The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • History and a chief challenge to Buhari

    A few years ago, a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, looked at history with disdain. He translated the disdain into policy.

    Barely a month ago, two key figures in our history were remembered. They were Sir Ahmadu Bello, who was the Sardauna of Sokoto, and Chief Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh. The cerebral events took place in the north and south respectively.

    The one was the premier of northern Nigeria in the First Republic and the other was a finance minister in the same republic in the Tafawa Balewa government.

    During that Okotie-Eboh event, three-in-one minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), showed how our students no longer studied history. He noted that the students who studied abroad, especially in the United States, knew foreign histories more than ours. For instance, they know who Abraham Lincoln was and when he became president.

    An elder pitched in recently. He is the respectable J.O.S. Ayomike, a historian and chairman of the Itsekiri Leaders of Thought. He called for the return of history to the curriculum of schools. He made the call when he was honoured with an Exceptional Lifetime Achievement Award to mark the Golden Jubilee celebration of the Federal Government College, Warri, Delta State.

    Hear him: “I use this occasion to make a call close to my heart. It has bothered many Nigerians that history, as a formal discipline, is no longer taught in our schools up to tertiary level.”

    To demonstrate his fidelity to the past, he presented a gift of history books to the famous college.

    Chief Ayomike’s gifts, which also included several other books, were emblematic of the value of the past. We cannot know who we are without knowing who we were.

    It is ironic that Chief Obasanjo who turned our schools against history has been under the spell of history all his life. Was that not why he fought some partisans over the Owu leadership? Was that not why he wanted to reign as civilian president after his time as military leader? Was that not why he wrote books, especially a historical book about the Nigerian civil war?

    If we neglect the past, we lose the future. That was Chief Ayomike’s point. It is high time the lawmakers and the new president returned us to studying our history.

     

    • This article was first published on March 17, 2016.

  • On Shonekan at 80

    Ernest Shonekan, head of Nigeria’s Interim National Government (which Alhaji Lateef Jakande, the Lagos great, famously dismissed as “interim nonsense”, before he himself got caught in the Sani Abacha post-June 12 web) just turned 80.

    How would Hardball rate him?

    Well, in two distinct wrappers, separately packaged.

    In the halcyon days of Nigeria’s business innocence, when Shonekan’s UACN Plc was lord of the manor, he was oracle-in-chief in a conclave of oracles that piped the final words on the military-era budget.

    To the stark Nigerian military-in-government, as well as his British Unilever employers, Ernest Shonekan was a golden son in whom they were well and truly pleased.

    Had his public profile ended that way, Mr. Shonekan, a trained lawyer turned boardroom champion, would have ended fairly enough: no revolutionary, to be sure; but a great icon of the status quo, which nevertheless needed an iconoclast for urgent redemption!

    But the sun of this bright son set too soon, when he blundered into the uncharted and treacherous waters of Nigerian military politics, under the most wayward and mischievous handler you could ever think of.

    When Gen. Ibrahim Babanginda was done dribbling himself, in his never-ended political transition to civil rule programme, he invited Shonekan to head his puppet and so-called Transitional Council (TC), in which the former UACN czar would be some feckless prime minister, while IBB and fellow soldiers would continue with their government, as military cow boys.

    But the apex of Shonekan’s public ruin would come when he agreed to head the so-called ING, a not-so-clever Trojan horse to hand over power to the Khaliffa, Sani Abacha, after IBB had annulled the June 12, 1993 election that produced Chief MKO Abiola, Shonekan’s Egba kinsman.

    IBB was trapped, after playing his unprecedented last card of annulling Nigeria’s freest election ever.  He needed a cipher to stave off sure personal disgrace; but also buy time to sustain the annulment crime.

    Mr. Shonekan was that willing cipher — and he proved a superb tool to not only subvert democracy but more importantly, equity, justice and fair play, which he knows his fellow Yoruba don’t compromise.

    Much later, Mr. Shonekan would become the living face of institutionalised impunity. If so, on what basis is he still regarded as “former Head of ING”, a contraption voided by a court of law?  Well, because Abacha, quid pro quo, “revalidated” with military fiat, what due process declared a legal monstrosity.

    It is on this basis that Mr. Shonekan parades himself as “former head of state”; and sits on the National Council of State!  Only in Nigeria!

    So, at 80, Mr. Shonekan holds a rather unflattering image of Nigeria’s Mr. Jerkyll and Dr. Hyde: a goodly business patriot within the Nigerian-British establishment under which UACN was pivotal; but a horrible conspirator in sustaining the criminal annulment of June 12, in which the Nigerian electorate were the general victims, and MKO, his Egba kinsman, was the particular casualty.

    That MKO never came out alive, from his June 12 odyssey, still rankles, even as Shonekan rolls out the drums, and clinks glasses, for his 80th birthday.

    All the same, it’s “happy birthday” from Hardball!

  • A young boy’s libidinal troubles

    Now this is no boast; Hardball can put his hand on his chest and proclaim that he has seen it all! For instance, ever wondered how he is able to churn out this diatribe (call it drivel if you like) and lampoon everyday without fail? Simple, he has to be on top of things – news, events, oddities, weirdies, name them. That is the only way he can stand on firm ground to grind out readable stuff for this page, day in, day out.

    And as you are well aware dear reader, the world seems to stand on crazy stories nowadays. No need to bore you with a catalogue of such stuff like women being delivered of puppy-like babies or father crushing his little baby under the full force of his penile power.

    But notwithstanding, some things still stump even Hardball; like the case of this 17-year-old boy to be narrated shortly. According to a report in a national newspaper last week, this 17-year–old boy (Hardball would rather not name his name here. Let’s just call him Rodney for the purpose of this noxious narrative) was paraded at the Benue State Police Command headquarters for killing his mother.

    That’s no big news you may say if you are as bad-news weary as Hardball. Yes, son-kills-mother or father daily episodes across the world will have generous content for a weekly journal. But what makes this story tick is the reason for the killing.

    The young man, Rodney, upon interrogation, said he killed his mother because an herbalist told him that she was responsible for his impotence! We should pause a while here to allow the story sink in properly…

    Continuing, he said he was advised that his problem would only be over if he killed his mother. Then he proceeded to kill his mother… just like that. It was not reported how he went about that giddying task that would try the soul of even the very best professional killer, if there were any such person.

    He, Rodney, was then asked if he had regained his manhood now that he has put down his dear mother. The story says he broke down in tears saying: “My manhood has refused to work after I killed my mother.” What a calamity! Hardball exclaims. But then we were not told whether he sobbed over his lost manhood or the malevolence of killing of his mother.

    In the good old days, well brought up 17-year-old did not know the difference between their manhood and thumb. If only Hardball had a chance to grill this brat: what does a 17-year-old need a virile manhood for? What has he been doing with it? Why did he choose his manhood over the woman who suckled him? How come he did not discuss his erectile dysfunction issue with his father or even his mother?

    Lastly, if perchance his manhood had sprung to life upon the last breath of his mother, he would probably have celebrated, cursed the very place he came from and, of course, recommended this ‘cure’ to his friends? Wonderful.

  • May Day stunt

    May Day was a day of drama in some states.  Consider what happened in Cross River State where Governor Ben Ayade reportedly “stunned workers when he announced the payment of salaries for the month of May on the first day of the month”.

    To state the obvious, workers are salary addicts and positive salary news is always good news to them. So what followed the governor’s good news about the May salaries was perhaps predictable.

    This is how a report captured the workers’ response: “A mild drama immediately ensued when the workers who were at the U.J. Esuene Stadium for the May Day celebration began to receive salary payment alert from their various banks. Unable to contain their excitement, the workers shouted ”alert, alert”.

    As background information, so that the context and extent of their excitement may be better appreciated, the report added: “Before now, the governor had paid salaries between the 13th and 20th day of each month.”

    The workers wasted no time in creating an award and awarding it to the governor. Guess what the workers called the governor? The report said:  ”Ayade told the workers, who named him the “Best Labour Friendly Governor in Nigeria”, that his administration had a duty to give workers a sense of dignity.”

    Wow! Is that all it takes to be named “Best Labour Friendly Governor in Nigeria”? Should that be all it takes? It is thought-provoking that the workers did not seem to think that the unusual salary payment had the features of a political calculation by a political calculator.

    Wasn’t it clear that this was a May Day stunt? When will the salaries be paid in the following months, considering when they were paid in the preceding months?

    Feeling good about himself, the “labour friendly” idol was quoted as saying: “We must create opportunities for labour to feel a sense of dignity. If you are truly a Christian, you must know that as you care for your kids, you must care for labour.”

    It is laughable that the governor introduced faith and parental care into a matter that was about the social responsibility of power. His language betrayed not only his self-righteousness, but also his ridiculous perception of labour.

  • Edo wars

    From the “iconic” vs. “iconoclastic tribute non-issue — and it has to be, since the gaffe couldn’t have been deliberate — to the rumpus in the Edo executive and parliament, Edo appears in war mood.

    Trust Hardball, it’s not pretty!

    The iconic as iconoclastic is a big error.  Still, an icon is no angel, if all he does is reinforce a decayed order, no more than an iconoclast is a devil, for pulling down a horrible system.  So, neither is intrinsically good or bad, independent of the extant social conditions.

    But the way some Edo stakeholders stick to the mistake as God-sent to rubbish the Adams Oshimhole government just shows the disturbing but manifest bad faith, fast becoming a part of Nigerian public life.  It is nothing but a costly distraction.

    But the ugly development in the Edo gubernatorial and parliamentary front is a big worry.

    First, it was the allegation that Deputy Governor Dr. Pius Odubu attempted, diabolically, to get rid of Governor Oshiomhole.  That is ugly enough, except that it is in this milieu that such meta-physical claim, seldom proved by concrete evidence, would earn public attention.

    Then the exchange of fire allegedly involving Dr. Odubu at the Auchi secretariat of the Edo All Progressives Congress (APC).  Dr. Otubu claims the shots were after him. His opponents claim it was a moonlight tale, since the deputy governor, though in the vicinity, was allegedly nowhere near where the shots rang.

    But at least guns boomed, and some injured security details landed in hospital.  That cannot be a fairy tale.  Indeed, it is grim reality that, in the Edo APC, things might be falling apart.

    Then the two-phase parliamentary disgrace!  First, a contentious “election” of Elizabeth Ativie as “new” Speaker, while Victor Edoror, the incumbent, claims he still holds the seat; followed by the unparliamentary scandal of Mr. Edoror and Mrs Ativie, pulling selves off and on the Speaker’s chair, like some spoilt and overfed school children!

    Conspiracy theorists have hastened to link that shameful drama to an alleged putative plot to “impeach” the deputy governor — is that so?!

    The dramatic personae in the Edo drama must pause and think: those the gods would destroy, they first make mad!  So, these fellows must realise when the rain started beating them.

    Not long ago, when Lucky Igbinedion and his gang ruled the roost, Edo stagnated badly.  Why, Mr. Igbinedion was even convicted of corruption, though that conviction was in itself a corruption the judicial process, in which the former governor got fined a mere “change”, after cleaning out the state.

    Oshimhole came — and the vast infrastructure renewal of the capital, Benin, at least shows his was a different era from when ruling party hierarchs just sat down and shared the money meant to grow and develop the state.

    So, why this undemocratic tension, in a supposed democracy without democrats?

    Should the battle for succession equate extingushing a legacy, and sending Edo back to those years of the locusts?

    Why couldn’t anybody that hopes to succeed Oshiomhole, without let, go to nomination and democratically test their popularity?

    Questions, questions and question!

    Still, one warning rings clear: those the gods want to destroy, they first make mad!

    Governor Oshiomhole and the present Edo order must be wary of this peculiar malady; that would not only ruin them, but also destroy their legacy.

    Those who have ears, let them hear!

  • Fuel subsidy: How to kill a country

    Hardball wants to wager today that never had life been so viciously subsidise in any corner of the world than the Nigeria of today. But first, we must not mix up our words, their meaning and context.

    Subsidy in its true sense means to grant assistance especially in form of financial support. But Nigeria’s context of subsidy seems to connote the exact opposite. It means to take billions of naira from Nigeria’s treasury, hand it to some people known as independent marketers for purportedly importing fuel for the use of the people at moderated price.

    But in reality, it is either there is indeed no accurate check of the quantity of fuel imported or there is collusion between the so-called marketers and government regulators. So we are never sure what we pay for is what we got.

    But shortchanging or short-supplying us would have been palatable if it stopped at that but no, since it seems they do not want Nigeria to live and they don’t want Nigerians alive, they do worse things.

    Because they over-invoice and under-supply, there is always a shortfall and the attendant scarcity. For instance, for more than two months, there has been acute scarcity of premium motor spirit (PMS) in Nigeria. For most of this period, Nigerians have suffered untold hardship. Many man hours are devoted to queuing up to buy petrol daily; many companies have either shut down or downsized as a result of drastically reduced production capacity considering that public power supply has been at near zero during this period as well.

    For most of the last two months, Nigerians have purchased fuel even right from the nozzle at between N120 to N250 per litre. In a season of dwindling income and high inflation, people are expending nearly half of their income on fuel and half of their time at the filling station. Who talks about manipulated pumps anymore? Triple jeopardy: marketers sell at inflated price, manipulate pumps and collect subsidy.

    Yet again, we would live with these excruciating pains if they had stopped at that. But they don’t stop. Now wait for this dear reader: for all this period of damaging scarcity, the Federal Government will be paying subsidy at N12.88 per litre to the marketers. Let’s do a simple arithmetic: they say we consume an average of 44 million litres of petrol per day. If you multiply 44 million by 12.88 by 31 days, you will have an idea how much blood the government and their fuel marketer cohorts are draining from our system.

    After the January 2012 fuel subsidy protests, it came out that many fake marketers were in the system who easily collected billions of naira from government’s coffers. Not one of them has been convicted till today. Not one refinery has been built as promised since then. To think that the cost of this so-called subsidy would build us many refineries. But we prefer to import fuel from even non-oil producing countries.

    Since Nigerians have been buying fuel for average of N150 per litre, there has been a clamour to scrap the so-called subsidy obdurate.

    Hardball says: if this subsidy does not kill Nigeria…

  • A governor’s goof

    What’s in a word? A word and its meaning are at the centre of a matter in Benin, Edo State.  The Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, said in a statement on the death of Oba of Benin, Omo’Noba Erediauwa: “We are enveloped with a deep sense of nostalgia that our great Oba, a great-grandfather, grandfather, father, uncle and iconoclastic royal father of exemplary carriage and conduct, who sustained the dignity of the average Edo mind, has joined his ancestor. Edo people will miss our iconoclastic royal father of the great Benin Kingdom.”

    A word was not right or rightly used in the governor’s description of the late Oba of Benin, argued Dr. Thomas Omorodion, who demanded that the Edo State government should apologise to the Benin Kingdom for the word misuse. A report described Omorodion as a “respected Benin-born scholar and social commentator”.

    Omorodion’s argument: “I have a copy of the condolence statement signed by the governor of Edo State where he deliberately or inadvertently, or both, denigrated the name of our Oba, our King and the repository of our culture and identity – Oba Erediauwa. Oshiomhole used the word “Iconoclastic” to describe our iconic Oba. There is a huge difference between the word iconic and the word iconoclastic. Whereas iconic has a positive meaning, iconoclastic has a negative cum rascally meaning. But the governor decided to describe our Oba as iconoclastic, instead of iconic.”

    Omorodion continued:  “When you replaced the above use of iconoclastic with iconic, you have a positive description of the Oba. But the use of iconoclastic turns this whole condolence into an insult.”

    The difference between “iconoclastic” and “iconic” is clear, and makes a difference. Who was responsible for the inappropriate expression? How did it escape the attention of those who should pay attention to such things?

    It is interesting that an observer who is familiar with the structure and operation of the state government named particular individuals, suggesting that they should have prevented the goof. The immediate past Edo State Commissioner for Information, Louis Odion, was quoted as saying: “I wonder if Prof Julius Ihonvbere (SSG to Edo State Govt), Patrick Obahiagbon (Chief of Staff, the iconic Igodomigodo) and Ali Yakubu were on vacation outside Benin yesterday. Could Igodomigodo have taken the dictionary away?”

    There is such a thing as malapropism, and here you have a possible example.  Sound similarity most likely explains the error. But that should not excuse it.

    It was an inexcusable incorrectness. An administration cannot be too careful about its public communication. A government should get its communication right.

  • CCT: What’s chief defence counsel saying? 

    It the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), there has been drama unending, since the state, through that tribunal, has pushed its right to try an errant citizen.

    But that citizen, Bukola Saraki, who also happens to be Senate president, is also pressing his divine right to evade justice, not to legitimately defend himself before the law.

    That has been the long and short of the merry-go-rounding: from the high court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court — Saraki has divine rights not to be tried!

    The same gambit surfaced, even after the apex court had ruled on the matter, at the Court of Appeal: Saraki must press his fundamental rights not to be tried before the law.

    Even after the Court of Appeal had turned down an injunction to stop trial on that score, Saraki’s lawyers have brought up another prayer, reiterating the same: CCT chair, Justice Danladi Umar, must excuse himself from the trial — anything to buy time and escape justice.

    But, as in previous attempts, it collapsed — only to be followed by another threatened appeal, like some dangling sword of Damocles.

    But while all this was going on, Saraki’s lead counsel, Kanu Agabi, SAN, went on a lecture binge, as shocking as it was patronising of the court.

    Justice  Danladi Umar had sighted Saraki’s security details in court and had asked them to go wait outside, for the security of all in the court.

    But that simple, commonsense order only brought a patronising lecture from Mr. Agabi.

    “Nobody would assassinate you but you should be an advocate for peace,” Agabi ended his lecture flourish, pleasing in his unctuous mouth but grating to any right-thinking ear, coming from a lawyer, to a judge, during a court proceeding.

    Besides, who was talking about any assassination?  Is Nigeria then turning some Mafia-infested Italy, where judges’ and magistrates’ lives were on the line, for daring to try barons in a criminal ring?

    Hardball hopes not, though the lawyer’s condescension was both annoying and irritating.

    Can you imagine, as the lawyer earlier went on, and on, and on! “My prayer is for peace and understanding.  By God’s grace, you are in the post to be instrumental.  I have great deed that harmony and love will prevail.

    “That is why I always urge you not to be angry because anger is not of God but of the devil”.

    Geez!  What does Saraki’s lead lawyer think he is — some papal ambassador talking down a heathen court?

    This war against corruption is exposing many things, among them the rot in the court process.  Just imagine a low lawyer, representing some low alleged criminal, in some seedy theft, talk to the judge handling the case with such annoying condescension!

    It would never happen, did you say?  But such conduct can come from a SAN in open court?  Just because he is a big lawyer representing a big client, both the quintessential African Big Men?

    Hardball is no lawyer. But he hates to think respect for the court is not given, but dependent on your societal weight! That would be an urgent invitation to anarchy; and when anarchy beckons, the judiciary is the first casualty.

    So, let lawyers defend their clients to the best of their ability. But let no one disrespect the courts.  Mr. Agabi’s preachment, before Justice Umar, was disrespectful and annoying.

    Such conduct should never be tolerated.

  • Pamperation of governors

    What shall we do with our states? Or to put it straight, what shall we do with our state governors? They seem to live in a world of their own, by their own rules and dictates. What on earth do you do to a man who can allot hundreds of millions of naira to himself every month as ‘security vote’? He does not have to give account of such a fund to anyone; he disburses it as he deems fit or he may choose not to even disburse nary a dime of it.
    Apart from the so-called security vote, what do you do with a man who allots billions of naira monthly for the purposes of running the Government House? A cursory look at states’ budgets will reveal that most states allot more money to the State House relatively, than what the rest of the enclave gets.
    A third point: there is hardly any accountability in the states’ finances across the country. This is more so in the areas of internally generated revenues, IGR. Most states do not declare accurately, what they realise. Most of it end up in private pockets. So everybody relies and feeds on the federal allocation.
    Yet another point: governors in Nigeria are so pampered they are hardly creative. None of them has ever to think or work to make money. They just sit in their domains and quaff cheap funds.
    When they run dry of funds, they simply call the bank managers in their domains and inveigle them to work out loans quickly and heft in some more cash. Many of them have their states so leveraged and mortgaged that the next five generations will live in penury.
    Spending spree is all you can see, not one has been noted to be creative. They embark mainly on ego trips and waste huge sums on white elephant projects that have little relevance to the needs of the people. Not one governor has been able to build a self-sustaining economy in his state; very few if any industries have been built or catalysed into existence in most states of Nigeria. Just about one state can survive on its own if Nigeria’s oil dries up completely today and that is not because of a deliberate, planned effort, but due to reasons of geography and natural endowments.
    The crunch set in since about November 2014. About one and a half years ago, yet not one state has drawn a viable blueprint on how to survive post oil boom. Today, many are trapped in their profligate nature that they cannot meet such basic responsibility as workers’ salaries anymore. They have borrowed so much they are no longer credit worthy.
    The Federal Government doled out the first bailout assistance to states, but few can give account of that fund. Many could not pay salaries for which the fund was made; they diverted the funds in their usual practice of money-guzzling.
    Another bailout has been sanctioned: deduction of loans from states has been stopped. It is bad enough that governors took crazy loans they will have to pass them to someone else to pay. Hardball calls this pamperation.

  • Tears are not enough

    It is ironic that the tragic death of six doctors in an accident on the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway has been attributed to the failure of the health care system. The victims were among the Ekiti State delegates on their way to the 56th Annual General Conference/Annual Delegates Meeting of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Sokoto. The driver also died in the accident.

    The Chairman, NMA, Ekiti State, Dr. John Akinbote, was quoted as saying that lack of immediate and proper medical attention caused the April 24 deaths.

    Dr. Akinbote told reporters on his bed at Saint Gerald’s Catholic Hospital, Kaduna, where seven other survivors were receiving treatment: “Those who died would have survived if we got good medical attention from the point of the accident to the Doka General Hospital in Kaduna.”

    What he said about the state of things when the accident victims got to the General Hospital sounds incredible. It is inconceivable that a public hospital could be in such a useless state. Dr. Akinbote said: “It became worse when we got to Doka Hospital, there was no doctor to attend to us and the only nurse on duty had no first aid facilities to administer treatment.”

    Considering Dr. Akinbote’s status, it is reasonable to assume that he knew what he was saying when he said emphatically: “I am sure if the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) personnel who took us to Doka Hospital and the nurse on duty had medical facilities to give first aid treatment, our doctors and driver would not have died.”

    Following the tragedy, the NMA directed all doctors to observe one week of mourning, and said in a statement that doctors should wear a black band on the left arm of their white coats.

    But not only doctors should be mourning. The country should be in sorrow, and not only because the six doctors and their driver died. To go by Dr. Akinbote’s picture of Doka General Hospital in Kaduna, it is obvious that the health authorities should hang their heads in shame. The same thing goes for the FRSC, which perhaps should have facilities for first aid treatment based on Dr. Akinbote’s observation.

    It is not enough to shed tears as people in power have done concerning the disastrous deaths. Those concerned should take proper action. Fixing the health care system is more positive than futile crying.