The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Abaribe and arch-guarantors

    Abaribe and arch-guarantors

    At the turn of the new year, Enyinnaya Abaribe, the sitting senator representing Abia South, was talking all the talk: release Nnamdi Kanu, and others and I would be guarantors for South East peace!

    That’s quite noble.  But has Abaribe forgotten what happened when he was one of the sureties for Nnamdi Kanu’s bail?  Kanu jumped bail and the best Abaribe could plead was that he did not know when and how the accused he stood surety for vanished!

    So long for his second coming as Kanu’s arch-guarantor!

    Perhaps affronted by the South East lobby for the “unconditional release” of Kanu, Bashir Ahmad, new-media aide to former President Muhammadu Buhari, railed against the Free Kanu campaign.  He dubbed whoever behind the push enemies of Nigeria.

    That is now the subject of a legal suit — at least its particulars.  But in general, it is no less a legitimate voice for Kanu’s continuous canning than voices calling for his release.  It’s all the varied political prisms of a matter before a court of competent jurisdiction.

    Still, might all of this begging be necessary, had South East leaders cautioned Kanu as he made it his self-imposed duty to libel, insult and traduce every other part of Nigeria, just to drive his IPOB mission?

    While others reeled under Kanu’s crude and coarse attacks, what did Igbo leaders do? At worst, annoying justifications.  At best, criminal rationalizations. 

    And after he had jumped bail?  His Buhari as “Jubril of Sudan” stunt, at a very delicate stage of the former President’s convalescence?  His clear order to his goons, in Lagos, to go on a spree of arson, during the End SARS riots?

    At the very early part, was it not till some other “northern youths” started threatening the Igbo to relocate to their region, that the South East leaders regained their voice?  Even then, how decisive or even sincere was that voice of caution?

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    Like Kanu before his rendition, detention and current trial, the Finland-based Simon Ekpa too was vomiting murder and blaring hate. Again, mum was it from South East elders who should have warned and cautioned him. 

    Ekpa seized Kanu-in-the-can to impose his own brand of democratic(?) anarchy — pushing his thugs to bump off security agents, and not blinking an eyelid to kill and maim their own Igbo folks.  That drumming got to an abrupt stop only when Finland tossed him into the can, for alleged e-bullying and terrorism.  He faces his day in court.

    However the Kanu issue is resolved — conviction or acquittal in court, or some political amnesty — is left to President Bola Tinubu and his government.  But blaring “unconditional release” is insensitive — nay, outrageous —  to other Nigerians, who were at the receiving end of Kanu’s crude and acidic tongue.

    Kanu is no MKO Abiola that won a fair election and died for it. He is rather an extremely uncouth youth, who hid behind the neo-Biafra campaign, to manifest his coarseness.  His tongue is his No. 1 enemy as he’s finding out.

    If South East leaders are begging for mercy on his behalf, only penitence, not entitlement, would do it.  Enough of this crap about “unconditional release”!

  • Macron’s sabre-rattling

    Macron’s sabre-rattling

    French President Emmanuel Macron recently touched a raw nerve in post-colonial consciousness of Africa. He said some African nations have not shown enough gratitude for his country’s deployment of troops to help them battle insurgents and thereby preserve their sovereignty. Countries of the Sahel region beset by civil conflicts and Islamic extremism, according to him, remained sovereign only because of deployment of French forces.

    Speaking to French ambassadors at a conference in Paris, the president dismissed the narrative that his country’s troops were expelled from the Sahel owing to waning influence of Paris on its former colonies. “We had a security relationship. It was in two folds: one was our commitment against terrorism since 2013,” he said. “I think someone forgot to say ‘thank you.’ But not to worry, it will come with time. Ingratitude, I am well placed to know, is a disease not transmissible in man,” he added, insisting that France’s influence was not in decline in Africa but that the nation was only “reorganising itself” on the continent.

    In recent years, French troops had to withdraw from Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali following military coups in those countries, upon which anti-French sentiment intensified. Presently, they are preparing their exit from Chad, Ivory Coast and Senegal. Chad had last November announced it was ending its defense pact with France to reassert its sovereignty. In 2022, French forces left the Central African Republic after deploying there in 2013, following a coup that sparked civil war.

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    Macron ascribed the exit of his country’s forces from the region to reasoned choice following successive coups. He said: “We left because there were coups d’état. We were there at the request of sovereign states that had asked France to come. From the moment there were coups d’état, and when people said, ‘Our priority is no longer the fight against terrorism’… France no longer had a place there because we are not auxiliaries to putschists. So, we left.”

    Macron’s submissions irritated African leaders, especially those of countries that are former French colonies. Chadian foreign affairs minister, Abderaman Koulamallah, accused the French leader of showing contempt towards Africa and Africans. He said in a statement: “France has never endowed the Chadian army in any significant way nor contributed to its structural development.” According to him, French contribution to Chad’s nationhood has often been limited to its own strategic interests, “with no real lasting impact on the development of the Chadian people.”

    Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko explained that his country’s decision to close all foreign military bases, including those of the French, “stems from its sole will as a free, independent and sovereign country.”

    Whatever may have been Macron’s frustrations, his comment was insulting to Africa and portrayed Africans as incapable of self-governance. He should apologise.

  • Reality reminder

    Reality reminder

    According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), last year ended with Nigeria’s inflation rate at 34.80 percent in December, from 34.60 percent in November. Though described as a marginal increase, it was an increase; and there were difficult implications for many Nigerians. 

    The figures highlighted continued rise in consumer prices, fuelled by currency depreciation, high energy costs, and persistent supply chain disruptions.  The NBS report showed that the average inflation rate for the 12 months ending December 2024 stood at 33.24 percent, up from 24.66 percent recorded during the same period in 2023.

    Food inflation was relentless, reaching 39.84 percent on a year-on-year basis in December 2024, from 33.93 percent in December 2023. The rise was attributed to increases in the prices of staples such as yams, rice, maize, and dried fish. The NBS also noted significant price increases in transport fares, meals at local restaurants, and personal grooming services.

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    Responding to the cost-of-living crisis in the country, 15 states adjusted the newly fixed N70,000 national minimum wage upward.  They include Lagos and Rivers (N85,000); Bayelsa, Niger, Enugu, and Akwa Ibom (N80,000).  Others are: Delta and Ogun (N77,000), Ebonyi and Kebbi (N75,000), Ondo (N73,000), Kogi and Kaduna (N72,000), Gombe and Kano (N71,000). But the reality is that the new national minimum wage is not a living wage in the country’s current circumstances. Nigerian workers in the public and private sectors deserve what some describe as a ‘living minimum wage.’

    For instance, at the Distinguished Personality Lecture organised by the National Institute for Security Studies (NISS) in Abuja, in October 2024, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, a former governor of Edo State, argued that Nigerian workers were poorer now, despite the increased minimum wage.  “Inflation severely impacts purchasing power, making it difficult for workers to maintain a decent standard of living,” he observed.

    When President Bola Tinubu presented the 2025 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly, he optimistically declared that the government would reduce inflation to 15 percent this year. Also, in his first media chat last month, he explained how his administration would bring down inflation.  Nigerians can’t wait to see this happen.

    Importantly, the monthly reports by the NBS showing continuing inflation should make the authorities responsive to the reality that too many Nigerians are struggling to cope with the pain of inflation.

  • Moonlight tales from OOPL

    Moonlight tales from OOPL

    The ever-irreverent Fela, were he to read “Obasanjo: I landed in jail because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut” (The Nation Saturday, January 11), would have louden his popular number, ‘Tisa, no teach me nonsense’ to the highest decibel possible!

    Fifteen “young male and female future African leaders” had visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) lair, in Abeokuta, Ogun State.  Obasanjo regaled them with his jail story.

    The only truths about Obasanjo’s jail misadventure were just the basics: Sani Abacha jailed him.  He couldn’t stand Obasanjo’s white hypocrisy.  True too: Obasanjo couldn’t keep his mouth shut because of his endless, empty, selfish posturing. 

    Any other thing is what the Yoruba would call “ajasa”: seasonings — Obasanjo’s self-serving fibs to impress these so-called “future African leaders”, because he damn well knows they are not grounded in Africa’s past — not even its contemporary history.  Yet, they bid to control its future.

    For starters, Obasanjo didn’t seek election in 1999 to save Nigeria.  That was a lie from the pit of hell.  Rather, he was rushed through the power mill by a panicky military who had two purposes.

    One: to instal one of their own, after annulling the best-ever election in Nigerian history.  The late Basorun Moshood Abiola won that election.  Two: to sustain that criminal annulment, even after MKO’s sudden and suspect death, after he had spent his entire presidential term in military detention, put there by Abacha, who in 1998, would suddenly die in office too.

    Of course, Obasanjo bought into that toady agenda.  He not only tried to sustain the annulment, he ruthlessly tried to erase MKO’s legacy as a democracy martyr. 

    Both, Hardball can happily recall, blew up in his face.  All through the PDP years, he sustained May 29 — the date he took power by the “Army Arrangement” (God bless Fela again, for that inimitable coinage!) — as phoney Democracy Day. 

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    But former President Muhammadu Buhari replaced that lie with June 12 — the day MKO won that great pan-Nigeria mandate; and which annulment triggered a chain of events that marked the beginning of the end for Nigeria’s political military. 

    Nigeria is today the better for it.  The military are back to their noble role, not moonlighting in government, for which they are least competent.

    But the most piquant irony of that visit was Obasanjo glibly talking about corruption!  Which corruption is more transparent, than the provenance of OOPL?  Obasanjo, as president, bullied the cream of Nigeria’s business to “donate” to his presidential library, a crude corruption of a noble American concept!  Isn’t that a living proof of transparent corruption?

    The Owu chief keeps docking and damning himself, on public morality, by receiving guests in this corrupt personal nest, but pointing fingers at corruption!  Unfortunately, OOPL is about the only post-power project Obasanjo can show off — and it’s ode to self-service, the diametric opposite of public service!

    Even if that horrible irony is lost on the messianic Baba Iyabo, it ought not have been lost on the minders of the so-called “future African leaders”.  But Fela again: “Tisa, no teach me nonsense”! 

    You don’t decry corruption of the past by trucking African leaders of the future to corruption’s very living and grand cathedral, OOPL!

  • Pie in the sky

    Pie in the sky

    For members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme, adjustment in their monthly allowance to reflect inflationary trends in the economy that necessitated a new national minimum wage remains a pie in the sky. Director-General of the scheme, Brigadier-General Yush’au Ahmed, last week assured that proposed increase of the allowance to N77,000 would soon be implemented. Only he did not commit to a date for that implementation.

    The Federal Government had in September 2024 approved a raise in corps members’ monthly allowance from N33,000 to N77,000, with retroactive effect from July 2024. This was pursuant to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s approval of N70,000 as the new national minimum wage that July, subject to review every three years. Despite hyper-inflationary pressures, payment of the proposed increase in NYSC allowance is yet to begin, creating concern among corps members and their relations.

    Brigadier-General Ahmed made known that arrangements to effect the pay increase had been concluded and corps members could rest assured they would get all the benefits they’re entitled to this year. Speaking  in Abuja when he commissioned a staff bus donated by Capital Express Insurance Ltd. to NYSC, he told journalists: “Yes, they have not yet started receiving the increase in their allowance. But I tell you, all arrangements have already been concluded.” He added: “Hopefully, very soon, they will see it. I don’t just want to mention when because I believe we are almost there. Corps members will laugh very soon, that I assure you.”

    The D-G reaffirmed government’s commitment to the welfare of corps members, noting that the first item on his own policy template as well is their security and welfare. The scheme, according to him, has always been responsive to the needs of its staff and corps members, taking their wellbeing and safety seriously. It was in that regard, he said, that the bus being commissioned was donated in response to a request for increase in the number of welfare buses for staff and corps members’ use.

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    Promises are heart-warming, but they never equate to concrete actions with expectant beneficiaries. Following confirmation of the proposed pay raise by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission in September, last year, Brigadier-Gen. Ahmed in October blamed delay in implementation on non-release of funds to the scheme. If funds have now been released, further bureaucratic delay in corps members receiving the new allowance in their accounts is unjustifiable because inflation hasn’t held back on surging – subjecting corps members, like many other Nigerians, to harsh living conditions. The earliest that hardship is relieved through concrete action on pay increase, the better, because promises do not have the same effect. It is expected that implementation will factor in the outstanding arrears as government policy provides, and further delay makes those arrears unwieldy.

  • Awaiting trial inmates

    Awaiting trial inmates

    It’s an old issue that has refused to go away. “Overcrowding, no doubt, stands out as the most pressing challenge of the NCoS,” the Acting Controller-General of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), Sylvester Nwakuche, noted during an interactive session with field officers on January 13.  He said 48,932 inmates in the country’s correctional facilities were Awaiting Trial Persons (ATPs), many of them “on non-bailable offences.” 

    He unveiled his plans to tackle the problem, saying, “I intend to interface with the attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, the inspector-general of police, and other prosecuting agencies and critical stakeholders to fast track the trial of these inmates. This is necessary, especially those on non-bailable offences like armed robbery, murder, and others that constitute over 60 percent of awaiting trial persons (ATPs).”

    He added: “While engaging state chief executives to expedite the trial of the over 90 percent state offenders in custody, the use of non-custodial measures and early release mechanisms will be taken up with the judiciary. We will also fast-track the construction of proposed 3,000-capacity ultramodern custodial facilities and other centres across the country.”

    Notably, Segun Olowookere, who controversially spent 14 years on death row before he was recently pardoned by Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke, drew attention to prison conditions in the country in an interview published after his release.

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    He was sentenced to death and life imprisonment for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and robbery with firearms, and to three years imprisonment for stealing. But the popular narrative that he was given a death sentence for stealing fowls ultimately led to pardon by the governor.   

    He was in Ilesa prison, Osun State, “throughout the trial of the case.” After the judgment, he was moved to Ibara Prison, Abeokuta, Ogun State. He was later moved to Kirikiri Maximum Prison in Lagos, in 2016.

     According to him, “The major challenge was congestion. There were too many people inside a limited space. Because of the population, 50 inmates would occupy a room that should naturally contain a maximum of 10 people. We sleep like fishes packed in a carton because everywhere is measured for us. As an inmate, a space is measured for you to sleep because of congestion.” 

    Nwakuche’s stated solutions to prison congestion are sensible. But they need to be put into effect before the desired results can be realised.  The old issue won’t go away without effective execution of these plans.

  • Kano: Sour grapes or looming blast?

    Kano: Sour grapes or looming blast?

    Only time will tell if sacked Secretary to the Kano State Government (SSG), Abdullahi Baffa Bichi, indeed has an ace up his sleeves or he was making an empty boast in bitterness over his displacement from the nexus of power in Kano.

    Bichi lately threatened to release evidence that will expose those he described as betrayers in the state. He didn’t name names. But you needn’t be a genius to know he was talking about his former principal, State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, and other potentates in the ruling New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) including Yusuf’s mentor and former state governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.

    The axe fell on Bichi in December 2024 with his removal by Governor Yusuf as SSG, along with the governor’s Chief of Staff (CoS) and five commissioners. Erstwhile Commissioner for Culture and Tourism Ladidi Garko returned as Head of Civil Service Commission, while sacked CoS Shehu Wada Sagagi returned as Commissioner for Commerce and Industry. There was no such reprieve for the SSG.

    Bichi’s troubles predated his sack as SSG in December. His strained relationship  with Governor Yusuf and the NNPP establishment came to light with his suspension from the party in October 2024 along with then Transportation Commissioner Muhammad Diggol. In announcing their suspension, State NNPP Chairman Hashimu Dungurawa said the measure followed multiple complaints the party received from leaderships at the ward and council levels of the party. “The party cannot tolerate actions that undermine its leadership and structure,” he noted.

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    Shorn of political diplomatese, Bichi was accused of being the arrowhead of a movement that sought the governor’s independence from Kwankwaso’s overbearing mentorship. As a frontliner in the Kwankwasiyya movement, he played a pivotal role in the 2023 poll that brought Yusuf in as Kano governor. But he apparently overreached with his crusade for Yusuf’s independence.

    In his first public comment since removal as SSG, Bichi accused state leaders of betrayal and deceit. In a viral video clip that showed him addressing supporters upon his return from Saudi Arabia, he said: “I’m happy I left office in peace. I am done with the work in good faith; but this is not the best time to talk, even though I have documents, videos and voice notes that will show everyone who they really are. At the right time, we will expose them.” The former SSG added: “God crossed our path with people who are not trustworthy. The time will come when we will bring things out for people to hear and understand who they are. They are not to be trusted, they don’t know anything but deceit and betrayal.”

    Bichi’s threat fuelled speculations as to whether another political storm would shortly break out in Kano. Only time will tell he isn’t a defused political force just idly grandstanding.

  • Beyond revived refineries

    Beyond revived refineries

    There has been understandable excitement, especially in Nigerian government circles, about the reported revival of the state-owned Port Harcourt and Warri oil refineries, which had been inoperative for years.

    In November 2024, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited announced that it had revived the 60,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Harcourt refinery in the Niger Delta. Last month, the company said it had resumed some operations at its 125,000 bpd Warri refinery, also located in the Niger Delta, which was shut down in 2015.  Its boss, Mele Kyari, said: “This plant is running. We have not completed 100 percent.”

    The country’s oil problems had been partly blamed on the four inactive state-owned refineries with a combined capacity of 445,000 bpd, including the 110,000 bpd Kaduna plant in the north and another one in Port Harcourt with a capacity of 150,000 bpd.

    However, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) put a dampener on the euphoria over the revived refineries, demanding that Kyari should “account for and explain the whereabouts of the alleged missing N825bn and $2.5bn meant for refinery rehabilitation and other oil revenues,” based on a 2021 annual report by the Auditor-General of the Federation, which raised concerns about the NNPCL’s management of public funds.

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    In a letter to Kyari, dated January 4, 2025, SERAP urged him to provide explanations. The letter also mentioned other alleged financial irregularities, including over N343bn deducted from crude sales for pipeline maintenance, N83.66bn withdrawn from a sinking fund account, and more than N204bn in unexplained deductions from oil royalties in 2021. Also, the referenced Auditor-General’s report included discrepancies in outstanding bridging allowances, royalties, and revenues.

    Copies of the letter were reported to have been sent to President Bola Tinubu; Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila; Attorney General Lateef Fagbemi; Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Chairman Musa Aliyu; Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Olanipekun Olukoyede; and the Chairpersons of the Public Accounts Committees of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

    SERAP has drawn attention to weighty matters. This is not only a case of public funds allegedly mismanaged by the NNPCL’s leadership; it is also about the consequences. The group observed that mismanagement of public funds “has undermined Nigeria’s economic development, trapped the majority of Nigerians in poverty, and deprived them of opportunities.”

    The excitement about the revived refineries must not distract the anti-corruption agencies from investigating these allegations.

  • Travel blues heralds Trump

    Travel blues heralds Trump

    If you haven’t thought of it, entry into the United States portends a tough hurdle from January 20th when Donald Trump takes oath upon his second coming to the White House. Universities across the U.S. are braced for travel ban and have advised foreign students to return early from Winter break and ahead of Spring semester, just so they are on campus before the incoming president assumes office.

    Many international students were stranded abroad when Trump imposed a travel ban at the start of his first administration in 2017. Ahead of his return now, he has been fierce in anti-immigration rhetoric. Actions he promised to take include a travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries and revocation of student visas of “radical anti-American and anti-Semitic foreigners.”

    Cornell University advised  students traveling abroad to return before the January 21st commencement of Spring semester or “communicate with an advisor about your travel plans and be prepared for delays.” The school added in a memo by its Office of Global Learning late last year: “A travel ban is likely to go into effect soon after inauguration. The ban is likely to include citizens of the countries targeted in the first Trump administration: Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Sudan, Tanzania, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen and Somalia. New countries could be added to this list, particularly China and India.”

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    University of Southern California, in an email, advised foreign students to be back in the U.S. one week before Trump’s White House return, saying “one or more executive orders impacting travel…and visa processing” may be issued. “While there’s no certainty such orders will be issued, the safest way to avoid any challenges is to be physically present in the U.S. before Spring semester begins on January 13, 2025,” USC Office of International Service said in a report on its student media site.

    Shortly after the presidential election in the U.S. last November, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) assured students it would not release immigration status or related information in confidential student records “without a judicial warrant, a subpoena, a court order, or as otherwise required by law.” Its Center for Immigration Law and Policy said: “The university also has a strict policy that generally prevents campus police from undertaking joint efforts with federal immigration enforcement or detaining people at the federal government’s request.”

    The fever may seem rather far away in America. But there’s every reason to be interested in Nigeria because a recent U.S. government report named Nigeria as the seventh largest source of foreign students globally in that country, and the largest from Africa. When Trump imposed expanded travel bans in his first administration, it took Joe Biden’s ascendancy to revoke those bans in 2021. The tough sheriff is back in town. Compatriots should brace up.

  • Prison lessons

    Prison lessons

    Segun Olowookere, who controversially spent 14 years on death row before he was recently pardoned by Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke, drew attention to prison conditions in the country in an interview published after his release.

    He was sentenced to death and life imprisonment for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and robbery with firearms, and to three years imprisonment for stealing. But the popular narrative that he was given a death sentence for stealing fowls ultimately led to pardon by the governor.   

    He was in Ilesa prison, Osun State, “throughout the trial of the case.” After the judgment, he was moved to Ibara Prison, Abeokuta, Ogun State. He was later moved to Kirikiri Maximum Prison in Lagos, in 2016.

    Importantly, the police and the Nigerian Correctional Service need to learn lessons from the interview. He said: “I will advise the police to be responsible and civil in discharging their duties…The police should try as much as possible to investigate thoroughly and weigh the level of offence before rushing to try suspects in court.

    “Police should also prioritise reforming suspects with minor offences instead of sending them to prison to meet hardened criminals who will make their lives complicated. I have seen a lot of instances where those who went to jail on trumped-up charges and minor crimes became hardened criminals after they left prison.”  He added: “Police and courts should consider the implications of throwing minors and small offenders into prison.”

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    According to him, “The major challenge was congestion. There were too many people inside a limited space. Because of the population, 50 inmates would occupy a room that should naturally contain a maximum of 10 people. We sleep like fishes packed in a carton because everywhere is measured for us. As an inmate, a space is measured for you to sleep because of congestion.” 

    He also claimed that “many innocent people are languishing in prisons,” saying, “One of the innocent souls inside the prison is Seun, a young boy like me from Ekiti. He said he went to join his bricklayer brothers on site after school so they would all return home together on the day he was arrested by the police, who claimed that they were responsible for a robbery case in the area.

    “He was 15 years old when he was arrested. They kept him in a juvenile home till he clocked 18 before he was tried and sentenced to death by hanging. There is another case of someone who was convicted of receiving a stolen generator; he has been in custody since 1999 till now. Many things are happening inside the prison.”