had supped rather noisily on his soup during lunch break. It was as if he had never had soup so good. Now an American scholar who had watched it all obviously in veiled disgust had sidled up to Wang after meal and sniggered jokingly: “You enjoyed the soupe?”

    “Yes, yes,” the oriental professor answered without giving away anything.

    Not long after, Professor Wang took to the podium and literally set the hall ablaze – in a manner of speaking. He had delivered a world class paper in perfect American accent. As he walked back to his seat amid standing ovation from his peers from across the world, he paused ever so briefly by his American ‘friend’ who is still standing reverently and quipped: “You enjoyed the speeche?”

    Prejudice and superiority complex are parts of human nature it must be said but sometimes when served with a distasteful dose of mischief and insult, they sure rankle. This must be the case in the small matter between the Managing Director of Egbin Power Plc., Mr. Dallas Peavey Jnr. and the Minster of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola.

    Addressing some visiting American Senators at his plant recently, Peavey had painted a very dire and dismal picture of the situation at his plant and by extension, the power sector in general. According to report, Peavey told his guests that his plant suffered under an industry-wide debt burden of N125 billion; he also told them that The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) could not evacuate mere 700 megawatts generated by his plant.

    Peavey’s statement of course left the Minister in charge of Power peeved. Like Mr. Wang above, Fashola happens to know his beat a bit and he minced no words in letting the American know that he was either trading in mischief or outright lies. He marched his words with figures as he is wont: only N27 billion of the touted debt has been verified and Egbin plant can only generate 344mw at the time of report because three of its six turbines were not functioning.

    There is no doubt here who has all the facts and who understands the fine details. With most other government gumps, Peavey may have gotten away with what may be mere unthinking bombast – but not with Fash.

  • Miracles still…

    The Holy Scriptures are full of miracles. No; better to say that scriptures are built (based) on miracles. For the faithful of most religions therefore, miracles are the condiments for divine repast. In other words where would faith be without the various supernatural occurrences that accompany worship and buoy belief?

    For the hard of heart who stick up their noses to stories in the realm of miraculous exploits, one happened recently in Ebonyi, southeast of Nigeria. It is actually akin to the one in the Bible that was enacted by the great apostles Paul and Silas.

    Bad belle people (no better way to describe them) who couldn’t stick the piercing truth of the gospel seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the magistrate on false accusation. “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city…” (Acts 16:16). And the magistrates, historical perverters of justice had them stripped and striped without as much as a question asked. Thereafter, they ordered that they be thrown into jail.

    As the story goes, the jailer did not only put them in the innermost part of jail, he fastened their feet; taking no chances.

    At midnight, Paul and Silas sang hymns and made fervent prayers to their God. They ministered to the other prisoners too. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake which shook the foundations of the prison; all doors were flung open and every prisoner’s chains loosed.

    The jailer woke up and seeing all doors open, thought there had been a jail break; he thought all the prisoners had escaped and made to commit suicide. Hold it, Peter told him calmly. We are all here. The jailer obviously never witnessed such a marvel. He trembled and fell before Paul and Silas crying: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” such is the power of miracle.

    Back to today, back to Nigeria; in a community called Okpokueze Nkomoro, in Ebonyi State last Sunday, a similar miracle as told above happened. Some dare-devil young men invaded a Catholic Church (St. Mary’s Parish) and abducted the Priest, Rev. Fr. Timothy Nwanja. They took his cook as well. They also carted away communion wine.

    They were said to have let go the cook and held on to Father Timothy whom they tied up in their hideout and made a ransom demand of N100 million. They had then proceeded to guzzle the communion wine after which the armed trio passed out in deep slumber. Father Timothy reportedly unshackled himself and made good his escape through the window. The police later raided the hideout apprehending one of them.

    If this is not a miracle…

  • Of Owelle, Zuma and Prometheus

    In the rarefied cosmology of deities, the strangest of stuff does happen. In fact, that metaphysical world may well be described as the realm of the unexpected. Even Lucifer upped one day, acted up and was felled from the celestial heights! A benign god today could morph into the most malevolent tomorrow perhaps to achieve some divine purposes while a daredevil deity could sneak up to you dressed like an angel only to ignite  a holocaust.

    Hardball is not about to present a disquisition on deities or take you on an excursion in the land of the gods, no. This piece is about two African personas – Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, Nigeria and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa. Apart from being Black Africans and leaders in their own rights – Rochas and Zuma – may well be two of a kind growing closer to each perhaps for a divine purpose.

    First, the story: last weekend, Governor Okorocah (also popularly known as Owelle) went off the hook as they say in night clubs and did the unexpected. He unveiled a big masquerade in his Owerri, the capital city of his poor southeast state of Imo. His quarry is no mean personality in the person of the South African President, Mr. Jacob Zuma.

    By any measure, Zuma is a big cargo for any state governor to ship down to his domain. But Owelle is not himself ordinary and to prove his mettle he decked Zuma with fantabulous titles and state honours – grand costumes and all.

    Not known for half measures, Owelle named a highway after Mr. Zuma and finally, unveiled a life-sized statue. Not even the great Nelson Mandela enjoys this manner of adulation in Nigeria.

    But before you mix things up, all these are from one great foundation to another: from The Okorocha Foundation to the Jacob Zuma Foundation. Yes, lest anyone accuse Okorocha of acting ultra vires, his age-old foundation with schools across the land has finally built the school that will shame all African schools with intakes from every country of Africa.

    The African school is absolutely free and it is poised to hoist Okorocha at the pinnacle of the African totem… in the company of Zuma and perhaps to be followed by Mugabe, Bongo and King Mswati; African big men of deity stature

    Why is Hardball here being reminded of the Promethean analogy? It was Prometheus, the Greek god who in a moment of daredevilry, stole fire from Zeus, purportedly for the good of mankind. Shall we then say that the gods were at play in Owerri last weekend as Rochas coveted and bedecked Zuma, his kind?

    In South Africa, the rainbow nation is rent in two over Zuma’s presidential heists while in Rochas’ kingdom, Imo State, pensioners practically fall to their deaths out of sheer hunger.

    Who can fathom the ways of the gods

     

     

     

  • From nation’s mom to cry baby?

    Can you, in less than three short years, morph from a flamboyant mother of the nation to a forlorn cry baby, using your dead mom to draw apparent pity?

    That would appear the story of Dame Patience Jonathan, wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, and imperious ex-First Lady during the Jonathan glory years. And it is in her umpteenth tangle with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over alleged sleaze.

    The other day, the dame like no other was pressing her matrimonial duty, to the service of her loving, valorous and dashing husband.  EFCC was after her, she told everyone that was willing — or even unwilling — to listen (you can’t ignore the grand dame, can you?) that EFCC was after her because she gave her husband her all, in his doomed quest for presidential encore.

    Why, she queried, as at the last time she checked, she had not read soulmate-in-media-blunders, US President Donald Trump, go after Michele Obama, simply because she stood by her husband, Barak Obama, not only to win a first term but to land a second.  Despite all the Obama-Trump differences (and the hugest of all being “That American may be White — o sorry, great — again”, that great electioneering slogan), the Obama couple had retired and are living happily ever after, with no harassment whatsoever from the Trump camp.  It was the grand dame at her sententious best.

    That “dame-ly” complaint had hardly died down before the EFCC — o, arch-enemy — came raiding again!  And how so unconscionable — the bank account of sweet, innocent mother!

    Really, how hard could you get, the dame, amid sobs and whimpers, wondered?  Making a final appeal — more sobs — she pleaded that her mom be left to rest in peace.  Not an illegitimate demand, on the face of it.

    But then, EFCC came charging back, that the said account, belonging to mother dearest, was indeed involved in money laundering, allegedly perpetrated by daughter dearest.  It therefore suggests public money was locked in the account, on the alleged manoeuvre of some smart Alecs, reasoning no one, no matter what, would touch the account of the dead.

    Well, is that so?  If it is, then it would be most condemnable and scandalous.  But that would be judging from one side of the story, since it is EFCC’s word against the dame’s.  Still, this is public interest and we should get to the root of this matter.

    That is why, Hardball suggests, EFCC should ensure a total and comprehensive  investigation into the matter; and avail the public of its results.  But since the dame is not the only one under investigation, a charge of especial victimization would appear far-fetched.  But then, you never know!

    That is why the EFCC must move fast and lay the facts bare in the public space.  It is scandalous enough that a mother of the nation, less than three years ago, would turn a cry baby, with tears welling on sweet mother’s grave, for the alleged violation of sweet mother’s account.

    But it must never be at the expense of EFCC, now involved in a tough war against sleaze!  So, over to you, Ibrahim Magu!

     

     

     

     

  • Aso (graft) Clinic

    For some unfathomable reason, the Aso Rock Clinic saga would only elicit morbid emotions in Hardball. He was therefore minded to title this piece, The Aso Morbid Clinic but for the obvious contentious connotation it might trigger. But morbidity is the name of the game where cold undertakers are at work. And no other appellation best suits the perpetrators of this heist than pallbearers and morbid anatomists.

    Let us go to the point lest one asphyxiates on his emotions. Is there any Nigerian who has never heard that delectable voice of the wife of the president, Mrs. Aisha Buhari crying in the desert of Aso Rock, Presidential Villa? Well, in her latest wailing(?) last week, she told Nigerians how she was recently ill and asked to visit the State House Medical Centre (Aso Rock Clinic) and she was advised to go abroad instead.

    Hear her: “I called Aso Rock Clinic to find out if they have an X-Ray machine they said it’s not working.

    “In the end I had to go to a hospital owned and operated by foreigners 100 per cent.

    “There is budget for the hospital and you go there now you will see a number of constructions going on but they don’t have a single syringe there. What is the purpose of the buildings if there is no equipment there to work with?”

    A few days earlier her daughter had also publicly lashed at the management of the clinic, particularly the Permanent Secretary, Jalil Arabi for his inability to provide nary paracetamol in the facility despite a budget of N3 billion.

    It is true and must be stated that there is always a gap between budget figures and actual disbursal, but nobody has denied, and indeed, would dare say that funding was the reason why modest clinical services cannot be maintained in a health facility servicing the number one office in the land.

    Again, though Nigerians are howling and even members of the National Assembly are screaming, what manner of budgeting allows funds to be allocated blindly year-on-year with no question as to how it is disbursed?

    Question again, which budgeting system votes more funds to one clinic than 16 federal teaching hospitals put together?

    Even more question: this utter madness has gone on year-on-year for the past three years at least with none raising eye eyebrow until these two women spoke up. This suggests that there are no checks, no reviews and no audit in the system.

    Yet this administration is fighting graft while graft apparently lives in Villa… right there under the president’s nose. This is indeed a mortifying experience to dwell upon and it is liable to damage both body and soul.

  • Nigeria, stop poaching ‘English’ boys!

    Aidy Boothroyd, England manager, has come up with a most sensational charge  — that Nigeria is “poaching” “English” young players.

    “Poaching”?  Maybe.  But “English” boys?  Give me a break!  Someone, somewhere is having the old Empire mindset, in that epoch of Pax Britannica, which invested much moral romance in soulless plunder!

    The “English boys” of Boothroyd?  Kevin Oghenetega Tamaraebi Bakumo-Abraham (Tammy Abraham, for short) of English Premiership side, Chelsea but currently on loan to Swansea,  Ademola Lookman (Everton) and Sheyi Ojo (Liverpool) — very British sounding names, aren’t they?

    Add the trio to the already “poached”: Chelsea’s Victor Moses, Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi and Chelsea’s Ola Aina (who debuted for Nigeria in Uyo against Zambia); and also the triad of Dominic Solanke (Liverpool), Fikayo Tomori (Chelsea, though on loan to Brighton  Hove Albion) and John Onomah (Spurs), who  with Abraham,  Lookman and Ojo, who made up the “Nigerian 6” in England’s reigning FIFA U-20 World champions,  you’d probably empathize, if not sympathize, with the Three Lions manager.

    Brothroyd’s charge came with the speculation that Tammy Abraham had committed his international future to Nigeria.  Though that turned out false, it sparked  something near panic in the England camp.

    Still, Brothroyd’s alarm would appear not without some basis.  After securing U-20 World Cup glory, 51 years after England’s World Cup triumph at home in 1966, the British media are already touting the victorious squad England’s new “golden generation”, after the Portugal generation of Luiz Figo, whose U-20 set won the FIFA U-20 World Cup back-to-back in 1989 (beating Nigeria, after the Damman miracle) and 1991, but couldn’t replicate that feat — neither at the full national level in Europe Nations Cup (even as hosts) nor at the full World Cup.

    Might England be set for the same fate?  If six out of the victorious squad were ethnic Nigerians, and local English talents appear not in ready surplus, the alarm bells must start clanging.

    But it is sheer lexical misadventure, for the England manager to claim Nigeria was “poaching”.  On the face of it, maybe, since the boys were in the England team.  But can you poach what is yours by birth?  And “England” players — with heavy, unmistakable Nigerian names?  Still, you got to feel for England!

    Nevertheless, if manager Brothroyd is not suggesting any betrothal that yokes non-English youths capped by England junior national teams, from playing from their country of origin at full international level, according to FIFA rules, he can’t seriously be talking of Nigeria poaching anybody.

    So Nigeria, stop poaching “English” boys — that would be immoral and dastardly!  But by all means, insist on as many of your nationals abroad, playing anywhere on the globe, so long as they are willing to play ball for motherland.

    Well, Britain had its Pax Britannica, the glorious years of the empire at home but gory times for the subdued races.  Maybe it’s Nigeria’s own time for Pax Nigerianna, on the football pitch.  Nothing dastardly about this — no conquest, no subjugation, no colonialization.  Just claiming your own to play football!

    How can that be bad for anyone — England or Nigeria?

  • Brutish banking

    It used to be man’s inhumanity to man but in today’s Nigeria, we have banks acting mean and unduly brutish. In many transactions and relationships, they put forward a take-no-prisoners and have-no-mercy attitude. Indeed, banks and their managers have been in the public shere for some time now for notorious reasons.

    For some chronicling, we have seen bank chiefs grow fatter than their entire bank and some converting the entire business into their private entity under the very noses of the board or the so-called owners. Banks have been fingered in massive money laundering scams with politicians; foreign exchange round-tripping and insider trading in public offerings of shares as well as a touch of insider loan racketeering.

    But all this may be old story compared to the current caper in the industry. One of the biggest banks, in Nigeria today recently wielded a sharp axe and literally brought down the heads of about 3000 yoothful Nigerian workers between August and September this year. It was such a cold-blooded act that it has been impossible to clean the splatter of blood from their huge glass and concrete edifice.

    Here is some background to the story: about nine years ago, this big bank had massively engaged thousands of youths with OND (Ordinary National Diploma) and NCE (National Certificate of Education) as casual staff. Now it didn’t matter if you had higher qualifications and many of those engaged had but knew better than to bring them out.

    They were recruited, trained and spread across the the bank’s branches across the country as tellers, customer service officers, retail banking, I.T. staff among other units and departments. In a period of about nine years, only a handful was converted while the rest remained as casual staff standing in dutifully, oiling the engine of the great bank.

    Suddenly, on certain Fridays of August and September, and by mere text messages, these hapless casuals were laid off just like that. About two weeks earlier, fresh casuals had been brought and put through by the old ones.

    Now these used-and-dumped hands were not entitled to any loans, bonuses, profit sharing, etc. all they had was the meager salary of OND/NCE holders which were slightly increased over the period. Meanwhile some of them having mastered the job had also acquired HND certificate and even masters degrees.

    While all these may be excused, the most brutish part of this amoral transaction is that these young Nigerians were laid off without any severance pay. All they got was one month salary in lieu of termination notice.

    Shall we just call it brutish banking.

  • Happy people, sore losers

    yeah, Gernot Rohr can roar loud and clear: he has attained the, before now, almost impossible: get the Super Eagles qualified for the  Mundial, with a match to spare.

    Look back at the first ever World Cup qualification in 1994, and you could easily see the magic Rohr has wrought.

    With a gang not a few believed was Nigeria’s best-ever 11, the Eagles of the legendary captain Stephen Keshi (of blessed memory), “criminally” talented Austin “Jay-Jay” Okocha, Rashidi Yekinni (the late CAF African footballer of the Year and the first Nigerian to score at the World Cup, with his opener against Bulgaria in USA ’94), Emmanuel Amuneke (whose two strikes stopped Zambia in the 1994 Nations Cup final, after the Chipolopolo had gone ahead in a testy final, before providing the winner against Argentina to nick the Olympic gold in Atlanta ’96), and Dan “the bull” Amokachi (who took more than gold from Tunisia ’94, where he also took away his future wife and mother of his male twins) could only qualify for USA ’94, after a nervy draw with Algeria, that chilly night in Annaba.

    But look at what Rohr, with his lads, have done today.  Sure, to Algeria they go for the final play-off in November 11.  But unlike 1994,  it’s a mere formality — no permutations, no heart aches, no appeal to anyone to do us a favour by beating another foe, no final-day qualification cliffhanger!

    For the first time in Nigerian sporting history, the job was done and dusted — and in such majestic and mercurial style: played five, won four, drawn one, thrashing Cameroon 4-0 and the only one, among the quad of Nigeria, Zambia, Cameroon and Algeria to beat the hard-working Zambians home and away, during the series.

    Ah, another “Okocha” was “alpha and omega” of that Cinderella tale: Alex Iwobi scored the opening goal to qualification in the first match away to Zambia.  He also applied the final nail, with his Uyo sweet winner.  Of course, his name is Alex Iwobi, the legendary “Jay-Jay” Okocha nephew who, with co-youngster, Kelechi Iheanacho, the mouthy Zambians mocked back in Ndola: kids don’t play football!  Iwobi and Iheanacho sure showed them: kids not only play football, they wreck adults, crippled by their own hubris!  Between them, they scored the opening two goals.

    Congrats, Nigeria.  Congrats, Rohr.  Congrats, Super Eagles.

    But what if the team had much as faltered at Uyo on the day, or even played a draw, thus condemning everyone to the final-day cliffhanger?  A loss or a draw would not have ended Nigeria’s quest.  It would have only held it off to the final day.

    Still, the reaction would have been as if the team had lost all their four previous matches.  It would have been endless lamentations, curses, abuses and even fabrication of real or imagined sleaze, needing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to move in on Amaju Pinninck and his Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) team.

    Others would have moaned — as they did, when the same team, at the same venue, lost to South Africa, in an African Nations Cup qualifier — that nothing good could ever come out of Nigerian football, so long as Solomon Dalung is Sports minister!  Well, Dalung is still Sports minister, and he has bested all previous Sports ministers, as far as Nigeria’s World Cup story is concerned.

    Nigerians must savour their success.  But they must also know that failure is no monopoly of anyone.

    Happy people, yeah!  Sore losers, in those rare occasions?  Naaaaaaaa!