The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • What goes around comes around

    When a democratically elected legislator says he lost his leadership position in the legislature as a result of a coup against him, his choice of words deserves attention.

    Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who represents Borno South Senatorial District was removed as the 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’s 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: “This is a parliamentary coup because many of my colleagues said they were not aware of any Caucus meeting. But so be it. God gave me that position and if that is His wish that I should leave, I have left everything to God. Had it been that I was found wanting of any allegation, I will not be surprised. All I know is that God will fight back for me.”

    Ndume added: “I did no wrong, except the issue of the confirmation of the Acting EFCC chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, which brought up some issues. There was a disagreement on Magu beginning with my fight with Sen. Dino Melaye. Based on legislative procedure, I said Magu had not been rejected by the Senate. Shortly after that, there were rumours of collection of signatures to remove me. Even at that, we met at the Senate leadership level on Monday; there was no complaint against me. I was not aware that the leadership was not happy with me. There was no allegation against me at all. Certainly, it is a coup.”

    When did legislators in a democracy begin to plan and carry out coups? Certainly, it did not begin with Ndume’s ouster. Indeed, Ndume himself benefited from what may be called a coup when he was installed as Senate Leader in a move that defied the directive of his party leadership.

    A June 23, 2015 letter to Saraki by the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, had named Lawan for the position of Majority Leader among the “names of principal officers approved by the party” for the 8th Senate.

    At the time Ndume emerged as Senate Leader contrary to his party’s position, he did not see it as a coup against the party. It is said that what goes around comes around.

  • Going off course

    Development cannot be achieved by anti-development thinking and actions. This commonsensical observation needs to be emphasised for the sake of those who are supposed to pursue development, but have chosen paths that cannot lead to the desired goal.

    Who are these anti-development agents? Well, some of them can be identified based on how they have corrupted the centres of learning that are supposed to drive the country’s development.

    News that Minister of Education MallamAdamuAdamu has directed that specialised universities should be faithful to their essence is so newsy that it deserves special attention.  A report said the minister’s directive came through a statement by the Head of Information of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Dr. Fabian Benjamin.

    The statement said: “Government notes the unfortunate situation where Universities of Agriculture offer programmes in law, management courses such as accounting, banking and finance, business administration among others. As if that was not enough, some institutions change the nomenclature of some of the courses to read, for instance, banking engineering, accounting technology, among other names. This is an aberration and should be stopped with immediate effect.”

    It continued:  ”Specialised universities are universities set up to pursue specific courses/ programmes to steer the need of manpower in a particular sector of the economy. Some of these specialised institutions include universities, such as Universities of Agriculture, Universities of Technologies, Universities of Medicine, among others. The Federal Government has observed that these institutions have derailed from their statutory responsibility, thereby running programmes that are antithetical to their mandates.”

    When did this nonsense begin? Or isn’t it nonsensical?  By going outside their spheres, the institutions concerned have done a serious disservice to the country. Indeed, by going in the wrong direction, they may be described as counterproductive. How can the country develop in the specific areas that these institutions were set up to address when they are going in a different direction?

    The picture is so ugly that the ugliness has attracted this communication:  ”In view of this ugly development, the Minister of Education has directed the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to delete all such courses on its portal and all candidates desirous of sitting for the 2017 Universities Tertiary Matriculations Examination are advised not to be hoodwinked into such programmes as they are illegal and are not provided for in our brochure.”

    Of course, specialised institutions should not be allowed to go off course. This nonsense makes no sense.

  • Too many cooks

    Ahead of his inauguration as Ondo State Governor on February 24, Chief RotimiAkeredolu set the ball rolling with the formation of three committees. First:  a 21-member Transition Committee headed by DrFunsoKupolokun, which is expected to “interact with the incumbent government of Ondo State to ensure a seamless transition and effective receipt of detailed handover notes.”

    Second: a 158-member Strategic Development and Policy Implementation Committee headed by MrAgboolaAjayi. Akeredolu said it was to “develop a detailed sectoral policy and programme document which would be called ‘A Blueprint to Progress in Ondo State 2017 – 2021’. He added:  ”Its document shall guide government towards effective service delivery and a purposeful tenure…The underlining focus of its assignment is also to guide government to deliver on the popular five cardinal programmes which formed the very kernel of our campaign promises.”

    Third: a 78-member committee, chaired by AlhajiJamiuEkungba, to plan the inauguration of the incoming administration. Akeredolu said the incoming government needed to plan well to overcome the state’s current challenges, including the collapse of industries, unpaid salaries and pension, and high level of youth unemployment. He observed: “Our young people are unemployed and traumatised and are fast losing confidence in themselves and established institutions while families wallow in arrested hope and forlorn aspirations.”

    It is unclear why Akeredolu thinks that preparing for his inauguration and administration requires so many people. For instance, the sheer size of the 158-member committee raises questions about its manageability. Indeed, the same concern applies to the 78-member committee.

    Yes, there are always debts to be repaid in politics. But that should be done decently. The governor-elect’s pledge not to fail the people who voted him into office cannot excuse the constitution of unwieldy transition committees.   ”The vision and mission of our administration is to lead a patriotic, highly inspired and competent team to rescue the ship of our state,” Akeredolu was quoted as saying, adding: “I intend to help rebuild our economy, resuscitate damaged infrastructure, restore hope and return our state to a free and prosperous land.”

    Akeredolu’s dreams are desirable. But to offer them as a premise for bloated committees is another matter. His words: “To ensure that this is done, I believe a clear chart must be made to show us where we want to go and how we intend to get there and to know what we want to do and how we intend to achieve within specific and determined time frame.”

    How many people does he really need to help him chart a correct course?  There is a proverb he may find useful: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

  • The game continues

    A Ponzi scheme, properly so called, is always a game, or a kind of game, which is why it is also called a Ponzi game. Just before last Christmas, over three million Nigerians were jolted by the news that a popular money-doubling scheme, in which they had innocently invested, Mavrodi Mundial Moneybox, better known as MMM, had placed a one-month ban on all payouts starting from December 13. For many of them, it was sour news that soured the end-of-year festivities.

    With the approach of the expected lifting of the ban on January 14, there is a development that looks like a twist in the tale. MMM operators asked anxious investors whose accounts were frozen to perform “Promo Tasks: A New Tool for MMM Community Development.”

    What does this mean? The communication said: “Being an MMM member implies not only opportunities, but also a responsibility for the state and development of the MMM Community.” The MMM message to investors said the tasks, which should be done online and offline, would promote the scheme and drive “traffic and participation” ahead of the ending of suspension of payouts.  In other words, the old investors are expected to work to get new investors to participate in the scheme in order to keep it going.

    The scheme promises a 30 per cent return on investment to investors after 30 days. Also, participants who are not investors but are able to attract investors earn 10 per cent of the amount such investors bring to the scheme. These are the things that make the whole thing so suspicious.

    An investment operation that promises high rates of return with little risk and generates returns for old investors through new investments by new investors looks too good to be true. The one-month freezing of payouts and the demand that old participants should look for new ones are dire signals that all may not be well.

    How can all be well when the scheme is based on paying returns to its old investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors? For how long can such arrangement be sustained?  Such an unsustainable arrangement is likely to fail sooner or later.

    It is unsurprising that the scheme has failed in a number of countries. It may just be a matter of time before it collapses in Nigeria, despite reassurances by its operators. Although the game seems to be continuing with the latest development, the handwriting on the wall is clear enough. Just two words for those behind this: Get lost!

  • Oh, Emmanuel!

    Hardball is X-raying Akwa Ibom State, that well- endowed (no pun please) land of boisterous governors. With former Governor Godswill Akpabio of this oil-rich state, we thought we could never find a more rambunctious, loquacious, audacious  and even witty fellow to lead a Nigerian state. But we may be mistaken as the new helmsman, Governor Udom Emmanuel, is proving to be a worthy protégé.

    You would hate to hate Akpabio of Akpabioism legend. Large heart, large frame, large projects and loud in a way that would leave you laughing loud when you should be hissing. His people used to say that those who disliked him never heard him speak; just give him a microphone, they said, and leave the entire world to him. He indeed is endowed with the gift of the gab.

    The current occupant of the Akwa Ibom Government House, Gov. Emmanuel, may well end up as the new Akpabio in every material particular. Though a top banker before his boss, the former governor co-opted him into the pristine precincts of power and roller-coastered him to the very pinnacle, shall we say he is living up to desired expectations?

    But Hardball is cottoning to the notion that you would have gone astray if you thought you had a gentleman professional banker. Nay, Emmanuel seems to have grown both in stature and ebullience in such a short period of time. From Hardball’s pedestal, the gorgeous dude has morphed into a tough-talking crowd-pleaser, let’s not suggest rabble-rouser.

    And like his oga, he seems poised to do big things too. Though he has not built anything close to a massive modern stadium, he might get round to them soon enough. First things first: he has at least learnt to dominate and conquer his environment, if not domain and stage mega shows for starters (remember his boss made the Guinness Book of Records for hosting world’s largest choir: haters go hug a transformer (as Nigerians say on Facebook!).

    But this young, handsome governor seems poised to face the real test of his short political life and how he handles it would define his tenure and his future place in the turbulent political terrain of Akwa Ibom.

    Something happened a few days ago to set the tone for the battle ahead. At a state event tagged ‘Solemn Assembly’ to usher in the New Year, the governor identified some ‘enemies’ of the state and tried hard to show his tigritude.

    Let’s hear it from him: “Let me warn every Akwa Ibom person; do not take our Christianity for granted… in 2017, any Akwa Ibom son or daughter that is given appointment anywhere, we thank God for your appointments.

    “If you use your appointment to come into this state to cause disunity, I can assure you that I have the full assurances of the youth not to let any idiot who will come forth to make any false proclamation in the state to go.” Ouch!

    To put this in context, the state is packed with enough Abuja and presidency big-heads to rattle any governor.

    But oh, Emmanuel, you are a statesman now, never forget that.

  • Budget and NASS narcissism

    The budget, the budget,

    Who will bail the budget?

    From a venal bunch

    Wanton and wild-eyed   

    Appropriating our appropriation…

    Hardball could not help but lapse into hacking the above ditties. Even the title of this piece must have come up on this space sometime in the past. No matter how hard the ball Hardball throws at our people at the top, they seem to lob even a harder one back at Hardball.

    Obdurate and hardened men; nothing shakes them; all the tricks in the book have been tried on this page – no dice. And Hardball cries:

    My ink is dry

    And my mind is blank

    No tank in the world

    Can move these cranks

    A wise saying from the Orients suggests that when a situation becomes too unyielding, we must point at it. In other words, we may have to yank the bad tooth to treat it.

    This brings us to the 2017 federal budget, which has been presented to the National Assembly (NASS). A most horrid and turbulent budget if Hardball must say. We learnt the 2016 budget was padded, but this year’s seems all cooked up, puffed up, pumped up in all places and soaked in fat.

    Hardball had attended to the executive version a few days ago and now, we present the 2017 budget as it concerns the NASS. Remember that the legislators have not attended to the document yet, but there are quite some unsettling information sifting from that quarter.

    But first, there is already a dumbfounding move by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to appropriate to its grubby self, 20 percent of the federal budget for itsconstituency projects. They are to implement these projects by themselves. If you think Hardball is at it again with his pranks, the Bill by Princess Stella Oduah has already scaled second reading and has been referred to the Joint Committee on Finance and Appropriation of the NASS.

    You may still be wiping your face wondering whether you are in a trance or Hardball is on auto-pilot: NO, IT IS REAL. And 20 percent of the 2017 budget would amount to N1.4 trillion. By this crazy bill the NASS seeks to play the roles of legislator and executive at the same time – that is, members of NASS would be appropriators, supervisors and implementers.

    If you thought that wasn’t maddening enough, NASS is also said to be plotting to hike its 2017 budget to between N150 to N170 billion. Well you may say this is still in the realm of rumour, but in a few days, we shall all know the truth. We hear that they grumble that their budget, which was crashed from N150 billion in the good old days to N115 last year, is too paltry for their distended buccal cavity.

    In this season of national economic debacle in which about 80 million compatriots are unemployed and starving, this self-love in NASS is simply narcisismo!

  • Christmas carousel

    Someone once described Nigerian governors as aliens. The speaker, who must not be mentioned, said further that he could not vouch that it is not something underneath the grounds of State Houses, which turns the heads of our governors the moment they step into office. His assertion, according to him, is derived from the fact that our governors have the same “inimical traits.” In case you missed it, those are direct quotes.

    Of course, it was a long discourse that trailed into the night between Hardball and this fellow and he adduced several “facts” to buttress each point. Well, dear reader, there is no need to begin to conjecture whether it was a beer parlour discourse – it was actually one but trust me it was an intellectual environment that just happened to have a cosy sinecure of liquor and spices. But intellectual effusions never got diminished in the least as the following examples generated that night will prove.

    Now, my friend listed a few aberrant behaviours of the honchos in our government houses. He asked why no governor has managed to make his LGAs work? Why no governor ever sticks to his budget proposal and implement it to the letter or close to it? Why don’t our governors delegate but want to be seen doing everything even when they have anexco in place? And lastly, he asked why governors always manage to mix politics with religion.

    Of course, I debated him on all these points, but this last one I could not marshal plausible counterpoints because as he pointed out, many governors are revelling in the Christmas carousel. That caught me smack in the face like a sucker punch.

    He pointed me to all the states where Christian governors hold sway and showed me the reckless wastefulness going on in the name of Christmas. In Akwa Ibom, White gospel singers were imported by the government and not churches, spending millions of scarce foreign exchange.

    In Imo, it is said that over half a billion was spent on decorating the capital city for Christmas and probably more than that was deployed in the state-sponsored carol service. It boasted of dignitaries from across the country and beyond. The Calabar Christmas Carnival and the One Lagos Fiesta, though designed as tourism packages, may not attract enough sponsorship to support their economics.

    Still on government and religion, it is the same during Muslim festivities, as governors dip deep into the treasury with a certain abandonment to share gifts of ram and rice to the faithful. Of course, the most damage is done to public finance when it is time for holy pilgrimages to Mecca and Jerusalem. Hundreds of millions of dollars are doled out to people who are fulfilling private religious obligations.

    My friend closed the discourse thus: none of our governors seem to have the Awo stoicism; they are all given to gluttony and pleasure. There lies the problem.

  • Fayose fantasia

    Hardball has struck bull’s eye here even if he says so himself. There cannot be a better description of Governor Ayo Fayose’s running farcical theatre than fantasia. This phenomenon is defined as an unstructured orchestral composition or any unstructured work at that. And as we all know, the second time governor of Ekiti State has made an art of no structure. In fact anything structured seems like an anathema to him.

    His recent outing or ‘work’ if you like corroborates Hardball’s assertion. We speak about the recent publication of his prophetic predictions for 2017. In a two-page unstructured splash in a national newspaper (December 23rd), the unstructured governor presented his unstructured predictions for the new year side by side the fulminations for 2016.

    What an unstructured mind! It will serve us to reproduce the preamble here to make the point about fantasia:

    “Fellow Nigerians, remember I predicted 20 things that will be experienced this year 2016. Almost 90 percent of what the Holy Spirit led me to predict came to pass.

    “The Holy Spirit has once again led me to tell Nigerians what may happen in 2017. We, therefore, need prayer to avert further calamities in Nigeria.”

    The thing with people like Fayose is that they get carried away by the position they occupy through opportunistic shenanigans; and they spend the entire tenure desecrating their high office unbeknownst to them. If only Fayose knows his limits, he would have handed his banality to a media aide or any schooled person around him to edit. But the embarrassingly illiterate script signed by a governor was published with all the warts and scabs; the lousy grammar and disjointed sentences. If Ekiti was not the land of some of the most read people in Nigeria!

    Of course, everything is wrong with Fayose and nearly everything he does; same for this publication. First, he wears a red skull cap in the manner of bishops over a black T-shirt and he tells us that the “Holy Spirit led me to predict…”

    Is there nobody in Fayose’s household or his exco who could have told him to leave the Holy Spirit out of this folly? If he is so ignorant about these things as he apparently is, couldn’t someone whisper to him that you don’t trifle with divine matters of this nature? He could jolly well have predicted his “calamities” sans the Holy Spirit!

    And to the so-called predictions – these are just baby-babble. These are mere issues in the news in the past few months and any smart pupil who is up to date with his current affairs would guess the direction these issues would head in the New Year.

    For instance, these are some of the so-called predictions: * “About four ministers will be removed.”  * “There will be boost in agriculture.” *”Haliburton (sic) gate may still be revisited.” And so on.

    We understand that Governor Fayose is in the opposition and he needs to act up occasionally, but he can do without so much farce and fantasia.

  • A garrison of 50,000 ghosts

    We all have our ghost stories don’t we? At one point or the other in our lives we must have encountered our own ghosts: the persistent creaking sound upstairs when you are downstairs and alone in your large house. Or that telltale sign of a presence; that footfall behind you that brings the chill to your spine during that mid-morning walk down the village stream. Yes, there is always a ghost somewhere in our subconscious reminding us about the duality of life and even existence.

    But in Nigeria, especially in the civil service, ghosts have become a part of the work force. It cannot be confirmed whether this phenomenon is known anywhere else in the world, but at that, it would never be at the hair-raising magnitude known here. In Nigeria, ghosts are said to permeate and populate the workforce at all levels – local government, state and federal.

    There are hues and cries of them rampaging in all the civil service across the country. But the Federal Government seems to win the prize with the recent announcement that 50,000 ghost workers have been eliminated from the federal service. But the real story is that these ghoulish creatures were earning an astounding N143 billion annually.

    But this is not the first time Nigerians would be apprised with this supernatural occurrence ravaging their civil service. During the last administration, the then Minister of Finance announced so gleefully that a new payment system had eliminated 40,000 workers who also happened to be ghosts.

    She never told us the mode of elimination: whether they were arrested, vaporized or cremated. Now we hear 50,000 have again been eliminated in the 2016 fiscal year. Yet again, we are not told which art of sorcery this government has applied to harness our goblins, just that their number has increased between the last government and now.

    But two salutary developments this time though: first, The Presidency has said that, “11 persons believed to be members of a syndicate responsible for the presence of 50,000 ghost workers on the Federal Government’s payroll had been handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for further investigation and prosecution.”

    But Hardball cannot endure so many eerie lacunae in this story. Only 11 people controlling 50,000 ghosts who are creaming off N143 billion from government coffers every year for goodness knows how long? And it seems the Presidency is too terrified to mention and expose these 11 ghost-masters that they have to prosecute them quietly in the past six months or so?

    Finally, Hardball is freaked out to think that 50,000 ghosts infiltrated the federal payroll without the Ministry of Establishment knowing about them; without the Head of Service and Permanent Secretaries knowing about them.

    Is it that Nigeria is haunted by ghosts or garrisoned by ghouls? And with ghosts in possession of so much cash; a new flank may have opened in Nigeria’s fight for her soul don’t you think?

  • ‘Yaba left’… and right too?

    This is a most coded title only the initiated can decode. Sorry, I don’t mean it that way… not the initiated as an inmate or even out-patient but as a Lagosian who ought to know. Well, enough of the riddle. Here is it: ‘Yaba Left” is the street name for the plucky Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Yaba (FNHY) right there at the popular Yaba bus stop in Yaba, Lagos. Coming from Ikeja, the facility is on the left of the highway, while the bus station is across the road on the right.

    That is how come ‘Yaba Left’ and a fellow acting funny on thAe other side of the road or anywhere in Lagos for that matter could be said to be from “Yaba Left” without raising a whirlwind of offence. Now you would be wondering what’s it with Yaba left, right or even centre?

    Easy dear reader, no stampeding Hardball because this matter at hand that we make light of is very delicate – like every matter that touches the mind (read mental case). The matter heavy for mouth, to put it starkly. It needs to be handled with utmost sensitivity and tact, the way a psychiatrist would handle his patient. Okay, that’s not funny, is it?

    Now, today’s story is why is there a surge of patients at FNHY in this last one year? Is it possible that ‘Yaba left’ could implode and overrun ‘Yaba right’? We are alarmed because the current annual report of FNHY seems to suggest so. The report released last week shows that there is a 111 per cent (yes, for the avoidance of doubt that is one hundred and one per cent) increase in treated patients in the last one year.

    Now look at the bewildering numbers: 32,261 female patients were seen this year against 13,730. This is 135 per cent increase.

    For the males, 21,026 patients attended the hospital this year against 11,537. This is 82 per cent rise.

    In all these, 4,031 fresh patients were recorded this year against 2,531 last year. This is 59 per cent increase and again, women are more in this number.

    So what can we deduce here? It might just be safe to allow my quick-minded reader to do the rest of it yourself. Why should Hardball always deduce all deducibles, leaving nothing to your rich imagination?

    Hardball would obviously jump (as he is wont), to conclude that all these have something to do with the sharp rise in the prices of petrol, then rice, cooking oil, kerosine and even salt, of all things. One has heard women say that since they were born, the price of salt never went up. One has heard women say these days in the market, they always feel they lost money and they would check and check till they become dizzy and they brood all the way home, clutching scanty purchases.

    The reasons for the mental explosion (can we say this?) were not stated, but please figure it out yourselves, dear reader…