The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Golden boy, golden insult

    The golden boy of Amaju Pinnick’s Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) just declared all his critics “insane” for flaunting his failure at the Championship of African Nations (CHAN), which the majestic Congo Democratic Republic just lifted, for the second time, in Kigali, Rwanda.

    Ah, for Pinnick and his enfant terrible coach, it doesn’t get more dramatic, more so when the well known intemperate Oliseh the player, is fast tearing through Oliseh the coach, much vaunted FIFA technical expert and hoped-for messiah of Nigerian football.

    On that score, the comparison between the two triangles, Keshi-NFF-Pinnick and Oliseh-NFF-Pinnick is irresistible.

    Keshi was useless, yes!  Yet, from virtual nowhere with a bunch of rookies, he won the African Nations Cup, on away soil in South Africa, just as he did as “non-playing captain” in Tunisia, as player in 1994.  He also not only qualified Nigeria for CHAN for the first time, in its then six years, he went all the way to the semi-final, earning a bronze for his efforts.

    Oliseh is the real deal, yes! But after creating the false dawn of topping its group table, after the first round of matches, beating minnows Niger Republic 4-1, it was progressive retrogress: a draw against Tunisia; and a loss against Guinea. In his very first competitive tournament, Nigeria exited in the first round, thus echoing the AFCON ruins of Benghazi 1982, when Nigeria, even as defending champions, went home just after three matches!

    Sure, Oliseh is right: statistically, as gaffer, he has only played 14 matches and lost two.  True, his is a rebuilding mission, that needs time to mature.  True, you can’t win every competition; and because you lost a development-oriented CAF tournament, you can’t possibly call for the sack of the coach?

    Still, as a work-in-progress, the Eagles, both home-based and the foreign legion, are a pretty clumsy lot, that struggle against just any African XI. Common Tanzania, Oliseh couldn’t beat away.  Neither could his team beat sub-minnows, Swaziland.  The only memorable win was the 3-0 spanking of Cameroon. But that was after Congo DR had taught his boys how to caress the leather with a 2-0 bashing!  Both were friendly games.

    Hardball doesn’t share the hysteria that Oliseh should be sacked because of his blackout in Kigali. But to dub his critics as “insane” is a little bit rude and crude. If this bloke cannot face the heat, he had better get the hell out of the kitchen.  If he is so over-sensitive, truculent and abusive, how does he learn from reasoned criticisms?

  • Uncle Sege’s metamorphosis

    “After all,” beamed Jero, at the climax of his transformation, “It is the fashion these days to be a desk general!”

    It was the concluding line of Wole Soyinka’s play, Jero’s Metamorphosis, itself sequel to The Trials of Brother Jero, both cumulatively tagged the Jero Plays.

    From among the petty spiritual hustlers at the Lagos Bar Beach, then bastion to prophets of the Aladura sect, Jero had somewhat upped his game of spiritual conning, to a desk general of sorts — just as then, in the Nigeria of 1970s, the ruling military promoted themselves generals, as routine as the Police produced desk generals — o, pardon — desk sergeants!

    But the fictive, though immortal Brother Jero, is not all histrionics here.  Brother Sege, aka Ebora Owu, Balogun Egba and citizen president, both in khaki and agbada, is.  His newfound zeal? Yoruba cultural nationalism.

    What is the nexus between this new campaign and the old Olusegun Obasanjo, famed citizen of the globe, and ultra-Nigerian nationalist, who would not be diminished by some contemptible Yoruba platform?

    Ah, in those halcyon days of youth, Obasanjo wrote Not My Will, essentially to sanctify his first tour of duty as military head of state.  In that book, he mocked the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’ first and only ceremonial president, of shrinking from the Great Zik of Africa to the Owelle of Onitsha.

    Indeed, Zik’s honest political trajectory was from a pan-African crusader, to Nigerian nationalist agitator.  By the Second Republic, when Zik was persuaded to re-join politics, he had become a champion of Igbo interests.

    His kith-and-kin, with some romantics from the Middle Belt, led by the late Solomon Lar, seized the old Nigeria People’s Party (NPP) from the late but luckless Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim (of the politics-without-bitterness fame), and gave it to Zik as a presidential platform.  Waziri, held on to the rump of his party, and, without bitterness, rechristened it Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP).

    However, what happened to Zik was natural political law of gravity — whatever goes up must come down.  But in Not My Will, Obasanjo prattled and boasted his own political gravity obeyed no laws; and would soar higher and higher and higher, and …

    He just discovered his costly illusion, to his shock!  The universal Obasanjo started his descent into Yoruba affairs when, according to newspaper reports, he allegedly shredded the Olowu ballot papers, reportedly because his endorsed candidate was losing.

    Now, Baba Iyabo, full blast and with ardent zeal, is thrusting himself as a pillar to watch in Yoruba traditional politics; and the intrigues that come with the territory.

    The other day, he declared himself in support of Ijebu State (the heart’s desire of the highly revered Awujale of Ijebuland) but with a caveat that the capital is Ikenne (a clear sop to the Awo family, whose patriarch Obasanjo, in the same Not My Will, had dismissed as a Nigerian Don Quixote, after federal power, which he would never get).

    Before you could whisper Sege, Baba Iyabo bobbed up in Ife, prostrating full length for the new but youthful Ooni, making sure the cameras were clicking away to record his sanctimonious bid for the Oscar.

    Hardball was still blinking when the Ebora had surfaced in Iwo, to pay obeisance to the new (and youthful) Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Adewale Akanbi.

    Pray, what bites the Ebora?  Dunno.  But whatever reduced Zik of Africa to Owelle of Onitsha is reducing Aremu Global to a prodigal rediscovering his long-shunned roots.

    It is the imperative of staying relevant — particularly in these old and lonely days.  And like Jero’s, it is the great Sege metamorphosis!

  • Singing like a canary

    Someone is singing a new song on Ekiti State, and it is like a bird singing. Not that the sound is harmonious. Indeed, it is a result of disharmony, and it is sure to promote disharmony and prolong disharmony.

    Interestingly, the man who is singing like a canary is a former Secretary of the Ekiti State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Temitope Aluko. On January 31, he told the public: “Immediately after the primary election, we collected another $35 million from Jonathan on June 17, 2014. The money was brought to us by the former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro. We all assembled in front of Spotless Hotel, Ado-Ekiti, owned by Fayose. Thereafter, the cash was taken to a Bureau De Change in Onitsha where, with the support of Chris Uba, it was converted to N4.7 billion.”

    Then the singer introduced lyrics about the desperate militarisation of the state ahead of the election to favour Fayose. Aluko said:  “We went into the election with 1040 recognised soldiers and another batch of 400 unrecognised soldiers brought from Enugu by Chief Chris Uba. In addition, we raised 44 Special Strike teams, brought in Toyota Hilux buses from Abuja and Onitsha… They were detailed to attack and arrest prominent APC chieftains in all the local governments… To encourage the Strike Team members, we gave them orders to share money and other valuables they could lay their hands on in the houses of APC chieftains they raided… Then we set up detention camps, mainly in primary schools, where most of the APC chieftains were detained. Others were detained in police stations where the DPOs were friendly with us. We let them off after the election was over.”

    The song is getting more interesting, isn’t it? Aluko went on: “We provided polling agents for the APC in most of the polling units so we had no problem getting them to sign election results in the units.”

    Aluko was trying to say the election that produced Governor Fayose could not be described as free and fair. Aluko feels as free as a bird and believes his song is fair because he is fighting alleged unfairness.

    He said: “Before the election, Fayose, Femi Bamishile and I jointly swore with the Holy Bible on a sharing formula after we must have won the election. We agreed that Fayose would be governor, Bamishile his deputy and I, Chief of Staff. But the moment he got into office, Fayose reneged on the agreement and left me in the lurch.”

    What if Aluko’s new narrative is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Would that redeem him? Or, more pointedly, would it restore his honour?

  • Saying it just as it is

    Who has a problem with the description of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan as “an ineffectual buffoon”?

    An article in The Economist, January 30 edition, said: “In the eight months since Mr. Buhari arrived at Aso Rock, the presidential digs, the homicidal jihadists of Boko Haram have been pushed back into the bush along Nigeria’s borders. The government has cracked down on corruption, which had flourished under the previous president, Goodluck Jonathan, an ineffectual buffoon who let politicians and their cronies fill their pockets with impunity.”

    The UK-based magazine’s article on Nigeria’s economy was titled “Crude tactics”.  Interestingly, some Nigerians think its language was crude – but what about its logic?  Perhaps those in this category should further reflect on the meaning of “buffoon” and its contextual usage.

    A buffoon is “a person given to clowning and joking, a ludicrous or bumbling person, a fool, a person who amuses others by ridiculous or odd behaviour, jokes, etc, a foolish person.”

    When a president is buffoonish or demonstrates buffoonery, why not call a spade a spade? Or why beat about the bush? For much of Jonathan’s presidential era, his critics at home generously labelled him as a “clueless” leader.  Is that tag not suggestive of buffoonery?

    Of course, sweet are the uses of euphemism. But there are occasions when a euphemism just won’t do. There are times to say it just as it is.

  • Ayo Fayose & Co

    In the company of pigs, luxuriating in muck, you normally don’t expect to find gold.  But even if you did, you could be sure the gold would be so muddied, you would not recognise its glitter.

    That, in a nutshell, aptly describes Ayo Fayose and company. Though the self-confessed former Danfo driver now bears the rather exotic prefix of “His Excellency”, over the long-suffering Ekiti people, that is not unlike dressing a pig in exquisite clothing and expensive jewellery. The pig is not fulfilled until it drags everything in the mud.

    So, it is with Ekiti Kete and their enfant terrible governor.  But then, he was — and still is? — a choice in which they were — still are? — well pleased!

    When a governor-elect packs the mob and heads for the sanctity of the courts to sack their lordships, simply because he wanted to willy-nilly truncate a case, you need no soothsayer to prophesy his tenure would be anarchy amalgamated.

    When the same unstable character had exited in disgrace during his first coming, and cases of alleged sleaze still weighed him down even as he prepared for what is turning out to be even a more fraudulent second, then you can blame the Ekiti themselves for merrily hugging perdition like a long lost lover.

    So, if Temitope Aluko, PhD voluntarily, and on TV, swore he committed perjury to shield Fayose’s alleged election rigging from the censure of the courts, you can say it’s only a community of low-lifers watching one another’s back until the greed that united them tore them apart.

    Fayose has been crude and uncouth beyond measure. His penchant for the vulgar, the ludicrous and the utter irrational has been as low-life as his gubernatorial office is supposed to be high. It especially rankles that his has been a lunatic rod, smashing, without let, Ekiti Kete’s pristine decency.

    So, if Tope Aluko, with his PhD would sink so low to do what he claimed to have done with Fayose and company, just to billet Fayose in power for a gaseous promise, it simply shows that education without character is stew without salt — complete waste.  Indeed, only the shallow calls to the shallow!

    Still, nothing can explain or excuse the president of the Federal Republic sitting with electoral bandits to plot a grand subversion of the polls. Yet, that is what Aluko, in his sensational revelations on Channels TV, alleged former President Goodluck Jonathan to have done.

    To boot, the ex-president also allegedly gifted the electoral conspirators a total sum of US $37 million to go forth and brazenly rig the polls, with licit and illicit armies — by the one, committing lawful Nigerian troops to wilful lawless duties; by the other, subverting lawful coercion, under his watch, with free-wheeling criminal enforcers.

    Provocation of provocations!  This “cross-border” rig-squad had to be under the alleged command of Chris Uba, all the way from Anambra, a controversial fellow involved in the seizure and illegal detention of his state governor, Dr. Chris Ngige, back in 2003!

    Pray, what was going on in the Jonathan presidential heart of darkness?  Sheer desperation or something much more sinister?

    Whatever it was, Ekitikete is much worse for it today.  Shame!

  • Of letter writers and responders

    Little by little, Baba, himself the Ebora Owu, is fast emerging the golden letter writer of Muhammadu Buhari’s second coming.

    After letter-shellacking the luckless Goodluck out of office en route to Buhari’s entry; and pouring ice-cold water on a naive Jonathan seeking some Aremu of Ota endorsement for his new Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has turned his restless soul on the National Assembly.

    In his hard-hitting letter, Senate President Bukola Saraki, he generically dismissed, with his band of senators, as undistinguished; and Speaker Yakubu  Dogara, he no less sweepingly slammed, with the whole House as, well, dishonourable!

    But Omo Baba Oloye, Bukola, perhaps used to court intrigues, with a special eye on surviving his on-running Code of Conduct trial and fortified, even more, by the trademark Ilorin mesu jamba wiles, chose to drink his Obasanjo hemlock stoically and graciously, saying it was imperative the often opaque National Assembly made its books open to all.

    Baba must have been readying his famous hyena laugh for yet another whoop of victory over the integrity infidels of the National Assembly when up bobbed the irreverent voice of the erratic Dino Melaye, who practically told the Owu chief to go jump into the rocky River Ogun and get drowned!

    Still, is this Dino’s voice for real?  Or the Senate equivalent of the hands of Esau but voice of Jacob?  We’ll see.

    Now, between Aremu and Dino is a gripping study.  The one spent his entire public life preaching the right things but most times doing the opposite.  But somehow, he has permitted himself the costly conceit that since he is Obasanjo, he has divine immunity from his own preachments.

    Worse: he seems to claim some modern day papal indulgences from Rome to excoriate in others what he himself is probably guilty of!  Remember the Geoffery Chaucer Canterbury Tales, specially referencing the Summoner and the Pardoner?

    But Dino, stout soul, would not stand such humbug.  Now to many, Dino is the very devil of the public space, the proverbial enfant terrible of the current Senate.  As Din-o tends to suggest, he just loves making a din: you like it, you hate it but you cannot say you don’t know where the Dino din is perched — absolutely no pretences!

    So, Dino gave the pretentious Obasanjo the short shrift: the eighth Senate is not the Senate of his era that, he claimed, collected Obasanjo’s money for an illicit and illegal Third Term and yet didn’t deliver —  ouch!

    Is that a sucker punch for Baba, the Nigerian political equivalent of the late Smokin’ Joe, Frazier?

    By the way, those rumoured humongous cash to fund the ill-fated Third Term — where did they come from?  An earlier undisclosed variant of Dasukigate? Just Hardball’s stream of consciousness!

    Anyway, you can trust Dino to up the ante: he reminded Baba that Siemens and Halliburton scandals would soon bob up; and the Ebora should not try his perfected old trick of shifting attention to others to turn gullible noses away from the rot oozing from his own side.  Ha!

    Dino, popular or notorious, does not do humbug and doesn’t shy away from picking a fight.  But Baba too, old, baleful warrior, does not forgive, does not forget , does not let go!  And the audience leer, bawl and bay for blood.

    Now, Hardball can hear the opening gong and the almost insane cheer, from an almost deranged crowd.  Scrambling for a ring side seat!

    It promises a bruising, helluva fight between pious letter writers and irreverent responders!

    Gba-gan … Round One!

  • Away with ‘cowboy’ elders

    TO be an elder naturally suggests an aged person, mature, experienced, wise and temperate. And to wear the toga of an elder-statesman confers on one the added impetus of pre-eminence that often comes with holding important public office. And this elongated ‘elder’, if we call it that, simply means that this manner of elder is long in the knowledge and understanding of his country in all its finest nuances.

    But Hardball posits that there are hardly such elders around in our dear country anymore. The Dasuki $2.1 billion arms scandal is a notable reference point. It has been revealed that a number of our elders we respected so much are merely mealy-mouthed old men who eat from both sides of the mouth. They have proved that they are mere old men and not elders. And to address them as elder-statesmen is to abuse that very word.

    It has been revealed how our septuagenarians and octogenarians were debased (or did they debase themselves) sharing out our commonwealth in the manner common brigands would. It was a bazaar and money was being shared in hundreds of millions to our old men; they collected, they spirited the monies away and they all joined the President Goodluck Jonathan campaign train. They told us Jonathan was the best thing that ever happened to Nigeria; they told us nobody else could govern Nigeria safe for Jonathan. They told us that Nigeria would disintegrate if we failed to give Jonathan a second chance. It has turned out that they were lies, damned lies told by our elders.

    Well, Hardball knows too well that it is not smart to be wise after the fact. In the sense that few elders would decline a presidential gift, which is what we can conveniently call the Dasuki booty. But what do you do when some of the compromised old men return to throw stones into the market place?

    This is the impression one gets when we read such report as: “Probe, jail Jonathan if found guilty – NEF”. NEF stands for Northern Elders Forum. While Hardball will not hold brief for former President Jonathan, he would also not feel comfortable watching elders act in a child-like manner. The report under reference is credited to Chief Paul Unongo, described as the Deputy National Leader of NEF.

    Unongo, a high-grade septuagenarian who would touch 80 if he stretched his finger was a minister in the 80s; a member of the Constituent Assembly, among numerous public positions he held. He is by every definition, an elder statesman.

    Now do elders throw petrol at a raging fire? Do elders play with fire crackers? Who mellows down the youth and moderates matters when tempers flare and everyone is losing their head? Elders surely. This is why Hardball is taken aback when Elder Paul Unongo, hiding under the cover of NEF, calls for the trial and jailing of a former president. If Jonathan must be tried, so be it, but what value would NEF add to national discourse by championing that cause?

    Nigeria is going through a difficult time; she needs introspective elders who can help guide her out of this storm, not gung-ho elders.

  • Afenifere agonises

    Afenifere agonises; and from that agony comes a gratuitous counsel: President Muhammadu Buhari should not anchor run a sole anti-corruption agenda.

    But where did Afenifere get the idea that fighting corruption is the sole goal of the Buhari administration?  Did Lai Mohammed, the Information minister, say so?  Or did it slip from the president himself?

    Well, maybe Afenifere heard it from Afenifere News, the exclusive news wire of Afenifere, by Afenifere and for Afenifere, now that a pillar of  the once-peacocky body is deep in the odium of Dasukigate.

    O, Hardball gets it!  As an old woman frets at the most innocuous mention of dry bones, Afenifere now frets at the mention of sleaze!  Ah, it bluffs and blusters, to be sure. But certainly, the Julius Caesar quip that Caesar’s wife should not only be above board, it should be seen to be above board sort of registers with the Afenifere gerontocracy and their young Turks.  But too bad, their paradise  appears lost; their bragging rights as puritans in the public space appears gone — and gone forever!

    Still, waxing pedantic, Yinka Odumakin, Afenifere’s publicity secretary, who briefed the media on its deliberations, lectured on the imperative of growing the economy and chalking up development, instead of President Buhari getting fixated with crushing corruption.

    No bad advice, to be sure.  But is it not trite that sleaze wrecks the economy faster than anything; and that an economy riddled with corruption will never, ever deliver development?  So, is it not common sense to lay the right foundation by solidly burying corruption, and then go ahead to build a strong and sustainable economy?

    And, of course, the apologia: the tryst between the puritan Afenifere and the corrupt Jonathan government was triggered by “restructuring”, which made the grandees to embrace Jonathan’s National Conference (NC).  Jonathan’s NC itself was the first point of contact for the sheep of Pa Olu Falae’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) to frolic with the dogs of the ancien regime; and are therefore, by that popular Yoruba saying, condemned to eating faeces.

    So, if Afenifere must lose its puritanical bragging rights on the straight-and-narrow, it at least must be for a worthy cause: hence, Buhari must do “proper restructuring”.  Again, not a bad advice, for that might turn the eventual glue to hold Nigeria together in productive federalism, rather than the present consumptive unitary state posing as a pseudo-federation.

    The snag, however, is: which part of it is sound advice, and which part is air freshener to deodorise the stench that is Afenifere’s lot, by Chief Falae’s involvement in Dasukigate?

    This question is imperative because the corruption of thought — sophistry: that penchant to think you are too wise and your listeners are too stupid — crept into Odumakin’s thinking.  Dasukigate involved SDP.  Falae is national chairman of SDP.  So, Dasukigate has nothing to do with Afenifere!

    Great yarn. But it is doubtful if Falae himself believed that crap. But all is fair in war, particularly faced with a shameful loss in the war of integrity!

    But even as Afenifere makes peace with its present hall of shame, it should agonise in such a way that it doesn’t sink further in the bog.  Sophistry is the last thing it needs.

    It holds the Yoruba fulsome apologies from dragging in the mud a body they loved so much; and for bastardising the Omoluabi ethos the Yoruba so much cherish, all for crass politics.

  • Ultimate discredit  

    Alamieyeseigha is truly dead. I have heard people who claimed that he faked his death. It is not true. In Ogboin community, we don’t fake our death. If anybody claims that he is dead and he eventually comes back, the person cannot live for more than three months. It is our tradition. If you fake your death, you are gone because you cannot live again. Even if the whole world says he is not dead, I the traditional ruler of this community will tell you that he is dead.”

    That was Major Graham Naingba (retd), the traditional ruler of Amassoma in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. He is a cousin of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the former Governor of Bayelsa State who died on October 10 last year in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Alamieyeseigha was  62.

    The clarification came with the news of the dates for the final rites of passage for Alamieyeseigha. A report said: “The burial ceremony…will commence on March 24 and end on March 26, a family source said.”  The report continued: “It was gathered that Alamieyeseigha would have been buried on November 16 last year, the day he would have marked his 63 birthday.”

    The report further said: “But it was reportedly put off because of preparations for the  governorship election and lack of agreement between the government and the deceased’s family. The silence over his burial had led to speculations especially outside the Niger Delta region that Alamieyeseigha’s death might have been faked to stop his extradition to Britain on corruption charges.”

    It is interesting that, even in death, Alamieyeseigha is haunted by his background as a former governor stained by the oil of corruption.  After being convicted of money laundering and fraud, which fetched him a two-year jail sentence, he was controversially pardoned by the then President Goodluck Jonathan, who served as his deputy in his gubernatorial years from 1999 to 2005.

    Alamieyeseigha’s contentious presidential pardon and his subsequent nomination to represent Bayelsa State at the National Conference, which had the odour of political patronage, were not enough to rehabilitate him.

    That is why the doubters say he may have faked his so-called death. What he is accused of this time may be called death fraud. It is the ultimate discredit to suggest that Alamieyeseigha may be a death fraudster. But he brought it upon himself.

  • Failure to recognise failure

    The National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief Olu Falae, can’t understand why his critics are criticising him and his party for taking N100m from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in a cash-for-support deal that was meant to boost the re-election effort of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

    In an interview, he said Chief Tony Anenih, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of PDP at the time, sought the SDP’s support for Jonathan. Falae said: “I told him that in principle, there is nothing wrong with the two parties collaborating, but that the collaboration must be a principled collaboration; it must be based on principles.”

    The former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and ex-Minister of Finance continued: “There was a very robust debate and at the end of the debate, the executive committee of my party endorsed their (PDP’s) request that we should work with Jonathan in the election. I want to emphasise here that the most critical factor that turned the debate in favour of Jonathan was because he said he would restructure Nigeria and that he summoned the National Conference as a great step in that direction.”

    This argument is simplistic and mirrors narrow-mindedness. Falae meant that his party decided to back Jonathan for reasons unrelated to good governance. How can a promise to restructure the country’s structure based on a controversial National Conference be a deciding factor in the face of intolerable and inexcusable governmental failure?

    It was unsurprising that the electorate rejected Jonathan emphatically. The people voted against Jonathan because they weighed his performance in office and judged him a failure.

    Strangely, Falae insisted that the SDP did the right thing by endorsing a failed president who desperately wanted to continue in office. It is a reflection of Falae’s diminution that he failed to recognise failure.