The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • From Osundare, poetic justice

    No judge has been tried, let alone convicted. Concerning the DSS raid on judges’ homes, no attorney is in the dock, for illicit shovelling of cash, a criminal accessory to making Justice Kayode Esho’s feared “billionaire judges”.

    But from the poetic court of Prof. Niyi Osundare, Nigeria’s celebrated poet and great pusher of poetry as everyday celebration — and condemnation, when needed — the corrupt judge enjoys no relief.

    In his grand poetic observatory, Osundare always sits, a formidable moral force, some Daniel come to judgment, over Nigeria’s daily dose of avoidable folly.

    When Ayodele Fayose hit town with his Ekiti “stomach infrastructure” electoral win, a much embarrassed Osundare was there, to thumb down his “Ekiti Kete” country folk, hitherto the moral capital of the Yoruba nation, but now fallen laughable, if tragic victims, to Fayose’s trickery.

    Now, the issue is beyond Ekiti. It is the plague of corrupt judges, that would kill the judiciary (and Nigerians) if we don’t kill it first — a subject of urgent and grave national importance.

    Of course, the much-garlanded poet would not be mute. Didn’t the great Wole Soyinka, the poetic paterfamilias, say that the man died in him who, in the face of injustice, kept quiet?

    That is the import of Osundare’s latest poetic release, “My Lord, Tell Me Where To Keep Your Bribe”, an ode to biting sarcasm, the rod of corrupt judges and venal lawyers, that just went viral on cyberspace!

    “My Lord/Please tell me where to keep your bribe/Do I drop it in your venerable chambers/Or carry the heavy booty to your immaculate mansion/Shall I bury it in the capricious water tank/In your well laundered backyard/Or will it breathe better in the septic tank/Since money can deodorise the smelliest crime? …”

    When did our judiciary fall into this nadir of disgrace, so that by employing the most repulsive images of sight, of smell and of touch, the poet portrays it as just another racket?

    When did our judges sink into this moral sewers and legal rebuke, such that corrupt judges now appear comfy with the vilest methods, of the vilest and most venal, in the underworld?  Yet, as a collective, judges are the Palladium of polite society!

    Many times, the poet plays Amos and Jeremiah, Biblical prophets of doom, with zero tolerance for the decadence of their day.

    “A terrible plague bestrides the land/Besieged by rapacious judges and venal lawyers/Behind the antiquated wig/And the slavish glove/The penguin gown and the obfuscating jargon/Is a rot and riot whose stench is choking the land”!

    You could almost feel the pungent, ammonia gas-like bite, leap off the poetic pages to hit your nostril!

    And this is where the legalistic-minded miss the point. True, to every corrupt judge, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, whistle-clean. But the injury in perception, which this wayward minority inflicts on the decent ones, is well and truly damning.

    And how about this, as the portrait of the judge as common felon, poetically put!

    “A million dollars in Their Lordship’s bedroom/A million euros in the parlour closet/Countless Naira beneath the kitchen sink/Our courts are fast running out of Ghana-must-go’s”

    Any hope of salvation and redemption?  Maybe. But the poet is not that upbeat, sounding not unlike a great civilisation toppled by happy barbarians.

    “The ‘Temple of Justice’/Is broken in every brick/The roof is roundly perforated/By termites of graft”

    In 1962, D. Olu Olagoke wrote a play, The Incorruptible Judge, on which a generation of secondary school pupils gorged, quite thrilled to reinforce the idea that judges are mini-Gods on earth, who are therefore inviolate.

    In 2016, Prof. Osundare has written a poem that states the direct opposite! “My Most Honourable Lord,” he concludes with devastatingly biting sarcasm. “Just tell me where to keep your bribe”!

    When did this tragedy befall us — and when are we snapping out of it?

  • Kano’s scarlet politics

    Red is generally believed to signify danger. It also symbolises life, bravery and courage, but its grim, scarlet elements often overshadow this great colour of blood. Over the ages red has come to be associated with revolution – the Red Brigade, the Red Army, the Red Revolution, the Red Devils, etc. have all been accepted as something ominously radical, is not sinister and anarchical.

    People over climes and times have deployed red to suit all sorts of fancies. But perish the thought, Hardball is not about joining any red army, declaring a red-letter day or becoming Softball. No such thing. Hardball interrogates the brewing (red) schism in Nigeria’s own red group – the Kwankwasiyya movement in kano, that ancient northern city of Nigeria.

    For some context: Kwankwasiyya is the brain child of the immediate past governor of Kano State, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. He must be among few such men in Nigeria who returned after an interregnum to serve a second term of four years as a governor.

    It was during his second term in office as governor of the large rambling state of Kano that Kwankwaso put in the performance of his life and conceived Kwankwasiyya. Its major outward symbol is the red cap.

    In his heyday as the ruler of the land, you would fail to put  on a shade of red cap at your peril. And you wouldn’t dare not to wear a red cap if you were in his cabinet or party. On such days like Friday, one was wont to see a sea of red ‘heads’ in certain quarters of Kano metropolis.

    Like religion, a ‘good’ movement is equally some sort of opium for the hoi polloi who would do crazy things when worked up. Such was it that some took the red thing to the rooftops. And that is not metaphorically speaking – not a few roofs were painted red with Kwankwasiyya emblazoned on them. Could this fervid fanaticism and unalloyed loyalty perchance be hunger-induced or is it born out of true fervour for the principles and philosophy of Kwankwasiyya and its founder?

    Since Kwankwaso left office last year, his protégé, the current Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, has not stopped donning his own shade of red cap in solidarity with the spirit of Kwankwasiyya. But it seems like Ganduje may be stripped of that singular privilege of adorning his guber head with a red cap.

    Of course it is an open secret that the grounds have shifted between Ganduje and his former boss, Kwankwaso. As our elders opined, two deities don’t cohabit in one grove. Last week Kwankwasiyya hardliners gave Gov. Ganduje  a 48-hour ultimatum to quit donning red caps or face litigation.

    Not to be out-done or brow-beaten, Gov. Ganduje has also threatened to constitute a commission of enquiry to probe the administration of former Gov. Kwankwaso.

    Loading… the grim, red cap politics of an ancient city. Updates to follow.

  • Too terrible to be true

    This is not Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, that familiar “Arabian Nights” tale.  But it is an alarming Nigerian story that may be called PACAC and the Fifty-five Thieves. PACAC stands for the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption. The group recently hit the headlines on account of its damning report that covered August 2015 to July 2016. Its Executive Secretary, Prof Bolaji Owasanoye, on October 20 presented the report in Abuja during an interactive session with civil society organisations.

    The main point of the report is that “corruption brought Nigeria to its knees” under former President Goodluck Jonathan. PACAC said: “For example, it is widely believed that insecurity escalated because of the massive embezzlement of $2 billion through the Office of the National Security Adviser under the leadership of Col. Sambo Dasuki, who allegedly diverted the money appropriated to fight insurgency. The problems in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry reached the zenith with multi-billion dollars subsidy scams while President Jonathan looked the other way. At the same time, other vices spread like cancer – kidnapping, import duty waivers, financial recklessness, a profligate legislature, corrupt judiciary, etc.”

    The most chilling aspect of this report highlights the scale of stealing by some people in power during a particular period and how political corruption has so terribly short-changed the country. A report quoted PACAC as saying that using World Bank rates, one-third of the N1.3trillion allegedly stolen by only 55 people in seven years could have provided 635.18 kilometres of roads, built 36 ultra-modern hospitals in each state, built and furnished 183 schools, educated 3,974 people from primary to tertiary level (at N25.2 million per child) and built 20,062 units of two-bedroom houses.

    If this level of development could have been achieved with just one-third of the allegedly stolen money, how much more could have been achieved if the entire alleged loot was used for the purpose of the country’s development?

    Who are these alleged 55 thieves who stole so much from a 2016 estimated population of over 178.5 million? How were they able to steal as much as has been alleged? Why did they need to steal as much as has been alleged? What did they do with the alleged loot?

    There may well be other questions arising from this thought-provoking allegation. The allegation is too terrible to be true. If it is true, it is so terrible that the thieves should not go unpunished.

  • Season of emergencies?

    fter the October 8 rather novel raid — or if you’re more sympathetic, sting operations — on allegedly sleazy judges by the Department of State Services (DSS),  the Nigerian Bar Association’s opening bluff, while joining the fray, was its president’s threat of a judicial emergency.

    Roared Abubakar Mahmud, SAN, NBA president: he was declaring a “judicial emergency”, and if the arrested judges were not released, within a particular time-frame, “there will be consequences.”

    Tough talk. But as it happened, no “judicial emergency” is happening, except in the sense of felt shame and paralysis of a judiciary that seems a shadow of its old self, though a few judges did “down wigs” in protest against the arrest of one of their own. And indeed: the judges were released on bail, but requested to go back to DSS for further grilling.

    But there was no impassioned pro-judiciary protests in the streets.  On the contrary, what happened was some activists carrying the battle to a court precinct in Lagos, damning “corrupt judges”, clearly in solidarity with the arrests.

    Noticing public sympathy was simply not there, NBA has since toned down its opening rhetoric.  Not because the government was all-powerful but because of a haunting sense that, maybe, some judges may indeed, to use Achebe-speak, have snacked too much on sleaze, for the polity not to notice.

    The drama is still unfolding.

    Well, some two weeks down the line, another set of players in the  Nigerian rambunctious polity is spoiling for “emergency”.

    The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) is challenging President  Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency in that sector.

    But that was only a dramatic way MAN President Dr. Frank Jacob decided to showcase the sector’s woes.  In Dr. Jacob’s view, a manufacturing “state of emergency” would fend off imminent collapse and the attendant dire consequences for the struggling economy.

    On the positive front, an “emergency” would boost manufacturing’s capacity to transform the economy, transfer technology, create jobs and generally improve Nigerians’ standard of living.

    What is more?  A humming and buzzing and vibrant Nigerian manufacturing would well and truly ground the local economy and bless it with the inevitable munificence of economy of scale.  That would be a long way from the current petrol-powered enclave economy, where petro-dollars provide the cash, but that cash is blown on insane importation, which kills jobs in Nigeria but creates millions of jobs where Nigeria is importing from.

    These, indeed, are noble and patriotic goals for which MAN and its president must be well and truly proud.

    But must they be accomplished only in an “emergency”, which ironically means the dislocation of the normal order?  Must Nigerians always be overtly dramatic, when the issue is clear?

    Well, in Nigeria’s daily routine of gripping drama, perpetual emergency would appear just part of the mix.

    Perhaps the future generation when things are more settled, looking back at this age of perpectual drama and permanent emergency, would smile and declare: it was an age of emergencies!

  • Malabu malady

    Legendary Afrobeat king, Fela Ransome-Kuti, better known as Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (he would have been a Nobel Literature Prize candidate were he alive today now that the literary award is also given to lyricists like Bob Dylan), was a master of rhyme, rhythm and commonsense.

    In one of his classic songs he crooned: Dead body get accident/ confusion break bone/ double wahala for dead body/ and the owner of dead body.

    Of course Fela was searingly political in his songs and was indeed, Hardball made into songs. In the lines above, he imagined the helluva confusion that would ensue should a corpse being taken to the mortuary get entangled in an accident. You don’t want to see such a sight do you?

    Well Hardball is not bringing blood cuddling horror to your living room. Far from it; it is about the little matter of an oil block (OPL 245) which reportedly holds 9.2 billion barrels of crude oil. You must remember the Malabu Oil deal and you must remember a weasel known as Dan Etete? These are Nigeria’s sordid facts and they are neither dead bodies nor unfortunate corpses.

    Dan Etete was the miserable fellow who as Minister of Petroleum Resources under the late junta Gen. Sani Abacha in 1998 awarded this massive oil block to his firm, Malabu Oil and Gas. But he was not alone, he had numerous other cronies, including Abacha’s son.

    But what is the big deal in this old story; looks straight forward enough. No it isn’t. Because of the sheer size of the stolen pie, almost anyone who has a big finger in land has his finger stuck in it, so to speak.

    Shell Petroleum Development Company is the conniver-in-chief and perhaps the lead player in this graft theatre. Today, a committee of the House of Representatives is reviewing the Malabu malfeasance. But Mr. Abubakar Malami, the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, says the matter is too complex if not confusing for his office to understand.

    Hear Malami: “We have multiple contentions. There is Mohammed Abacha, Dan Etete, Atiku Abubakar, Hassan Adamu; they are all laying claims to entities.”

    Shell on its part, has as it is wont, hired top politician-attorney Chief Richard Akinjide to challenge the jurisdiction of the House Committee because of the litigations surrounding Malabu. Shell and Nigeria Agip Explorations reportedly paid out $1.1 billion supposedly to the Federal Government. But the money never made it the treasury. It was reported that former ministers Diezani Alison-Madueke (Petroleum), Mohammed Adoke (Justice) caused the money to be transferred to Malabu, which then spirited the money to various foreign bank accounts.

    Complex and confusing isn’t it? But the stolen property remains property of the Federal Government ab initio that was stolen as events have revealed. If a man steals my car and runs under the miry world of thiefdom, passing it from owner to owner; if the car is eventually discovered, does it cease to be my car just because the underworld system has encumbered it? One thought the SIMPLE SOLUTION would be to revert property to the rightful owner?

    Is that not what they call RESTITUTION in law?

  • Sickening speculation

    It has been famously observed that “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.” The wisdom of this observation seems lost on Junaid Mohammed, a medical doctor and Second Republic legislator who wants to give the impression that he knows something about President Muhammadu Buhari’s current state of health that the public does not know.

    Mohammed was quoted as saying: “The reason the President travelled to Germany was not what it was advertised to be. The trip is basically a medical trip. It was undertaken for medical reasons. It was only converted to a state visit as an afterthought and that tells you the level of contempt the handlers of the President have for Nigerians. We blamed the handlers of Yar’Adua for the way they kept his ailment secret.”

    He added: “Now, Nigerians have a big surprise awaiting them. They have not been told the truth about the real state of the man’s (Buhari’s) health. He is our President. Nigerians elected him into office and we must never allow individuals to play with our intelligence and do something stupid and dangerous to our country. I hope and pray that next time, the Nigerian people would be told the truth. It’s a medical trip; they (handlers) issued statements to camouflage the real reason behind the trip.”

    It is a point to ponder whether Mohammed has secret knowledge of the alleged “real state” of Buhari’s health at the present time.  Does he know what he is talking about? How much does he know about what he is talking about?

    Buhari’s three-day visit to Germany did not happen secretly. Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha was among those that travelled with him; and the governor has rubbished Mohammed’s claim about the President’s itinerary in Germany.

    Okorocha’s words: “The President never went for any medical check-up. At least I was with him till 1a.m. after the dinner before I left him and he went to bed. I went to bed and the following day I came out to see him in the morning. So, the President never went for any medical at all. The only hospital we went to was to see a general who had an accident. These are some of the things that people make uninformed comments and I do not know why in this part of our world we are always happy when someone is going down. I think there is need to change our attitude completely.”

    What does this reaction say about this matter? It may well be that Mohammed’s version is no more than a sickening speculation, which suggests that the man spreading it may be in the grip of some sickness.

  • Their Osoko has gone mad again

    Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again is sure hilarious.

    But when a high official of state manifests outlawry, against the same law that creates his high office, such conduct ceases to be funny.

    Such outlaw conduct could bruise and sap the governorship institution. But that seems completely lost on Ekiti Governor, Ayodele Fayose, with his latest escapades.

    It all started with the release of the 21 Chibok school girls from Boko Haram captivity.  Ever impulsive and excitable, Fayose claimed the release of the girls was a presidential distraction from the Buhari camp.

    So, Osoko, to avoid these criminal distractions, the girls should not be rescued?  He even claimed “Nigerians” had decided Buhari should stop his anti-sleaze campaign; and focus on putting food on the table.

    It is tribute to the denseness of the stomach infrastructure philosophy, that its chief proponent could not establish the simple nexus between fighting corruption and putting food on the table!  Wouldn’t fighting corruption free stolen funds for legitimate use?

    Or, is their Osoko gone mad again, ala his Ola Rotimi fictive cousin?

    But perhaps the Osoko Chibok take is, to parody American Donald Trump, just gubernatorial ”locker room talk” or, in the words of Melanie, Trump’s wife, “boys’ talk”.

    But maybe the two are right, and there are ways governors lock their brains in a room, or become excitable and reckless boys, before talking and acting in ways that subvert their high office!

    The other day, it was Nyesom Wike, Rivers governor, illicitly springing from nowhere to block the arrest of an allegedly corrupt judge in distress.

    Now, it is Fayose, open sesame, emerging from nowhere to save a dame in alleged EFCC distress. That dame?  One Sonia Chikwendu, Femi Fani-Kayode’s consort.

    Fani-Kayode claims EFCC “detention and harassment” of Sonia was a government proxy war against him. He claimed the Sonia account had a maximum balance of N200, 000. So, he queried, with flurry and drama only a Fani could muster, why is Buhari harassing her?

    But EFCC in a counter-release claimed it never arrested the woman; that her account had a ‘Post no debit’ tag on it; and that banks, by law, routinely alert security agencies whenever anyone tries to withdraw from such accounts. What is more, the account balance was allegedly N2.3 million, apart from allegedly having a single BVN linked to both Fani-Kayode and Chikwendu. The account, EFCC claimed, was “flagged” because it could be warehousing alleged proceeds of crime.

    But in the midst of the police arrest-and-bail procedure, Fayose barged in and freed Sonia, claiming EFCC could not arrest anyone “in my state”.  Is that so?

    Like Wike, is it now part of Fayose’s gubernatorial functions to impede police investigations, no matter how misguided he feels that process is?

    But what if force had matched force, and someone, somewhere savaged the governor, and there was an uproar, what would the human rights and due process vanguard say, who though now are as quiet as the grave stone?

    In Achebe-speak, Fayose and Wike, by making themselves obstacles to the law, are challenging their gubernatorial chi.  That is self-destruction. Someone somewhere should rein them in before this malady becomes outright insanity.

  • Haba, Emir!

    When is a failed state? That is putting it like our revered Professor Wole Soyinka. When is a lawless country? When is impunity and when is leadership failure? When certain matters leave you spewing a stream of questions it must be that such matter must have left the realm of rationality into the wild jungles of un-wisdom and unreasonableness.

    In such a situation, questions, like blank shots, go out in staccato array into the air, loud with sound and fury but empty like the shell it is. What is Hardball going on about this time? Why does words seem to fail him and explanations elude him?

    But we all know the story. It is a big one indeed involving the Emir of Katsina and the entire Emirate Council of Katsina State. One, this is the paramount traditional head of a state. Two, this is the state of origin of President Muhammadu Buhari. Three, this is a blatant case of breaking of the law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    And lastly on the import of this story, this is a leader and role model for millions of people. Whatever he does would be considered standard behaviour by his followers. That is the grave danger in this story and this is why the authorities must intervene quickly and ensure that the right thing is done immediately; which is allowing the law take its proper course.

    Now the story: it was reported last week that the Emir of Katsina, Alhaji Abdulmumin Usman, has married 14-year-old Habiba Isa who has just finished junior secondary school and ought to be in senior secondary now. Young Habiba is also a Christian from a Christian home whose father and mother are alive.

    Habiba was reportedly abducted last August by one of the palace hands and held incommunicado for a long time. Then the story emerged that she has voluntarily converted to a Muslim and is now the wife of the Emir of Katsina, Alhaji Abdulmumin Usman. When the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Katsina chapter, led by its president, led a delegation to the palace to plead, it was told that the marriage is irreversible.

    Here are some of the justifications from the palace: right before the palace crowd, little Habiba, now ‘properly’ covered in hijab, was asked if she was forcefully converted to Islam; if forced into marriage with the emir and whether she was already menstruating before she got married to the emir? She answered all these questions in favour of the emir.

    But Hardball will only close with even more questions: is 14 the legal marriage age by Nigeria’s law? Does any tradition in Nigeria allow a woman to be married off to a man without the presence and consent of her parents?

    Finally, how would you, dear reader, feel if you woke up tomorrow to find that an old man (no matter his title) has abducted your little daughter and forced her into marriage? I already know how you would possibly react so I will not deign to ask what is of course a leading question. One has a fair idea what any man is capable of doing under the circumstance.

    Suffice to say that this obvious injustice is capable of breeding extreme lawlessness.

  • Futile and fatuous

    Those who play the game of politics should not be impolitic. There are political players that try to turn every issue into a political football. Consider the effort of Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose to discredit the Muhammadu Buhari administration in connection with the recent release of 21 Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram.

    These girls were among the 276 pupils kidnapped by terrorists on April 14, 2014, at the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. It took collaboration between the Federal Government and the Swiss government to un-cage them after over two years in captivity; and 197 of the abducted girls are still captives of terror.

    This context helps to clarify the widespread expressions of delight that greeted the good news of the girls’ freedom. Indeed, the national leadership of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in a statement described the development as “a sweet relief.”

    But Fayose chose to react to the positive happening with negative thinking. “What they came out today to tell Nigerians that 21 abducted Chibok girls have been released by the Boko Haram group is diversionary,” he declared during a ceremony to mark his second year in office.

    Fayose said: “Nigerians have never had it so bad. People are very hungry. What they did today is just to divert attention from what they did last week by clamping judges and justices into detention. While no one is saying corruption should be condoned, but the due process must be followed…We have had enough of diversionary tactics; they are using the report of Chibok girls’ release to cover up the undue arrest of our judges. Trampling on our rights is trampling on the constitution.”

    Fayose’s mixing of issues suggests that he may lack the capacity to separate issues and deal with them separately. Or perhaps the politician in him just cannot rise above petty politics. He betrayed his thoughtless partisanship when he said: “The Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government that they labelled as inept did better than this… all the gains recorded by the previous government as far as democracy is concerned are being eroded.”

    Let’s set the record straight. The Goodluck Jonathan administration that Fayose tried to romanticise failed to bring back any of the abducted Chibok girls. In fact, the PDP-led government initially dismissed the abduction as a non-event. Furthermore, the so-called democratic gains under the former government were not enough to prevent its rejection by democratic means.

    Fayose’s attempt to divert public attention from the significance of the release of the 21 Chibok captives is futile and fatuous.

  • Wike and gubernatorial end time

    Things are happening here, Hardball dares to say!

    With the DSS-corrupt judges stand-off (which some passionate partisans have deliberately, if emotively, dubbed DSS-Judiciary showdown), Nigeria might even be on its way to recording its first case of a fugitive judge, never mind that violent contradiction.

    From the news, the sting operation in Port Harcourt was not quite successful. According to DSS, the target judge somewhat escaped arrest, no thanks to the alleged heroics of Governor Nyesom Wike, who virtually sprang from nowhere, with some lorry loads of policemen in tow.

    DSS then made it known it was extending an invitation to the judge.  Except he honours that invitation, and there is no court restraint to the contrary, Nigeria might just be on its way to producing its first fugitive judge!

    But perish that thought!  His Lordship would probably show up and everything would be sorted out.

    Still, that would hardly excuse Governor Wike’s scandalously ungubernatorial conduct, in the whole messy affair.

    Both sides to the drama have stated their respective cases. But there are notorious facts that still shine through.

    Fact: Wike had no business on that scene of alleged crime — not as a lawful citizen; much less as a governor, who the constitution grants immunity from criminal prosecution, as long as he remains governor.

    But an unstated code of that rare privilege seems to have been lost on the governor, as it is lost on too many: whoever is immune from criminal prosecution as governor is unlikely, by his exemplary conduct as a lawful private citizen, to ever run the risk of prosecution.

    In other words, (s)he is not unlike Caesar’s wife: not only above reproach, but must be seen to be so!

    But did Wike’s reported conduct portray?  As governor, he admitted he “blocked” the arrest of a citizen — a judge yes, but a citizen nevertheless — even, with a tinge of drama, claiming that he quit his crusade when the DSS operatives threatened to shoot him.

    Well, Hardball is glad no one eventually got shot.  But not so, that a governor, enjoying constitutional immunity, would turn himself into a wilful barrier against the law, in a scandalous but classic case of standing on gubernatorial dignity.

    Because he enjoys immunity against criminal prosecution, does Wike think he is above the law?  Or that unruly conduct is acceptable to the polity, just because he enjoys the privileges of a governor?

    Besides, if Wike as governor behaves in such a reckless manner, is his conduct telling us his natural instinct is to thumb his nose at the law?  And in future, must we conduct psychoanalysis on gubernatorial candidates before deciding which one of them merits the constitutional grace of immunity?

    Or, because of the Wikes of this world, should we then go ahead and remove the immunity clause, since Wike’s disgraceful conduct does not seem to appreciate the huge and solemn privileges attached to his high gubernatorial office?

    Besides, what was Wike’s business in a matter concerning a judge accused of soiling his hands?  Is he the chief of the judge’s judicial jurisdiction?  The chief judge of Rivers State?  The president of the Court of Appeal?  Or the Chief Justice of Nigeria?

    Why would any right-thinking governor stake the majesty of his high office to aid a judge allegedly accused of acts which could bring him and his high judicial office into odium and ridicule?  And to boot: that judge could well, thanks to Wike’s golden intervention, account for the dubious honour of doubling as a fugitive, one of a very few, if not the first ever in Nigerian history?

    You want answers?  A difficult chore!  But just pass it as Governor Wike’s heroics in a gripping movie: Wike and gubernatorial end time!

    Things are really happening here!