The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Fayose the tailor

    The Nigerian Television Authority, the octopus NTA, used to serve its 20 million viewers “Sura the Tailor”, a fictive tele-comedy.

    But NTA was in indecent haste. Had it waited a few years, even decades, it would have served its happy and titillated viewers with real-life stuff, with gubernatorial clout to boot: Fayose the Tailor!

    Perhaps to herald the 2017 International Women’s Day (IWD) in Ekiti, His Excellency, the “Irunmale to nje jollof rice” (self-named demon wolfing down jollof rice) hopped into a neighbouring Ado-Ekiti seamstress’ shop, full security in tow, to show the locals the real stuff of which gubernatorial tailoring was made.

    And boy! Didn’t the tape rule, and the machine-in-full-sewing motion, and the profile of the governor as executive tailor sit rather well on the august visitor in March?  It’s the making of Fayose the Tailor.

    O, was the governor-tailor sewing the special IWD “aso ebi”, thus assuring the Ekiti womenfolk that their day this year would be a day to remember? Nothing less, really, was expected from the gubernatorial man of the people!

    Until, of course, the John Kayode Fayemi (JKF) Centre — to be sure, no love lost between that axis and Fayose’s gubernatorial axis — hinted at some unconscionable racketeering allegedly tailored (that word again!) at a gubernatorial but crafty parasite virtually sucking the last pint of blood off the women hosts he claims to so much love.

    JFK Centre alleges the “aso-ebi”, priced at N500, was a soulless scam to fleece these long-suffering Ekiti women, in times of salary backlogs and harsh taxation, even when businesses are wilting in Ekiti.  Well, that’s JKF Centre’s allegations.  Let the Osoko and his people speak up for themselves.

    Still, it is amazing how far Fayose would go to drag the governorship to the height of the Pigmy, just because he seems well and truly incapable of vaulting its heights, by petty stunts and cheap derring-do.

    If Fayose is not combing Abuja for some bukateria to push the image of the Fela jeun kooku (eat and expire), he is scoring Ekiti to price pepper, fish and meat like some idle housewife — or more aptly, house husband! — or even visiting the “happening” joint for the latest and most potent agbo jedi (local herbs for pile) in town!

    Of course, a people so swayed by spectacle are thrilled; and they roar!  It is true, as the Yoruba quip: a lunatic show is high fun.  But whoever wishes his son or daughter pulls that show?

    Each time he puts up these stupid stunts, Ekiti regresses. But who knows what geometrical backwardness these wilful present regresses would translate to in future?

    In five years (1954-1959), the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo built a free education legacy that gifted Ekiti its cutting edge of professors, which earned it the due accolade of the land of the learned and the cultured. Would it take just four years of empty Fayose stunt-pulling to condemn its future generation to avoidable ruin?

    Ekiti thought they elected a governor.  Now, all they have is a prankster, whose latest empty stunt is Ayo the Tailor!

     

    Ekiti Kete!

  • Ebora Owu at 80

    The Ebora Owu is 80; and the whole land cannot help but notice!  Hate him or love him, you cannot ignore this enigma from the backwaters of Egbaland in Western Nigeria that beams when called the “architect of modern Nigeria”.

    If you scoff at that — as indeed many do —  you can keep your skepticism, or cynicism. Heavyweights outside Nigeria’s coast don’t  share it.  And the grand old lady of Liberia, President Eileen Sirleaf-Johnson, is living proof.

    She rhapsodized that day be blessed, when Africa’s first presidential library happened in her lifetime!  (See, excitable Africans love spectacles, even if it is of tinsel, not gold)   What Hardball was unsure of, however, is whether that came from the heart or just quid-pro-quo for the West African gang-up at the expense of poor George Weah, that fetched her the Liberian presidency. Poor George!

    Still, aside from President Sirleaf-Johnson, other titans, particularly from Ghana, were there: former President John Kuffour and former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.

    So was Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, former President Goodluck Jonathan and former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, among other dignitaries.

    Grant Baba his day in the sun.  You don’t turn 80 twice.  Nor do many turn 80, after emerging the first Nigerian to rule as both a soldier and elected civilian. Even fewer Nigerians still would celebrate four scores, after taking the Biafran instrument of surrender, ending the tragic Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970),

    Of course, Baba is not noted for modesty, so he let fly one or two narcissistic bombs!

    One: The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost it when he and Col. Ahmadu Alli, former handpicked national chairman and Obasanjo’s garrison commander, left.  But who does not know that the pair of Obasanjo and Alli destroyed PDP, with their army barracks mentality and do-or-die politics?

    Two: That Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, used his “big grammar” to bomb him off the UN high office; but that God later raised him as elected president. Why is no one surprised?

    Still, Hardball could just wonder why Baba exerts so much energy, writing his own history; and erecting fawning monuments.  Is he, in his inner recesses, scared of a harsh verdict, when history finally sits in judgment?

    Hardball figures the Ebora benchmarks himself against two figures, to quieten his raging demons.

    Public intellectual: He figures himself some public intellectual, to be matched with the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo, whose birthday incidentally is in March too.  Awo is the most documented politician in Nigerian history — and most of the stuff was not just writing “nice things about yourself” (apologies to Prof. Osinbajo) but rigorous thinking about Nigeria and how it could attain greatness.  Baba writes self-history, a player that zealously crowns himself king, history be damned, if it disagrees!

    Man of integrity: Here, he loves to be rated along President Muhammadu Buhari.  Two years ago,  Obasanjo smugly declared: only two honest Nigerians lived — Buhari and himself!  Not a few chuckled at that!

    Ironically, it is in the realm of integrity that the new Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) takes most terrible knocks.  Because Obasanjo procured “donations” for it as sitting president (unlike the practice in America where presidents seek funding for their libraries after their terms), Baba has left himself open to charges of presidential extortion, even if to a worthy historical cause. And to stress the bathetic, gubernatorial delinquent, Ayo Fayose is already demanding an alleged N10 million he “donated” in aid of Obasanjo’s library, ha!

    Well, Baba has stated his case — by writing own history and erecting own monuments.  Its left to history, the ultimate judge, to accept or reject his plea.

    Meanwhile, happy birthday to the Ebora Owu — and the one and only Baba Iyabo!

  • Onnoghen and southern ‘jinx’

    By one newspaper, it is a misnomer; by two, it is a disaster — referring to Justice Walter Onnoghen, the first southerner becoming the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) in 30 years (1987-2017) as breaking a “jinx”.

    Now, was that a capacity problem?  Or was it plain mischief?

    If it was capacity, then it was bad enough, for newspapers, purveyors of the best of lexical tastes, should know the meaning of words before they stamp them on their pages.

    If southern Nigeria held the CJN post for the first 27 years (1960-1987) and northern Nigeria held it for the following 30 years (1987-2017), wherein lies the jinx Justice Onnoghen was breaking, as CJN — even given the mutual suspicion and bad faith on both sides of the regional divide?

    Perhaps NTA needs to re-air “Mind Your Language”, that British TV comedy of the late 1970s and 1980s (attention newspaper editors), as informal tutorial on lexis!

    But Hardball doubts it is capacity. He can wager the aristocrats of contemporary Nigerian journalism suffer no lexical challenge.

    What is it then  — mischief? That would appear most likely and it’s unfortunate.

    When a southern-based newspaper’s headline shouts a southerner is regaining the CJN after a 30-year interval, without being so open on a previous 27 years of southern domination of that office, then the old thing ripples with mischief.  The same newspaper would talk of a “jinx”, even if, in its own story, it had just detailed the era of southern domination of the CJN office.

    Another newspaper kicked up with a “jinx” in its own headline — that word again? — where there was no jinx! Why the careless use of language, when the reality is the opposite?  Blind mischief?  Or innocent naivety?

    The whole excitement over the CJN office, you must recall, arose from the debate over whether or not to continue with the present queue-and-push system to appoint a CJN; or discard the old convention and inject a fresh blood, to save a corrupt judiciary from itself.

    Justice Onnoghen was just a victim of circumstance.  It was his “turn” having queued for so long, particularly given the northern subversive strategy of lining up their own, for the plum job, over a long period of time, through this same queue-and-promotion system.

    The southern CJN hegemony the region achieved by being the only ones with requisite qualifications, a paradise many a southern partisan would wish had continued.  But alas!

    Still, if the current queue-and-push was good enough for the North, why wouldn’t it be good enough for the South?  Indeed, why not?

    But what if the old convention had become a racket that only reinforces opacity and corruption in the judiciary?  Can it then be good for anyone?

    That was the main issue. And even if Onnoghen was going to be the sacrificial lamb (and that would have been a patriotic sacrifice, if the judiciary was assured a rebirth), there was no guarantee that whoever was picked would not come from the South.

    Unfortunately, it is a Nigerian tragedy that when core issues are raised, counter-inanities would creep in, such that the empty noise of the inanity soon crowds out the quiet sense. That is all there is to the Onnoghen CJN controversy, which climaxed in the “breaking of a jinx” that was none.

    Still, Onnoghen is CJN. He’s a southerner — congrats to the victorious southern succession army! But does that start to address the perceived corruption in the judiciary, which climaxed in the hitherto unthinkable of hauling many of its proudest flowers in the dock for alleged corruption?

    Not so assuredly, CJN Onnoghen himself has started with a double-speak. The Judiciary would be free and incorrupt under his charge — good! But that came with the tame apologia that since the judiciary came from the Nigerian society; it couldn’t be expected to be cleaner than its very nursery!

    That painfully is true; and His Lordship probably spoke in all good faith. It could also well be an answer to a question which context was too narrow for general or collective interpretation.

    Still, it’s seeming double-speaks like these that would bolden some rogue judges still in the system, still determined to take their chances, anti-sleaze campaign be damned!

    Must Hardball repeat it again?  The task before the new CJN is not where he comes, or does not come from, but saving the soul of the judiciary.

    The Judiciary is the key to civilised society.  If that key is broken — it is now gravely threatened by long-term rot — it only paves the road to Mogadishu.

    A judiciary that tottered so tragically under CJN Alloysius Katsina-Ala and endorsed the blood-soaked governorship of Nyesom Wike certainly requires some urgent and drastic surgery.

    Hardball hopes and prays the new CJN is up to the task.

  • How not to be a governor

    Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike likes to throw his weight around.  Yes, he has a lot of weight as the state’s helmsman. There is no doubt about that. Yes, he has weighty issues on his mind as governor. There is no doubt about that. Yes, he carries the weight of the state on his shoulders. There is no doubt about that.

    But must he throw his weight around to show his status? Must he throw his weight around to show his office?

    Well, that’s exactly what he is accused of, and it may well be true. He has done so several times since he became governor in 2015. His latest alleged exhibition of power and the excesses of power cannot be overlooked, particularly because his showmanship is becoming showier.

    Wike’s party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was declared winner of the rerun election held in Etche Local Government Area of Rivers State on February 25. What role did Wike play on that day?

    Listen to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning Officer, Prof. Shola Omotola, who is a Professor of Political Science at the Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State:  ”I am not going to deny that the governor was here, (INEC office), last night. I’m not also going to deny the fact that I felt thoroughly humiliated, embarrassed, whatever way you want to describe it. When we left the venue at Etche, we saw tension building. I called the National Commissioner, and appealed to her to inform the military personnel to provide escort for us to move out of that place.”

    Omotola’s account continues: “To my surprise, we got here (INEC office), a few minutes to 12 midnight and we met the governor already inside here, INEC premises; how he got here I don’t know, but the fact that we were thoroughly humiliated cannot be denied. It is important I clarify that. It is however also important that I reassure you that yes, the governor used all tricks to force us to declare results. But, we stood our ground. We never declared any results yesterday…”

    Omotola said Wike issued “threats” to INEC officials, meaning the governor lost his sense of balance and his sense of decorum. It is interesting that Wike wants an unbelieving world to believe all he did was to resist rigging.  Wike had no business being there. Did he need to be there? His alleged conduct was misconduct.  That cannot be how to be a governor.

  • Subversive voices

    If you duel with lunatics,” says that saying, “soon people will start doubting your sanity.”

    That saying is instant and sweeping dismissal of elements that talk first, think later — a few in their natural mode of unthinking; but a lot more in their self-inflicted mode of mischief. And in Nigeria’s chequered politics, mischief, explosive mischief, comes with the territory!

    In this rusty era of Donald Trump’s “alternative facts”, where blatant lies proudly contest  the turf with unvarnished truth, if the lier is brazen enough, such mischief becomes extra-potent, and the host polity, and its luckless denizens, are the doomed victims.

    That, of course, craves an urgent re-visit to the rather dismissive opening quote. That upbraid, as sane and wise and logical as it sounds, might not be the “final discussion”, as a lingo of the street goes.

    Which explains what seems a presidential reaction to inanity, published in The Nation as its front page lead story of February 28: “Presidency: Osinbajo is executing Buhari’s policies”, with the rider: “Opposition trying to cause division between President and his vice”.

    Osinbajo executing Buhari’s policies — whose policies would the Vice-President have implemented?  Is it not a sole presidency?  If it is, why would the president be one thing, and the vice-president be another?

    Besides, is there anything like ambush policymaking, so much so that, open sesame, it becomes possible for a president to be indisposed for a few weeks and for the vice-president to suddenly emerge a superman, come to teach the president how to do it?  Arrant nonsense!

    That, exactly, would appear the agony of Babafemi Ojudu, special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Political Matters, as he painfully went through the obvious and the trite, on how Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo could not have traversed any path different from President Buhari’s.

    Though trite, Senator Ojudu needed to go through that chore simply because some subversive voices have gone on over-drive, dreaming up a dichotomy when there is none.

    Hardball could easily see through the shenanigans, of course.  But the unwary, that these malevolent elements target, could not — either because they are obtuse and genuinely incapable of doing so, or are self-crippled, just to feed, as a junkie feeds his addiction, some instant but negative passion.

    Voices that throatily condemned the Buhari Presidency’s economic team, headed by Vice-President Osinbajo, now eulogising results achieved by the same team, simply because Osinbajo is now acting president!  Has Osinbajo appointed a new czar for the administration’s economic team in lieu of himself, or what really has changed?  In any case, how could anything have changed, when the presidency is one and the same?

    Ojudu has done his duty by setting the records straight, though that grates in the ears of every right-thinking Nigerian, who easily sees through the blatant bad faith the polity is roiling in.  Ojudu has, therefore, done his job.  The rest of us must do ours.

    Still, a parting warning from Hardball: those who spew ethnic hate at others now should not grumble when the roles turn and it’s their own to be spewed at.  But then, these malevolent voices, though brash and loud, are the lunatic fringe, which the sane society can easily face down and shut up.  That really is the point — are you speaking up loud enough against this creeping insanity?

    The present situation is dire enough, with the innocent majority painfully paying for the the criminal orgy of a few.  That is why right-thinking Nigerians must rise up and shout down these subversive voices.

  • Here comes the Arakunrin of Ondo

    Call it the drama of politics or the politics of drama — an “Arakunrin” just dawned on Ondo State.

    That land must be rich with political symbolism, with telling meanings.  But could there also be, in that land of sunshine, the politics of meaning?  Ask the doughty players.

    Only yesterday, there was an Iroko.  As elected governor and political Iroko, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, a medic-turned grassroots politician, of “Gba sibe” fame, was as formidable as they come.

    For 12 years, at least, he held the Sunshine State in thrall, so much so that his powerful Iroko boughs could cut out the sun from any opponent’s political aspiration.

    If he favoured you?  You were in political el-dorado, of perpetual sunshine, perched on its mighty boughs.  But that could, with the speed of light, turn ashen, if you developed any fanciful ideas outside the received wisdom of the strict lord of the manor — cynical, street-wise and full of nativist intrigues.

    Twelve years?  Yeah, but do the math, if you doubt.  As the late Governor Adebayo Adefarati’s Health commissioner, the Iroko’s yellow card eventually changed to red.  That tossed old man Adefarati out of the Alagbaka State House window in Akure.  The mighty Iroko just secured a new, sweetheart deal with the late Segun Agagu.

    Though Mimiko was Governor Agagu’s Secretary to the State Government, yet another Iroko yellow card would send Agagu out of power, after a hotly disputed election, eventually awarded Mimiko, by the courts.

    The Iroko, who would go on to enjoy two terms (for the first time in Ondo State history) promised a lot.   But almost by consensus, from his electors, he delivered pretty little, though the Iroko and his men would hotly dispute that.

    Well, during the Iroko reign also came another, sworn to unhorsing the lord of the manor.  His name was Jimoh Ibrahim.  He dubbed himself “Araba”.  Just imagine a war of the forest, when the Iroko charges against the Araba!  A leafy Armageddon?

    Well, something close happened during the 2015 Ondo gubernatorial election.  The Araba later claimed he “tied up the Iroko” for three crucial weeks — three weeks of fatal distraction.  That was when the Araba claimed he was the valid Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, in lieu of Mimiko’s chosen, Prof. Eyitayo Jegede, SAN.

    Well, the Ondo political forest throbbed and rocked, as the Iroko and the Araba tried each other for size, in Abuja courts.  The rest, as they say, is history.  The Iroko got a pyrrhic  victory by getting his man back on the ticket.  But the Araba got the real victory: three days to the election, the election appeared already lost and won, and the Iroko finally got unhorsed.  Despite a nice try, the Iroko couldn’t instal his chosen successor.

    But the Iroko’s loss is the Arakunrin’s gain.  In that symbolic tradition, new Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, aka Aketi, decreed that he, as governor, would be simply “Arakunrin”.  Not as formidable as Iroko, to be sure, but the robust tradition of colourful monikers is alive and well!

    Still, the  Arakunrin had better learn from the Iroko’s pitfall.  The Iroko tried his best.  But if he had plotted less, been less cynical and shunned the hubris of over-reaching himself, he would have left a far better Ondo.

    That is the task before the Arakunrin.  Even if he wins a second term, eight years, as Mimiko found out the hard way, is too fleeting.  Before you know it, it’s gone!

     

    So, Arakunrin, stay focused!

  • Truth in untruth             

    The past year has also seen a disturbing rise in arrests and intimidation of media professionals and activists in Nigeria. At least 10 journalists and bloggers were arrested in 2016, some for alleged connections to Boko Haram, in a crackdown that appears to have been orchestrated to suffocate freedom of expression.”

    “In January, members of the Nigerian Army raided the editorial offices of Premium Times and arrested journalists Dapo Olorunyomi and Evelyn Okakwu. They were subsequently released, but the move sent a clear message to intimidate journalists and the media.”

    Two disturbing quotes from the latest report by global watchdog Amnesty International (AI), titled: “The State of the World’s Human Rights.”

    The AI picture of the state of Nigeria’s human rights shows that the Federal Government may well need one or two lessons on respect for human rights in a democracy. AI named Nigeria among the countries where governments responded “to legitimate dissent with extreme measures that had devastating impacts on the civic space.”

    The group also said: “In Southeast Nigeria, security forces led by the military, embarked on a chilling campaign of arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances. Many individuals are still being detained incommunicado while state security agents have killed at least 150 peaceful pro-Biafra protesters.”

    The country’s military authorities were expected to respond to the AI observations, and they did. They were expected to be defensive, and they were.

    Denying the alleged killings, the Defence Headquarters accused AI of a “series of spurious fabrications aimed at tarnishing the good image of the Nigerian military.” A statement by the Acting Director, Defence Information, Brig.-Gen. Rabe Abubakar, described the report as “contrived lies orchestrated to blackmail and ridicule the Nigerian Armed Forces.” Finally: “The Nigerian military rejects this AI report in its entirety and appeals to all well-meaning Nigerians to disregard the report and discountenance its content.”

    Questions:  What happened? What didn’t happen? For instance, the Premium Times incident did happen. How are Nigerians supposed to “disregard” and “discountenance” what they witnessed? If the AI report can’t be disproved in this regard, there may well be other provable instances.

    Instead of maintaining an extreme posture by rubbishing the AI report wholesale, the Nigerian authorities should do some soul-searching. There is always room for improvement; but only for those who are teachable and want to improve. A wake-up call should be seen as a call for improvement. If there is no improvement, there will be negative reports.

  • Defection furore

    It was quite sensational: Andy Uba’s defection to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), from the former ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Just like that: PDP today, APC tomorrow, another party the next day, and no blinking eyes!  That’s how Nigeria’s ultra-elastic democracy rolls!

    Just two years ago, in the heat of the 2015 general election, Uba was a proud  soldier of that “Christian” army, in the Southeast and much of the Southsouth, that scoffed at APC as “Islamic” party.

    But two years down the line, what has changed?  Has APC become “Christian” or Uba become “Muslim”, so much so that man and party now not only see eye-to-eye, but hug themselves in ecstasy, like some long lost but now found friends?

    Of course, you believe that election-time comedy, you believe anything!  The notorious fact is, whatever has changed — or unchanged — Senator Uba crossed the carpet, to where he feels his new interests would be buttered — and jammed!  Hardly a crime!

    But PDP isn’t finding it funny — nor would you!  But frankly, no tears for PDP on this one.  In all its years in government — all 16 years of it — it nurtured subversion of the opposition; and the murder of morality in party matters, into some satanic art.  It not only welcomed defectors from the underdog opposition with relish, it unabashedly instigated such partisan whoredom, under the pretext its umbrella was big enough for every individual and ideological hue.

    Well, it’s payback time and the rich should not cry or even snigger!  Perhaps if PDP had pushed a culture of political rectitude and integrity, perhaps it would have birthed a sane political climate that would have helped it to retain its members during these lean times. But alas!  As you lay your bed, you lie on it. PDP had put in place a bed of thorns.  So, let it quietly endure it without any racket.

    But after PDP, what of APC?  How does it answer the charge that, contrary to its pristine progressive  temper, it is now home to all and sundry, ideological puritanism be damned?

    Well, you could say the party would be foolish to turn its back on any Saul who claims to have become Saul, or even an unrepentant Saul, who, for whatever reasons, wants some change. Democracy, after all, is a game of numbers; and you need numbers to win elections.

    Some political historians could even say puritanical politics was what killed the Alliance for Democracy (AD) which once ruled the roost in the whole of Nigeria’s Southwest.  AD was highly discriminatory, condemning  not a few to political leprosy, by branding them members of the Abacha People’s Party (APP)!

    But where is AD today?  In the doldrums, because of its puritanical politics of exclusion, when political players have shown a clear temper to freely roll, ideology be damned!

    Still, between the PDP (extreme licentiousness) and AD (extreme puritanism), APC is free to pitch its tent.

    However it runs its show today would determine the political culture it would bequeath, which would either aid it or nail it when it comes to its own post-power winter — except, of course, it harbours PDP’s grand illusion that it would be in power forever.

    Does APC want to view the future from the past?  It should immerse itself in the present PDP dilemma. It would be a real tragedy, if it got consumed by the same PDP flaws, after so much lead time to avoid it.

  • Crude and indecent

    Crying hard, very hard to understand what sounds like nonsense. It just doesn’t make any sense. Yet the speaker spoke with the conviction of the sensible. But it was just senseless.

    Why would a party member believe and argue that the man legally recognised as the party’s National Chairman is nothing but a traitor whose intention is to work towards the fall of the party? Does that make sense? How can that make sense?

    But Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and a former Minister of Aviation, insists his strange point of view makes sense.  He does not only insist on the reasonableness of his reasoning; he also insists on the alleged unreasonableness of party members who apparently reason differently.

    What makes the drama more dramatic is Fani-Kayode’s employment of abusive expressions targeted at those who are on the other side.  He said in a statement on February 19: “Those that say that they will work with Ali Modu Sheriff are misguided and naive. Worse still, anyone that calls for members of the PDP to rally behind him and recognise him as our National Chairman is a simpleton and a fool.”

    Fani-Kayode added insult to injury: “I say this because the man is evil: he is an agent of destruction and no good can come out of him. I was the first to see him for what he was and I said so publicly…Sheriff is nothing but a traitor who is biting the fingers that fed him…This is a man whose fundamental purpose and ambition in life is to sell the PDP down the river and to help the ruling APC and the Buhari government to destroy us and win the presidential election in 2019.”

    Additional insults: “Sheriff is the Angel of Death to the PDP. He is worse than the bubonic plague: not only is he a curse to our party but he is also an affliction to our nation.”

    Surely, Fani-Kayode could have made his pointless point without being pointlessly crude and indecent. His conclusion:  ”I stand with Ahmed Makarfi and our Caretaker Committee and unless and until the Supreme Court says so he remains our National Chairman.”

    Since he leaves room for the possibility that the matter might go against his camp at the Supreme Court, it is reasonable to ask: “What will he have to say about the man he has so violently violated if that happens?”

  • Ibori: Between Awokulehin and  Avwomakpa

    You be thief, I no be thief,

    You be rogue, I no be rogue,

    You be robber, I no be robber,

    You be armed robber, I no be armed robber,

    Argument, argument, argue,

    Argument, argument, argue …

    –Fela

    Fela, the “Abami Eda” himself, lived and died before the James Ibori saga, where there seems absolutely no difference between wilful self-demonisation, resulting from bad personal choices; and communal re-canonisation, arising from empty sentiments and misguided love.

    Yet, Fela excellently captured, in his famous number quoted above, the sheer unreason behind the Ibori brouhaha.  Since when did thievery, duly confirmed by a court of law, become communal controversy, in the fond hope of wishing away the obvious?

    Take the parts, in this whole gripping drama, of two lords, one judicial, the other spiritual, both sandwiching the Ibori London debacle.

    Lord Judicial, Justice Marcel Awokulehin.  His Asaba Federal High Court threw out Ibori’s 170-count sleaze charges, claiming the accused was as clean as a whistle.

    The London Southwark Crown Court, however, proudly differed, slamming Ibori in the can, after he pleaded guilty to the charges before it.  With that conviction, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) appealed the Awokulehin verdict. The Court of Appeal has since tossed the judgment into the Atlantic, and ruled that Ibori indeed had a case to answer.

    Which is why it’s a little surprising that another “Awo”, but this time a Lord Spiritual, Archbishop God-do-well Avwomakpa, was busy beatifying Ibori as one of the latter saints, flushed with excitement on the pulpit, during the Ibori thanksgiving in Oghara, Delta State.

    St. Ibori may well be among the latter saints, for with all his personal tragedies, he boasts a huge community value in his native Oghara; and has shown personal kindness to not a few. But that sainthood does not extend to probity with public money, for which gargantuan misappropriation he has been found guilty and gaoled by a court of law.

    Sonala Olumhense, the respected columnist, even introduced a strange skew to the mix, pushing that since the Delta people gathered at Oghara were busy toasting Ibori, instead of roasting him, and because the diaspora perceived them as simply “Nigerian”,  the Buhari anti-sleaze crusade had collapsed!

    Shuo?  So, the anti-corruption war is now a behavioural barracks, when there ought to be no controversy as to right or wrong?  And in a purported democracy too?

    Besides, couldn’t SO have swiftly educated his beloved diaspora that only his Delta cousins, not the entire Nigerians, were toasting Ibori?  Must the government spew out everything?  Talk of the corruption of logic!  But it’s all fit ingredients for the Ibori brew!

    Hardball would not gloat over the misfortune of anyone. Ibori made a grievous mistake. He has paid for his crime. He should be allowed to be.

    But that closure is difficult to attain, if the convict blusters to please a crowd that was, at best, misguided; and holy fathers, who should know, speak in tongues on holy nothings!

    Let this rascality stop here and now. Crime and punishment have run their course. But let the convict stay penitently quiet!

    The raped society could then have compassion, forgive and move on.