The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Evans: It’s no joke

    What step will Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, better known as Evans, take next?  Those who think the self-confessed big-time kidnapper, who was arrested on June 10, is being held illegally by the police need a rethink, including Evans himself.

    Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Abba Kyari, who heads the special squad that caught Evans, was quoted as saying: “All those who want Evans released did not know that the police had obtained a 90-day warrant to detain him.”  He said the detention warrant was obtained on June 21.

    For Evans, this turn of events must be disappointing and demoralising.  Emboldened by sheer desperation, he had gone to court in a move that was as absurd as it was amusing.

    A  June 30 report said: “In the new suit filed yesterday by his counsel, Olukoya Ogubgbeje, through an originating summon, marked FHC/L/CS/1012/ 2017, Evans is claiming N300m as general and exemplary damages against the police for what he termed “illegal detention and unconstitutional media trial.”

    Evans sued the Inspector General of Police, and three others before a Federal High Court in Lagos over his alleged illegal detention; the other respondents are the Nigeria Police Force, the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, and the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Lagos State Police Command.

    What does Evans want?  Answer: “Evans argued that his continued detention by the respondents since June 10, without a charge, or release on bail, is an infringement on his fundamental rights. Evans is seeking a declaration that his continued detention since June 10 without arraignment violates his fundamental rights as guaranteed under the 1999 Constitution.”

    Another answer: “He is also seeking a declaration that his parade on June 11 before journalists in Lagos, at the Lagos Police Command Headquarters in Ikeja, without any court order, is unconstitutional and illegal. He prayed the court for an order, compelling the respondents to immediately arraign him before a law court, or release him from custody forthwith. Evans is also seeking an order, compelling the respondents to jointly and severally, pay him the sum of N300m as exemplary damages for illegal detention and alleged harm caused by the alleged media trial.”

    Yet another answer further exposed the joke and the jokers: “The suspect is also seeking an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the respondents from further arresting, detaining, harassing, investigating or inviting him in relation to the facts of his case.”

    Evans must be living in an unreal world where kidnapping is no big deal, and kidnappers don’t have to deal with the consequences of crime.  In the real world, there is crime and punishment.

  • Judicial outlaws?

    To be sure, the most brazen oxymoron there could ever be — judicial outlaws! But that is what a front page lead story of The Nation of June 29 suggested.

    The story, headlined “Gunmen shoot detective probing judges, others”, told how Austin Okwor, a detective with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), had just closed from work in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and got attacked by some armed hoodlums.

    The EFCC release: “A top investigator with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on June 24, 2017 escaped death by the whiskers when gunmen opened fire on him in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

    “Mr. Austin Okwor, an operative in the Property Fraud section of the EFCC zonal office in Port Harcourt, had closed late for the day and as he left the office, he was suddenly accosted by a gang of daredevil hoodlums, who opened fire on him.”

    The tale of Port Harcourt is the tale of a tragic capital.  Less than three years ago, it was being defined by all that was noble, and all that was true, in the best quality of global refined culture.  Why, it was even once named the globe’s book capital.  Now it has virtually become a bastion of violent crimes, where one robbery or mugging or murder seems more brazen than the other!

    Even then, the alleged attempt on the life of Mr. Okwor was in a class of its own in base crimes.  It would be too much to, because the detective was probing judicial sleaze, to jump to the hasty conclusion that some judicial officials could be resorting to outlawry, just to shield themselves from the law.  So, the authorities should probe the source of the attack.

    But what if it is eventually proved that indeed some outlaw judges or murderous villains in court registries and allied portals are behind the attack?  That would be a new low!

    Yeah, the polity is adjusting itself to the technical irritation of some smart Alec lawyers, with colluding but subversive esprit de corps sympathy from the Bench may be colluding or have colluded to spring some thieving judges who have genuine cases to answer.  That is bad enough.

    But to think some Lordships out there would actually hire an assassin and set him — or her — after an officer of the law, carrying out his lawful and legitimate duty?  That would be end times indeed!

    Meanwhile, EFCC should ensure Mr. Okwor accesses the best of medical help possible.  It should even ensure that the security around him is water-tight.

    But that satanic attack should serve as extreme tonic for EFCC to ensure every rogue in the judiciary is thoroughly investigated and brought to book.

    That would be the only way to underscore the futility of the of the satanic oxymoron of judicial outlawry!

    And Port Harcourt?  Who knows?  It may yet regain its past sanity.  Who knows!

  • The wizard of Ndi-olumbe

    Let us state upfront that even Hardball is fuzzy-headed on this matter. Witchcraft, magic, sorcery and even demonology are issues way outside the realms of Hardball in spite of his claim to street intellectualism. But then who truly can master issues that defy definition and clarity?

    Who can aptly define witchcraft? Who can illumine the shenanigans wrought only in dark places? Who can fathom the weird mumblings of unkempt denizens trading in mysticism and make-believe? Witchcraft is probably the most delusional of all arts. The more you seek, the more you see but the less you learn. (Well, how about that for Hardball’s definition?)

    To think that the bible, the Holy Scriptures recorded the earliest cases of witchcraft and sorcery yet mankind is still at sea as to the nature of this art of the mysterious.

    But why is Hardball rendering a trite treatise on a weird subject? Well, this dark art bobbed up recently in a community called Umuokenyi-Ndiolumbe in Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State – yes, here in Nigeria.

    A man in his 40s by name, Esau Ihemeje (now whoever bears Esau?) has been accused of being a practitioner of witchcraft by his people and has been summarily banished (and indeed evicted) from the community for 14 years.

    Well on the one hand, he must count himself lucky for if it were in medieval Europe he would not live to tell the story. But on the other hand, in Nigeria of 2017, Hardball thought it was implausible if not impossible for an adult human entity to be accused of a crime, tried by a mob of villagers and banished.

    One would have doubted that this happened but the report is accompanied by a picture of the victim, (the wizard), half naked, bearing his pots and pans on his head and being escorted to the ‘border’ of the village as happens in Nollywood movies.

    Now, Esau, the wizard, was reportedly grabbed by village vigilante group in front of his house in the dead of night on May 2nd this year. He was branded a witch and summarily handed the marching orders from the community. But of course, not before he had been given the mob treatment.

    But there is reprieve. Or rather, he could procure reprieve with nine cartons of beer, nine cartons of Legend stout, nine crates of malt, 36 pieces of kolanuts, among other stuff.

    And Hardball wonders: if Esau were truly a wizard why would he not bewitch his people with these offerings and have for himself a coven of witches?

    But is there no government in Abia State? Hardball is bewitched; sorry, bewildered.

  • Melaye jumps the gun

    It is interesting that Senator Dino Melaye seems to be in a hurry to end the process for his recall in his favour without appreciating that it has just started and it is still unfolding.

    Since there is a lawful process for recalling a senator, it makes sense to allow the process to take its course, meaning it makes no sense to try to end the process before it ends.

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in a statement signed by Mallam Mohammed Haruna, a National Commissioner and member, Information and Voter Education Committee,  said the body met and  “considered the petition submitted by some registered voters from Kogi West Senatorial District to kick-start the process of recalling Senator Dino Melaye.”

    The statement further said: “In accordance with the INEC guidelines for the recall of members of the National Assembly, the Commission has formally acknowledged the reciept of the petition to the petitioners’ representatives and has conveyed a letter notifying Senator Melaye of our reciept of the petition. The next step is to verify that the petitioners are registered voters in the Kogi West Senatorial District. INEC will on the 3rd of July, 2017, issue a public notice stating the day (s), time, location and other details for the verification exercise.”

    Two days after, Senator Melaye jumped the gun by alleging that there were forged signatures in the petition against him. But isn’t the scheduled “verification exercise” supposed to determine whether the signatures are real or unreal?  Shouldn’t INEC be allowed to do its work?

    According to a report, Senator Melaye, “speaking through one of his legislative aides, Malam Abubakar Sadiq,” said: “Let me also say authoritatively that here in Lokoja Local Government Council, several others whose names and signatures appeared on the list of the signatories to this failed exercise were identified and known to us as being dead long before now. Such people like late Abdullahi Abubakar, his immediate younger sister late Halima Lawal Abubakar and Ibrahim Adama of Unit Code 021, Adankolo Ring Road in Ward ‘A’, Lokoja Local Government Council.”

    It is predictable that Senator Melaye would want the recall process to fail, but it is surely premature to call it a “failed exercise.”  Whether his forgery claims are correct or incorrect, whether the petitioners are verifiable or unverifiable, there is a time to prove or disprove, and there is a lawful body in charge of verification.

    By jumping the gun, Senator Melaye demonstrated uneasiness and unreasonableness.

  • Ohanaeze’s one-sided justice

    Perhaps the lady of justice would have one hand, one eye and one ear, were Ohanaeze, the Igbo prime socio-cultural body, to sketch her?

    That is the impression from the body’s reaction to the “northern youths’” political fatwa, for the Igbo to leave the North on or before October 1.  And the weigh would be no farther than the good old quip: he who comes to equity must come with clean hands.

    The Ohanaeze dubbed the call as “treasonable”, which of course it is.  But is the hate campaign of Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB any less treasonable?  To be fair, Ohanaeze reasoned that much.

    Hear it: “A desire and public proclamation  for the State of Biafra cannot be too different from a quit notice which amounts to a declaration for a new state of Nigeria, without the Igbo.”  Logical reasoning!

    But not so, the exception that followed: “In the latter case, an obvious violation of our constitution points to treason; a declaration to take inventory and acquire property not belonging to one amounts to conversion, and a declaration to commence ‘mop up’ action, if the quit notice was not complied with, at a certain date, is a declaration of war.”

    On the surface, Ohanaeze was spot on in this submission.  That threat of expulsion, with even the ogre of sequestered Ndigbo property in the North, is evil and criminal — and ought to be condemned by all.

    But if you fairly and logically follow the sequence of events, the Ohanaeze alarm is nothing more than a panic appeal to pity, by a body that had all the chances to speak out but remained  mute — until it was becoming too late.

    When Nnamdi Kanu started his hate crusade, mum was the word from Ohanaeze, either as corporate; or from one of its members, riled enough against Kanu’s free-wheeling evil, to speak on its behalf.

    Even when Kanu was arrested and detained, Ohanaeze was not publicity quoted, while asserting Kanu’s legal rights, to have condemned the indecency of his hate campaign.  It was only when the counter-threat came that it stamped out of its stupor!

    Compare and contrast that to Nasir El-Rufai, who near-instantly told off the treasonous “northern youths”, and threatened them with arrests, shortly to be followed by the 19 northern state governors.  It is now rich for Ohanaeze to bait others to walk their talk, when neither Ohanaeze, nor any of the South East governors, even raised any talk — not to talk of a future walk — when they had golden opportunities to do so, and avert this needless crisis.

    Ohanaeze should put on its thinking cap.  This is no time to grandstand or whimper as a victim.  It is rather time for clinical thinking.

    Hardworking Igbo, all over the country, have a right to enjoy the sweat of their labour — just as the law-abiding non-Igbo have the right to be free from scalding hate and threatening messages.  If Ohanaeze had spoken up against Nnamdi Kanu at the right time, it won’t now find its back against the wall, when it feels the Igbo are in avoidable peril.

    So, what Ohanaeze should do now is take wise steps to secure Igbo people all over the country by partnering with the security agencies and all people of goodwill.  It should also rein in the hate kingdom of Kanu and his IPOB.  Quiet wisdom, not barren media sensations, is sorely needed.

    He who comes to equity, must come with clean hands.  That is why the Lady of Justice, in her severe grace, is blind to sentiments but dispenses justice with the scale of evidence and the sword of punishment.

  • One, big IDP camp

    Why does Hardball keep having this feeling that he is lost in one big, sprawling misery camp? Could it be the recent siege to the country by dare-devil kidnappers? For instance you never know which school will be struck next or whose children would be spirited away into the dank creeks.

    Could it be the rampaging rapists who pick on our toddlers, young and old women at will for ravishing? Who knows the tot to be defiled next or the fledgling damsel to be waylaid at the next lonely junction? Reports of abduction and rape abound so much these days that our daughters, sisters, aunties and even mothers seem like endangered species.

    Perhaps it’s the now deafening sabre rattling going on across the country from the north, south, east and west. All of a sudden, our primordial nature has been roused so precipitously in all corners of the country. The social media has suddenly become anti-social and dangerous.

    People you thought were your bosom friends had daggers tucked around their belts all these while and their smiles could have been like jackals baring their teeth. So much anger and hate messages suffuse the cyberspace that just one little spark somewhere might just ignite a huge conflagration.

    But beyond all these examples, the situation in the Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDPs) camps in the northeast of Nigeria are the surest signposts that we all may well be displaced people. Or put differently, we are all in an entirely displaced entity. Is it perchance that since the internal ‘refugee’ crises started, there have been a running battle between the camp dwellers and Nigerians outside the camp over the relief materials meant for the displaced victims of Boko Haram insurgency.

    About two years ago, two policemen almost eliminated each other in a shoot-out after a misunderstanding in sharing stolen IDPs rice. Since then, the media have been awash with tales of recurrent diversion of IDPs supplies.

    Last week, the federal government had to write a formal letter of apology to the government of Saudi Arabia over the diversion of date fruits shipped to the IDPs in Nigeria by the middle-east country. It was reported that an Emir was behind this particular heist. And just this week, the presidency bemoaned the fact that no fewer than 50 out of every 100 trucks of grains meant for the IDPs camp missed their way.

    The good news however, is that an initiative known as Special Relief Intervention is now being implemented which has drastically curbed the menace. We pray this is for real for he who feeds off the ration of a beggar suffers a worse state of mendicancy.

  • Much ado about attire

    When agents of disunity can’t see beyond disunity, all they can see is disunity.  Perhaps this explains why the separatist group called Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) condemned specific Southeast governors for wearing “Hausa/Fulani” clothes in public.

    The group reacted to a meeting between Acting President Yemi Osinbajo and Igbo leaders at the Presidential Villa, which was prompted by divisive tendencies in the Southeast and the North.

    MASSOB leader Uchenna Madu said in a statement: “Although, MASSOB has respect and regard for Igbo governors, we openly disagree with them on certain moves that are against the general interest of our people. MASSOB condemns the attitude of Dave Umahi and Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, governors of Ebonyi and Enugu states, respectively, during the Igbo leaders’ meeting with Osinbajo, where they wore Hausa/Fulani traditional attire.”

    A report said: “The governors’ style of dressing had cast doubt on their ability to represent the interests of the Igbo, Madu observed. No Hausa/Fulani governor would ever appear in public with Igbo attire, the pro-Biafra activist stressed.”

    It is not quite clear what the group meant by “Hausa/Fulani traditional attire.” But its position clearly reflects intolerance, to put it diplomatically. To put it less diplomatically, the group’s position may suggest hate.

    It is unacceptable that the clothes the named governors chose to wear are unacceptable to the group. It shows how ludicrously far this group has progressed on the path of disunity.

    According to the report, “MASSOB also faulted the Federal Government for leaving out leaders of the pro-Biafra groups in  discussions with Igbo leaders over the agitation for Biafra, and the attendant quit ultimatum issued to Igbos in the North by some Northern groups. Madu noted that the activists, particularly leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, should have been at the meeting.”

    Why should they have been there? MASSOB and IPOB separatists didn’t deserve to be dignified by such inclusion. The two groups are living in blissful denial of their ultimate irrelevance; they are irritants inspired by an exaggerated and unrealistic sense of self-importance.

    This piece of information helps to define their hallucinatory perception:     “The MASSOB leader claimed the governors and other political, traditional, religious and opinion leaders that met with the Acting President were not actually in charge in Igboland.” So, these groups imagine that they are in charge. Well, they are free to imagine things, but need to be told that they are imagining things.

  • Southern dealers?

    On June 19, some “Southern leaders” gathered in Lagos.

    The group comprised eminent South West, South East and South-South personages; and their business was to react to the Arewa “Northern Youths’” ultimatum to the Igbo living in the North to vacate that region by October 1, on account of Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB’s clamour for Igbo secession from Nigeria — a most unfortunate diktat.

    But no less unfortunate was the sabre-rattling by these “elders”, gathered in Lagos.  Any attack against the Igbo in the North, they declared, would be taken as an attack against all “southerners”.  Really?

    And if any attack indeed took place, as that riposte seemed to suggest, would these “elders” ensure a tit-for-tat?  And if it came to that, how many “southern youths” could they press into service, against the so-called “northern youths”, in the emotive-driven belligerency to come?

    If the mythical “youths” lose their heads, must the elders do too?

    First, to the Igbo leaders in the assemblage: which of them was publicly quoted to have warned Nnamdi Kanu for his explosive hate messages and threats against other Nigerians, in his Biafra project?

    If they didn’t — and silence could be presumed to be consent, even if it could also indicate neutrality — how can Kanu be right and the equally rascally “northern youths”, reacting to his hostility, be wrong?  So, they were either complicit or indifferent, until a counter-threat hit their own kith-and-kin? What sort of elders are those!

    As for their Yoruba ensemble, what was the basis of their gamely declaration that “an attack on the Igbo is an attack on all of the South”?  To be sure, an attack on any citizen, in a country run by law, and supposed to guarantee the security of all, is something to be decried.

    But that principle runs from the premise that everyone submits himself  or herself to due process: and part of due process is not to threaten others with hate speeches and torrential curses, no matter the provocation.  So, on what basis were these Yoruba leaders grandstanding over attacks?

    Could they have been privy to Kanu’s hate messages?  And if they were not — and they couldn’t have been, for the Yoruba are among the victims of Kanu’s scalding hate — why this comical southern pseudo-column against Arewa attack, using mythical “Yoruba youths” as shield, when they were never party to the original provocation?

    Elders should be wise.  That is why they are elders.  At least African custom and tradition decrees it so.

    So, instead of this needless media grandstanding, which could further worsen an explosive situation, they should join Acting President Yemi Osinbajo in his consultations to lower the political thermometer and roll back the discourse from combustible emotions to clinical reason.

    The acting president could be doing his chore by law.  But such chores could have been averted had South East elders done what elders should do: warn their youths against unbridled rascality.  Clearly if the South East elders had done that, millions of innocent, peaceful and law-abiding Igbo in the North would not face this avoidable peril?

    Elders should do their traditional duty: talk sense into rash youths.  Following youth to issue own version of threat is not elderly at all.  It is rather elders doubling as leaders dealing in avoidable chaos.

    That would be a wide and merry way that drives all to perdition.

  • FRSC, drivers and specialists

    The Holy Scriptures, the bible aptly describes the human heart as evil and desperately wicked. It considers the heart as the fertile soil where seeds of sin are sown and a podium from which man mocks his maker. Who can fault the Word? And indeed examples abound in the bible.

    The great King David’s lust would not be sated by his bevy of queens and harem of concubines; his heart coveteth Bathsheba, General Uriah’s wife. And he has to ambush his general (not minding that he is defending his kingdom) and acquire his wife.

    On the other hand, the mind is a more delicate specimen; it is the CPU that processes billions of information, activities and impulses every day. While the heart may be carried away by red, ripened fruits (Eve) and the lush, curvy flesh, (Bathsheba) the mind crunches numbers and relishes disquisitions. While the heart may be likened to a bohemian hedonist, the mind is fragile, brittle and stoic.

    The mind, therefore, is to be handled with utmost care and sensitivity. And mind you, by a specialist. It is for this reason that Hardball is nonplussed by the new-fangled idea by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) to invoke psychiatric examination on errant motorists.

    We wonder: is this some kind of a sinister mind game or a joke taken too far? In Wole Soyinka’s classic, Madmen and Specialists, it turns out that as the play progresses, psychos morph into physicians and vice-versa.

    Is it possible that the raucous traffic of Nigeria’s cities, especially Lagos has set the Commission on a spin? At which point does a simple traffic infraction become a manic behaviour? For instance, a man sound in body and mind mistakenly misses his turn and he is soon straight-jacketed  before a shrink whereupon his delicate mind snaps in the process!

    But more accidents and deaths are caused by bad roads: shall we summarily execute the erring government officials for criminal negligence?

    The proposed traffic examination takes effect July 1st this year. Some of the identified traffic offences include: route violation, traffic light violation, dangerous driving and overloading.

    Some of these offences are nebulous and will create avenues for abuse; it is the hapless commoners who would bear the brunt of this new rule. Officials of most uniformed agencies routinely break traffic rules unchallenged; ‘big’ men in big, tinted four-runners get away with nearly anything on the road.

    Obnoxious behavior is not best cured with obnoxious remedies. Psychiatric test for road offenders is high handed and callous. There are enough traffic rules to manage traffic infractions.

  • Further nonsense

    It’s like moving from one absurdity to another in a chain of absurdities.  Separatists on the platform of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have taken yet another step towards their dream of separation. Strikingly, their latest move further suggests that members of the group are not only out of tune with reality; they are also mistaking their dream for reality.

    A statement by the Publicity Secretary of the group, Emma Powerful, said: “The Indigenous People of Biafra under the leadership of Nnamdi Kanu has written and given instruction to every academic institution in the South-East from nursery schools to universities to revert to the original geography textbooks with Bight of Biafra in it.”

    It continued:  “IPOB has also asked the schools to commence the teaching of history, especially pre-colonial Biafra. Also, IPOB is working with publishers of history and geography textbooks to commence the job to enhance effective work and to ensure the success of the scheme.”

    Increasingly, the group is showing that it does not know its limits, or does not recognise that there are limits to how far it  can go in imposing its separatist project on others that are not necessarily sympathetic to its cause.   When the group issued a sit-at-home order to take effect in the Southeast on May 30 to mark the 50th anniversary of the failed Biafra secession effort of the 1960s, it was a nonsensical approach and a reflection of its deep delusions.

    The group’s latest “instruction” on the teaching of Biafra history has simply taken nonsense to a higher level. Its statement said: “However, history teaching in Biafraland will focus on the genocide committed against the people of Biafra during the civil war between 1967 and 1970, while the geography will mostly focus on the removal of the Bight of Biafra by British and Nigerian Governments. It will also show the ancient map of Africa from 1662 till 1966, during the war of genocide that consumed the lives of our women and children.”

    Interestingly, the group “said schools that obey the directive would be given grants for scholarships.” It all sounds so unreal, and makes the group look so unreal. In its desperation, the group is trying hard to blur the distinction between reality and unreality.

    Why does this group arrogate to itself power and authority that it does not have? Why does it move from unreasonableness to unreasonableness? Why is it so desperately irrational?