The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Much ado about ‘Buhari’

    There is sensational and hair-splitting news in town: that a gentleman,  Joe Chinakwe, of Ketere in Sango-Ota, Ogun State, had provocatively named his dog ‘Buhari’; and was, on account of that, arrested and detained by the police.

    The provocativeness, the initial claim went, was because ‘Buhari’ insolently referred to Muhammadu Buhari, president of the Federal Republic.  Because of that, media reports sensationally hinted, the security agencies over-zealously arrested the citizen, thus curtailing his right to name his dog any name he so desires.

    Mr. Chinakwe too played it all by the ear.  He reportedly claimed the president was his hero; and that long before he became president, when about no one gave him a chance, he had been a long-standing admirer of the man.

    Since he had similar affection for his dog, he claimed, he just made his pet the symbol of his presidential love.  He, an Igbo man, allegedly scribbled “Alhaji Buhari” on both sides of the dog, and rather provocatively paraded it at Sabo, the local town with overwhelming northern population.

    The offended northern folk, media report claimed, allegedly used their connection with the police to rein in the man, for his temerity to insult their kin — and president; thus further spewing  the old wives’ tale of Buhari, the northern hegemonist.

    But the police have come out with another version, suggesting the Buhari presidential link was nothing but pure fable.

    True, the Ogun State Police Command said, a Buhari was involved in the near-fracas that could have claimed lives and limbs, had the Police not timely acted. But that Buhari was the father of Halilu Umar, a local citizen, who had reported Chinakwe’s alleged act of provocation.

    According to Umar, Chinakwe had named his dog Buhari, contemptuously after Umar’s father; and was tauntingly calling the dog that name, even as he paraded it in the Sabo neighbourhood.  In anger, Umar lodged a complaint, leading to Chinakwe’s arrest.

    The police, according to their account, tried in vain to broker peace but all to no avail.  They, thereafter, charged Chinakwe to court for acts likely to lead to a breach of the peace, after which he was granted bail.

    Just as well the police have cleared the air: that Chinakwe was not arrested for naming his dog Buhari. Muhammadu Buhari may have been president; and by his honourable, honest and transparent conduct, should have earned everyone’s respect.

    Still, a little irreverence is part of republicanism, in the best tradition of democracy and free speech. That means that every citizen reserves the right to name his pet any name, so long as he acts in good faith. Besides, the president is no god to be worshipped; but a co-citizen the law lifted above others, to perform his onerous task of service to the state.

    Still, one’s citizen’s rights stop where others’ begin.  Besides, bad faith would appear the very antidote of free speech. From all objective accounts, therefore, Chinakwe would appear not to have acted in good faith.

    The police official release claimed he admitted to naming his dog “Alhaji Buhari”, Umar’s father, provocation be damned! But the same Chinakwe would appear to have woven another yarn (if the police account is correct), claiming President Buhari was his hero and all that. Chinakwe should really have been more tactful.

    You don’t, out of malice, dub another man’s father a dog, and expect to live in peace. If it is true that poor dog was killed, Chinakwe should assume full responsibility, even if people should strive not to take the law into their own hands.

    But the greatest blame here goes to the media, who, at the drop of every fib or rumour, are ready to fly — no thanks to the skewed mindset of many practising journalists, who infect unsuspecting readers with their prejudice and bigotry. That is execrable and condemnable.

    A little routine check would have established that Buhari had nothing to do with the president. A nation is doomed, when its media glory in rumours as news.

  • An ‘entertainment troupe’ for Bauchi govt

    Government is an interesting animal, to put it blandly. And governments in Africa and the Black world can safely be described as hybrid monstrosities. You may yet dub them genetic accidents of mired ancestry. Government in this corner of the planet regardless of its size – so long as it is imbued with power – is inherently toxic.

    Power around here is a zero sum game. It almost doesn’t matter who is on the driver’s seat, the effect is the same, it always impacts with the deleterious effect of the hard local gin. Like the type so high in liquor content it is combustible.

    And there are hardly any exceptions on the horizon. Indeed, the difference between a stable leader and a loose cannon is simply power. Power corrupts our people and we do not need absolute power to corrupt us confoundedly. Such has been our jungle lives and the entire snail-shaped continent is replete with examples – north to south, east to west. Just mention any corner and Hardball will show you a dozen maladjusted men big. Sadly, this dark phenomenon has been with us since the beginning of time.

    As you may have been wondering, this running lament has been triggered in Hardball by a small piece of news tucked into the pages of a national newspaper last Sunday. It says: “Bauchi government revokes AIT/Raypower C of O. Of course C of O means Certificate of Occupancy; the authentic official land title signed by governors and issued by state governments in Nigeria.

    Now if that isn’t absolute power by any means or measure. Such powers conferred on one man to render another man homeless and in fact destitute by a single stroke of the pen is indeed awesome. Now the Bauchi State government in the Northeast corner of Nigeria decided to wield its powers thus rendering the broadcast house homeless.

    By revoking the C of O of the Daar Communications Group in Bauchi State, the government and by extension, the governor, has declared the company a persona non grata in the state – without the courtesy of proffering a reason.

    Now the company’s management thinks it may not be unconnected to the fact that it allows the opposition in the state to air their views alongside government.

    Well, let us close it with the official response of Bauchi State government: “The government as empowered by the law, reserves the right to revoke, withdraw or suspend the Certificate of Occupancy given to anyone.

    “The issue should have been whether or not the government has the right to do so and it is not true that government withdrew the Certificate of Occupancy because AIT does not ENTERTAIN, (emphasis is Hardball’s) the state government.”

    No Freudian slip there because governments in Africa would prefer that media houses were ENTERTAINMENT TROUPES. Now that Daar has been banished, let the state government give the C of O to a circus group.

  • Emergency mismanagement

    It is food for thought that the August 25 protest by Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Maiduguri, Borno State, was provoked by hunger. Ironically, the agency expected to ensure that the refugee crisis is well managed has been accused of mismanaging it. Reports said hundreds of IDPs from Marte Local Government Area took to the streets of the state capital because they were not getting enough food and water.

    The accusation was pointed enough. The state’s Commissioner for Local Government and Emirate Affairs, Alhaji Usman Zannah, was quoted as saying: “Thursday’s protests of IDPs over poor feeding was caused by inadequate supply of food items from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). In the last three months, NEMA has failed to live up to its expectation of providing food items to IDPs in Borno, despite Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which stipulated that the state government provides condiments, while NEMA provides food items to IDPs.”

    No doubt, this picture of NEMA’s alleged failure is bad for the agency’s image, considering that it should normally be rated based on the effectiveness of its emergency response. In this case, it is tragic that the tragedy of displacement by terrorism seems to have been deepened by an organisation established to provide succour to the displaced.

    It is disturbing that camps for IDPs have become camps of hunger and anger. Last month, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that nearly 250,000 children were suffering from “severe acute malnutrition” in Borno State as a result of acts of terrorism by Boko Haram.  UNICEF Nigeria representative Jean Gough was quoted as saying: “Unless we reach these children with treatment, one in five of them will die.”

    Also last month, the Federal Government declared a nutrition emergency in Borno State following an emergency meeting with the state government on the malnutrition crisis. The conflict in the country’s north-eastern region has reportedly displaced 2.4 million people and has stretched food insecurity and malnutrition to emergency levels. Over half a million people require immediate food assistance, and the majority of them are either displaced by the conflict or members of the communities hosting the displaced.

    There is no room for ineffective intervention. It is lamentable that the country’s terrorism-related internal refugees are hungry and dying as a result of inexcusably inept emergency management – or is it better described as emergency mismanagement?

  • Kogi’s paddy, paddy governance

    When legendary Fela sang about paddy, paddy and arrangee government long ago, many did not understand the full ramifications of it. Not the least did Nigerians cotton to the debilitating insalubrious effect it could have on governance. By way of disambiguation, the Afrobeat King was singing about government not tracked on merit and procedures but on favoritism and large doses of chicanery.

    Though Fela sang about this canker under a military regime, just as worms do not discriminate the colour or shape of an apple, it does not matter the nature or appellation of a government in power; so long as it is “arrangee” it can only run on well laid macadam of perfidy.

    What might Hardball be heckling about this time? Well, it’s about an invitation circulating in the Confluence state of Kogi, in North- central Nigeria where a state event tagged – wait for it – THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF NIGERIA SPORTS COMPETITION, KOGI 2016 is on. In case you are minded to attend this novel sports fiesta, it would have kicked off yesterday and venue is the Confluence Stadium, Lokoja, Kogi State.

    Now, before Hardball is accused of mischief, what do you, dear reader make of this if not a dubious epoch? Let us attempt to put the situation into perspective by pointing out that by what is surely an act of rascality of a blatant kind, a state government drags the noble act of sports festival under a billow of dust. Unbeknownst to the administration it seems keen on splattering mud on the pristine Office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (OCJN) and in the process, stamping on a hitherto edifying tournament a badge of dishonor.

    Hardball is so thoroughly scandalised he can’t breathe as a result of the odium of this singular misdemeanour. One does not imagine the big men in Luggard House, Lokoja need consultants to school them about separation of powers and the need to always maintain a ‘decent distance’ between the three arms of government.

    And one would have expected our revered CJN to have been much affronted and alarmed on this matter being broached in the first place. Perhaps he was not informed? Perhaps his permission was not sought? In which case Hardball shall be free to wonder: now that Kogi State is honouring the OCJN with an annual sports fiesta, what is it in commemoration of?

    With due respect to the OCJN, since no one was perspicacious enough to notice the state government’s distemper and cure it, we, innocent bystanders, shall take a bit of liberty to ask a few more questions. Would this so-called sports festival perchance be a reward for a favour rendered or expected to be rendered? Would the OCJN in cold blood and good conscience draw a judicial sword against this state’s high officials after so much celebration, feting and even feasting?

    And as for the state government, it misses the rich point about sports while merely exploiting a sports festival as a means to its narrow, ignoble end.

  • Zamfara 8 photo opp.

    That pictures don’t lie is almost an age-old maxim. And in this age of speed, instantaneity, ubiquity and compulsive exposure, you never could tell which eyes are watching you and whose cameras are snapping you. For this reason, Hardball would admonish improved guardedness if not sobriety for earthlings of this age.

    Why, it does not hurt to be on your guards anyway if you know how dangerous the world has become. And sobriety, (you may quote Hardball on this) is all you’ve got left. They can never make sober machines!

    But Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State does not seem like a man who has a capacity to be guarded; not the least being sober. A photograph in the media (see Vanguard, 25/8 page 8) lends credence. Of course there are other matters with his state’s legislature but as we say in the village, let’s allow that whatever bites during the night is mosquito.

    The picture speaks volumes. It was the day after the heinous killing of eight persons in his state by some murderous scoundrels. Yari was not alone in the picture: there was also President Muhammadu Buhari and Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State. The photo, which would have been a wonderful presidential public relations gimmick on a sunny day, shows the president apparently poking a little fun at Governor Shettima, which leaves Governor Yari cracking up in laughter.

    Good photograph but exposure at that moment was in very bad taste. The story of the day was the dastardly killing in Zamfara. This photo actually illustrates that sad, sad story in some newspapers. Why is the story gruesome and the photo celebratory?

    Recall that it was the same inappropriate photo show when Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi visited the president in Aso Rock Villa shortly after Fulani herdsmen massacred some villagers in his state. Ugwuanyi had dressed in flowing agbada and pictures showed him with the president in a joyous mood. How could he forget so soon that there was mourning back home? The insensitivity inherent in these types of photographs is almost blood-chilling.

    And as if to buttress this point, or what we have termed Governor Yari’s photo-finish, the governor, who ought to be sober and mourning, said the damnedest thing after the meeting with the president. Speaking to the press and seeking to debunk some supposed irregularities in the story, the governor said two students of Abdu Gusau Polytechnic, Talata Mafara were fighting and one of them began to shout that the other abused Prophet Muhammad. Pronto, other students gathered and beat the boy to a coma. Security personnel came around, requested help from a nearby shop owner to ferry the victim to the hospital.

    The mob got wind of the rescue effort and traced the victim to the hospital. When they could not gain access to him, they returned to burn down the shop of the Good Samaritan. Not content, they located his house in town, cordoned and razed it with eight people in it.

    And here is Yari’s final word of admonition to the world: “… everybody killed in the house were (sic) Muslims and not like the rumours going around in the social media that Christians are being killed in Zamfara.”

    He also noted that the killers, who are students of the polytechnic, were at large….hmmmm.

  • Giving a dog a bad name …

    It is a doggone tale that Hardball has been condemned to tell here today. Because everyday has its own dog, the wise would never mess around with those canine creatures; indeed it is always better to let sleeping dog lie because if you stir it, you never know, you may be left licking your own wound.

    That is probably what a certain fellow called Joachim Iroko, initially known as Joe Fortmose Chinakwe (Joe for short) did, – he chose to lie down with dogs and as is natural, he rose with fleas. You must know the story or a variant of it: about this man who chose to name his dog BUHARI. But more momentous is that he has roused in Hardball, a litany of canine idioms and metaphors for your enjoyment. Here:

    Like a dog with a bone, Joe, a trader in Sango – Ota area of Ogun State, was not content with christening his canine Buhari, he had to boldly inscribe the name on the dog. Now truth be told, Hardball cannot confirm whether he did so on the two sides of the dog or just one. That distinction would surely portend distinct imports wouldn’t it?

    Now the point of divergence: Joe insists he loved President Muhammadu BUHARI; happy with him like a dog with two tails, he named his beloved pet dog after his president. But he never explained why he had to emblazon the name on the mangy as if it were a national carrier. Yet again, he was said not to have stopped at that, he proceeded to take his dog on a parade through the Hausa section of the Ketere market in Sango Ota.

    But a dog fight ensued when a fellow in his neighbourhood called in the police to arrest Joe, complaining that he disparaged the name of his father, Alhaji BUHARI. And trust the Nigeria Police, it is like throwing bones to dogs – they have been going at Joe with the ferocity of junkyard dogs.

    No explanation would do; the dogs have been let out. Instinctively, like running dogs, they had turned him upside down, detained him and passed him through the hoops even before they came to the realisation that there was a statue for the offence. They later remembered to charge him to court for conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace.

    Now Joe must find sureties to stand bail for him; he has to get a lawyer; he has to endure a long-drawn court case and so on. Joe the hot dog, he must have his tail between his legs now. If only he had listened to Fela’s classic, Palava. It says, when trouble sleep, yanga go wake am, wetin e dey find, palava you dey find. Poor Joe, he would kick his dog now.

    Well, let’s not cry for him yet, perhaps he is a dogged fighter. But what trader would cross seven (?) seas, all the way from the Niger Delta (as initial reports claim) to Ogun State only to engage in a dog fight. To what end?

    Verdict: play safe, just call him bingo!

  • You may hug me, I’m not Bi(n)den

    Joseph Biden, the Vice President of the United States of America, has done it again. Last Monday in Scranton, Pennsylvania, he was caught relishing (Hardball’s word) in what the American press has described as the most awkward and longest hug in the history of hugging.

    The hug had lasted for all of 16 seconds – 15 seconds too long. VP Biden welcoming the Democratic Party candidate Hillary as she alighted from the aircraft, clasped her in a full-bodied, full-contact hug with his two hands going right under her arms and disappearing out of sight behind her back (side?).

    With Mrs. Clinton captured in his grips, he began to speak softly to her face. Obviously carried away, he probably forgot it was only a hug and won’t let go. Even when the candidate gently touched his arms –  a sign for him to untangle his grips – he missed the signal. In fact, he seemed to have clasped her even more tightly, sending the entire watching world abuzz. And was the world watching and buzzing in this quarter of a minute’s high drama?

    What was VP Joe thinking you might ask? Well, the point may well be what was he not thinking? Biden is a gaffe-meister if Hardball may be allowed to coin that usage. And Bidenism is already a well established part of American political lexicon.

    Time has a comprehensive compilation known as “Top 10 Joe Biden Gaffes” in which the journal noted that the Vice President has earned a reputation of often saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

    Let us run one or two examples. Speaking to a crowd of Turkish-American and Azerbaijan-American donors during the Obama campaign on April 27, 2012, Biden said: “I guess what I’m trying to say without boring you too long at breakfast – and you all look dull as hell, I might add. The dullest audience I have ever spoken to. Just sitting there staring at me. Pretend you like me!”

    And you will love this one because it is verisimilitude of the infamous “my oga at the top” gaffe. Here: During an interview on CBS’ “Early Show,” February 25, 2009 in which Biden was to encourage viewers to visit a website that tracks stimulus spending, he had called out to an aide standing in the background saying: “You know, I’m embarrassed. Do you know the website number? I should have it in front of me and I don’t…”

    There is indeed a long, rich glossary of Bidenism. And Biden’s ‘creepy’ mannerisms when he is with the opposite sex is also well documented. He has only raised his game with Monday’s episode with Hillary.

    But before we crucify jolly Joe, Hardball has it on good scientific authority that hugging is extremely therapeutic for men (of course from a variety of female folks) and that the more hugs we get each day, the longer we may live! Hardball admonishes: hug by all means but don’t get ‘bindened’.

  • Lamentations of Wike

    One of the most famous laments in the Bible was David’s; at the fall, in battle with the Philistines, of King Saul, who fell with his son, Jonathan.

    “The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places,” David cried in high lament.  “How the mighty have fallen!/Tell it not in Gath,/Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon;/Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,/Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph …”

    The eternal “Lamentation of David” was born!

    A repeat of history is often a farce.  But in this case, a repeat of a biblical tale, in Nigeria’s contemporary politics, is turning no less farcical!

    So, enter the lamentation of Wike, over the fate of the fallen Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Ironically, another Jonathan, then president, had fallen with PDP, in the 2015 general election.

    But in Wikeland, Port Harcourt, Wike and his PDP, with obvious collusion from the Jonathan-controlled security agencies, had slaughtered the franchise, in violent electoral orgy.   That travesty, however, received a judicial endorsement.

    In his weeping, Wike cried over alleged Federal Government interference in PDP affairs, in the twice aborted convention.  The police sealed off the convention venue, pleading that contradictory courts’ orders could breed anarchy.

    Well, conspiracy theories come with the territory of political warring.  So, the government has more than enough voices to respond.

    Still, Hardball got alarmed when Wike started a romantic fib about how PDP, in power, let everyone run their own show; claiming that was responsible for its loss of power — arrant nonsense!

    Incidentally, Port Harcourt and Wike (though now suffering acutely short memories) are eternal opposing witnesses.

    In this same Port Harcourt, Mbu Mbu, the now retired police commissioner, showed his partisan notoriety, in aid of Wike, then as PDP gubernatorial candidate.

    Wike wailed the convention gate was clamped shut. But the police claimed fear of breakdown of law and order.

    But under PDP, Mbu shut down the gates of the Government House.  What did he plead?  Not some contradictory court orders, but absolute powers as Jonathan’s presidential viceroy in Rivers, sent to town to bring the elected governor, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, to heel.

    Then, for Wike in his power delirium, that was excellent realpolitik.  But now that what goes round has come round, it has become insufferable federal interference and subversion of PDP internal politics and politicking!

    Wike — or anyone for that matter — has a democratic right to lament.  After all, when you spank a baby, it is a little harsh not to expect it to yelp.

    But while yelping — from, Hardball must note, self-inflicted thrashing, for the Ali Modu Sheriff that now troubles the PDP house of Israel was Wike’s and Ayo Fayose’s protégée gone awry — it is rich cooking up fanciful history.  The memories of the rest of us are not as short as these manipulators’!

    And talking about historical fibs, Ayo Fayose — a bit gentle these days, Hardball  must admit — released another yarn that he suffered house arrest in Port Harcourt.  Hardball guffaws in Chinese!

    Yet, he forgets that at his first coming, Lagos Governor, Bola Tinubu, was held under house arrest at the Iyin-Ekiti country home of General Adeyinka Adebayo!  That was no Fayose yarn but a notorious fact.  Yet, it was glorious in Fayose’s sight.

    Let the PDP face its self-inflicted demons without the likes of Wike telling fibs about  virtues it never had in power.

  • Bang, bang, who is there…?

    Hardball remembers with relish those high school days of knock, knock jokes. Well, for those who lived under the rocks and never heard about these jokes, let us try an example here. “Knock, knock, who is there? Hardball! Hardball who? Hardball who harbours mischief in his write-up.” Ha, ha.

    Now that we all are on one page, let’s twist it a little. Since this piece is about Justice Okon Abang, the most popular Nigerian jurist today whose name is currently billowing like the Canadian bush fire across the land, here is a deserving tweak to the joke.

    As you may have guessed, and with due respect, instead of “knock, knock,” it has to be “bang, bang”, who is there? Abang! Abang who? Abang who bangs in judgments with a banger”!

    Now that Hardball has enjoyed his (dry) joke, may we proceed to the matter of the day? This piece is actually driven by the highly controversial rulings and judgments banged out by Justice Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja. Since Hardball is neither a lawyer nor learned fellow for that matter, he will play safe and only rely on the pronouncements of eminent justices of the appellate court, which last Thursday shredded the judgment of Abang in the Abia State guber tussle between Governor Okezie Ikpeazu and Mr. Sampson Ogah. And the matter, to Hardball’s lay mind, is as straight forward as the definition of padding regardless of what is happening in the Federal House. But Abang did not think so. In fact he got it all mixed up a little to the point that we lay people started doubting our intelligence and even sanity. Thank goodness these appellate justices restored our mental state.

    But ‘shredded’ is a poor understatement as the justices practically threw explosives (would you prefer bangers?) at poor Abang. Hardball in his decades of practice never witnessed the bench in such eminent rage.

    Let us consider some of them. The lead justice, Morenike Ogunwunmiju, firing the first salvos said Abang “stood the law on its head” and deliberately adopted a hostile proceeding against the defendant. She also noted that Abang “spoke from two sides of his mouth.”

    Now let us close with a quote or two: “I found, with greatest respect, the reasoning of the trial learned judge ridiculous, how does the submission of tax papers on a Saturday under Section 31 (5) of the Electoral Act, amount to forgery. For crying out loud, must we trivialise everything?”

    Abang was also accused of committing grave violence against the pillars of justice which is audi altarem partem, meaning fair hearing. That is Abang did not hear out the defendant.

    And this last one: “It appears the lower court made somersault of the law. Once an appeal has been entered, there is indeed nothing to be heard or determined once the record of appeal has been transmitted… I am in agreement with the argument of the learned counsel of the appellant that the trial lower court judge acted ultra vires his powers.”

    Verdict: Abang, banged.

  • Evil Genius at 75

    Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), former military president who, at the height of the June 12, 1993 presidential annulment crisis boasted that he was not only in government but also in power, is 75.

    Perhaps as a special birthday self-abnegation,  he declared he was no evil genius.  Too late!  The genius of the evil rascal pork-marked his reign as military president, with all its blood, all its gore (from those executed for failed coups); and the ultimate in the political equivalent of the unforced error in tennis: annulment of MKO Abiola’s victory at the 1993 presidential election.

    By that single stroke of avoidable rascality, IBB snatched villainy, when his lot could have been honour, given that he conducted the freest election ever in Nigerian history.

    But how about this for some birthday purgatory over past chances fluffed; and opportunities lost — and wilfully too!

    “I am not the evil genius that quite a lot of people consider me to be,” — really? “By virtue of the job I was doing, I was bound to be misconstrued; and my actions interpreted as evil.” Well confessed!  “I consider what people say as an opinion, as long as I am not what you think I was, I feel satisfied.”  Plain truth, or another empty bluff?

    Anyway, the general, who went by the nickname Maradona, complete with his own “hand of  of God”, made sure he threw sops, just to capture the yearning of the moment — the imperative for part-time parliamentarians to cut the cost of governance.

    But it was both what he said, and how he said it, that set the alarm of the mind ringing, particularly for the perceptive, who can read between the lines.  Hear the Maradona himself:

    “In 1989, we proposed that the membership of the National Assembly should be on part-time basis.” he recalled. “If I have the opportunity to change the course of events in this country, either as a president (sic), I still believe in that very strongly, all in an effort to cut the cost of governance.”

    That proposal may be a historical fact. But still, it sounds so rich for a man who ran perhaps the most profligate government, bar Goodluck Jonathan’s, with its democratisation of corruption, in Nigerian history.

    But the niggling riddle, it would appear, is the hope that seems to spring eternal in IBB’s heart, in apparent fixation with the presidential chamber: “If I have the opportunity to change the course of events in this country …”.

    Now, what the hell was that?  Legitimate hope of the committed, or the audible hallucination by a soul who had everything to make a positive difference, as a military dictator, yet wilfully  blew it all by his bad choices?

    If Babangida ever has the opportunity to change the course of events — perish the thought!  After eight years of untrammelled power, which he ended with the voiding of a free election, a reckless action that nearly plunged a country that gave him everything into war?  Excuse me!

    That, by the way, leads to the final puzzle — when will IBB apologise for the evil of annulling the June 12, 1993 election, in which he violated about every decent rule?

    For starters, that plunged his country into a needless crisis — clearly unpatriotic.  Then,  the brazen and anti-democratic act of annulling a people’s democratic choice, freely made — utterly condemnable.  Of course,  the grave perfidy to a friend. IBB started the macabre drama  that climaxed in MKO losing his life, after spending his four-year presidential term in the Abacha gulag. With a friend like IBB, did MKO need an enemy?

    Hardball’s message to IBB at 74? Apologise to Nigerians for betraying their trust; and to MKO for betraying his friendship — and do it when you still have life!

    For a 75-year-old — though Hardball wishes you many more years yet — time is running out!  Such a heavy burden is not what anyone prays to take to his maker.