The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Of outlawry and distraction

    The news, of some minsters smuggling files for presidential decisions abroad, should shock and awe.

    Shock, because their appears some systemic outlawry in the system — or how else would anyone even conceive such conduct, when the law has installed an acting president, in lieu of the president, on medical leave abroad?

    And awe, because despite this ministerial rascality, the two involved highest officials of the Nigerian state, according to the news, have stuck to the same page of presidential grace.

    While President Muhammadu Buhari shunned those ministerial outlaws — and rightly so — Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, took them in his strides, letting the cold majesty of the law, roar for his high office!

    A tiger, in Soyinka-speak, does not proclaim its tigeritude, does it?

    But it could easily have gone awry!  Just imagine the president being more mischievous and narcissistic?  Or the acting president, much more excitable and paranoid, yakking over powers the law has granted and no man, under our law, can take away?

    It would have been another impassioned debacle in the media: in the best of times, brash and sensational; in the worst, just unthinking, arrayed along ethnic, regional or even religious lines; and in-between, an irredeemable lover of sensations, that though push copy sales, retard society!

    Nigerians will yet come to appreciate the calm duo in the presidential chamber, in perhaps this most reckless era of Nigerian politics and politicking, with incendiary outbursts, that could well last a lifetime.

    But can same be said for the media?  Hardball, regretfully, cannot wager.

    Remember the so-called “coordinator” debate, fluffy, sweet but sterile?

    The president had written a letter to parliament on his medical leave abroad.  After quoting the relevant section of the 1999 Constitution that supports that action, the letter ended with the acting president “coordinating” the affairs of government.

    Even the Saraki-led Senate shot down a sterile debate, pointing to the relevant clause to dispose of the matter, and moved on to more important things.

    Not the media!  Lack of focus-meet-sterile controversy, with flaming headlines and conspiracy-powered interviews to boot, it went on a bling of hysteria: whereas Osinbajo did a full take-over during Buhari’s first medical leave, he was condemned to being a mere “coordinator” of governmental affairs, this time round!

    But pray, what does the president himself do?  Isn’t it his job to give policy direction and then sit back to coordinate his ministers, since they are his task people in government ministries?

    At the height of the wild excitement, some even swore that the so-called “cabal” had finally pocketed the president against a Vice President he had praised to high heavens, for his cooperation, integrity and loyalty!

    Now, if the Buhari shunning of those rogue ministers is true, what is proof to back such conspiracy theories, of a cabal arm-twisting the president to undermine his own prized deputy?

    Hardball thinks the Nigerian media, as currently constituted, have a lot to learn from the equanimity of Buhari and Osinbajo.  As everyone appears to lose their heads, they have kept theirs.  Buhari is naturally taciturn.  Osinbajo is master of saying what he absolutely needs to say, and not a breath more!  And both are not driven by inanities.

    The Nigerian press has a lot to learn in this direction, instead of jumping on the ethnic, regional or even religious bandwagon, just because they enjoy the monopoly of being heard — and, as the Glo radio data advert says, just “because they can”!

  • The moo country

    This is one of those days Hardball is hobbled by headline headaches (call it HHH). You just can’t kick-start the piece because you cannot find a suitable headline. The very idea of this disquisition (!) is robust and wide-ranging but to encapsulate it into a concise title becomes a herculean challenge.

    Thus for today’s piece, one had considered “Cow disease”, to explore the idea that the country suffers an outbreak of epidemics arising from an inability to manage her huge cattle stock. This did not quite capture it. Then there is this one about “Cow goes to school”, a reflection of the sacking of a primary school in Edo State by a herd of cattle recently. This one too would not do the work at hand.

    So we settled for the one above: “The moo country”, which though is not quite apt, it is near enough. The message here is to say that the country and her people are no more intelligent than cattle and that is why something that has been mastered over the years in other climes as a huge economic value chain has been twisted here into an ethno-religious crisis which threatens to implode into a bloody internecine war.

    In the last two years, perhaps emboldened by the emergence of their chieftain as president of Nigeria, itinerant cattle breeders in the country have practically trampled the entire country. With a new-found impunity, they have run over farmlands, sacked villages, kidnapped, killed and raped communities in their trail.

    Yes, their used to be skirmishes over the ages along their nomadic trails, but they were mere skirmishes, with hardly killings or destructions reported. But today, no day passes without a report of violent trespassing and indeed a running over.

    The picture the world woke up to last week was that of a herd of cows which apparently grazed in the precincts of a primary school in Edo State. Uncontrolled, they strayed into classrooms over-awing the pupils and sending them scampering.

    The cattle-rearing menace or disease if you like, has almost engulfed the whole country. Apart from trampling farms and settlements, many universities and higher institutions are under the siege of the Fulani cattle rearers. And in their movement, they also traverse cities too. From the heart of the Federal capital Territory, they can be sighted crisscrossing other cities across the country, littering everywhere, snarling traffic and sometimes causing accidents.

    What one sees now is a cow country where everyone responds with a moo to a seemingly easy challenge. State governors only manage to bleat, federal government remains mute and the populace is set in utter confusion.

    But this is simply about the business of beef, milk, leather, pomo and bokoto. Why doesn’t someone think of a national conference on livestock animal husbandry?

  • ‘Woe to the shepherds…’

    The good book, the Holy Bible, never stops to fascinate: its eternal truths, its lucid language and wry humour. From age to age, the message remains the same and man is in parts, sometimes portrayed as a clown fooling around on his own stage.

    The good book is particularly unsparing of some self-styled men of God: the chief priests, the prophets, the shepherds and the rulers. At every turn through many portions of the book, men of God are set up for especial tanning and savaging. Of course, it is the Lord himself speaking and laying down His statutes for those who elect to step forward and lead the flock.

    Let’s pick one quick example from the book of the great prophet Ezekiel (chapter 34): “And the word of God came to me saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherd feed the flocks? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who are sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost…So they were scattered because there was no shepherd;…”

    And indeed Hardball would not deign to publish the stated repercussions for irresponsible shepherds but they are all there; all through the good book, the Author has laid down the terms of engagement quite clearly for those who have ears.

    But as we have seen, especially in our country recently, our modern day leaders and shepherds do not only feed themselves, many seem to feed on the flock. They install themselves sole owners and near-gods and they make the flock worship them.

    They do not only compete with kings, they live like emperors and create paradise of their own here on earth; completely repudiating the mansions above.

    It is a stale story you might say, but just recently, a General Overseer of one of those churches just unveiled a customised Rolls Royce Phantom that would be worth no less than N50 million.

    As the story goes, he turned 50 years and his flock considered it worthy to mark the GO’s golden age with this exquisite automobile, often the plaything of Hollywood stars and oil sheikhs. And why not, if it is good for worldly sheikhs it is even better for the GO, after all our God is not a poor God. Besides, what is a mere Rolls in an age big boy GOs cruise multiple private jets.

    But the question is: if indeed the congregation raised this cash, where from? And does it not matter to the Man of God, whether such hefty cash was from graft or witchcraft?

    Anyway, no matter, the author of the Good book who had long  foretold such wayward behaviour as purchase of Rolls Royce and private jets by his ‘shepherds’ says that in due time, he would redeem his flock and judge those feeding on them. Yes, so He decreed.

  • Judgment day for Discos

    Discos, the thumping, uproarious parties, are the last place for dire judgments — not with happy guys and merry gals “boogie-ing” down, with the rolling soft lights and music booming, from dusk till fade.

    Not so, these peculiar discos: Nigeria’s Electricity Distribution Companies, making merry and uproarious profits, from delivering darkness instead of light.  A Daniel just came to judgment!

    The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), industry regulators on June 7, read the riot act: any consumer not metered by March 1 should not pay any estimated bill — and the DISCO must not disconnect it.

    Though that directive for now affects corporate consumers (not households), it is a welcome noose on the neck of thieving DISCOs, which have devised every trick so far to thrive on billing for darkness, instead of billing for electricity.

    NERC explained that its decision on the MD (maximum demand) cadre of electricity consumers came after giving the DISCOs more than enough time to meter their clients but all to no avail.

    According to the NERC release on its website, the original deadline to meter every MD — nay, every consumer — was June 2016.  But DISCOs came with arguments to explain the near-impossibility to comply, not cogent efforts at meeting the metering target.  Not to worry, the deadline was shifted till 28 February 2017.  That meant by March 1, every MD must have been metered.

    But alas!  Even with that, it is the same old jeremiad of compliance impossibility.  Obviously sensing bad faith, NERC just wielded the big stick — nice!  Though there may well be teething problems with the power sector reforms, hinging business growth on phony bills is criminal and provocative; therefore should be decried.  Unfortunately, that would appear the joker of many of the DISCOs.

    Hardball welcomes this NERC move.  It is not only just, it is long overdue.  Still, the regulator must walk its talk.

    Many directives had been handed down in the past.  But the problem had always been enforcement.  NERC must ensure this one is vigorously enforced.  The market is too stressed to absorb further cost-push inflation, driven by rogue DISCOs, that would rather bill for darkness than for light.

    Not only that: NERC must ensure these DISCOs don’t pounce on the defenseless household segment of the market, as renewed target of their voodoo bills, now that the corporates are off-limits.

    On that score, however, the DISCO themselves would be well-advised against any rascality.  For one, the household market is much more volatile than the sedate MD segment.  For another, consumers appear much aware of their rights.

    Still, the ultimate would be extending the riot act to every segment of the market: if you don’t meter, you forfeit any logical and legitimate right — and method — to bill.  That is the only time the DISCOs would be deemed arrived, doing legitimate business.

  • Finally, telcos docked

    Is the chicken coming home to roost for thieving telcos in Nigeria? And why not, a wise saying of the East suggests that when a matter gets too troublesome, you wag your finger at it. Another such saying comes with a more cynical, if not sinister imputation. It insists that when a totem begins to take itself too seriously the people would simply make a bonfire of it just to prove that it’s a piece of wood after all.

    The telecommunications companies, especially the majors in the global system of mobile (GSM) communications firms, seem to have morphed into some rascally deities that have forgotten that they are man-made after all.

    In the last few years, major telcos like MTN, GLO, Airtel and Etisalat have grown from taking their subscribers for a ride to outright picking the pockets of their customers through various guises and trickeries. It is not enough that they pilfer credit, they also give access to all sorts of rogues they term service providers to also help themselves.

    This criminality known as Value-Added Service (VAS) would never thrive in another clime. For instance, they bombard you with messages or some silly information you neither requested for nor care about; you ignore them and they start charging you. When you complain, they advise you to opt out through a complex operation. But you never opted in! And what happens to tens of millions of our illiterate population who do not do sms and thus cannot opt out? They are ripped off in perpetuity.

    Can you imagine N50.00 in multiples of ten million every week? Expand that in four or five different scams and you realise this is worse than armed robbery. And it does not matter what people say; the GSM firms are not even ashamed to be called thieves anymore. The money is too much for them to care and let the profit wash away the shame!

    The regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), pretends to be stupid and deaf about subscribers’ pains; it feigns ignorance of the gross violation of subscribers’ privacy. But the truth is that they are sharing in the illicit profit of the telcos. It’s booty.

    But there is some respite now. The Abuja division of the Court of Appeal has made an example of the leading telco, MTN. It recently upheld the judgment of a lower court which ruled that messages sent without the consent of a subscriber violate his fundamental right to privacy of his telephone as guaranteed by Section 37 of the Constitution.

    MTN was slammed with N3 million fines. Now don’t just sulk, go to court!

  • Not a non-issue

    What is an issue? What is a non-issue? When is an issue an issue? When is a non-issue a non-issue? There is no escaping these questions in the matter involving  House Minority Leader Leo Ogor  who may have questions to answer  based on a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against the House leadership by the suspended Appropriation Committee Chairman Abdulmumin Jibrin on alleged padding of 2016 Budget and inclusion of fraudulent constituency projects.

    Ogor was quoted as saying defensively to reporters: “Anyway whatever it is, if there is an issue, I will probably look at the issue and address it, but as far as I’m concerned, if a contract was awarded to anybody by an agency and the job is done to the satisfaction of the agency and the jobs are still on ground, except somebody is trying to give a dog a bad name for one specific reason or the other; if the job has been done and completed to the standards and it is still there for anybody to go and  inspect and somebody wants to make an issue out of it, then let him or her go ahead and let’s hear whatever the issues are. To me, it’s a totally non-issue.”

    A report said the anti-graft agency’s probe of Ogor was prompted by the following allegations: “abuse of office; awarding constituency projects to his companies; contract splitting; being sole signatory to six accounts, which were not declared in his Asset Declaration Form; curious payment of over N318million into two of the accounts by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) for undisclosed projects; and other allegations in Jibrin’s petition.”

    It is alarming that Ogor’s words suggested he thought it was normal if he personally benefited from the award of constituency projects based on his legislative status. He said: “What is wrong? Is there any law that says honourable members should not do a job? The most important thing is to see whether those jobs were done; I think that is the issue. If the contract was awarded to a company that has relationship with me, is the job done or not done? That is the issue. You don’t make an issue out of nothing…If the job is not done, you can make an issue of it, but if the job was done and met the business standards as attested to by the agency, then I don’t know what anybody is trying to talk about.”

    Ogor’s position is a fundamental issue; and it is particularly disturbing because of the possibility that it could be popular among the federal lawmakers. It does not reflect the ethical quality expected of an honourable legislator.

  • Futility of threats

    Just as well, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, showed leadership when it mattered most; telling the so-called “Northern youths” to shove it, in their audacious ultimatum to all the Igbo, living in the North, to vacate that region, sans their property.

    But give it to those “youths” —  their sense of symbolism is as devastating as their audacious demand!

    For starters, they picked Arewa House, Kaduna, for their controversial press conference, at which they belted out their riot act.  Arewa House symbolizes the panoply of the northern establishment, in its full glory.

    So, it is likely to lend itself to rich conspiracy theories, like mushroom on wet wood, in Nigeria’s every vibrant rumour mill.  Well, many would have been winking to themselves now: voice of Jacob, hand of Esau!

    Then, their ultimatum date of October 1!  On the Nigerian National Day, their very own North, hurt and injured, would have called everyone’s bluff, and walked out in full drama.  What bravura!

    But Governor El-Rufai’s timely warning turned that into some damp squib.  Some hours later, the 19 northern governors, speaking through their chair, Kashim Shettima, reinforced El-Rufai’s message: the so-called threat is a no-brainer, with no basis in law or common sense.

    The Kaduna governor had earlier asked the security agencies to arrest those behind the threat, while the Federal Government itself had told the Igbo in the North to ignore the ultimatum.   That is how it should be, for no government, founded on law, should aid or abet such brazen blackmail.

    But the flip side: why wasn’t there an El-Rufai equivalent in all of the South East, all this time Nnamdi Kanu has been unleashing his explosive message of hate, threat, abuse and curses, on other Nigerians, on his neo-Biafra cause?

    Perhaps if there had been one, there wouldn’t have been any “Arewa youths” reaction, thus pushing the polity close to the Araba violence of 1966?  Remember that Operation Araba, code-name for the 29 July 1966 counter-coup, was not only to avenge the death of northern leaders in the 15 January 1966 coup, but also to take the North from Nigeria?

    Just imagine: 50 years ago, Araba was a reaction to a so-called Igbo coup, and the threat, after so much shedding of blood, was Arewa secession.  The ultimate result was the Civil War  (1967-1970), in which no less than two million perished.

    Today, it is another Arewa threat, in reaction to Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB’s torrential hate messages.  Who knows where this would lead?

    In a season of unbridled youth rascality like this, it behoves the elders to take charge, and rein the dangerous emotions of these callow youths, whose no-brainers could unleash callous, self-imposed tragedy.

    El-Rufai and the northern governors have taken a good lead.  It is time South East elders too followed that path of sanity.

    Threats and counter-threats just measure futility of violence.  They solve nothing.  They skew and screw everything.

    Those who refuse to learn from history must brace up for its inevitable dire consequences.

  • Maize malady

    Well, you heard about tomato Ebola and grain weevils attack; but this is not another kind of crop disease or farm pestilence. Not at this thick of the rainy season when maize is ripening all across the country. It is indeed that time of the year when we suffer a form of ‘maize malady’.

    You know that time of the year when every street corner you turned, you are confronted by corn on the cob – roasted, boiled or even the corn-beans porridge collabo! The one that has been adjudged the most balanced tropical diet! The one that makes you drink water like a camel many hours after consuming it!

    But that is not the maize madness that catches Hardball’s fancy here; it is the madness of a different kind, a national malady that makes a country import all the things it can produce and export all the things it can refine.

    It is a madness that is symptomatic of a slothful people who lack rigour, who lack a sense of process and live out on a daily basis, an illusion of grandeur. Corn madness is the story of a country devoid of leadership capacity to drive her people to harness her rich, God-given resources for the good of all. It is the madness of a people who living in a vast arable territory of the universe and should be feeding the world but rather depend on everyone else (even arid countries) for the most basic staple food.

    Maize madness is about a report in national dailies last week that Nigeria imported about N6 billion worth of maize in the last two months of April and May, 2017. It is an action so preposterous it borders on madness of national propensity. It is such an obfuscating phenom that every being in such a country deserves twelve strokes of the cane starting from number one to the last person.

    Considering that we are in the rainy season when corn grows with little effort and less costs and can mature for harvesting in 90 days, importers of N6b worth of maize could have gotten twice the quantity of maize they needed at half that cost if they had tilled Nigerian land in February/March this year.

    Imagine    the thousands of jobs that would have been created; the know-how that would have been infused in the value-chain. The economics of scale of a multi-billion domestic maize production project; the huge foreign exchange saved including  passed-on costs like freighting, packaging for export and port handlings.

    It may interest you to know that apart from maize madness, there are other maladies like palm oil madness, rice madness, poultry madness, milk madness and even petroleum products madness.

    Some drastic cure required please!

  • Naira versus NLNG

    Sometimes it is necessary to remind Nigerians that we are no longer under the jackboot umbrella. And whether our democracy is flawed or not, the system of popular persuasion is much to be preferred to the shadow of the army that rules by diktat.

    That accounts for why the nation rose in uproar when the chief of army staff either goofed or tried to present a lack of judgment as goof when he spoke of some unholy meetings between soldiers and some unknown pollical bigwigs.

    Anything that throws us back to that era ought to be treated with not only suspicion but the impulse of revulsion. Hence there is much to be praised in one of the recent actions of the House of representatives. This concerns the decision to redeem one of the indecencies of the military era, especially the regime of the soldier with exaggerated dark goggles called Sani Abacha. The House of representatives passed the bill that the Nigeria NLG should pay three percent of its mammoth yearly profits to the Niger Delta Development Commission as part of its social duties to a region ravaged by its irony of wealth: oil and gas.

    Other companies in the region have acquiesced, if some do in name but not always in deed. At least they recognise the supremacy of the law of the land. The NLNG was given a tax holiday in this regard, and asked not to pay while dip their gloriously oily hands in their pockets.

    The House of representatives has now decided to put national interest above the cynicism that has characterised our political elite who collude with the oil and gas mavens to oppress their kith and kin.

    If the idea of the tax holiday was to allow the company get rooted, it has had about a generation to do so. It is time to bow to the impulse of the people and put aside three percent to develop the area. They claim they do not pollute the region. They merely process.

    Is that not a cynical argument? They want to eat their cake and have it, or vice versa. Let others produce the gas, and although while we are processing it, it does damage, we can take the profit and not the responsibility. No one in their patriotic senses and in the full working of logic accept that argument. Because I don’t make garri but merely distribute it, I am not in the garri business.

    They believe that they have been working in the society, including giving scholarships. Records show they give more scholarship to vocational youths than the more substantial demands of the region, especially those who want university education.

    The NLNG makes about N500 billion a year. And they are not even being asked to pay a tithe or even half a tithe, but a measly fraction. Yet they yell in pain.

    The NLNG is owned by four shareholders, and Nigeria, represented by the NNPC, owns 49 per cent. The balance belongs to Shell Gas BV, Total LNG Nigeria Ltd, and ENI International Ltd. These firms control 25.6  percent, 15 percent and 10.4 percent respectively.

    The NDDC is owed over a trillion naira in debt, as the Managing director Nsima Ekere has noted. Firms with strong foreign content should not be seen to be adding to the burden.

  • Don’t bungle it, please

    When it happened on January 17, there were questions and questions. Nearly five months after, there are still questions and questions.   When a supposed haven for people uprooted by terrorists ironically became another place of death and destruction, there were inevitable questions. What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Was the happening avoidable?

    These questions and other connected ones needed to be answered following the tragic death of no fewer than 76 people after a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) fighter jet targeting Boko Haram insurgents accidentally bombed an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Rann, Kala/Bage Local Government Area in the northern part of Borno State. The casualty figures were not definitively determined, but the fatalities reportedly included IDPs, humanitarian workers and soldiers.

    What NAF spokesperson Air Commodore Olatokunbo Adesanya was quoted as saying at the weekend did not supply answers to the questions that are still unanswered.  He asked for more time.

    Adesanya said: “We are aware of the interest the matter generated within and outside the country. A Board of Enquiry was set up to determine what happened, who are those involved, what led to the accident and how do we prevent a recurrence.” He added: “We are pleading with Nigerians to be patient with NAF so that the Board of Enquiry will do its assignment diligently. And don’t forget that some of the people involved, victims or their relatives, may be people who could not speak English. So a thorough job has to be done.”

    How long will it take to do “a thorough job”? Indeed, the authorities have a lot of explaining to do.  At the time the tragedy happened, the Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, which was designed to counter Boko Haram insurgency, Major-Gen. Lucky Irabor, told reporters: “We got reports of a gathering of Boko Haram terrorists at Kala/Balge… and a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) fighter jet conducted an aerial strike on the gatherings of insurgents. This resulted in killings of several terrorists and civilians, including some staff of MSF and ICRC…There are casualties; there were deaths and injuries… two soldiers were also affected.”

    He also said:”I coordinated and I directed that the air component of the operation should go and address the problem. Unfortunately, the strike was conducted but it turned out that other civilians were somewhere around the area and they were affected.”

    Unfortunately too, the investigation of the incident is taking too long. The probe of this bungled bombing should not be bungled.