The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Enugu 48: Never again!

    As Nigeria still in a primitive milieu, the pre-government era Thomas Hobbes called the state of nature?

    The state of nature that preceded the Social Contract, by which citizens theoretically give up part of their freedom to a Leviathan, in exchange for general protection?

    And is it not from this root doctrine that the state, its chief agent, the government, and the security apparatuses like the police and the military, the government’s enforcers of law and order, issue from?

    These questions are imperative because though Nigeria has a government, the state of nature appears to have been with us for a long, long while.

    Not long ago was the murderous and crazed Boko Haram, blood thirsty criminal hiding behind Islam and its doctrine.  The tragedy, however, was  the society was daft enough to buy the fraud, of criminals wearing a religious cloak.

    It proved immensely fatal, because at the height of that madness, no less than 20, 000 innocent souls were slaughtered, besides millions of others internally displaced.   Even now that Boko Haram is being defeated, the casualty still mounts, in terms of victims of suicide bombings.

    The latest of these blights of wilful criminality is the so-called Fulani herdsmen who, all of a sudden, graduate from cattle sticks and light arms, such as knives and daggers, to AK 47, and are not at all shy of using these weapons to kill, maim and rape — all with reckless abandon!

    But why would a cattle herder carry guns and not simple weapons for self production, since moving in the jungle, with their cattle, is their vocation?  And, by the way, why not modern ranches but this murderous nomadic expeditions?

    Many have claimed the AK 47 angle can be explained by merciless and killer hustlers, who often attack the herdsmen, kill them off and snatch their cattle.

    If true — and there is nothing to prove it is not — that is a great crime that must be condemned.  More than than: the Nigerian state must find an antedote to the menace of rustlers, for every law-abiding citizen is entitled to lawful protection of his assets by the state.

    Still, cattle rustling cannot justify the mass and merciless killings by these criminals, who cloak their criminality as “Fulani herdsmen”.  Whether Fulani, Yoruba, Agatu, Tiv or Igbo herdsmen, whoever kills another must be treated as a murderer; and should face the full wrath of the law.

    But because these criminals had successfully hidden their crime behind “Fulani herdsmen”, everyone parrots their identity, not their heinous crime.  Now, the various atrocities of routine killings have climaxed in the Enugu massacre.

    Yet, people still don’t see them as criminals that must, posthaste be punished by the law to act as deterrent to other putative felons, but some near-invincibles, that could even have rogue protection from the state, simply because a Fulani man happens to be sitting president.  But that is pure nonsense, since the president does not cut a devious picture of one who would aid and abet mass murder.

    That is why the Nigerian state must go after those criminals and make the point that, we, as a civilised community, would not tolerate the barbarism of entering a community and mowing everybody down like game.

    Let this be the last time such sacrilege would take place.  Enugu 48? Never again!

  • Skolombo republic

    any adherents of this column must have concluded that Hardball was conceived and birthed in mischief. My answer: it takes one to know one; an ardent patron of this page must have a bit of something as well. And that leads us to the day’s matter about a phenomenon known as Skolombo Boys. You must have heard about them.

    First, I love that name, Skolombo! Without caring about its odious antecedent, the sheer sound and cadence of it always trips me off. The name would lend itself to great literary adventures as you can already guess – for instance, apart from Skolombo Boys (I guess they have the copy rights to the name), we can have the Skolombo alternative, the Skolombo Papers, the Skolombo Initiative, the Skolombo Committee, Skolombo Governors and as you have in the title, Skolombo Country or Skolombo Republic.

    The Skolombo Boys are found in Cross River, that urbane southern Nigeria state that has nearly mastered the art of international tourism. Calabar is the state’s capital and it is reputed to be the neatest city in Nigeria while the Obudu heights and ranch is a world acclaimed tourism destination.

    But Calabar is getting more notorious today for the Skolombo Boys. They are gangs of homeless boys and girls who have been brought together by their common misery. These groups of teenage boys and girls are said to have been cast onto the streets on the guise that they are witches and of course, a good number of them have no parents or wards.

    So these young people (between the ages of 11-19), who have been rejected by the society seem determined not to reject themselves. They go in groups, they forage the dumpsites together for food; they engage in petty thieveries together with crude weapons dispossessing the people of their valuables.

    And recently, the governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, gave what Hardball would refer to as a Skolombo Response to the issue: he set up ‘Operation Skolombo’ (wow, sounds great). Its responsibility is to rid the state of criminals. Your guess is as good as mine: they would probably hunt down the small boys and girls, throw them into some dungeon where they would be incubated into hardened criminals.

    It is indeed a Skolombo country with Skolombo leaders and Skolombo mentality. Leadership is dull and dulled and hardly asks the right questions. Nobody has bothered to interrogate the reasons why we suddenly have Boko Haram, kidnapping gangs, neighbourhood cult gangs and the One Million Boys. What is the root of this festering of vice groups across the country? That is the question nobody wants to ask or answer.

    But the answer is simple: the failure of governance at the local government centres. Our local government councils are as good as moribund across the country. Since funding hardly gets down to these points of governance anymore, the requisite economic, social and security activities that ought to take place in these places are now nonexistent.

    Nature abhors vacuum. If we have vast ungoverned areas across the country, that is a Skolombo situation. Some people will have to fill the gap: like Boko Haram, One Million Boys and Skolombo Boys, to name a few.

  • Let the heads roll

    It is no news that fuel scarcity across the country is still at crisis point. It is food for thought that the Association of Mega Filling Station Owners of Nigeria (AMFSON) threatened to expose the alleged saboteurs that are fuelling the fuel crisis.

    AMFSON National Secretary Kenneth Nwachukwu told reporters that several trucks of fuel had been re-routed by alleged saboteurs. He said: “The minister said we should mention names, but you know Nigerians, when you come out in public to mention the names of the saboteurs, they can go after you.”

    Nwachukwu further said: “We can tell him. There is nothing to be feared because we have evidence of how fuel is being diverted to the black market. We have evidence of everything we are saying about this fuel crisis. The minister said we should mention names, that if we mention names the persons will not last 24 hours. But it is not proper to mention names in public. We are giving information. It is left for the minister to work on the information and get to the root of what we are saying. We cannot come out to the market place and say this person is a thief. We don’t do things like that. But if we are pushed to the wall and mention names, heads will roll at NNPC Retail.”

    According to him, “the NNPC Retail takes the fuel meant for us to the black market and still end up spoiling our names as if we are the ones diverting the fuel that was not delivered to us but distributed somewhere else in our names. This is corruption of the highest order.”

    Of course, corruption has many faces. Nwachukwu’s allegation of fuel diversion shows yet another face of the evil of corruption, and the consequences are crippling indeed. He painted a picture:  “Sometimes you see 10 trucks of fuel parked at Mega 1 while none of our members has fuel. And by night, Mega 1 will sell off these 10 trucks to the black market. You cannot solve fuel scarcity in this way unless you allow the supply to go round.”

    Since Nwachukwu and his group know so much about the cause of the fuel crisis and what should be done to end it, they have no excuse not to play a patriotic role to ensure that the urgent situation is urgently tackled. Let the heads roll.

  • Yet, more Senate sacrilege

    The Nigerian stage of explosive drama is never quiet.  That is why watchers of this strange polity, from the 1970s under military rule, would remember this tragi-comic quip: if you Tarka me, I Daboh you!

    Joseph Tarka and Godwin Daboh (both dead) were star actors in a celebrated corruption allegation, under the regime of Gen. Yakubu Gowon. Both men were from the then Benue-Plateau State; and both traded allegations and the press had a field day — exciting times, those!

    But the drama went to and fro, and a stunned people, who didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, turned the scenario into some trendy threat: if you Tarka me, I Daboh you!

    Well, the Tarka-Daboh tussle appears risen from the past, with the latest gambit of the Senate. After exhausting every avenue, hook or crook, to stall Dr. Bukola Saraki’s trial, the Senate has attempted the latest ploy, which really is a no-brainer.

    No sooner had the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Chairman, Justice Danladi Umar, announced that the Saraki trial would henceforth run everyday, from 10am to 6pm, than a Senate committee issued a strange summons.

    The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions sent an invitation to Justice Umar to “appear unfailingly” on Thursday, April 21 by 2pm. The letter was signed by Freedom Odolo, the clerk of the committee.

    But the CCT chair made a prompt response: “I have a court sitting on Thursday and throughout the week and won’t be able to honour the summons.”

    Well, in the unlikeliest case of those who have not been following the saga, a petition accused Justice Umar of taking bribe. It is in the cut-and-thrust of defending his honour that the committee sitting has come up. But, in the childishly vindictive style, this 8th Senate is attaining notoriety, some pro-Saraki elements have seized the opportunity to roast the judge in the fond hope of stalling the Saraki trial.

    Still, what was this committee thinking — asking a judge to vacate duty, in the midst of a session, just because the president of the Senate is on trial before him?

    Isn’t the committee aware of the doctrine of checks and balances, on which presidential democracy is firmly anchored?  If so, why this strangest of all summons, even after the CCT had announced the Saraki trial would run from day to day?

    Or, in the present anomie that has seized the Senate, has that hallowed body become so hollow it could not understand the imperative for basic respect for the courts?  Or, is that anti-rule of law too?

    O, maybe the Senate committee fancies itself with some super power, such that its summons would render a court timetable a nullity?

    At the outset of President Goodluck Jonathan’s free blunders, Chief Bisi Akande posited the president was running a kindergarten presidency! That stung the Jonathan establishment to the bone marrow. But alas! It was the truth and truth, they say, is bitter.

    The truth is, this 8th Senate, by its numerous outrage in aid of a doomed cause, but failing and failing yet again, is appearing like a bunch in a kindergarten class.

    The Senate of the Federal Republic is the highest lawmaking house in the land, not some children playing the father of men pulling laughable school boy stunts.

    It’s high time this kindergarten grew up!

  • Low-hanging fruit-stocks

    Surely you must have heard that catch-phrase:  low-hanging fruits, that very metaphor for huge benefits that come cheap and easy. Literally, it of course means those fruits you simply reach out and pluck. You need neither ladder nor hook; they are there in your garden all ripened and hanging low for anyone who cares to pick them. Sometimes they droop so low that you can hear the creak of your waist and knees when you bend to pluck them.

    As you know, low-hanging fruits are particularly remarkable because fruits don’t often hang low; they are usually hoisted up in the trees that it takes so much effort to pluck them. Ask the village school boy his ordeals and trials in trying to pluck fruits high in the tree by hauling sticks and stones at them. Even the owner of the fruit tree would have to pay for someone to climb up the tree to harvest the fruits. Too much stress.

    This explains why fruits that ripen on dwarf trees and hang low and enticingly are much cherished. Though they are more susceptible to abuse because they are easily accessible to all, they are often arrayed in remarkable abundance. Yes, trees of low hanging fruits seem to bear more fruits as if to say they can bear enough to go round everybody. Goodies for all seem to be the mantra.

    But mind you dear reader, Hardball actually speaks about stocks; also known as shares or equities if you like. The stock exchange is where companies list and sell their shares to members of the public. To buy the shares/stocks of a listed/quoted company is to be a shareholder or part owner of such a company. Imagine sitting right in your parlour and being part owner of Shell or Chevron, for instance?

    But you cannot buy a company’s shares unless it comes to the public through the platform of the stock exchange. With the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) troubled in recent years, business has been dull and its worth continues to drop.

    It is for this reason that there is a new clamour for some of the big companies in the land to bring their businesses to the NSE. This is where the analogy of low hanging fruits comes in handy. The telecommunications companies, the electricity distribution companies and most oil multinationals have managed to shun the NSE over these years. Some of them have even bypassed the NSE and listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

    The international oil companies and the telecoms firms are whales of the economy, but they have ignored repeated calls to open their businesses so that Nigerians can own a bit of it. They do business here and earn money here. It will hurt nothing if they let Nigerians invest and share some dividends.

    Telecoms giant, Zain, listed on the Bahrain Stock Exchange recently, it has reported better performance after the first year in public. Imagine MTN, Airtel, Glo and Etisalat listed on the NSE? That would give the exchange an instant buoy. Add that to all the Discos, Shell, Chevron and even NLNG and NNPC on the exchange? That would translate to an instant boom time for Nigeria and Nigerians.

    That would be truly low-hanging fruits, no, stocks, and why not.

  • Death-row congestion

    How long should a convict on death row wait for death? This question came up again on April 13 when the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Olufunmilayo Atilade, paid a visit to the Kirikiri Prison in Lagos.

    A report said that the Lagos State Controller of Prisons, Timothy Tinuoye, asked Justice Atilade to “prevail on the government to do something”  about the 171 condemned prisoners awaiting execution in the maximum security prison.

    According to the report, Tinuoye observed that “governors had stopped signing the execution warrants of such convicts following the controversy that trailed Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s approval of the execution of some condemned criminals a few years ago”.

    Importantly, the prison chief suggested that the condemned prisoners be relocated in order to decongest the prison.  This death-row congestion is inexcusable. As long as the death penalty is accommodated by the country’s justice system, there is no justification for keeping condemned convicts waiting.

    It is clear that the purpose of a death sentence is to facilitate death by execution. It is counter-productive to have a condemned convict wait indefinitely for the execution of a death sentence, particularly because of the possibility that death may come during the waiting and consequently achieve what the sentence didn’t intend, which is death by causes other than execution. If a condemned person does not die as a result of execution, it would mean that the death sentence was foiled. What is the purpose of a death sentence that is not put into effect, and which does not achieve death by execution?

    Although there may be philosophical arguments against capital punishment, it is complex enough to arrive at a death decision, and the complexity should not be further complicated by last-minute indecision when it comes to executing the decision. If judges are able to reach a death decision without the interference of extra-judicial considerations, the authorities should be able to carry out the decision without the hindrance of extra-legal thoughts.

    The debate about the death penalty did not begin today and it is not about to end.  In the face of the emotionally charged controversy about the ultimate penalty for the ultimate crime, it may well be that the structures of power ought to take another look at the law. Hardball says: do something, instead of doing nothing.

  • Who moved my budget?

    Remember the 1988 bestseller, Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson? It is actually a business fable of a kind which central message is man’s inability to anticipate change and adapt.

    You know what they say about comfort zone: most of us adults are cast in, and are comfortable with our daily routines. Hardball,  for instance, would love to always sit pretty in his air-conditioned office, behind his desktop computer churning out mashed meals of suppositions, extrapolations and juxtapositions all garnished with ample dollops of mischief.

    Every working day the blighter goes to the office and in the same position; he diddles his doodling, he goes home feeling cool and satisfied he had done a day’s job. He does this for weeks, months and years and he is at peace with himself that contributes so much to help reshape the society.

    But the world is so large and there are millions of other things he could have occupied himself with and done the world even greater good, however, he made no such choices. That is the tragedy of that factor known as comfort zone. That is the tragedy of most men. When you are ensconced in your comfort zone, you are inured to the world. You do not see change coming; when it happens upon you and kicks you hard in the butt, you complain and whimper; most not knowing what hit them don’t even know how to respond.

    Such is the story of the characters in Who Moved My Cheese? Four characters living in a maze; they wake every morning and go to the cheese station to chop cheese. One day the cheese finished. While the duo of rats knew well enough to move on to search out more cheese stations in the maze, the other duo of humans engaged in throwing blames, casting aspersions and lamenting their fate. Who moved our cheese? they wonder and ponder for many days, instead of moving on and exploring new grounds.

    Very well then, who moved our budget? You want to ask? Yes we can actually bring the analogy home and apply it to Nigeria’s federal budget. The first quarter of the year has long passed, yet this government has been unable to get its Appropriation Bill for 2016 ready and active. Ironically, it is a government of change but none seems to have imbibed the fundaments of change.

    So, like some of the hapless characters in Johnson’s famous book, everyday since the beginning of this year we wake up to hear that the budget is missing; oh some figures have been tweaked by shifty-eyed legislators; ah the finance minister suffers from arithmetical deficiency; yepaa, the budget is now strapped with pads, etc.

    But in this bewildering fiscal melee, none seems to have fathomed that it is simply a change issue. The new government of APC is using the same PDP cauldron and recipe for its budget broth and it expects a different soup. Apart from a few changes in personnel, it is the same presidency, same MDAs and same NASS.  After 16 years of binge-budgeting, someone comes around and deploys the same template, yet wonders who stole his budget?

    Is there such thing as electronic template for a CHANGE?

  • Police robbers, police muggers

    Police robbers, police muggers — are these not hideous contradiction in terms, since the police exist to check such anti-social behaviours?  Yet, that has been the fate of citizens in Lagos, these past few days!

    First, police robbers. The Nation of April 11 reported a rogue three-man gang that claimed to be policemen.

    That odious trinity? One  Adebayo Asimiyu, aka Oluomo, a serving police sergeant, a Corporal Solomon Ewenta, a traffic officer reportedly attached to the Lagos Trade Fair Complex police station and one Lateef Ayorinde, reportedly a dismissed ex-trooper with the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA).

    Why did LASTMA dismiss Ayorinde — for robbing motorists?  And why are the police still tolerating Oluomo and Ewenta — because they have not robbed luckless citizens in their care enough?  Interesting questions!

    But the alleged robbery, in which these trio were involved, was spectacular in its unconscionability.  They, uniformed men of the law, cordoned off the car of an unnamed businessman citizen, around Malu Road in Apapa, accusing him of traffic infractions.  But the man resisted, insisting he had not driven against the traffic or committed any offence.

    For his audacity and effrontery, businessman citizen was driven round and round for no less than three hours, with trio making calls to suggest they might be kidnappers, thus further putting the fear of God into him.  Meanwhile, after reportedly snatching N620, 000 found in the man’s car, they still insisted on a N125, 000 bribe, in lieu of the N250, 000 fine the man would pay, if he was taken to the police station.

    But nemesis would catch up with them when they force-drove the man to his bank to withdraw the bribe money.  The drama of the citizen handing the money over but grabbing the ex-LASTMA man after, and raising the alarm, after an earlier furtive call and text for police help, saved the day.

    Now, the police robbers are cooling their heels with SARS, awaiting further investigation, and the full weight of the law.

    And police muggers?  Again, it’s another sad tale of a drunken cop asking a lawyer, Sunday Elimihe, to part with — wait for it — a N1, 000 bribe, and cocking his gun to underscore his seriousness!  Again, for the lawyer’s temerity to resist, the officer of the law beat up the man of law into a virtual pulp.  At the end of the day, Mr. Elimihe risks losing any eye!

    That willful battery of an innocent citizen, for absolutely no reason, has set the Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) against the Lagos State Police Command.  The chilly question: if a lawyer could be so recklessly battered, what daily happens to thousands of other nameless and helpless citizens in the streets?

    Police robbers and muggers are a monumental disgrace to Nigeria’s civil security and a blight to anything civil, civic and decent.  The least the police authorities can do is weed out these dangerous wolves in sheep skin.

    That should start with the very public prosecution of this devilish squad, and speedy conviction — just to make the point that the police don’t welcome felons.

    We can’t continue to harbour beasts in police uniform.

  • ‘Woe to the shepherds…’

    The good book, the Holy Bible, never stops to fascinate: its eternal truths, its lucid language and wry humour. From age to age, the message remains the same and man is in parts, sometimes portrayed as a clown fooling around on his own stage.

    The good book is particularly unsparing of some self-styled men of God: the chief priests, the prophets, the shepherds and the rulers. At every turn through many portions of the book, men of God are set up for especial tanning and savaging. Of course it is the Lord himself speaking and laying down His statutes for those who elect to step forward and lead the flock.

    Let’s pick one quick example from the book of the great prophet Ezekiel (chapter 34): “And the word of God came to me saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherd feed the flocks? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who are sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost…So they were scattered because there was no shepherd;…”

    And indeed Hardball would not deign to publish the stated repercussions for irresponsible shepherds but they are all there; all through the good book, the Author has laid down the terms of engagement quite clearly for those who have ears.

    But as we have seen, especially in our country recently, our modern day leaders and shepherds do not only feed themselves, many seem to feed on the flock. They install themselves sole owners and near-gods and they make the flock worship them.

    They do not only compete with kings, they live like emperors and create paradise of their own here on earth; completely repudiating the mansions above.

    It is a stale story you might say, but just recently, a General Overseer of one of those churches just unveiled a customised Rolls Royce Phantom that would be worth no less than N50 million.

    As the story goes, he turned 50 years and his flock considered it worthy to mark the GO’s golden age with this exquisite automobile, often the plaything of Hollywood stars and oil sheikhs. And why not, if it is good for worldly sheikhs it is even better for the GO, after all our God is not a poor God. Besides, what is a mere Rolls in an age big boy GOs cruise multiple private jets.

    But the question is: if indeed the congregation raised this cash, where from? And does it not matter to the Man of God, whether such hefty cash was from graft or witchcraft?

    Anyway, no matter, the author of the Good book who had long  foretold such wayward behaviour as purchase of Rolls Royce and private jets by his ‘shepherds’ says that in due time, he would redeem his flock and judge those feeding on them. Yes, so He decreed.

  • Autism Awareness

    “This year marks the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  On this World Autism Awareness Day, I call for advancing the rights of individuals with autism and ensuring their full participation and inclusion as valued members of our diverse human family who can contribute to a future of dignity and opportunity for all.” That was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sending a message to the world in his April 2 statement to mark World Autism Awareness Day 2016.

    Talking of the range of autistic possibilities, a visit to Modupe Cole Memorial Child Care and Treatment Home School, Akoka, Lagos, is sufficient to get the picture. It is a place that prompts reflections not only on the state of the specially-challenged children within its walls, but also on the wall that separates the autistic world and the world outside it.  The school’s motto, “God is Able”, is not just a reflection of the challenging circumstances of the children; it is also an expression of faith, which parents and carers need to cope with the children’s special needs.

    Ultimately, this state-run school is a space of life and offers useful lessons on living that transcend the locale and the limitations of children with special needs. There is no doubt that the diversity of disabilities on display in the school compound can be mercilessly distressing. For instance, this reality is conveyed by the following information in the Minutes of the school’s Parents Forum General Meeting held on Thursday, June 19, 2014, under Principal’s Address/Report on Activities in the School: “Still on the attitudes of parents toward their children, she mentioned that, on the day the school vacated, a parent came and told the caregiver to prepare her child for her to take him home for the holiday. After a while, she cleverly left the boy and never came back till now.”

    Abandonment happens and it is a statement against abandonment and other expressions of rejection that the United Nations General Assembly unanimously declared April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day “to highlight the need to help improve the quality of life of children and adults, who are affected by autism, so they can lead full and meaningful lives”. The day has been observed since 2008.

    Ban Ki-moon’s words should prompt positive action: “Autism is a lifelong condition that affects millions of people worldwide.  It is not well-understood in many countries, and too many societies shun people with autism…This is a violation of human rights and a waste of human potential… I call for societies to invest more funds in enabling young persons with autism to be part of their generation’s historic push for progress.”