The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Agents of hunger

    Nigerians will know them by their deeds, those whose actions escalate food insecurity in the country. Among them are officers and men of the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Police Force and Nigeria Customs Service, who have been accused of acting against food security through actions that contradict their roles as agents of government.

    It is expected that agents of government should act in the public interest. So it is unexpected that members of the mentioned organisations would act against the public interest.

    When the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, told the Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committee on Agriculture that food prices were going up in the country because of negative activities by members of these identified organisations, it showed another face of corruption.

    Ogbeh on February 9 identified one of the factors responsible for rising food prices in the country: “the daily unbearable extortion by men of the Nigeria Police, their counterparts in the Army and Customs Service of truck drivers conveying farm produce from the hinterlands to urban centres under the guise of carrying out security checks.”

    He added: “These truck drivers, based on raw lamentations made to the ministry in recent times, alleged that at every checkpoint they are always forced to part with reasonable amount of money by any group of the security agencies, which they said, made farmers to have no option than to factor cost of extortion into prices of food items.”

    Ogbeh said the ministry responded to the complaints by the truck drivers by writing to the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, and the heads of the other security agencies, asking them to do something to arrest the undesirable activities of their members which contributed to undesirable increase in food prices. “Daily reports available to the ministry still show that extortion continues unabated,” Ogbeh observed.

    What this means is that those at the helm of the named organisations have been unable to stop the bad activities of those who give their organisations a bad name by compounding the country’s food security challenge. Failure in this regard is inexcusable and unacceptable.

    When members of security agencies, by their actions, effectively encourage higher food prices, they discourage public appreciation of their official functions.

    Higher food prices mean lower purchasing power for many people across the country, meaning those responsible for the situation are agents of hunger whose activities should be checked.

  • St. Andrews and other tales

    There is a counter paradise, where reversed values hold sway; and skewed conduct is the cream of the court, the court of the street, where the mighty prey on the weak and the weak, hitherto victims, are now merry champions, of their own abject abuse.

    That is the world of St. Andrews.  In this time that US President Donald Trump talks of “alternative facts, the land of St. Andrews remorselessly boasts “alternative morals”, where there is absolutely no difference, between good and bad.

    And to push this neo-philosophy, St. Andrews made hay.  He so loved much the dollar, loving soul, that he created his own customised bank, in the seediest part of town!

    The folks there may be dirt poor, he reckoned.  But why should they be averse to proudly hosting millions of American dollar notes, chilling in steel safes, as much as they, the people, grill in the dust of grinding penury, virtually just outside the barred doors of this customised banks?

    Perhaps if he had parted with a naira here and a kobo there, a cent now and a pound sterling then, the people would have hailed and praised — the excellent mark of a returned native made good.

    But alas!  He was in love with his dollars that he didn’t share. That was the fatal mistake.  They now say St. Andrews “chopped” alone.  So, he is dying alone!

    But from there, in that same land of St. Andrews, another native, returned from overseas disgrace, came calling to rapturous welcome.

    Disgrace?  Those Brits are crazy and criminally outdated!  How can you accuse and gaol such a goodly man, such a kind man, such a caring man,  such a symbolic Moses, Job, Jesus the Christ and even Elijah rolled into one?  And for what — for developing his people and making them happy?  Wallahi, these Brits were deluded!

    Anyway, that’s their headache.  Here, in our midst, you remain our authentic hero, let them say anything they like!

    You are the quintessential native made good.  You have gone to achieve.  Now, you’re back to receive — receive honour, your desert, as the quintessential citizen.  Welcome, great native!

    Not far away, but yet in another segment of the land of St. Andrews, those in charge of training the youth, in the straight-and-narrow way, both in learning and in character, are unfazed masters in the wide-and -merry, that leads to destruction!

    Well, the land is even in a furious debate.  You must change the name, not a few bristle, from Vice Chancellor to Chancellor of Vice!  That would conform to the new regnant wisdom of alternative morality, wouldn’t it?

    That is how this land rolls.  Things seem to have fallen apart and the centre is not holding.  The falcon, as the famous poet says, can no longer hear the falconer.   It is the real moral Armageddon, signifying the end times.

    Still, in the land of St. Andrew, it’s morning yet on decadence day.  Well, you call it decadence.  We call it alternative morality.

    That is how the land rolls, this lovely land of St. Andrews!

  • Wabba’s solution

    A drastic problem demands a drastic solution. Such reasoning must have triggered the shocker by the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, while addressing a crowd of protesters bitter about hard times brought about by the recession. The place of protest on February 9 was the Unity Fountain in Abuja.

    Wabba said: “We must not allow a situation where a few, because of their interest, will hold the system to ransom. We are demanding increase in electricity supply and they are saying add more tariff, we are demanding increase in minimum wage and they say they are going to be paying in percentage. We should not be tired.”

    What followed was more alarming than what came before it: “Why should somebody steal one billion naira and walk the streets free? We are demanding that they should be named and shamed. We are also demanding that one of their hands be cut off so that when we see them, we will know that they are people that have stolen our money.”

    Of course, Nigerians know it is not an invention that there are people who allegedly stole mountainous money from the public purse. Nigerians also know that such people, by their alleged stealing, contributed to the country’s economic crisis. It is imaginable and understandable that Nigerians would want such people to be “named and shamed.”

    But Wabba may have carried his passion for punishment for the alleged thieves too far by demanding that “one of their hands be cut off.” Demanding amputation takes things too far, even if the alleged thieves carried their stealing too far.

    Wabba’s status demands that he should be less emotional about the issue, and be more unemotional about it. The call for amputation suggests Wabba may have momentarily forgotten that Nigeria is supposed to be a secular country, and not a country where Islamic law, also known as Sharia, is in operation.  Cutting off the hands of thieves as punishment for stealing is associated with Sharia; it is a controversial penalty alien to the country’s justice system.

    To be fair, the scale of political corruption that prompted Wabba’s recommendation has been dangerously damaging to the country. There is no question that those who stole from the country so enthusiastically and so shockingly deserve to be punished; but they should be punished based on what the law says and not what Wabba says.

  • Joining the latest billionaire club in town

    Good news — Hardball is joining the latest billionaire club in town, the Whistle-blowers’ Club.  It’s the perfect marriage between personal comfort and collective bliss.

    Besides, tell me what business is more personally pleasing and more collectively patriotic in town than singing on past vermin that put all of us in this present bind, and being generously paid for that patriotic chore?

    You still don’t know what I’m talking about?  Okay, read these opening paragraphs in the New Telegraph lead story of February 13, headlined “Three whistle-blowers get N3bn”, which nevertheless flagged off on page 2:

    “The Federal Government is to pay between N1.5 billion and N3billion to three whistle-blowers for their roles in the recovery of looted funds totalling over N60 billion.

    “The amount represents 2.5 or five per cent of the $151 million (about N52.8 billion) and N8 billion recovered from three sources following information from the whistle-blowers.”

    First, Hardball is buffeted with a serious bout of migraine, complete with violent fever, at the mere thought of any sane person locking down $136 million dollars in an allegedly fake account, bearing the false name of an oil and gas company, and in a lowly commercial bank to boot!

    Are these folks sane?

    Then, to think that their greed that crunched the public till, may also have scorched the lessers mortals who helped them to secure their illicit nests!  Otherwise, why are whistle-blowers’ frenetic activity to sing on them?

    One report claimed the latest Kaduna Banking Zuwo was too stingy for comfort.  Remember that colourful Second Republic Kano Governor, Sabo Bakin Zuwo, who kept government money in Government House, and was instantly media-canonised ‘Banking Zuwo’?

    Then, the ghost client with a cool trove of $136 million, in a ‘safe’ bank account!  Perhaps if (s)he had generously “settled”  his collaborators (ah, remember that word, when it was trending, when IBB was democratising corruption?),  would anyone have blown the whistle on him — or her?

    It is true as they say in the streets: you chop alone, you die alone!

    Anyway, boom for some, doom for others.  If indeed, these guys are too greedy as news stories seem to suggest, it has only turned out boom for a new but hugely profitable career in whistle-blowing.

    And here comes the Hardball fortune!

    In this new career, Hardball declares himself first among equals, if not the Supreme Commander of the Patriotic Army of Whistle-Blowers to Crush Corruption (PAWCC).

    In this new role, he pledges himself to giving every embezzler of public funds a shrill and eardrum-piercing whistle!  And he won’t stop until we have recovered all our stolen money.

    But in that golden duty, he looks forward to his golden commission — just imagine, at least 2.5 per cent from every billion recovered!

    Hurray!  This patriotic soldier, of recovered loot, would be rich!  About time!

  • Merry in the mud

    Let’s talk about mudslinging and mudslingers.  First of all, the observation must be made that the more mud available, the greater the mudslinging, and the merrier the mudslingers.

    A lot of mud has been flying around since Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha and Anambra State Governor Willie Obiano threw caution to the winds in a drama of desperate egotism.

    A report said: “The ‘war’ started after Okorocha said during the Southeast APC stakeholders’ meeting in Owerri, Imo State capital, that three governors in the zone were planning to defect to the All Progressives Congress. The ensuing verbal war had led to Obiano calling Okorocha a “motor park governor”…In his response, Okorocha described Obiano as “a drunk who is easily intoxicated, by X.O.,” an alcoholic brand.”

    Lest we forget, the speakers are governors. The enthusiastic exchange of verbal blows provided perhaps unintended entertainment, and governors became entertainers. Seriously, the show became comical, turning the governors into comedians of sorts.

    Of course, there are observers who are not amused. A statement by the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) called the show “madness,” and described the performance of the performers as “complete stupidity and foolishness.” The World Igbo Youth Congress (WIYC) said the dirty fighting was “disgraceful and a slap on the entire Igbo land.”

    Again, lest we forget, this is about gubernatorial mudslingers. So, it was perhaps predictable that gubernatorial performance would be a target for mud, with Okorocha saying Obiano “has nothing to display.”

    Okorocha boasted that his achievements in Imo State, “about two thousand verifiable projects executed by his administration in various parts of the state,” include:  the construction of two flyovers, three tunnels, 500 kilometres of urban roads, the International Convention Centre, the Eastern Palm University, the Imo College of Advanced Studies, 800 kilometres of rural roads, 305 school buildings in the 305 wards in the state and 27 hospitals.

    After comparing the profiles of the two fighters, a statement from Okorocha’s corner declared that he was “more educated” than Obiano. Then this: “We were right when we said in our first response to Governor Obiano’s attack that comparing Obiano with Rochas (Okorocha) is like comparing (Lionel) Messi of Barcelona F.C. with one left winger in one Mberi Secondary School in Imo State.”

    Indeed, the mess may get messier, considering that Okorocha is insisting on “an unreserved apology” from Obiano as a condition for peace. When governors appear to be merry in the mud, it is a sure sign that all is not well.

  • Ambode and yellow buses

    Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s announced decision to get rid of the notorious yellow buses of Lagos, later this year, would have left not a few with yellow peril (apologies to the novel titled that, by the Chinese Wang Lixiong; and the West racist slur on the people of East Asia).

    Much more too, may be feeling blues — perhaps with heavy sweating!

    To the mourning and those still about to mourn, the angst is simple: daily bread, for good or for ill, is about to vamoose, almost without notice.

    To be sure, these epitomise sheer madness on Lagos roads: the notorious road outlawry of the drivers of Danfo minibuses;  the lunacy of the older generation of molue (a corruption of “maul it”?) buses, now mercifully being driven away by BRT buses, given their “hired killer” attitude towards other road users; and, of course, the Okada, Marwa tricycle and allied road suicidals, who ride as if they have signed a non-death pact with death, no matter how outrageous their road habits!

    But look more closely, and you’d see, behind that madness, the perfect sanity of a breed chasing daily bread, with all the manic zeal, life and energy could bestow.

    Yet, not a few would be happy to get this bedlam off Lagos roads, and justifiably too!  Daily bread or no, no band of citizens should continue to constitute daily hazards, most of them unprovoked, to other road users.

    So, banning these road louts may well be very popular — indeed desirable.  But that is the easy part, even with all the looming economic Armageddon in a recessed economy, resonant with pains and hurting.

    The hard part would be ridding them of their murderous driving habits and devil-may-care road outlawry.  Or, would the yellow buses go with their generation of mad drivers, to be replaced, open sesame, by another breed with immaculate road habits?

    That, is the problem.

    Even with the phase-out of the old molue buses, the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) reportedly formed a cooperative that  co-owned and operated a fleet of the first set of  BRT buses.

    They simply, most of the time, passed their drivers on to the new scheme.  But their molue driving mentality hardly vanished!  Vandalised buses, wilful crashes from some reckless BRT drivers  and loss of lives and limbs were the result.

    So, if the Lagos government indeed gets rid of these Danfo buses and the Marwa tricycles and the irritating Okada shuttle (which it should), how does it guarantee their road outlawry exits with them?

    That is the challenge, aside from the other obvious question of what to do with the new army of unemployed, who can’t transit into the new avant-garde transport system befitting of a modern mega-city.

    This is an area Governor Ambode must give a serious thought, if the new system would not be tantamount to serving old poison in glittering new plates.

    Otherwise, it’s a vision worth exploring.

     

  • Ali’s uniform

    From the look of things, the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Colonel Hameed Ali (retd), is unlikely to wear the relevant uniform during his time as Customs chief. He enjoys the status, but he is contemptuous of the uniform that reflects the status.

    Ali seems to have come to the job with a superiority complex, thinking and believing that his background as a retired army officer means it is beneath him to wear the uniform of an organisation he rates as inferior to the Army, even if he happens to be the boss.  Of course, there is a uniform that goes with the office and rank of Customs CG.

    Ali showed his mindset during a February 2 interaction with the Senate Committee on Customs and Excise concerning a proposed bill to restructure the NCS. A report said: “A member of the committee, Senator Obinna Ogba, demanded to know why Col Ali as Customs CG still appears in and wears mufti close to two years after his appointment. The Ebonyi Central Senator noted that the continuous appearance of Col Ali in mufti several months after his appointment appears to be ‘highly demoralising to officers and men of the front-line revenue generating agency.’ Ali fired back, saying that as a former military officer, tradition does not permit him to wear any other uniform.”

    When another member of the committee, Senator Dino Melaye, recalled that Halidu Hananiya, a retired Army General, wore the uniform of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) as its Corps Marshall, Ali reportedly “told the committee that Gen. Hananiya made a fundamental mistake by wearing FRSC uniform.” It is food for thought that a retired Colonel suggested that he was more professionally conscious than a retired General.

    It is interesting that Ali’s position provoked Senator Ogba to the point that he “angrily walked out of the session.”  The report said: “While walking out of the hearing room, Ogba retorted “this is how you people keep on deceiving Nigerians on wrong action and still defending it.”

    Ali’s stance is indefensible. It exposed his complex, which is defined as “a mental state that is not normal.” If Ali thinks he is too big to wear the uniform of Customs CG, but does not think he is too big to be Customs CG, then he needs to be encouraged to rethink.  Hopefully, he won’t think he is too big to have a rethink.

  • From America with love

    Donald Trump, the new American president, may well be the very antithesis of civilised company, with a penchant for racism, misogyny, bigotry, xenophobia and putative fascism, all wrapped in crass nativism, served in most scalding passions of sweet nationalism.

    Under him, America may well start manifesting the exact opposite of ideals that have endeared that country to the world, as an exemplar of liberty and opportunity, a golden land where immigrants stepped and made hay.

    Still, it would appear the basic humanity of the ordinary Americans is not about to vanish with the Trump volcano.  Not on the highly emotive religious front, anyway.

    The proof is the Victoria Islamic Centre, a mosque in Victoria, Texas, that just went up in smoke.

    Whodunnit?  Nobody knows yet. Though in the Trump era trumpeting of racial slurs and religious bigotry, some conspiracy theories about some intolerant racial and faith fanatics, having a hand in a possible arson, may well make some sense.

    According to CNN, however, nothing so far suggests that.  In any case, the cause would not be known until a matter of weeks or even months, when investigations are completed.

    But the most striking thing about this tragedy is how it deepened the humanity of the Victoria, Texas, community — Muslim, Jew or Christian.

    As soon as the inferno occurred, the Jewish community there handed over the key of their synagogue to the affected Muslims. Before they could secure an alternative worship house, the Muslims could make good with the Jewish tabernacle!

    How moving, given the traditional chill that always characterises the relationships among adherents of these cousin faiths!

    The three Victoria Christian communities too were not to be outdone. They also offered the distraught Muslims their facilities as temporary worship base.

    Besides, support from all over has been overwhelming and heart-warming. More than US$ 1million has been raised in donations, aimed at rebuilding the 16-year-old mosque, which the affected Muslims say, could be rebuilt in a year.

    This is just a refreshing refrain from the hateful atmosphere around here, where clerics underscore their faith and ministry by calling on their partisans to go kill others, because they share different faith or different ethnic communes.

    How so refreshingly different from here, where difference in faith may often be tantamount to bitter enmity, in which scores must be settled with senseless blood-letting and hate speeches.

    Are our religious partisans here not part of the same Christianity or Islam that these American partisans belong?

    This should be a wake-up call.  If in Trump country, where a misguided president is an epitome of pettiness and divisiveness, and some people there are not about losing their humanity, tell those pastors and imams that preach hate and murder to chuck it.

    They cannot be of God, for God that created life cannot sanction its wanton waste, at the slightest provocation.

    Indeed, the Victoria, Texas, experience is a manifestation of that powerful message: love trumps hate!  It is nothing but beautiful.

  • And the Suleiman contagion spreads

    Help, the Suleiman contagion is spreading!  But blame no one, but the security agencies, who allow subversive religion to pervert their sense of duty.

    Such laxity created the violent Fulani herdsmen menace, which not a few insist created the Suleiman monstrosity, which Hardball wagers, may soon spawn many more bizarre situations.

    Auchi-based Apostle Johnson Suleiman, you would recall, called on his flock to “kill” any Fulani herdsmen, found prowling around his church.  He said some elements among the herdsmen were out to get him.

    When he had a meeting with the DSS, according to news reports, he boiled down the “kill them” diktat with “defend yourself”, if attacked.  Sure, that isn’t irrational.  But a state that let things slide to where self-help, from the mouth of a hate-filled cleric assumes a redemption halo, only baits anarchy.  That is no model state.

    Still, you could feel the “man of God”, goading his Christian followers to “kill”, for whatever reasons, do a partial recant, when the full impact, of his ugly and reckless charge, hit him outside the euphoria of the cathedral.

    Other radical — or, shall we say, soon-to-be killer — clerics are following suit: one in Lagos; the other, by the sound of his name, from the Southeast, although it is not clear where he is based. Both of them have pronounced their own “kill-before-you-are-killed” decree, the second one even filming his own video, unleashed on cyberspace!

    Good Lord, hate is tearing away at your ministers’ heart here!

    But blame not these fanatics. Blame the lax security people. When Suleiman made his own incendiary statement, he knew what mattered was not what he said but who said it.  True to type: the moment DSS summoned him for questioning, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), hitherto deaf to his reckless statement, suddenly sprung to life to mediate peace. Is violence now part of the official CAN agenda?

    From newspaper reports, DSS accepted the so-called peace and sent off the man of God.  To sin no more?  Hardly!  But to go on to other mischief, in the name of Christianity. No wonder other hustlers in priestly robe, anxious to secure popularity with notoriety, are towing this line of self-ruin.  As they say, “nothing will happen”!

    The same “nothing will happen” mentality also brewed the killer Fulani herdsmen.  Had the security agencies strictly done their duty, and hit hard at the criminals parading as “Fulani herdsmen”, all these would have been averted.

    But even if a few criminals slur their ethnic collective and religion with murderous acts, must Christians too, who have the divine injunction to “turn the other cheek”, bring their faith to ridicule, simply because a few pastors, projecting personal hate as collective duty, allow explosive emotions to get the better part of them?

    But that is exactly the point: Christian, Muslim, northerner, southerner, Hausa, Fulani, Ijaw, Yoruba, Igbo — what are these labels got to do with crime?  Does murder cease to be murder, simply because it is done by a Christian or a Muslim?  Or because it is done on behalf of each faith?

    Let the security agencies do their work.  Suleiman has charged his flock with free murder.  Yet, what he got was a slap on the wrist.  Maybe very soon, we would have crusading Christian Killers, matching violent Fulani herdsmen, on the killing turf!  Maybe then, this madness would sink in!

    Let the security agencies do their work.  All criminals, Christian or Muslim, Fulani or any other ethnic group, must face the dire consequences of their crime.  That is the only antidote to the new “kill them” madness all over the land.

  • A prayerful legislator

    There is a time to work and a time to pray. Work and pray, or pray and work, there is “a time for everything.” It would be interesting to get a response from former Senate Leader Mohammed Ali Ndume on this matter.

    Let us begin from the beginning.  Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who represents Borno South Senatorial District was removed as Senate Leader and replaced by Senator Ahmed Lawan (Yobe North) in dramatic circumstances on January 10. His removal was plotted and perfected by the APC Senate Caucus which communicated the development to Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki in a two-paragraph letter entitled “Notice of change of leadership.”

    Ndume’s reaction: “I went to pray and I handed over to my deputy to take charge but by the time I came back, I was told that APC Caucus had selected a new Senate Leader. I did not know how the Caucus arrived at this decision. Nobody confronted me with allegations of any misdemeanour or infraction… This is a parliamentary coup because many of my colleagues said they were not aware of any Caucus meeting.”

    About two weeks later, something happened which suggested that Ndume may be a bit confused about when to work and when to pray.   A January 26 report said Ndume had called for budget transparency in the Senate. He was quoted as saying: “The budget of the Senate is not known to the senators; it should be known this year. This is very important because we cannot be taking blames or hold credit for what we don’t know. Mr. President, if you look at 2016 budget, yes we have been given the budget performance, but what budget 2016 contained in relation to 2017 budget is not available. There should have been a column where 2016 budget is enumerated and detailed out so that we know because we end up having uncompleted projects.”

    Then there was an interesting role change. The report said: “When Ndume was eventually called by Saraki to contribute, he was not in the chamber. A few minutes later, Ndume emerged. He told his colleagues he went to pray.”

    It would appear that Ndume is a prayerful politician, a prayerful legislator; which is not the same thing as a productive politician, a productive legislator. When there is a conflict between Ndume’s prayer life and his legislative life, he seems to forget that he was elected to work and not to pray.