The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Day of the vampire

    If Hardball could write film scripts, the above title would have been stuff for an epic action-packed flick. It was actually a life occurrence; right here in this land, with all the effects and stunts enacted in real life and not a single action was make-believe. Let’s say that the action was simply too real to be real.

    And we can also try out various other titles, if nothing else, for the fun of it. How about: “The Vampire strikes back?”: “To spring a Vampire” or “The way of the Vampire.” All of these would be quite apt and appropriate for banner headline or poster head for this blockbuster movie.

    It happened (you may say ‘live’ if you will) only last Friday in Owerri, that feisty heartland city of Imo State. The town has had its fair share of youth rascality and turbulence; it did not lag behind in the hay days of kidnapping. In fact, it may be said to be one of the breeding grounds of the illicit trade in the early days.

    Remember also that the raucous, fun-loving city gave Nigeria the Otokoto saga: that kidnapping, organ-harvesting and ritualistic conundrum that later blew up when the people mobilised and said: “Enough is enough.”

    Is Owerri about to up the ante once again in the art of brazen criminality? Is that beautiful, cozy city about to lead the way in extreme gangsterism and dare-devilry? Though the scene is better witnessed than described, let us try a recount of what transpired on the serene premises of Owerri High Court late last week.

    The court session was about to begin that mid-morning; prison officials had brought some of the suspects to court and judges and lawyers had taken their places. Suddenly, the hoarse cacophony of rapid gunfire seized the atmosphere and the entire premises was afire.

    Soldiers at the gate reportedly fled at the first sound of gunshots, knowing the difference between a dane gun and a pump action. Judges and magistrates scaled fences with the dexterity of ghosts (except that they are no ghosts as some of them still lay in hospital beds now).

    When the dust settled, about six people were reportedly felled, a good number injured and most telling, an alleged kidnap kingpin known as Vampire had been spirited away by his members. The action, as always, took only a moment or a split second as we always like to put it.

    Vampire: real name, Henry Chibueze, was said to have enjoyed untoward privileges even in detention. He had access to cell phones, ran his criminal gang and even caroused with his female friends.

    Apart from a dead prison system that has allowed this mess; the court from which Vampire was spirited away is hemmed by the Government House, the State DSS Headquarters, the State Police Command only a stone throw away and the Command House of the 34 Brigade.

    But who can fathom the way of a vampire?

  • Apostolic threat or just cheap bluff?

    Controversial Apostle Johnson Suleiman, nestling in Governor Ayo Fayose’s Ekiti State House, from DSS’s reported blitz, finally found his voice to let fly some apostolic threats.

    Should the security agencies dare to arrest him, even for a day, Nigeria would retard for a year!  Should the arrest period spill into say, 10 days, from the glorious man of God’s apostolic arithmetic, Nigeria would retard for 10 years, and that probably, on geometrical proportions!

    Waoh!  How awesome!

    But that was not all.  Should the government even as much as try any monkey business, then the Suleiman 500,000-strong Omega Fire Ministries Worldwide would just explode into an Armageddon, burning here, scalding there and searing yonder!

    In no time, among his earthly traducers, the falcon would no longer hear the falconer; and mere anarchy would be loosed upon their world — apologies to WB Yeats, the Irish poet, who originated these famous lines; and Chinua Achebe, who popularised them, as the fulcrum of his Things Fall Apart classic.

    Holy Lord!  While some amateurs battle with physical forces, the real pros duel with spiritual powers and principalities!  So beware, cocky official of state!  Lay not your hands on the Lord’s anointed!

    Seriously?  Some real deal in apostolic threat?  Or just an excited but extremely relieved soul, waxing lyrical and poetic, over the extreme joy of escaping arrest for charging one set of citizens to kill another set of citizens?

    How does that even sound from the mouth of a man of God, whose Christian creed preaches pacifism, anchored on the bliss of the hereafter?

    And the grim irony?  A priest that gives his congregants the “divine” order to “kill” without fear, scampering into the illegal embrace of a governor that revels in outlawry!  So where would his killing band run to, after they had carried out their fiery pastor’s injunction?  The literary nerds are right: you know the true essence of people during the period of crisis!

    The moral of all these?  That priests should learn to leverage their spiritual influence, on secular authorities, with tact and wisdom, particularly when shooting in the naked front of earthly controversies.

    As bad as the southern Kaduna crisis is, Hardball isn’t sure any media platform, traditional or new, has reported the other side gives a sweeping instruction, to its rabid partisans, to go and “kill”, well captured on video!

    Even if the good pastor claims anger or self-defence, how does that extenuate the latent, if not blatant, criminality, in that charge?  And should the Apostle be hauled in, and really charged for incitement to brazen killing, how would he defend himself?  That he spoke ex-cathedral, and therefore had spiritual immunity?

    The Apostle would do well to gird his tongue, as the Bible, the divine Christian constitution, admonishes.

    Mouthing reckless statements, to congregation applause, could intoxicate, like the sweet wine of the moment.  But sooner than later comes the dreary hangover.

    Let Apostle Suleiman, after proclaiming the “death” of a governor and fellow citizen, and goading citizens to “kill” other citizens for whatever reason, step back from the brink.

    If he doesn’t, he risks a wide and merry way, which destination is perdition and utter destruction.

  • Out of tune

    It is unclear whether Senator Buruji Kashamu representing Ogun East spoke out of ignorance or confusion in what seemed a desperate opposition to the emergence of Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose as the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum.

    In a January 22 statement Kashamu said: “It was a misnomer that the governors of an opposition party that is in need of rebranding and repositioning could choose a liability, a loud mouth and an immature politician like Fayose as the Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum.” He added: “Those who chose him should have a rethink in the interest of the party that is striving hard to return to power.”

    Kashamu continued: “While I concede to our governors the right to choose whoever they want to lead them, my point is that they should have settled for a balanced, more experienced and mature person to lead the Forum, not a cantankerous, divisive and unstable character like Governor Fayose who snaps at the slightest provocation.”

    There is some confusion here.  Can Kashamu concede the right of the choosers to choose and fault their choice at the same time?

    It is noteworthy that Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson, who announced Fayose’s new position, explained why he was chosen.  ”In line with the tradition of our party, we agreed to appoint our colleague, the most senior governor in the PDP,” Dickson said, describing Fayose as “a committed party man doing a wonderful job in his state.” He added that Fayose “is well experienced and committed to the ideals of the party.”

    This leads to the question of possible ignorance. Was Kashamu aware of the party tradition Dickson mentioned before he released his statement?  Or was his statement based on unawareness?

    Indeed, it is curious that Kashamu is singing a tune that is out of tune with his party’s tune.  No less a person than the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, said of Fayose in a statement by his Special Adviser (Media): “He is an unapologetic PDP faithful and has the audacity, political sagacity and benefit of experience from his number of years as governor to provide quality leadership for the forum… I, therefore, nurse no doubts that he is the right man for the job.”

    Something is not quite right, or to put it less euphemistically, there must be something terribly wrong, considering that Kashamu is a lone voice.  ”We must reject Governor Fayose now or strictly restrict him to running the affairs of the Governors’ Forum, “Kashamu said, suggesting a confused speaker. Having described Fayose as unsuitable for the position, what does Kashamu mean by saying he should be restricted to the role?

  • If gold rusts…

    Security must be the most abused word in Nigeria’s lexicon. It is indeed the most debased concept, notion and in fact, action. It must explain why such phrases like ‘security vote’, ‘security report’, ‘security zone’, ‘security movement’, and ’security breach’, to mention just a few, are in common use here. They are also rich in their meanings – denotative and connotative.

    Consider security vote – a coinage probably native to this clime – a passerby would think it means a voting session in a Security Council meeting. How wrong. Nigerians literally woke up to find that it is an x sum of funds, unknown and unquantifiable, mapped out for security cover or protection of a handful of individuals in Nigeria. This huge sum of money parcelled out monthly to lucky beneficiaries (often presidents and governors), is never accounted for nor reported openly in appropriation bills.

    A security report is a discreet (read secret) document about you prepared of course, by security agents often designed to nail you or put you in unfavourable light. If it declares you a security breach or labels a security risk, well you are in the most unenviable position anyone would ever want to be, especially in Nigeria.

    Hardball is simply trying to say that we are in love with the word ‘security’ – we live it, we glorify it and actually make huge profit off it. Security expenditures are never queried nor returns made after they are disbursed. As we all know, to give account of funds provided for security purposes is to breach the very security and that is – wait for it – grand treason. So you are always secure with security funds but not the act itself.

    In other words, security here is the handmaiden of the dubiety and chicanery. It is a façade, an installation art of arms and uniform; a make-believe. A simple proof of this assertion was provided last month in Ibadan, Southwest of Nigeria.

    A band of five, shambolic young men drove into Command Secondary School, Ibadan; strangled the commandant, a Brigadier-General designate in his house, robbed him and drove out of the complex undetected. We understand it when civilian schools suffer security breaches as has happened recently in Lagos and Ogun states.

    But it represents an affront on the nation and worse, to the military establishment if mere hoodlums could stray into a command school, snuff out the life of the officer in charge and stroll out. You are supposed to escape into the command if marauders chased you isn’t it?

    You would think that security challenges of the past decade (Boko Haram) and the recent spate of kidnappings in schools would have raised our consciousness about our overall attitude to security matters. Nigeria ought to be among the most secured countries in the world today going by these recent experiences. But not much seems to have changed; the beat simply goes on.

    And Hardball asks: if gold rusts, if an army general can be taken out like a rat right in his fort, what fate ‘bloody civilian’?

  • And the man fled

    And the man fled, or more correctly, in picturesque, irreverent power lingo: and the rat scurried!

    A rat, a man?  A man, a rat?  What’s the nexus?

    Actually, it’s simple.  He was created a man.  But when the power thing came, he morphed into a rat — a power rat, that would risk anything — everything — and still hope to survive without a scar!  But as it often happens, the luckiest of rats only flees!  The not-so-lucky perish.

    Of course, the talk is of the latest fallen African Big Man, and former strongman of The Gambia, His Excellency Sheik Prof. Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Aziz Awal Jemus  Junkung Naasiru Deen Jammeh Babili Mansa!

    Quite a mouthful, that chain names, isn’t it?  Geez, even longer and much more robust than the tiny Gambia, on which the former power parasite buried his snout!

    Well, that is the way of the proverbial “African Big Man”, if you credit proverbs on contemporary Africa to the often condescending London newspaper, The Economist.

    Jammeh’s tale of disgrace needs little retelling.  He lost an election on December 1, 2016 to Adama Barrow, a hitherto nameless fella, who would become Jammeh’s nemesis.  And Barrow didn’t have to do much, except stand up the power bully, who thought he was The Gambia and The Gambia was he.

    Still, but for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), that first read out the riot act, Alhaji Barrow himself would probably have been history, for Jammeh showed enough desperation to show nothing, absolutely nothing, would stand between him and The Gambia, his captive toy.

    Well, talking of history: Barrow’s 10-year old boy indeed became one, after the fatal bite of a strange dog.  In Africa, that clearly would be more than a coincidence.

    The witch cried yesterday.  The child died today.  Who does not know, except the extremely daft, that the witch killed the child?  And ah!  That was after the rumoured assassination of Barrow himself, by strange gun men, which happily turned out a hoax.

    Well, all that came to crushing end on Sunday, though the final power bell tolled for the power rat the day previous.

    On January 21, Jammeh finally saw the light.  ECOWAS troops had entered his territory.  Troops of The Gambia didn’t just refuse to fight (as a local military redneck earlier said they wouldn’t), Jammeh’s chief of defence staff also reportedly joined an anti-Jammeh crowd to hail his fall!

    Indeed, the words of our elders is the word of wisdom — you don’t tell the blind the market has broken.  The vanished din would poignantly do the job!

    So, the man fled and the rat ran.  But Jammeh still mustered enough bluff and bluster to claim, in a national television broadcast, that he quit his job because he didn’t want to shed Gambian blood.  How noble!

    But that was his last lie — just like his power lie of 22 years had exploded in his face!  He didn’t fight because his supposed cannon fodders got wise — wise enough not to move in front of a zooming train, because of some power psychopath.

    Still, Jammeh escaped with a last strand of lie.  He claimed to have resigned his job.  But how do you resign from a job from which you were  sacked?  The last time Hardball checked, Jammeh was sacked on December 1, 2016.

    Well, good riddance!  But Barrow would do himself and The Gambia a lot of good by learning from Jammeh’s fall.  African Big Men seldom do!

  • Wrong words

    There are times it makes sense to speak diplomatically, which means the speaker must think diplomatically before speaking. A striking example of undiplomatic language is what Senator Nelson Effiong said on January 19 while announcing his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Effiong, who represents Akwa Ibom South, said: “I have decided that no reasonable politician who is worth his onions would remain in PDP and allow his people to be drifting about without a direction. So, I have decided today, the 19th day of January, 2017, to resign from the PDP and move to the party that is bringing peace and direction to this country.”

    A report said: “Hardly had the defector sat down than the Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha, took him on about his choice of words. Bwacha said he had no issue if Effiong decided to jump ship, “but it is insulting for him to describe those in the PDP as unreasonable.”’

    Bwacha’s words: “I hope that my colleague is aware of the implications of what he has just done. The PDP as a party is one and is intact. I fear for his seat and the consequences that may follow as a result of this action. I want to say that what he has said appears to be an insult to those of us who are in the PDP that ‘a politician that is worth his onions will not remain in PDP’.”

    Bwacha continued: “That is an insult. If you want to do the usual business in the Nigerian politics of following the weather, he should say it clearly. This business of moving here and there following the weather should be stated clearly and let him not deviate from the original intentions he has. We are going to meet in court.”

    Effiong not only spoke undiplomatically; he was idiomatically incorrect. To be worth one’s salt and to know one’s onions are different idioms. Effiong’s expression, “worth his onions,” is a huge howler.

    Surely, Effiong could have announced his defection diplomatically, without using undiplomatic language, and still be clear enough about his decision and his defection. Surely, Effiong could have been more idiom-friendly.

    What perhaps should have been a plus was a minus just because Effiong got it wrong concerning his choice of words. He may well need lessons to teach him how to choose words and how to use words.

  • Eye-ing service

    Whose government is government anyway? That’s trite, if not pedestrian, you would say dear reader? But as they say in a corner of this great country, something often causes the cocoyam to meow like a cat. Some things around us which most of us have taken for granted often push Hardball to sometimes make silly seemingly enquiries.

    Of course any smart basic school pupil would tell you government is of the people, by the people and for the (benefit) of the people. Conversely, governance ought to be service to the people by servants of the people for the good of all.

    But most of us have forgotten the meaning of government, it seems. Government for us is now about the man or woman who signs the cheque and who holds the instrument of coercion. So just as the president is often equated to the over-lordship of the country, a governor is invested with the toga of Alpha and Omega of a state by even the people you expect to know better.

    A full page colour advert in a national paper published last Monday will illustrate our point. At the top of the page is the official seal of the Ebonyi State Government; it emanates from the office of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and the message is indeed signed by him. For the avoidance of doubt, at the bottom of the page is a long signature rendered in green ink and under it is the name: Professor Benard Ifeanyi Odoh (SSG).

    So what is the full-page newspaper message about? Here is the title: GRAND NEW YEAR FELICITATIONS TO HIS EXCELLENCY, ENGR (CHIEF) DAVE NWEZE UMAHI, FNSE, FNATE, JP. Please note that all emphasis is as supplied in the publication. And lest we forget, the full page bears the picture of ‘His Excellency’ smiling broadly, not missing his now famous fedora hat.

    As you have found out, and as stated in the first paragraph, the full page newspaper advert is a grand new year wishes and felicitations from the Government and the good people of Ebonyi State to his Excellency and the First Family.

    And as you can already guess, the rest of the missive is a litany of the great achievements of the governor in only 18 months. As it is the practice in our much perverse clime, every bit of petty activity in the entire state is attributed to one person as if he is the next thing since superman comic jugged our imagination.

    Let’s take another sample from paragraph three: “Your self-driven strategic transformation programme has restored hope for a better future in favour of our teeming youths and women population.”

    What more can we say? This incestuous eye-service of an SSG toasting his governor surely reduces governance. And signed by a professor; unknowing younger administrators would take it as the norm. Most diminishing, to put it nicely.

  • IE: Billing darkness as winning strategy

    Have you seen the Okota district head office of Ikeja Electric (IE) on Okota Road, lately?  It reminds you of that old song: “She’s beautiful, she’s lovely, she takes your breath away …!”

    Meeehnnn, IE is totally rebranded out there!  It glows, just as its electricity market is swamped in total darkness!  Simply intimidating!

    Indeed, that intimidation reminds you of good — well, more of bad — old Poke Tolo, the fictional anti-hero of James Hadley Chase’s novel, Want to Stay Alive?  Remember that fella?  That’s right — he who declared he had found the formula, fear, to prise the wallet of the rich!

    Well, as IE Okota is rebranding and preening and is bright and beautiful, its customers are progressively dull and grumpy, wallowing in pit darkness.

    But like the fictive Poke Toholo and his rich-and-the-spoilt victims, the very real life IE has probably patented a fear-driven primer, on how a DISCO (electricity distribution company) can mint a fortune drowning its customers in darkness, while at the same time threatening them with disconnection.

    In the Okota neighbourhood, IE has developed a grim routine. There would be a total blackout for days. Then, as if jerking awake, light would come streaming, for hours on end.

    At luckier seasons, it would be on for a whole day. Or even for a whole night, near uninterrupted, long enough for the refrigerators to buzz and the air conditioners to hum; and for the denizens to remember that alas, they were still residents of some 21st century city, where electricity should be routine; and not some antediluvian jungle, where it was alien.

    By chance or design, however, this “harvest” time always comes, when the all-mighty IE is readying to distribute new bills, bills not based on any metering but on the whims and caprices of its billing merchants.

    But just when the customers were conditioning themselves to their newfound fortune, the disconnecting gang came storming!

    Based on light for a few days, they insist you paid for the darkness all month long — or else!  It is the IE equivalent of the Poke Toholo fear theory!  Meanwhile, after all the excitement, status quo ante-bellum resumed, till another harvest time of rogue electricity and forced payment for darkness!

    The joker for the near-brazen fraud would appear IE’s apparent hesitation to supply most of its customers in the neighbourhood pre-paid electric meters.  More than one year ago, the IE managing director came visiting The Nation.  His pledge was clear: in the next two years, most of its customers would have pre-paid meters, free of charge, except those who didn’t want to await their turn.  Even then, those category of clients would eventually be reimbursed, one way or another.

    For a majority in this neighbourhood, that has not happened.  But wait, why should it?  In Achebe-speak: do you spew out nuts ground for you by benevolent spirits?

    Could IE then be hedging on pre-paid meters, because the pivot of its winning billing-for-darkness strategy depends on its criminally padded billing-by-estimates?

    That sounds too nihilistic to be believed.  Still, Power Minister, Babatunde Fashola, had better warn these smart-alecky DISCOs to play by the rules, before the malevolent spirits of inflamed customers confront their disconnection gangs in the streets!

  • ‘Portfolio farmers’

    People in power love to talk about the importance of agriculture and how agricultural development is important for achieving the much-needed diversification of the country’s economy.  They keep saying: “We need to look beyond oil.”

    This June 2016 statement by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, is useful because it helps to put a recent development in context: “Starting in 2010 –2011, the Government of Nigeria, after years of benign neglect, began to reform the agriculture sector. To refocus the sector, the government implemented a new strategy, the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA). In 2011-2016, the focus was on rebuilding a sector whose relevance had shrunk dramatically. That was reflected in the lack of lending to farmers by the financial system and the dramatic levels of food imports from across the world.”

    Ogbeh added: “Today, as we evaluate the progress made under the ATA, it is apparent that additional work is still required in order to meet our objectives. Nigeria still imports a significant amount of food. Nigeria is also not earning significant foreign exchange from agriculture, meaning we are losing on both ends. Therefore, it became paramount to “refresh our strategy” to tackle these two issues head on. The Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP) is that refreshed strategy.”

    Whether it is called “Agricultural Transformation” or “Agricultural Promotion,” what should matter is whether it will lead to agricultural development and the achievement of economic diversification.

    This is why a recent observation by the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, is cause for concern.  At an event organised by ActionAid Nigeria in Abuja to mark 2017 Global Week of Action to Fight Inequality, Wabba said: “I have seen of recent on this issue of diversification, I saw people with briefcase and ties calling themselves farmers. They have no connection with the real farmers in the village. They don’t have land. They are portfolio farmers, political farmers. If you go to the CBN, they collect those loans and divert it.”

    If the dominant beneficiaries of the agricultural interventions of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are not farmers, properly so called, then something is seriously wrong with the country’s agricultural development campaign.

    Can this picture painted by Wabba lead to transformation or promotion of agriculture, properly so called?  Certainly, it cannot.  It can only lead to a travesty of agricultural development. By extension, it can only further make the dream of diversification nothing more than a grand delusion.

  • Opportunism meets opportunist?

    What’s happening in the Senate — opportunism about to meet the opportunist?  Or perfidy about to have its comeuppance?

    It’s all about the latest furore around the office of the Deputy Senate President (DSP), now held by Ike Ekweremadu of the minority Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Of course, the story of Mr. Ekweremadu’s emergence needs not be retold. Suffice it to say that in an illicit trade-off to, willy-nilly, crown Bukola Saraki as Senate President, Mr. Ekweremadu’s personal opportunism and his PDP’s lack of scruples and basic sense of fairness won big time.

    The combo of perfidy and opportunism triumphed. But it would appear that victory is turning pyrrhic.

    Proof?  That would come from what normally should pass as democratic heresy — the call by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senate caucus, calling on Mr. Ekweremadu to either defect to APC or prepare to kiss goodbye his high office, obtained so lowly.

    How, for God’s sake, would a party in parliament ask a member of another party to cross over to its side of the aisle, using the plum office of DSP as bait?  Has the party, albeit ruling, lost its sense of parliamentary proprietary, guided by fidelity to electoral platforms?

    What, in God’s name, would Mr. Ekweremadu tell his senatorial constituents, who with majority PDP votes, voted him as senator?

    But perhaps such fine electoral etiquette is the thinking of starry-eyed idealists!  Maybe pragmatists are made of less stringent stuff.  In any case, the last time Hardball checked, Mr. Ekweremadu’s majority PDP voters didn’t complain about their senator’s opportunism, of merrily corralling a position that he clearly knew wasn’t his — at least by right.  They probably enjoyed a vicarious kick out of it, some bragging right, that even as a minority, their senator was DSP — a Nigerian record!

    So, would Mr. Ekweremadu’s electors, who apparently saw no big deal in his opportunism, stand by him, even if he must graduate to perfidy against his own party, in order to retain the DSP office?

    Well, all that is in the womb of time!

    Meanwhile, Mr. Ekweremadu has his job cut out for him.  After the fall of Ali Ndume, another child of intra-APC perfidy and conspiracy to install Dr. Saraki, could the embattled DSP look towards the Senate President for support and solidarity?

    Perhaps Ndume’s case is good pointer. Saraki could sure help — if his own position is not threatened. If it is, good luck!  That is the sum total of Ndume’s fall.

    Would Ekweremadu’s case be better?  Only if Saraki’s position isn’t threatened!

    Meanwhile, Hardball wishes Mr. Ekweremadu well in a heroic effort to retain a position he never logically or morally or fairly deserved.

    But as he wriggles out of this — or is swarmed by it — let everyone know crass opportunism eventually spawns its own huge and stiff penalty.

    As for the APC caucus, even if talking tongue-in-cheek to bait Ekweremadu to descend to sheer perfidy against his own PDP from crass opportunism against the ruling party, let them know that pushing party subversion for personal gains is heresy in party politics — and the party system is a solid rock on which participatory democracy is founded.

    Meanwhile, Distinguished Deputy Senate President Ekweremadu, endure your choice!