Category: Hardball

Be careful what you wish for is a common saying. But Hardball would want to tweak that a little to something like: be careful what you campaign for. And a native adage is a plaintive complaint about man being often assailed by those things he dreaded.

The point here is that the famous South African clergy, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was in the news late last month. Her daughter, Mpho Tutu Van-Furth had to relinquish her pastoral licence after she married a woman last December.

By that same-sex matrimony consecrated in the Netherlands last December, Reverend Canon Mpho had to give up her duties as a priest in South Africa’s Anglican Church. Because the church does not recognise gay marriage, she could no longer preside at holy communions, weddings, baptisms and funerals.

She said: “The canon of the South African Church states that marriage is between one man and one woman. After my marriage, the Bishop of Saldanha Bay was advised that he must revoke my licence. I offered to return my licence rather than require that he take it from me.”

Archbishop Tutu was sad at the turn of events. Of course, sadness that her daughter had to lose her priesthood over a gay and same-sex issue he had campaign vehemently to uphold in Christendom in the past decade.

One of the heroes of anti-apartheid ‘wars’, the Nobel Peace prize laureate has been a strong canvasser for same-sex marriage, insisting that those who are against gay practice are homophobic.

“I will pick hell over an anti-gay heaven… I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this,” Tutu said in 2013.

South Africa has legalised same-sex marriage since 2006 and Tutu’s influence in this may not be infinitesimal. He recently railed at the Ugandan President when he made to tighten gay law in his country. He had described the move as something akin to the apartheid atrocities in south Africa.

Mpho and her White, Dutch wife, Marceline (a professor of pediatrics) are both divorced and had children in their previous marriages. Archbishop Tutu, 84, and wife attended Mpho’s wedding celebrations outside Cape Town recently before the couple jetted out to Indonesia for a honeymoon.

The fight to uphold gays must be one of Tutu’s greatest life’s battles. It is probably tougher than his blistering crusades against racism in his fatherland. It is a mark of his character and the strength of his convictions that he would go against the grain and substance of the long-held beliefs and teachings of Christendom.

It did not matter that he held the highest position of the fold as an Archbishop. Today, his daughter put his convictions to test. And Tutu did not falter. But the Bible is unambiguous in proclaiming homosexuality as a sin (Roman 1:24).

And The Greatest, the incomparable Muhammad Ali, departs!  But even he could not “fly like a butterfly” or “sting like a bee”, against the grim ripper!  For once, the extra-talkative “Louisville Lips” was mute!

It was the passage of the titan of the age of true boxing giants and legends.  But this titan combined with his strength, the grace and nimbleness of the Olympian.  The was the making of the greatest boxer ever to straddle the planet earth!

That Ali was on his way out, there was no doubt.  For one, he had for years been slowed down by Parkinson syndrome, that terrible medical condition that robbed the most famous lips of the 20th century his customary razor-sharp wit.  Indeed, it was sheer miracle that he lasted 74 years, when a more rugged ‘Smoking’ Joe Frazier, his famous rival, who inflicted on him his first professional defeat, had blinked off.

Between them, they had three boxing classics: two world title fights straddling a 10-rounder challenge.  Frazier won the first, after Ali’s comeback from suspension, for refusing the Vietnam military draft.  Ali won the second, a non-title challenge.  But the third, the classic in Mannila, which Ali hyped as squaring with the “gorilla in Manila”, Ali won.  But he confessed that bout was closest to death!

Frazier’s savage blows, which Ali soaked up in his trunk, no thanks to his rope-a-dope tactics, accounted for part of Ali’s latter-day Parkinson syndrome.

Still, that was Ali’s glory — boxing as poetry in motion, in such a savage sport.  The terrain was full, of big bangers, with lots of power: Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton (who, by the way, broke Ali’s jaw), and much later, George Foreman, the new kid on the block who beat Frazier black and blue twice, the first time to take his crown.

Most of them were defined by brute force, savage punching power and knockout acumen. But only the incomparable Ali was defined by beauty and sheer poetry!  Besides, only Ali seemed to have a no less riveting life outside the narrow ring of boxing.  At a time, he was the most popular personage in the 20th century.

So, why was the world not in a hurry to witness Ali’s demise?  Simple: the world wasn’t in a hurry to part ways with the embodiment of boxing as poetry, especially when heavy boxing, having first descended into the sheer animal savagery of the Mike Tyson era, had made its peace with the dour, the un-sparkling and the un-dramatic.

But even with post Ali ring artists, though in lower weight classes: Sugar Ray Leonard and Floyd Mayweather, the reference point was still Ali — and none could hold a candle to him, in all boxing history.

Fare you well, eternal champion!  Perhaps, you would teach the heavenly folks a bit about boxing-as-poetry.  Oh, could you hear the thunderous cheers?  Heaven is a more exciting place.  The champion is in town!

Farewell, Louisville Lips turned global wit.  Farewell!

A renewed campaign to launder the image of the late dictator, General Sani Abacha, may have been launched by his former Chief Security Officer (CSO), Major Hamzat Al-Mustapha, who was quoted as saying there is “nothing like Abacha loot”. He described the looting credited to Abacha as proof of a smear campaign.

Al-Mustapha on May 30 told reporters at the Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos: “During the time of Abacha, sanctions were threatened upon Nigeria. And at the request of some notable Nigerians, including traditional rulers, key politicians, and businessmen from the North and South, some modalities were taken to allow some monies to be saved in some foreign accounts abroad so that when sanctions come, that money will be able to keep Nigeria afloat.” He added: “The lodgments will show whether those monies were kept in his name before he became Head of State, and whether the monies were kept in his name after he became Head of State.”

Perhaps Al-Mustapha needs to be informed, or maybe reinformed. For example, in March 2014 the United States (US) Department of Justice, through a note to the Federal Government, highlighted how Abacha who ruled the country dictatorially from 1993 to 1998 stole $2 billion from the treasury. It was yet another chapter as the unfolding tale of Abacha’s fantastic loot stashed away in banks across the globe continued to stretch the imagination years after his death.

Preceding a revelation of Abacha’s methods, the department reportedly froze $458 million in corruption funds linked with him in secret bank accounts around the world. The action was described as “the largest kleptocracy forfeiture ever in the US”; and according to Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the US Justice Department’s Criminal Division at the time, “Gen. Abacha was one of the most notorious kleptocrats in memory, who embezzled billions from the people of Nigeria while millions lived in poverty.”

It is noteworthy that the US Department of Justice identified Abacha’s style of stealing. The report said: “ The prosecutor believes Abacha and his associates conducted three fraudulent schemes during his time in office: (1) the “security votes” fraud, through which more than $2 billion was embezzled from the Central Bank of Nigeria; (2) the Ajaokuta Steel debt buy-back fraud which defrauded the Nigerian government of more than $200 million through overpayment of non-performing debt; and (3) extortion of Dumaz Group, a company operating in Nigeria, which was used to invest in Nigerian Par Bonds that were managed and traded in the United States.”

It is interesting that Al-Mustapha also spoke about his forthcoming memoirs. With the weight of evidence against Abacha, it remains to be seen how his image-laundering project would succeed. Al-Mustapha’s latest effort seems to reinforce his own image as a kleptocrat’s loyal aide.