The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Fatuous budgeting…

    For a bit of an insight into the workings of the mind of Hardball, it can now be revealed that headlines are sometimes the trickiest part of this task. Yes in this daily grind of churning out these short, troublous pieces, the headline sitting on each article is usually the toughest nut to crack.

    Let’s consider the one above – “Fatuous budgeting”. It was arrived at after juggling so many options. Ideas considered and discarded include: “Magical budgeting”, “Unrecessed budgets” and “Bounteous budgeting”.

    We eventually settled for the one above: “Fatuous Budgeting” for the simple reason that it most approximates the thought for the day. But “Bounteous budgeting” was very tempting for its alliterative resonance. Such is the workings of Hardball; but once there is agreement on the head, the body would often fall into place.

    And the body of this head concerns the rash of budget figures flying all over the place. It’s a season of budgeting in Nigeria. What Hardball would term Nigeria’s budgeting charade. The very act of budgeting must be the most wasted effort in Nigeria; especially in the public sector. Most times previous year’s figures are merely dusted up, padded up and re-presented. And, of course, nobody bothers to go through the rigours of implementation. But this is a matter for another day.

    Today, Hardball is appalled by the bad fat still dripping from the federal budget and those of some agencies of government. Let’s take a few examples: one, for 2017, the Federal Government has set aside N42.9 billion for the State House. If this does not make your jaw drop, here are a few breakdowns: the first family will spend a little over N123 million on food in 2017 (Hardball is dumb with figures but this roughly comes to about N360,000.00 per day!).

    What do we know? Perhaps the first family eats golden grains. Apart from food, the Presidency has budgeted about N1 billion for travels next year. And to keep the travels smooth, N2.4 billion will be needed to keep the Presidential Air Fleet in good condition for these pricey shuttles.

    Let us back off presidential privileges a while for we ordinary mortals cannot claim to understand the essence or even the workings of that behemoth that ensures that we can breathe. One or two examples of federal agencies and rest this case. One, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has reported that it plans to spend N586 million on refreshments and meals in 2017; N750 million on fuel for its generators and N400 million on electricity charges. Another N750 million is for cleaning and fumigation, to name just a few items in an annual budget of N144 billion already passed.

    The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), another federal agency with deep pockets, will spend nearly N2 billion on travels out of its about N71 billion budget for 2017. This fatuousness is likely to be replicated in most other agencies.

    So much fat dripping all over the place and they tell us there is no money? And who said there is recession?

     

  • Take me to Malabu

    Crazy like you

    If there was

    A pill

                 For sanity

                 I’d give ‘us’

                 One

    By Malabu

    There is indeed a raging Malabu story; the ugly Nigerian story which is today, a running metaphor for all that is grimy, gross and sordid – Malabu is Nigeria’s metaphor for malfeasance. It is a place you don’t want to go to.

    There is of course the postcard town, Malibu (not to be mistaken with Malabu) the picturesque beach world in California near Los Angeles, USA. It is a habitat, so to speak, of the rich, famous and glamorous. And there is Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea the little patch of a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa. Yet another Malabu is the cognomen of the young American poet whose poem, “Crazy Like You” is quoted above.

    But Malabu, a la Nigeria is what Hardball is once again concerned with today. As noted above, Malabu (Oil & Gas) is Nigeria’s open sore that refuses to heal. And it is a subject of Hardball’s eternal interest.

    Brief recap: Malabu Oil and Gas is the story of perhaps, Nigeria’s most lucrative oil block, OPL 245, converted and stolen by a certain Dan Etete in 1998 when he was in charge as Nigeria’s Oil Minister. The felon, Etete set up a fictitious firm known a Malabu Oil and Gas and awarded this juicy block to it.

    Danny would have gotten away with his fat loot but big deals often leave telling trails. A big shady deal is a game of jackals. The big IOCs like Shell and Eni, among others, know a pot of gold when they see one. They chased down Danny with everything they had.

    Eventually, Shell and co, in desperation, offloaded a billion dollars (yes, over $1 billion) to buy off OPL 245. This was of course a subterfuge deal; a big time bribe made seemingly legitimate. With such huge dough thrown in, all hell broke loose in Nigeria. And from the Presidency to the parishioner, it was booty-sharing galore.

    Upon the discovery that OPL 245 was stolen from Nigeria’s commonwealth, one thought the right and proper action would have been to immediately reverse the dubious acquisition and hound the thieves to jail. Instead, everyone sought a piece of the putrid pork. Some felons in government sequestered the fund and reportedly moved it into an escrow account from where a huge chunk of it was transferred to Malabu and from where the bazaar began.

    Who did what? Who got what? Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, immediate past Oil Minister, is in the thick of it. Mohammed Adoke, then Minister of Justice and Yerima Ngama, Minister of State for Finance, are fingered.

    While everyone is in denial today as if the big deal was self-propelling, the Federal Government, through the Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, wrings its hands, admitting to the ‘complexities’ of the matter. Can’t we start by reversing the theft of OPL 245?

    “If only there was a pill for insanity …” writes Malabu, the poet.

  • NAF rules ok!

    Hardball sure has a few things in common with Africa music legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Hear, hear, you probably sneer, my dear reader but don’t we all love to associate with greatness? But if you knew Fela in his heyday and if you are a regular reader of this small strip, you would no doubt have noticed the glaring similarities in constitution, character and temperament of Fela and Hardball.

    Let’s try a shortlist: Fela was audacious in a rather rambunctious manner. He was supremely confident and self-assured in the pursuit of his convictions. It did not matter to him whether you were a military of civilian president; it did not matter the shade of colour of your uniform and indeed it bothered him not whether you were bearing a machine gun or a horse-whip.

    He loathed injustice and would not only spot it miles away, but would pursue it with the single-mindedness of a train-robber just to win succour for victims. It was his life passion. So also was pulling down all the high, shiny, façade of hubris and of course roiling inept governments too. Remember it was Fela at his brilliant best who described uniform as mere cloth made by mere tailor. He also sang about “Army Arrangement”, “Unknown Soldier” and the inimitable “Zombie,” among numerous other timeless masterpieces.

    Hardball has done some too in his own little way and on this small piece of space. He has taken on presidents both sitting and expired. He has poked his grubby nose into the affairs of all manner of compatriots, especially such affairs that are ribald and injurious to our collective well-being.

    One such is the matter at hand today which concerns men of the Nigeria Air Force (NAF). Last Sunday, a detachment of NAF at the airport in Lagos behaved in a manner we know too well. They forgot that as the great Fela said long ago, uniform na cloth made by tailors; and Hardball can add that guns are toys just any man can carry.

    Why are we saying this? A group of NAF men (described as officers, but Hardball doubt that officers would be in such a duty post) had pounced on one Muhammed Shuaibu, said to be a protocol officer of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and beat him to a pulp. If the NAF authority had remained mute and unknowing, Hardball would have forgiven them for honestly being mute and unknowing. But in an official response to the victim’s cry for justice, NAF spokesman, described as Command Public Relations Officer, Logistics Command, NAF, named Joel Abioye, told us that Shuaib was beaten (not to a coma though as he pretends) by his men for “breaking the rule” and seeking to use his position to outsmart his men.

    Dear reader, be informed that this bloody turf war happened right in front of the departure area of our international airport. A dozen and one questions beg for answer. One, what are armed Air Force officers doing around the airport directing traffic? Two, why is our idea of security always about persons in uniform bearing arms? Three, is this how other countries secure their airports? Four, are NAF officers trained to brutalise fellow citizens who break their “rule”?

    Let’s just say NAF rules ok at the airport!

     

  • Bayelsa bacchanalia

    Ardent readers of Hardball must have learnt not to take him too seriously. First is that he takes too much liberty on issues and occasions and he sees his anonymous column as licence to lampoon. Not a few readers, especially those who have been scorched on this page, would think much of Hardball; in fact many would think of him as that rascally fellow called Hardball.

    Well, it may please you dear reader that this assessment of Hardball is largely correct and indeed acknowledged (by the way, did you notice it is a self-assessment?!). But let it be clearly noted in all this, that there is a line between licence and licentiousness and then between liberty and licence.

    This may underscore the needle-eye nuancing of the matter at hand here. Without any attempt to perjure, the emerging tiff between Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State and social crusader, Prof Kimse Okoko can only be described in one way by Hardball – bacchanal. Thus, the title, Bayelsa bacchanalia may be misconstrued by constricted minds as suggesting that Bayelsa is a land of booze where Bacchus once threw a wild party which impacted DNAs.

    Far from it. Here is the case that ye might be the judge: Governor Dickson had elected to build a bogus university with an equally bogus name: University of Africa (AU). But Bayelsa is a small strip of land hemmed by water almost all round.

    It has enough space for only eight local governments and it already has two full-fledged universities among other higher institutions. A third university would seem gross wouldn’t it? If there is nothing to it than meets the eye, why would this small patch of land take another state university when larger states like Lagos are still grappling with funding one?

    This is what critics like Prof. Okoko cannot live down. He, therefore, went to court to challenge an obvious gubernatorial rascality. There is also rumour that the so-called AU has dubious ownership. Or shall we say the ownership is so opaque nobody in Bayelsa is sure who really owns it.

    Prof Okoko in his suit claimed that Gov. Dickson was using state’s resources to set up a university he would later claim ownership of.

    But instead of carefully disproving Okoko’s allegations, the governor described them as “most reprehensible, mischievous and highly unpatriotic.” The governor in turn, reached for the critic’s jugular by seeking to look into the activities of Okoko as chairman and pro-chancellor of the Niger Delta University (NDU). Further, the state government has determined to probe the acquisition of the biggest energy plant in the state allegedly built by Okoko’s son.

    Now, there you have it dear reader, isn’t the above scenarios simply bacchanal? Is this anyway to run a state and manage the resources of a people without running the place aground? Hardball in his wisdom, therefore, took liberty and a bit of licence to call the situation Bayelsa bacchanalia, abi?

  • Two heads

    Election violence will always be inexcusable because it is always pointless. What could have been the excuse for the bestiality recorded during the Rivers State legislative rerun across three senatorial districts on December 10?

    The chilling words of Maj-Gen. Kasimu Abdulkarim, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) the newly-created 6 Division of the Army in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital: “The most brutal incident occurred (during Saturday’s rerun) at Ujju community near Omoku in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni LGA of Rivers State, where a police patrol team was ambushed. In the ambush, 10 policemen scampered into the bush. The Mobile Police organised a rescue mission. Regrettably, the team discovered that DSP Alkali Mohammed of Mobile Police Unit 48 was beheaded along with his orderly. The patrol vehicle was taken away with weapons. Three policemen escaped. Five were missing in action.”

    Incidents like the one described have no place in any society that claims to be civilised. Who were the murderous ambushers? Why did they have to go as far as beheading two law enforcement agents? What was at stake, and who were the stakeholders?

    The foregoing account of what happened during the Rivers State rerun is, of course, not comprehensive. Maj-GenAbdulkarim was also quoted as saying: “In Gokana Local Government, armed hoodlums engaged the soldiers providing outer perimeter defence for the electorate. In Abonnema, at 0730 hours on Saturday, there were three explosions that created bedlam. Subsequently, 11 NYSC members were abducted along with electoral materials. However, 10 of them were rescued two hours later by the soldiers while one was rescued about eight hours later.”

    He continued: “Many shootings were recorded in some communities, such as Bodo-Ogoni (Gokana LGA), the hometown of the Secretary to the Rivers State Government (Chief Kenneth Kobani); B-Dere and Mogho in Gokana Local Government, including snatching of ballot boxes.”

    Of course, the account is still incomplete. Such accounts are never complete and can never be. The greater tragedy is that the public only hears about what it gets to hear about.

    It is unbelievable that all these and more happened because of the rerun. Behind it all are shadowy politicians who would do anything in the pursuit of political power.  They are the ones who help to create an enabling environment for violence and even more violence.

    The point must be made that violence is animalistic, which is a way of saying that those who encourage, sponsor and carry out these brutish acts are no better than lower animals.

  • Refineries: Kachikwu’s pathos

    Pathos is the only word one can find to define the moment. An  English idiom describes it as crying when the head is off. Imagine for a moment, the pathetic scene of a headless body weeping profusely. We are also reminded of that saying about crying over spilt milk; think of a kid bemoaning his fresh milk being splattered all over the floor.

    These scenarios remind one of the current situation and status of Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources. Hardball cannot help but be consumed by a sense of inexorable pathos towards Dr. Ibe. First, his position has been  badly watered down if not washed out in a manner of speaking.

    But this may not be the knotty issue. He is a brilliant fellow and he must keep his game (and the game) on. He has to keep keeping his chin up and keep the ball on the bounce. But this would pose a very tough task considering that there is really nothing doing. Nothing doing in his office, nothing doing in his sector and indeed, nothing doing in our country. Hardball can see everyone in motion like a stringed marionette.

    As has been noted above, our man is not one to stay still; though we all know that there is nothing doing, he’s still adept at steering the water like a Jacuzzi Jetstream letting off a constant whirling of water. Dr. Ibe has proved that he can think big and talk big but acts little: has it not been said that great dreamers are small doers.

    Hardball, with eyes cold as the eagle’s had observed our able Dr. Ibe in the past one year and has circumscribed him. There are over a dozen reasons but a couple would suffice: remember that in March, he announced with so much aplomb how he had done the mother of all restructure in that putrid behemoth called NNPC. Remember also, the recent one the president helped to showcase about seven something, something magic to take the oil sector to Eldorado land.

    You must have heard talks about fixing the existing refineries to work at optimum and the yarn about co-location of smaller refineries around the old ones. These are stories with long tails; will o’ the wisp; beautiful fulminations of a brilliant mind but leading us nowhere.

    But Hardball, ever so vigilant caught Dr. Ibe – shall we say in his pathetic state of pathos. In an interview with the Financial Times of London last month, he lamented the mala fide of the international oil companies as regards their inability to build new refineries in Nigeria. “IOCs must stop treating Nigeria like a trading colony”, he fumed. He wondered how they could be mining so much crude here over the years, yet Nigeria still imports all her petroleum products needs.

    Hmn, empty talk all the way. Why have we not mustered enough balls (well, like Hardball!) to sell off all our wretched old refineries in the last one year. This is the least Dr Ibe could have done.

  • Buildings don’t just fall

    It happened again. This time, it almost resulted in the death of a governor. But 200 others reportedly died. The tragedy occurred on December 10 with Akwa Ibom State Governor Udom Emmanuel right inside the Reigners’ Bible Church Int’l in Uyo, the state capital.

    A report said: “The governor was in the church attending the ordination of the church’s Presiding Pastor, Bishop Elect Akan Weeks, when the building gave way a few minutes before offering period.”

    It is unclear what led to the building collapse, but it is clear enough that buildings don’t collapse without a cause. It was reported that “construction works on a section  were rushed because of Saturday’s event.”

    A piercing eyewitness account by a student of the University of Uyo, Department of Communication Arts, Uduak Effiong, said: “I saw over 100 dead bodies. These were the ones close to me. From my estimation, more than 300 people might have died as people came from other churches in all parts of the state, including government-sponsored praise singers with uniforms to attend the programme. For some of us that escaped, we only did by the special grace of God.”

    It is reassuring that the state government said a panel of enquiry would be constituted to find out the immediate and remote causes of the collapse of the church building with an estimated 10,000-seater capacity. A statement by the Chief Press Secretary also said that persons found to have compromised professional standards in the construction of the building would be sanctioned.

    We have been at this juncture many times before. We may yet be at the same juncture many times after this. What happened? Was the building overcrowded because of the governor’s presence?  Is it true that work was rushed to get the building ready for the governor’s attendance?  Who supervised the work?

    There are several other questions that may be asked concerning the disaster and what may have been responsible for it. But at the end of the day, what is more important is that answers are found to the questions, and whoever is blamable gets the deserved penalty.

    It is sad that such a tragic incident happened when people were in a celebratory mood in a celebratory season. Unfortunately, those who died are out of it. But the living can be protected from what appears a cycle of tragedy.

  • Stories around palm oil

    Please perish the thought dear reader, Hardball would not dare repeat here, that silly tale about Malaysia taking a few palm oil seedlings from Nigeria in the 60s, blah, blah, blah. Even Hardball would probably cry if he hears that story one more time.

    It is a sad tale about Nigeria’s failure; everyone knows it, everyone tells it to everyone who re-tells to everyone who re-tells, on and on, ad-nauseam. We have probably told it for all of three decades yes; 30 years in case you think that was a slip.

    Yes, one whole, long generation of Nigerians have regaled themselves with this woe tales, yet concrete actions were never taken to change the situation.

    Back then, Nigeria was among the top exporters of crude palm oil. But today, Malaysia is world leader in the commodity they say, but they don’t know that this is just a small bit of the huge oil palm story.

    They do not know that other Asian countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Burma now dominate this oil trade, which has a global value of about $50 billion. They do not know that palm oil, like crude oil, can be broken down into different variants and grades. It is no longer the good red oil we used to know.

    We are still fixated on the palm oil story of the 60s, but it’s a different story now for palm oil, which incidentally, makes up more than half of the oil and fats consumed in the world today.

    It is a big industry, big business for countries, who know how to do big things. For instance, the oil palm research institute set up by Malaysia in the 60s has grown into a major Agriculture University. But its counterpart in Nigeria has become a shadow of itself, perhaps half overgrown by weeds. But why is Hardball getting so oily-soily today? It is about a report that Nigeria recently imported about N12 billion worth of palm oil in October and November. And that indeed, Nigeria needs about 2.7 million metric tons of palm oil yearly, but can hardly produce 1 million tons. She has to import the bulk of the rest.

    How can this be happening when one state in the Southeast or Southsouth can produce Nigeria’s need? How can we now turn around to claim that some states are not viable or that they cannot afford to meet basic salary bills, yet they sit on a palm oil industry that yields more than all the money that accrues to them from federal allocation?

    While the price of the much more favoured crude oil has been dropping that of palm oil is rising in global markets. The prospects for this native commodity are actually bright, but only those who are working will reap them, not those telling and re-telling old oil stories.

    The only story left untold and which desperately needs to be told about the crop ancient to our land would be a come-back story. Let the world tell how Nigeria miraculously raised the dying palm oil industry back to number one in the world in a couple of years. That would be the story!

  • Policing criminals and criminal policing

    It has often been said that in Nigeria, anything and everything is possible. So why does Hardball think that some things should not happen in Nigeria of 2016? Why is he struck dumb when he hears or reads about certain strange stuff? Is it sheer naivety or is it that he is not in tune with reality?

    Here is one good example of such matters that set Hardball tizzy. At about 9:30 pm on May 30, 2016, as the report goes in a national newspaper, a detachment from the Owutu Police Division in Ikorodu area of Lagos State pounced on Ori Okuta in the Agric area of Ikorodu. They seized anyone in sight, intimidating and subduing them – boots and butts and ‘abducting’ them to their station nearby.

    They ‘captured’ over 70 persons, including a 15-year-old boy and a Lagos State Polytechnic student. At the station, according to the account of the student, it immediately became a sordid mammy-market of sort where you bargain-and-pay-for-your-freedom or you are doomed. In a while the place was a beehive of activities as relatives of ‘captives’ converged quickly to ‘rescue’ their people lest they stay in the cell overnight for a start.

    The price for freedom was between N5000 and N30.000 depending on your ability to bargain with the police and whether you tried to prove you know the ‘law’ or your right. Those who insisted on their innocence and their right paid more.

    Such was the case of the student, Taiwo, who wanted to know what his offence was slapped to muteness. He bought his freedom with N30.000 and with profuse ‘abeg’, as we say here, according to his account. Another victim, Yemi, recounted that he was in front of his wife’s shop and only intervened when the police picked up the 15-year-old son of his friend. The lad had called out as they made to haul him away.

    But he too was pummelled by the team and taken away. He too had to pay for his freedom.

    But if you thought this was Hardball’s usual elasticitification (this is a Hardball special, don’t bother rushing to your dictionary) of facts, here is the police’s side of the story. The officer in charge of the Nigeria Police Complaint Response Unit (CRU), CSP Abayomi Shogunle, has this to say: “It is a week-long operation and it is in response to recent cult-related attacks in Ikorodu town. Some of the apprehended persons found not to be linked to the ongoing investigation have been released after initial screening, while 120 persons of interest… have been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Yaba.”

    Hmmm, what more can Hardball add than to say that if you have to haul in the whole community in order to find the criminal elements therein, then sorry, Hardball must term it CRIMINAL POLICING that is starkly bereft of intelligence. Would Scotland Yard work like this?

  • My drone is better than yours

    Hardball has built a drone. No, I take that back. He has conceived a super-drone in his head. Now what is this fellow called Hardball up to? You might be asking. And the answer is never mind; he can be wacky sometimes and at other times, he suffers grand illusions of grandeur. This must be one of such moments dear reader, bear with him.

    Now just because the other day he saw a news photograph of some Nigerian policemen fiddling with the console of a supposed drone, his head is tizzy about drones. In that photo, it had been said that the cluster of policemen were trying to send a drone after a band of marauders who had attacked and gotten the better of an estate in Lagos and fled through the creeks.

    Yes, those unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), otherwise known as drones which over a decade ago, were the exclusive playthings of the US military/intelligence establishment have today become as common as ‘pure water’. Almost everyone (including men of the Nigeria Police) have them. Today, it comes in all shapes and sizes and from being a precise, predator war machine, it has grown to something closer to that paper kite children play with.

    Most remarkably, everyone seems to be able to make his or her own drones now. Microsoft Corporation is advertising what it calls a Ghostdrone. Here is the sales pitch: “This versatile, easy-to-fly drone is fully controlled by your android or windows smart phone, and features a built-in camera and experienced avatar control.”

    Wow! Isn’t that a mind-blowing idea: to be able to own your own drone and control it with your phone! But wait a minute; this Microsoft toy is called a Ghost drone: haven’t ghosts wreaked enough havoc on non-ghosts already?

    Nigeria’s public service probably has more ghosts than the entire workforce of the rest of the continent. How we have managed to co-habit with so many apparitions is beyond comprehension. But if we thought ghost workers were ghoulish, now that we have ghost drones we are sure in for a most invidious time.

    I imagine ghost drones getting into the mind of the paymaster-general or even ‘sorting out’ the payroll themselves. That would be the day.

    Hardball therefore contemplates a SuperGhostDrone – SGD, for short. You must have guessed it –  a deus ex-machina! As we have explained, a drone is an unmanned aircraft and there are drones for nearly every human activity today – from combat drones to weather monitors and terrorists muggers.

    But Hardball is working on SGDs that may be able to infiltrate the meeting of say, militants in their coves or even detect all the currencies buried in farms and abandoned buildings across the country. Why can’t we have a ghost drone spooking Aso Rock Villa and getting to tweak the president’s mind occasionally? And how about this: imagine a super ghost camera drone in the hands of a rascal paparazzo! All our bedrooms would be endangered and the world would become one huge pornographic enclave isn’t it!