The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Farce meets phantasmagoria

    If anyone did a survey of ‘Global Governance Quality’ (GSQ) today, Nigeria would probably top the table from the bottom. Like most other indices of human development currently subjected to statistical measure the world, Nigeria is not likely to fare any better in GSQ.

    First, in a larger part of the sprawling landscape of this country, there is a dire absence of government as most of the 774 local government areas are either completely shut down or in comatose state. Federal and state governments can only do so much. And even at that, all the chains of governance seem to have broken and institutions are functioning in the breach. Many workers in various departments have long forgotten their raison d’etre.

    Of course this explains the acute dysfunction and alienation in the land. Terrorists, cultists, kidnappers, armed gangs, area boys, land grabbers and agitators have virtually taken over the entire space of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And whatever is left of government is on the back foot, always reacting to various stuff thrown at it by various malevolent stakeholders who get emboldened by the day.

    From the foregoing, Hardball is particularly pained when it observes some state governors and ministers who ought to be showing class in terms of governance quality acting in manners bordering on the farcical.

    Issues emanating from the government of Akwa Ibom State in the past few months leave one dumb-struck to say the least. First there was the misadventure of a misconceived and misbegotten church programme to which the state governor pulled a mammoth crowd and which turned horribly fatal.

    Then there was a massive reception of the governor by his kinsfolk which was a carnival where no cost was spare. Now it is the governor’s 51st birthday in which government appointees are seeking to out-do or if you like, do down one another in paying tribute to the ‘super’ governor. A particular one in a national newspaper stands out. And for a full effect, excerpts are reproduced below.

    It is a full page colour advertisement from the Office of the Accountant-General of Akwa Ibom State. Here: “Your Excellency Sir, as we celebrate your birthday, we also celebrate with pride, the birth of massive industrialization of our dear State, evident in Toothpick Industry, Pencil Producing Industry, Akwa Hatchery, Metering company, Cocoa Plantation, Coconut Plantation, Coconut Oil Refinery… In the spirit of this historic event and in the joy arising from the dividends of your superior performance, we the Management and Staff of Accountant-General’s Office, are upbeat in identifying with Your Excellency on this memorable occasion.”

    This is simply phantasmagoria writ large, if you know it.

  • The more the merrier?

    Does it matter how many lawyers appear for a party in a case before the Supreme Court? Should it matter? Well, it would appear that lawyers think size matters, meaning that as many lawyers as possible should be allowed to appear for a party in a case.

    Well, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, thinks otherwise.  On July 10, he announced a new way of doing things. According to a report, Justice Onnoghen changed the old way of doing things “shortly before the Supreme Court opened proceedings in the two appeals filed by former governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Pary (PDP) in Edo State, Osagie Ize-Iyamu.”

    This is what Justice Onnoghen said: “There was a matter we had here and 106 lawyers appeared, the whole space was taken up and some lawyers had to stand and others sit on the floor. I have issued a directive, which should extend to other courts, that lawyers appearing in the Supreme Court should not be more than five for each party, including the lead lawyers.”

    He further said: “This large number of lawyers doesn’t only consume space; it takes take time to announce appearance. Appearance in cases have to have utility value, such appearance has to serve a purpose. I have to repeat this directive today, because I believe it was not brought to the attention of the Bar.”

    Justice Onnoghen’s position makes a lot of sense. But it is said that old habits die hard.  Perhaps this explains why a senior lawyer, right there and then, still argued for the old way of doing things.

    The report said: “Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Wole Olanipekun (SAN) who was in court for the Ize-Iyamu appeals, appealed to the CJN to allow 30 lawyers per party…Olanipekun said on the utility value, he agreed that a junior lawyer appearing in court with his senior must have a role to play in court in the matter, but that in some cases there are clients, who insist on having some lawyers on the list. He added that because many senior advocates are involved in some cases, they are often accompanied by a number of lawyers.”

    Certainly, there is a big difference between five and 30. Justice Onnoghen’s final response: “We are not saying a litigant is not entitled to a counsel of his choice. He can have a whole Bar. But, for the purpose of appearance, a choice of the few number should be made by the lead counsel. I have issued instruction out to the Bar; it should not be more than five. That is the position for now.”

    For lawyers who think otherwise, it’s time to rethink the matter.

  • Failed politicians? What of failed priests?

    Nigeria is a great one for neither-nor figures, convoking neither-nor fora, assuming neither-nor names and thundering neither-nor verdicts, just to press neither-nor patriotism!

    The National Peace Committee (NPC), under the chair of former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, and convened by the priestly-constant-in-the-public-space, Matthew Hassan Kukah, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, fits into such profiling.

    It just indicted “failed politicians” for the umpteenth tension in the land.  The NPC is an adjunct of the Matthew Hassan Kukah Centre.  But on Kukah, the medium and the message excellently gel in patriotic platitudes, given the priest’s own glaring failure as a moral voice.

    What does Hardball mean, by a charge not a few would insist is sensational, if not outright grievous?

    Simple.  With all of Kukah’s huffing-and-puffing, what is his stand on corruption, the most serious plague, ever to threaten the existence of Nigeria he so dearly loves?

    Well, Hardball remembers.  Kukah would rather the country “moved on”, grateful that Goodluck Jonathan had handed over after electoral defeat; and should consider itself privileged to drink from the poisoned chalice he handed over!  When outrage came from different directions, Kukah resorted to his time-tested sophistry of saying so much and yet saying nothing!

    Despite an eternal moral grandstanding, Kukah has remained near-funereally silent on condemning and punishing corruption.  If that is no grievous priestly failure, Hardball doesn’t know what else is.  Yet, here is Kukah posturing yet again about failed politicians!

    Of course, the Kukah case is fitting metaphor for Christendom Nigeria.

    Take Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) president, Sam Ayokunle, of the Baptist Convention.  One would have thought that after the wasted Ayo Oritsejafor years under Jonathan, CAN would have turned another leaf from its can of worms of chasing shadows and shunning substance.  Fond hope!

    Rev. Ayokunle, it is, who is leading a barren campaign over a new school curriculum, even when its details, and rationale, have been explained over and over.

    CAN postures some imaginary forces were imposing Islamic Religious Studies on others; and the same noxious forces are wiping Christian Religious Studies (CRS) from the curriculum.  That would have been utterly condemnable, if true.  But again, the proof was only in their Holiness’s ultra-creative imagination, fired by bigotry, if not actual visceral hate!

    O, another integral part of the CAN war: studying Arabic in schools, even in those swathes of the country in which that language has socio-religious-cultural significance, is evil!

    Yet, at other fora, these same characters would wax lyrical on “restructuring” and “true federalism”!  But pray: how can you accept “true federalism” in politics, and yet reject “true federalism” in the curriculum, within the same polity?

    That is the blatant contradiction in CAN’s anti-Arabic campaign.   In any case, you cannot accept English but reject Arabic.  Both are vehicles of cultural imperialism, used to plant Christianity and Islam in the African mind.

    But the clincher in all the hypocrisy is the Kukah NGO is condemning hate!  Who has contributed more to the tension and hate in the country today, than these intolerant pastors, who in their combustible preaching to the converted, go on as if whoever has a different faith is an enemy?

    As the Bible says, let these holy fathers remove the beam in their own eyes first, before working on the speck in others’, discussing the spread of hate!

    And while still at it, they should examine and thoroughly purge themselves of their own ignoble attempts at distracting the public, simply because Jonathan, their preferred candidate, lost the 2015 polls.

  • Of military, cash and epaulets

    Cash is king… everything else is caviar! This is one of those bar room wisecracks of those heady days when naira was a sturdy currency of exchange and take home pay did not only take you home but could also frequently take you to some  nice after-work places with your pals.

    It is a call-and-response joke in which someone says cash is king… and someone else completes it as exampled in the opening sentence. And there were dozens and dozens of ‘crazy’ responses like: cash is king… everything else is cruel; or everything else is cold beer; or everything else is ‘bulls’, and so on.

    As one beheld the story of one dozen military officers currently on trial for a total of N102 billion, this joke came rushing to mind. For these top brass military men, one wonders how they would have responded to this joke. Let’s conjecture; let’s try out a few: cash is king, everything else is epaulet. Now epaulets are those fancy shoulder decorations you see on military officers. How apt.

    A national newspaper, New Telegraph did a beautiful piece of perspective journalism on Friday, June 30, 2017 when it arrayed on its front page, 12 military officers who are on trial for allegedly coveting a collective sum of N102 billion; yes, one hundred and two billion naira (just for the avoidance of doubt). The newspaper had on its front page, a photo collage of these men and the estimated sums they are facing trials for: perceptive and incisive journalism on display.

    But this is not about quality journalism but about a reprobate military institution where cash was king, kingdom and indeed god. Though they are still facing trial, many have returned various sums amounting to billions of naira. The issue here however is that the sums in question are simply mind-bending.

    The officers, mainly generals cut across the three services, namely army, navy and air force. Again, these men are undergoing trial but the figures pasted against their names could instantly make a weak mind migrainoid. Let’s take a few samples: Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Atewe, N19.7 billion; Air Marshal Dikko Umar, N4.8 billion; Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, N3.97 billion; Col. Nicholas Ashinze, N3.1 billion; Admiral Dele Ezeoba, N1.82 billion and among the trio of Air Marshal Adesola Amosu, AVM JB Adigun and Air Commodore G Olugbenga, there is N22.8 billion!

    These sums in question are far larger than the annual budget of some African countries. Again these sums were supposedly finagled at a time Nigeria was fighting a terror war; a time many officers and men perished on the battlefront for lack of ammunition…and Hardball wonders: what manner of system allows individuals unhindered access to so much cash?

  • As bad as Badoo

    Something bad happened at Odogunyan in Ikorodu, Lagos, on July 2. It was a bad happening.  What happened was as bad as the badness that triggered it.  Three men were lynched:  a budding comedian, Chinedu Paul, aka Think Twice, and two mechanics, Shola Abimbola and Sunday Owolabi.

    The lynchers were on a vengeance mission against suspected members of a murderous cult known as Badoo, which has been a source of terror.  A report captured the terror: “Residents and homeowners in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State have started fleeing their homes following the rising threat of the killer-cult group known as Badoo. The fleeing residents, who are afraid of being the next victims of the deadly gang, have been moving in with relatives and friends in relatively safer parts of Lagos. Such residents have been relocating with their families on a temporary basis. The gang had killed no fewer than 29 persons and injured several others in the last few months.”

    Understandably, the reign of insecurity meant that there may well be a reign of irrationality. Mob action is usually outside the realm of reason and reasonableness. How did the lynchings happen?   A relative of one of the victims was quoted as saying: “When the vigilantes stopped their vehicle, they were taken to the Baale’s house. The Baale spoke with them and got to know that they were neither Badoo members nor thieves. The Baale appealed to the mob to keep them till the following morning. The mob said no and insisted they must be killed. They threatened to burn down the Baale’s house if he did not release the three suspects. The Baale had no option than to release them. It could have been better managed but it was unfortunate.”

    After the lynchings, it turned out that the lynchers might have killed innocents, considering the pained voices that spoke in defence of the victims. Mob justice lost the case because it failed to allow a proper probe.

    It is disturbing that several other innocents may have been killed by the avengers in the jungle. Indeed, Ikorodu has been turned into a jungle not only by the so-called Badoo Boys, but also by those who claim to be fighting back using jungle methods to arrive at jungle justice.

    The resort to self-help by the mob amounts to taking the law into their own hands. It is condemnable. In the final analysis, it suggests that the avenging mob is as bad as Badoo.

  • Whither the “coordination” orchestra?

    Apseudo-storm kicked off when President Muhammadu Buhari started his current medical vacation to London.

    In his letter informing the National Assembly, he wrote that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would do presidential work in the president’s absence, but signed off the Acting President would “coordinate” government activities.

    To a country that ripples with bad faith, a media that craves eternal sensationalism and a people that daily choke on mutual suspicion, no matter how specious, that was tantamount to throwing a red rag at a rampaging bull!

    And did the polity go on rampage!  Early English literature spoke of disputatious England, humming and quaking in high polemics, over the right way to break an egg!

    Well, contemporary Nigeria, of the 21st century, is not much different — except that the subject is much more banal; and the methodology is much more emotive!

    But in the midst of the loud but empty hubbub, Acting President Osinbajo, always a rare study in focus, went about his job, undistracted from friend or foe.  And what’s he doing now?

    Is he not coordinating the presidency as the president himself would have done, in a Nigeria that though has some systemic challenges, is nevertheless sapped with contrived chaos by some vested, if satanic, interests?

    When Nnamdi Kanu started running his hate-filled mouth, his offending breath baiting and scalding all non-Igbo with equal-opportunity hatred; and the so-called “Northern youths” responded measure-for-measure, and 2017 Nigeria was looking eerily like 1967 Nigeria, with all the Armageddon to follow, it was this same “coordinator” that went to work.

    Quietly and methodically, he lowered the tension and cooled the political temperature. Now, what’s that — lowly “coordination” or savvy presidential work?

    That half-solved, Bukola Saraki’s Senate raised fresh belligerency, which the sensation-loving media immediately latched on to.  They wanted Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC czar sacked and pronto!

     

    The plot seemed immaculate.  With the president still indisposed, they figured the Acting President was very weak, so they could stampede him to achieve their nefarious goal.  And to up the ante, Eyinnaya Abaribe, the senator from Abia, played the ultimate scarecrow: the spectre of Saraki suddenly becoming “acting president”!

    But how did the “weak coordinator” of their whims handle it?  With the hardy moral grace of a toughie, who just crushed a senatorial coup, sending the plotters slithering like scorched snakes!

    He called their bluff in no unmistakable way.  Just as well!

    The moral in all this?  No, not Osinbajo as new presidential strongman.  Not Osinbajo, gloating over real or imaginary enemies.

    But Osinbajo as serious study in focused leadership and unstinted loyalty to the president.  Just imagine what would have become the Buhari Presidency, were Osinbajo some devious fellow and vain character?  How would our country have coped with the needless additional tension?

    That is, of course, the big lesson to the Senate (indeed, the National Assembly) and the sensational press.  Be focused on your work.  Be loyal to your country.

    Is that too much to ask of the Senate and the media, in these trying times?

  • MoD and the ‘bloody civilians’

    If there is one thing President Muhammadu Buhari’s  government has achieved, it is to debunk the notion that the Police are the most corrupt organ in Nigeria. It has been proven beyond doubt today that that prize is still up for grabs.

    The sin of the police is that they collect small, small change from poor motorists, thereby making themselves a public nuisance. Check out the ordeal of the so-called ‘bloody civilians’ who are Ministry of Defence staff.

    As you read this, an annual ritual for civilian teachers in Command Secondary Schools across the country is on  Abuja. It’s an annual jamboree called Promotion Interviews for senior teachers from grade level 13 and above teaching in military secondary schools across Nigeria.

    About 500 of these experienced and highly qualified (mainly Master’s Degree holders) teachers are in Abuja now for an exercise that is at best dubious if not fraudulent.

    Here is why: first, this fraud has been going on for nearly ten years with only a handful promoted; yet each year the same people who have been passing this interview for nearly a decade are invited and at the end of the day, they are told there is no vacancy.

    Second, this so-called interview brings about 500 of these hapless men and women from across the country to Abuja for about ten days. They are not given any travel allowance, no food, no water and no accommodation. Coming to Abuja on this annual pilgrimage of shame is totally at the expense of the poor candidates. But MoD is said to have a huge budget for this annual ritual.

    This explains why even though they claim there is no vacancy to promote, they stage this huge bazaar every year. If there are only a few vacancies, why not promote the backlog of successful candidates instead of organising this yearly extravaganza? This exploitative and humiliating exercise happens because these people are ‘bloody civilians’. Would a qualified military officer be denied promotion to next level for 8 – 10 years?

    These teachers who nurture the wards of military officers and men are also Nigerians and they deserve better treatment from the MoD; their counterparts in other ministries are already three to four levels ahead of them. If MoD won’t promote them, let it stop this corrupted annual ritual.

  • A messenger’s mess-up

    When a messenger delivers a wrong message, meaning a message he was not asked to deliver, he is likely to cause problems for the person who sent him. So, it is likely that former Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole has found himself in a problematic situation on account of a wrong message delivered on his behalf by the General Secretary of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers, Comrade Issa Aremu, who represented him at the 5th Triennial Delegates Conference of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in Abuja on June 29.

    Oshiomhole, who is also a former National President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), was the guest speaker, and was supposed to speak on the theme: “Emerging trends in the oil and gas industry and impact on labour movement in Nigeria.’’

    In the course of delivering Oshiomhole’s message, Aremu was quoted as saying: “The discussion now is about restructuring and I think those of us in the labour circle must be careful about some words. I heard Babangida talking about restructuring. Although he could have been converted, this is a man under whose tenure the cabinet was dissolved and for almost a month, he was alone, ruling the country.”

    Aremu added: “I thought that he should have apologised to the whole country, but there is nothing like that from him. But it is now fashionable for him to talk about restructuring. It was under him that the economy was restructured. He devalued the currency and downsized workers. It is important that we prioritise these terms.”

    A few days after the media enthusiastically reported what Aremu said, it turned out that the messenger had said what he was not asked to say.  In other words, he said what he wanted to say, and not what he was told to say.

    Did Aremu forget that he was a messenger delivering a message on behalf of Oshiomhole? Oshiomhole, in a statement by his media aide, Mr. Victor Oshioke, disclaimed the message Aremu delivered. The statement said: “In order to guide and properly articulate his position on the theme, Comrade Oshiomhole had a telephone conversation with Comrade Issa Aremu, where he gave the latter his perspectives on oil and gas. It is true that there was no prepared speech handed over to Comrade Issa Aremu but the conversation Oshiomhole had with him spelt out the scope of the issues to be discussed.”

    It continued: “There was nowhere during the conversation that the name of former Military President General Ibrahim Babangida featured with respect to his comments on restructuring or otherwise. We wish to state unequivocally that the view so expressed is entirely that of Comrade Issa Aremu and does not in any way represent the views of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.”

    Aremu messed up by messing up the message.

  • Councillor Dino

    When English poet William Wordsworth first coined his 1802 paradox, “the child is the father of the man”, he sure didn’t intend it for delinquent politics, where a sitting senator would lust after a lowly councillorship, from his lofty senatorial portals.

    Yet, that is what it appears morphing into, in the surreal, no-dull-moment world of Senator Dino Melaye, the Ajekuniya exponent, of the political push-and-shove school.

    “As an astute politician,” the Kogi West sitting senator averred in a suit to compel Kogi Governor, Yahaya Bello, to hold local government elections, “I am interested in contesting for a councillorship position in my local government area, Ijumu.”

    Ah, the mighty Dino, he of the senatorial din and parliamentary trash (o, what profound oxymoron, for everything parliamentary ought to be the reference) craves to be a councillor!

    Can you imagine the din of excitement Councillor Dino would infuse into local Ijumu politics?  The politics of sheer colour and breathless pace, only the return of the senatorial native from Abuja, the city of gold, could muster!

    The legislative day would start with the monster-hit Ajekuniya single.  A new sheriff is in town; and all had better be at their best behaviours.  Any essay at any rascality would attract instant — you guessed right — Ajekuniya!

    Then, who is that Lilliputian chairman who would ogle public funds, when Dino is around?

    Who indeed, in the presence of an integrity veteran, who not only was the soul of the Integrity Group in his heady days at the House of Representatives, but also topped up his no-nonsense anti-corruption CV, in his senatorial days, with the launch of an award-winning tome, Antidote for Corruption?

    Never mind those howling over the alleged lexical howler in the award-winning title, bleating it ought to have been Antidote to Corruption!  Did the (wo)men of timber and caliber, anti-corruption caterpillar and bulldozer, immaculate saints that graced the book’s launch ever complain?  They perfectly understood the message now!

    After Councillor Dino had thoroughly pacified every Kogi local government chair with his radical brand of transparency and accountability, which of them would dare strike sweetheart deals with any governor, insistent on just sharing public money, with these errant third “tier-ers”?  Which one indeed?

    And before you know it, in this season of frenetic restructuring, a new era would have dawned on the third-tier.  With the Dino treatment and cleansing, a new fervour would dawn out there: the third-tier, not the corrupt and maggot-ridden states, would be the new federating units with the Federal Government, in a newly restructured Nigeria!

    And just as governors moved from State House into the Senate (even if that would mean their former state-wide constituencies reduced by two-thirds), former senators, taking the Dino lead in Spartan transparency, would begin a mad rush for local government councils, for even more reduced constituencies.    Transparency calls.  Patriots must obey!

    That, indeed, would be the new Nigeria.  Dealers in the corrupt-ridden centre, dashing to became straight-as-pin, clean-as-whistle leaders, in the innermost crevices of their own parts of the country!  Thank God, by his a dint of solid example, Dino is about showing the way.

     

    Hardball has some dissonance, though.  Is this a real, golden dream?  Or a feverish recall-driven reverie, fast turning into a nightmare, by the first parliamentary recall product in Nigerian history, should Melaye’s recall process succeed?

    You never know — in any case, not in the cacophony of dins that has evolved as the political world of Dino Melaye, as an endangered species of the Senate of the Federal Republic!

    Indeed, the child is the father of the man; and Dino’s local council dream is prime example!

  • Okupe in a season of barrenness

    Hardball has determined that Nigerian politicians get broke too quickly, too easily. Many political juggernauts of the first and Second Republics if they are alive and in good health today are barely comfortable, if not living in penury. And it doesn’t matter whether he or she was a president, governor, senator or minister.

    This singular factor may explain why politicians of today have added a touch of dare-devilry when they ‘attack’ the treasury these days; they go for the jugular (our jugular, if you like); they assault the treasury without remorse or compunction, making to heave it all.  But because they can’t, they loot as much as they can, taking billions and more billions.

    But even then, because bandits don’t create, nor are they positively creative, they tend to run out of ideas (and means) quickly enough. Just the way a fool and his money are soon separated, a thief’s booty soon grows wings due to wretched lifestyles and again, because poor work culture.

    But by no means do we suggest that our subject for today would make away with a hot stove; not by any chance. Except that he recently started a discourse on barrenness. Who does not know Dr. Doyin Okupe? The celebrated public hound dog who was so good he was sought out by two presidents. How better can anyone get?

    Okupe was pressed to service by ex – President Olusegun Obasanjo to bark and snap at his public enemies – a job he performed creditably well even though his stay in Aso Rock the first time was short lived (for reasons unwholesome to recap here) but while he played bingo, he set new standards on the job.

    This explains why another ex – president, Goodluck Jonathan, when he came under intense heat from opposition elements and his genteel spokesperson could not beat them back, Okupe popped up again.  The hot dog was drafted to give PDP opponents hell. Of course, he lived up to the task. Not even his former paymaster, Obasanjo was spared Okupe’s vitriol.

    But that was in the past. Today, Okupe seems to stand forlornly in some halfway house in this season of barrenness, waiting for the train. He announced most gleefully recently that he has quit his party and honey pot, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). But Hardball was drawn to what would have been a non-issue by Okupe’s assertion that PDP is barren.

    Now how could that be? When did that happen? Since it lost election and was shoved off the national treasury in 2015? And this barrenness thing: is it about PDP, the season or Okupe’s emptiness? Though Okupe has not joined the APC, Hardball can virtually see him at the station, waiting for the APC gravy train to come by.