The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Palm Avenue: healing sore of a council

    Palm Avenue: open sore of a council” (July 26) was Hardball’s take on the scandalous haven of craters that was Palm Avenue.  Yet, that high street  is the “metropolis” of Mushin Local Government, which ought to be a model to other streets.

    Well, it was no model; as some of the worst craters were on the virtual nose of the local government headquarters, hemming it in, as it were, in two provocative locations.

    The crater at the Owhin Street junction, almost in front of the council, seemed to shout: welcome to seedy street, of a rotten council, where everything seemed to have decayed.  It was an eternal shame, indeed, for a council chair to traverse that road to his office everyday and not feel some deep pain.

    The crater — or set of craters — at the Oremeji Street junction, just after the Mobil fuel station, also seemed to wave the driver bye-bye, poste-haste, from a council where, from the parlous state of its best high street, nothing seems to work.

    After that, you seem to flee, with the shock of a tolerable section, past the Methodist church, until Palm Avenue’s meeting with Isolo Road, that connects Mushin via Daleko, to Isolo.  But at the mouth of that T-junction, with its rash of Marwa commercial tricycles, Okada and minibuses sprouting an illicit park, lay another set of craters!

    But not any more!  This morning, Hardball is proud to announce that all those craters and potholes that pork-marked this road have been fixed; and driving is much more comfortable.

    For that, it is kudos to the newly elected Mushin Local Government executive.  When Hardball made his first take on the road, the local government elections had just been lost and won.

    Hardball was hard on the new executive, as if they were responsible for the decay.  In a sense, that was right, for government is always a continuum.  But in another sense, it was not so right, since the blame rested squarely with the departed caretaker administration, and perhaps the last elected council.

    Observing the situation days after the initial report, you could come to the conclusion that the new council was, the usual Nigerian way, playing deaf and dumb to public opinion, with the apologia that it just assumed work, and would therefore take “forever” to settle down.

    Well, Hardball was joyfully “disappointed” as he drove past one day to find work in progress on the bad portions of the road.  That is how it should be.  A government of the grassroots, should put its ears to the ground, so that it can listen to the grassroots!

    Even at that, the council should do something fast about the illicit park at the Palm Avenue-Isolo road junction.  That park causes needless traffic jams, with the Okadas and Marwas and mini-buses holding other road users to ransom.  Surely, a park should not be at a busy T-junction?

    Still, this is a good beginning.  But the Mushin council should build on this initial good show to address the intolerably high number of bad roads in its territory.  Let the council work gang hit the streets working.  The people would be glad they did!

  • Rat story

    so, rats had a field day while the President was away. “Following the three months period of disuse, rodents have caused a lot of damage to the furniture and the air conditioning units,” according to Shehu Garba, the   Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari  on Media and Publicity.

    This is why Buhari, who returned to Nigeria after a 103-day medical vacation, will work from home and not from his office, Garba explained, adding that it was impossible for his boss to use the office in that condition. A report said:  ”He said renovation work was necessary to make the office conducive but that it won’t affect the pace of work because the President has a well-equipped office at home.”

    This rat story not only raises questions; it calls into question the maintenance culture at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, where the residence and office of the President are located. The picture of extensive damage painted by Garba suggests that the President’s office was badly neglected.

    Who is responsible for keeping the President’s office in good condition?  What happened? Why was the place allowed to become a base of rats?  Where did the invaders come from?  What is the rat population at the Aso Villa? How many rats gained access to the President’s office? What attracted them to the office?  Were they aware of the importance of the office? What things did they do in the office?

    Further questions: Why did they destroy “the furniture and the air conditioning units”? Are the destructive rats still around at the Aso Villa?  Where have they moved to, given that the office is no longer available for their use?

    The President is expected to go back to his main office after the ongoing renovation has been completed.  A report said: “It was gathered that the renovation work was being carried out by the construction giant, Julius Berger, and it was uncertain when or how long the renovation would last.”

    The problem is that the damage credited to actual rodents may well be insignificant compared with the damage caused by figurative rodents.  What about the rat race at the Aso Villa? A definition says rat race is “a way of referring to the situation in modern society in which people compete with each other for money and power.”

    The Aso Villa is a fertile place for power competition as well as money competition. This may well explain why the President’s office was left open to invasion by rats. Those who should have ensured that the President’s office was well maintained in Buhari’s absence were perhaps preoccupied with power and money.

  • Ahiara: A very Catholic situation

    Not many people may know that Catholicism is not merely a state of being a Catholic, or the practices and doctrines of the Roman Catholics. It means much more than that. In fact, it also connotes universality of views and liberal sentiments. May we therefore conjecture that the five-year long imbroglio of the Ahiara Diocese of the Catholic Church in Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria, has become a very Catholic situation?

    Everyone must be conversant with this now infamous. The Catholic faithful in Ahiara Diocese may be said to have chewed up their own hair, as the saying goes in Igbo. They insist they would have their way in the matter of installing a new bishop for their diocese. They insist a home-boy priest be made bishop or no bishop at all.

    Their recalcitrance reminds one of the band of malcontent Jews in the New Testament who bound themselves under an oath that “they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.” They were at once murderous and suicidal in their singular objective. A coalition of clerics and laity in this case may not have the passion of the Roman Jews but they sure have something.

    They have defied all entreaties – traditional rulers, state governors, archbishops and now the Papa himself, the Holy Pontiff. Former Pope Benedict XVI appointed Bishop Peter Okpalaeke in December 2012. However, his ordination had to be done in neighbouring Owerri Diocese. Ahiara Clergy and Laity did not only march around the town in protest clad in black attire, they deposited a coffin at the gate of the cathedral; invoking a fetish twist to their repudiation of Rome.

    However, the new Pope Francis went ahead with the Episcopal ordination and installation of Okpalaeke all the same. But albeit, it was held ex-cathedra, in a manner of speaking, in May 2013 but he has remained in exile, so to speak, since then. The massive Cathedral of Ahiara also remains under locks.

    A meeting was of all stakeholders was called in the Vatican but the rejectionist would not show up. An incensed Pope Francis most regrettably, threw in some harsh words; describing the Ahiara faithful as like the murderous tenants in the Gospel of Matthew who wanted to steal inheritance.

    He then issued ultimatum to all priest of Mbaise origin to personally and individually write apology letter to him. They all did yet trouble brews.

    Now the Clergy may have withdrawn into the shadows while the Laity keeps up the agitation. “What is happening in Ahiara is an affront and it is unheard of in Catholicism… it is an embarrassment to Nigeria,” according to the Catholic Secretariat. What will the Pope do now?

  • Sour grapes from FFK

    His Rotten Verbal Majesty, Femi Fani-Kayode, has some newly plucked sour grapes, just to endure President Muhammadu Buhari’s safe return, despite his evil pronouncements that the president would not come home alive from his medical vacation in London, UK.

    The good thing though, is that the biting sourness is for his and his teeth alone — and maybe Ayo Fayose’s, who nevertheless has begged.  As they say in the scriptures: it is tantamount to the fathers eating sour grapes and setting their children’s teeth on edge.

    Given the historic nuisance value of Fani-Kayodes in past and present politics, FFK could well be living this biblical aphorism.  The only difference is that he needed no forebears to procure him any sour grapes.  On that, he is more than self-sufficient.

    After it came to be known the president was coming home, after Charly Boy, the maverick Area Fada almost came a sad cropper, after his Ourmumudondo Return-or-Resign protest at Wuse Market, Abuja, FFK merrily tweeted, claimed it was Charly Boy’s derring-do that got Buhari scuttling home.

    Well, Nigeria is an equal-opportunity crank-dom, where every crank that has access to the social media, presses his democratic right to claims, no matter how wild or bizarre — and expects his backers to hail.

    On that, FFK was both hailed and nailed, depending on where his readers stood.  But it was clear he was trying to underplay his bizarre boast that President wouldn’t come home alive.  Sour grape 1 — and was his teeth not set on edge, seeing the president come in to a tumultuous welcome!

    Even before living that down, the president let off a granite speech, 7am on Monday, warning to those he called “trouble makers”, who always ran away at the first manifestation of the trouble they brewed — or else!

    Well, Hardball wouldn’t totally agree with the president on all fronts.  Nigerian unity is neither settled nor closed.  It is still a work-in-progress, depending on so many variables —but certainly too many, for a country that has had flag independence for 56, going to 57 years.

    Still, that should be no reason for a few to use that to threaten Armageddon, blaze hate and banish lawful citizens from legitimate aspirations, nationwide.  That is where, as the Yoruba say, the zealots have taken their sacrifice beyond the mosque!  So, the president was quite spot on, to read the riot act.

    But perhaps all that didn’t concern FFK, as his sour grape, No. 2, bit deep!  As the president was marshaling his points, FFK, from his reportage later, got his sight — indeed, his whole being — fixed on his president’s hands.  His triumphal report?  The president couldn’t read his speech without his hands shaking!

    Well, better shaking hands than FFK’s morbid prediction, which fell pat on FFK’s irate face.

    You can’t make a case for the left-handed at old age.  FFK’s psyche appears so poisoned it doesn’t appear to make sense, telling him to change tack.  He would appear beyond redemption, when the issue is polite dissent; and resisting taking a tumble in the sewers.

    Still, he would do well to listen to God’s admonition.  If you don’t give life, you can’t predict its exit.  That is tantamount to playing God — and playing God, as FFK’s bizarre conduct has shown, is nothing but roaring folly!

  • Muscle-flexing without muscle

    Ahead of the governorship election scheduled to hold in Anambra State on November 18, it would appear that those who have no muscle to stop the election from taking place believe they have the muscle to do so.  The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the separatist group led by the controversial character called Nnamdi Kanu, is sticking to its guns and    threatening to prevent the election from taking place.

    The anti-election drama started in June with this ultimatum issued by Kanu: “If the Federal Government does not agree with us on a date for referendum, there will be no elections in the Southeast; we are starting with Anambra come November this year. There will be no governorship election in Anambra State.” He took the issue further: “In 2019, the whole of Biafra land will not vote for any president. There will be no senator, there will be no House of Reps, there will be no House of Assembly and there will be no councilorship elections in Biafra land if the Federal Government fails to call for a referendum.”

    It isn’t only what Kanu said that was confrontational; how he said it was equally confrontational.  It is about two months after the confrontational language and attitude, and about three months to the planned election that provoked the provocation.

    News that the group had a rethink and a review didn’t bring public relief because the group was quick to react with unchanged antagonism. Kanu’s media aide, Darlington Chukwubuikem Okolie, strongly denied a report that IPOB had withdrawn its threat. Okolie said in a statement:  ”Whoever said that (there has been a shift in IPOB’s position) is telling lies. The media is fond of spreading falsehood about us. Kanu can never go back on his word. There will be no election in Anambra. There is nothing anybody can do about this. Any media that is reporting that Kanu has withdrawn his call to boycott Anambra election is simply publishing false reportage.”

    Could it be true that “There is nothing anybody can do about this”? That can’t be true. But it is true that members of the group are acting like people who are out of tune with reality, and who are mistaking their delusion for reality. This separatist group is entitled to its enthusiasm for separatism. But when its over-enthusiasm results in overreaching, it must be told in clear terms that there are boundaries. This muscle-flexing is absurd because the group has no muscle.

  • Lounging Reps

    Sweet is the savour of cheap lucre in the mouth of the lazy lounger; though he thinks himself joyful, peace eludes him. Well, don’t go searching the Holy Scriptures for the source of  this (wise) saying for it  is vintage Hardball. Yes, you may take it to the bank. But let’s admit that it is not entirely original… yes, to the extent that it was easily inspired by some indolent House of Representatives members.

    A perspective report on the front page of Daily Trust (August 10, 2017) revealed that two years after inauguration, 161 out of 360 members of the House of Representatives are yet to sponsor nary a bill. Now let’s put it in further perspective: one, the primary duty of a legislator in the scheme of any government is to make laws.

    So, if at half term, a large number of the members have not mustered even one bill, then it is a cause for concern. However, it may be argued that initiating a bill is one and pushing it through is another. It is indeed said that it takes collective effort to get a bill passed. True.

    But joining the crowd, or getting in the shadow of another member’s bill may be okay but not when one member like Uzoma Nkem-Abonta (PDP, Abia/Southeast) has 50 bills; Ossai Nicholas Ossai (PDP, Delta,/South South) has 46 bills respectvely in two years.

    But a sampling of the following members from the six zones have zero bill: Alhassan Ado Doguwa (Kano/ Chief whip), Joseph Adebayo (Lagos), Mahmud Lawan Maina (Borno), Dagomie Abiante (Rivers), Abubakar Lado (Niger), Okechukwu Eze (Anambra).

    Another point to be made is that lawmakers are well equipped to build adequate capacity to work through bills. Since they are not by any means Socrates or Cicero and they are not expected to act as one, they are imbued with enough financial allowances to employ quality legal minds and intellectuals to help them think through ideas. So is it a case of barber deficient in skill or are his clippers blunt?

    Most notable though, is that whether you have 50 or zero bills, members got their bounties in equal measures and in full. According to the report, each House of Reps member earns N8.26 million monthly. In the period under review, each of them has pocketed about N214.7 million so far. Whoa!

    And it doesn’t matter if you have slept through the entire period or you live abroad and showed up once a month; you got your largesse all the same. So, sweet indeed is the savour of cheap lucre…

  • How doughty is your moral armour?

    This tale may well be apocryphal, but it falls in tandem with the smelly puss, oozing from the killings in the house of God in Ozobulu, Anambra State.

    A victim, who escaped unscathed, even if he was bang in the line of satanic fire, was reported lamenting he at least should have resisted falling; but instead smash his mouth against the chairs or other hard objects.

    Reason?  Because if he had taken a bad fall, even not a bad bullet, he would be on hospital admission now.  That, he reasoned, would qualify him for a largesse of N5 million, an alleged payout to victims who lost an arm or two, or suffered a bruise.

    The benefactor?  The same “Bishop” alleged to be involved in the reported drug war, which allegedly caused the early morning massacre, at the cathedral!  Reportedly, a far huger sum — N10 million or N15 million — was earmarked for families whose offspring was among the dead.

    Now, can you beat that?  To start with, if a character allegedly donated a church in memory of his late mother, and on the basis of his link with the church, a gunman (or gunmen) stormed the facility to kill and maim, shouldn’t any of the victims shun any gift from such a person?

    Then if indeed, it was a drug war, and the person at the vortex of the whole saga was a drug lord as alleged, does it not logically follow that whatever compensation, no matter how generous, was a proceed of crime which ought to be shunned by all law-abiding citizens?

    If the tale from Ozobulu is true, the opposite reasoning was the case.  That shows how deep into the sewers Nigerian collective morality has sunk in these contemporary times.

    But even if morality is now so subjective it is determined by individual differences, what about the law?  Shouldn’t the law have stepped in, knowing that the “Bishop” has serious allegations hanging around his neck, and ensured he cleared his name first?  At least that would save the community from what, if any charge is proven, would pass for nothing but cynical generosity.

    Still, before you go gloating and mocking and blasting the Ozobulu folks, just imagine how your own community, East or West, North or South, rural or urban, would have managed similar temptations.

    Well, the dead are dead, aren’t they?  And the injured are impaired, many perhaps with live-long injuries?  Well, some windfall may come handy, just to better bear the pains of the irreparable loss — is that not so?

    If you reason that way, then your morality is right in the sewers.  That appears to hold true of not a few today, particularly when the issue is free money and unearned privilege.

    It’s the Ozobulu in everyone — sad!

  • Ozubulu: Yesterday and today

    Ozubulu, Anambra State, is in the news on account of the August 6 gun attack at St. Philip’s Catholic Church in which 13 people were killed.

    What happened brought to the surface a similarly tragic incident that happened about 10 years ago. The traditional ruler of Ozubulu community, Fidelis Nnamdi Oruche, said in an interview: “This incident I am telling you happened around 2007. Four of our security men were killed in a very agonising and painful manner by unknown people. Their body parts were not complete as we buried them. Their tongues, eyes and even private parts were taken away.”

    He continued the tale of terror: “They were dragged into a bush where they killed them. It was painful. My brother was among the 2007 victims. The government and security agencies are aware of the issue. Their killers disguised by wearing camouflages. The victims were blindfolded. The palm wine tapper who saw them told us. We are still asking questions to know why they were killed and where their organs were taken to.”

    Similarly, the public is asking questions about the latest carnage.  In both cases, the evildoers should not go unpunished.

    Oruche spoke about the community’s response to the church bloodbath: “I told you that the spiritual solutions to the development have begun. We are bringing back our old culture into the spiritual inquiry. We are going to approach the issue using the Igbo spiritual method of seeking solutions to their problems.”

    Was this method used concerning the earlier incident? Ozubulu needs a method that works.

  • Why A is no longer for Apple

    ‘A’ is now for Arsenal, ‘B’ for ball…and ‘N’ for Neymar. Hardball wagers that this would be the new primer for learning the English alphabets.

    Of course you have guessed it, if you lived on planet earth that is. But Hardball insists that if you have not heard about that football transfer record of this age, then you may well be living in Mars and we plead with you to return to earth pronto and join the bazaar!

    As noted above, ‘A’ is no longer for Apple in the kindergarten primer, it’s for Arsenal or Adidas. ‘B’ of course remains for ball but if you know the current deal, you will make it Barca or Bayern. ‘C’ for Coutinho, or Conte, ‘D’ for Dortmund or Danilo, ‘E’ for EPL, “F” for FIFA or Ferguson…

    ‘M’ would be strictly for – you guessed it – Messi; while ‘R’ would represent Ronaldo or Real Madrid and ‘W’ for Wenger, etc. Go ahead and draw your own A – Z of football for today’s kids.

    Woe betide you those days if you strayed into a football fray on your way from school and played your evening away. Your parents were sure to wallop the daylight out of you. But today, woe betide the parent who does not pay interest in football.

    Football seems poised to take over the world eventually going by its current pricing. Footballers are not only becoming the best earners in the world, their pay and fees have become Neymarish!

    Yes, back to Neymar da Silva Santos Junior, (Neymar for short). This 25-year-old Brazilian soccer whiz has just struck an astronomical transfer deal from Barcelona to Paris Saint-German (PSG). The footballing world apparently did not see it coming.

    When Barcelona slammed a release clause of 222m Euros on Neymar, they probably thought it was impossible for any club to contemplate the option not to mention pay it. But what seemed like a joke at first is now football’s new reality.

    While a coach has described the transaction as “financial doping”, some analysts think the price is right, wagering that Neymay’s cost may rise to about 1 billion euros over the next few years… a the glorious new future of football.

    And here is the catch: those who have head for figures say Neymar would earn about N250 million a week! You see why A will never be for apple again?

  • Ajekun Iya rumble

    Dino Melaye is done and dusted — either as first-ever recall scalp, to weed Nigeria’s highest legislative chamber of searing rascality and insensate representation?

    Or, as alleged, a survival strategy by suborning the court process, to subvert the will of the people, and vanquish the spirit, if not the letter, of the law itself?

    Not quite.  Raging out there, in Kogi West senatorial district, is the

    Ajekun Iya rumble.  The streets rock and quake.  It could go either way.

    Did they expect the great Dino Melaye, Ajekun Iya founder, author and finisher; and grand exponent, to quit without  putting up a fight?  Remember, we talk of roforofo fight here, where this all-conquering General has quite a track record.

    On a visit to Kabba, the old provincial capital some two weeks ago, Hardball saw quite a storm-troop of posters, urging the great Dino, the absolute lord of cacophonies, urging himself on.

    Austine Okocha, the world famous ball juggler and enchanting dribbler, so dazed the British press they hailed him in absolute terms: “Jay-Jay is so good,” the Brits enthused in their papers, referring to his even more famous moniker, “they named him twice.”

    Dino?  He’s so loud, din is embedded in his self-given moniker!  All that has come to the fore, in this recall-induced Ajekun Iya rumble!

    “File be. (Leave it as it is)”, the posters, in full roaring colour, decreed.  “No to recall Senator Dino Melaye.  I support Dino Melaye.”  Of course, you do, mate!  If you didn’t, why would you have gone through all this trouble?

    Well, who is the “I”?  Dino Melaye himself, roaringly supporting himself even if no one held did?  Hardly a crime, in the “democratic” equivalent of combat, where you either kill or are killed.

    Does “I” mean the generic singular of the great multitude, of millions, all zestfully rooting for the good senator, against alleged gubernatorial Leviathan, young and rash, sworn to, willy-nilly, elbowing the senator out of the public space?

    Or, the “I”, just some fictive bluff, from some phantom crowd, no more than the din emanating from no one but Dino himself?

    Nobody knows!  But what is sure: Dino and his traducers are the proverbial cock, walking the tightrope — neither the coke nor the taunt rope may just have kissed peace bye-bye.

    Just to return to the bona fides: Hardball avers Dino is a man of the people, far more popular, far more educated and certainly far more sophisticated than Chief Nanga, MP, that sorry Chinua Achebe creation, in the novel, A Man of the People.

    Dino is a class act!  A full-fledged senator of the Federal Republic, House of Representatives emeritus, with flaming anti-corruption credentials, and distinguished graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, with special privileges, from the eternal visitor, to wear the great citadel’s ceremonial garbs to Senate proceedings, committee or plenary.  He is an old boy in whom good, old ABU is well pleased.

    Well, did you murmur he was an eternal student, who spent two thousand seasons, just to earn — no, bag — his first degree?  That’s your cup of tea!  Wait — are you the university historian?

    Anyway, that is the formidable guy they want to unhorse!

    The great Ajekun Iya rumble is on — and what a helluva battle!  Now, who blinks?