The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • A wing, a ladder and a prayer

    Hardball has determined that the wing is a huge, rich, metaphor. A wing, of course, is simply that device for flying. Well maybe we may take liberty to define it as a supernatural implement if only for the reason that floating in the air is by itself, a near divine art. What are birds without wings by the way?

    And what about the big birds; the big, huge, iron birds popularly known as aircraft; you must have noticed the grand majesty of their wings? Without discounting the propeller or the engines of an aircraft, it can safely be said that wings are the ‘soul’ of any aircraft – in a manner of speaking. In the first place, a plane devoid of its wings will be shaped like a canoe – a tubular canoe.

    If wings are integral to the plane, you would think ladders have no place in this huge flying machine isn’t it? Well, wrong. A plane without a ladder (known as stairways in aviation parlance) is as good as a grounded plane. Now, because of the sheer size and height of large aircraft, motorised stairways have been ‘invented’. Soon as a plane lands and is marshalled to a resting position, the stairway is driven through the tarmac and sidled to the door of the plane to help passengers disembark.

    Of course, it is different for small craft as their door-cum stairways are simply flipped out for passengers to exit. But it is near impossible for passengers to disembark a large plane where there is no motorised stairway on the ground to help.

    And let us conjecture for a while: should your plane land your destination airport and by a certain inexplicable malady, the ground staff cannot manage to ‘mobilise’ a motorised stairway to help you get off the plane, what would you do? You are left with either: a) taking a dive; which could well be a plunge to death; b) returning back from whence you came or c) using a ladder to clamber out of the plane.

    Passengers on board a chartered flight to Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa International Airport, Bauchi, recently, were faced with this devil’s alternative. It happened that it was a wedding train; it also happened that the groom was also on board and the ceremony was to commence in a matter of minutes. To return to Abuja when they were already on Bauchi soil was out of the question. To jump would be suicidal folly, so option ‘C’ came quite handy: a ladder, a ladder!

    Yes, the common, wooden ladder made popular by Nigerian electricians who go up electric poles to tangle and untangle wires for a fee. It was the ladder that came to the rescue of those hapless passengers who unknown to them enacted a feat fit for the Guinness book of Records. The world watched them come down a plane with a wooden ladder!

    It must be a first for Nigeria and the ‘innovative’ and ‘proactive’ content of that act must not be overlooked. Supposing someone did not have the rare intuition to remember the ladder alternative? Supposing the Fire Service wasn’t smart enough to keep ladders…? Those passengers would have been flying only on a wing and a prayer with no option of disembarkation!

  • New office, new car

    Why Senate President Bukola Saraki needs new cars to go with his new position needs to be explained to a sceptical public. In a statement on December 13, Senate spokesperson Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi said:  ”With respect to the official vehicles of the Senate president, it should be noted that the majority of the vehicles in his convoy are his personal vehicles, while some of the vehicles that he inherited, including his official vehicles and the backup car, are so old that they are developing fault and not fit for long journeys. We can recall that on several occasions, his official car broke down. Three instances will suffice here. I remember on a visit to Nasarawa State for a wedding of the daughter of a colleague. Other occasions were at the National Mosque three weeks ago and at the Abuja airport.”

    If Saraki’s official cars keep breaking down, as Abdullahi claimed, it raises the question whether the cars also performed poorly when they were being used by the former Senate president, Senator David Mark. If so, why did Mark not make changes? Or is it that the cars were good enough for Mark?

    Abdullahi continued: “The implication is that the vehicles in his official convoy are so old that they are causing embarrassment for the Senate. The media should know that a man of his antecedent will not at this point be excited with new cars. His official cars are overdue for replacement.”

    He also said of the move to buy new cars for the Senate’s committees: “For those who may want to find out what happened to the ones bought in the past, we cannot expect that after four years, the vehicles will still be in the condition to effectively serve the present committees. The best practice in government institutions and even private organisations is for official vehicles allocated to top officials after four years of use to be sold at the depreciated value.”

    What must be done must be done, Abdullahi argued. It didn’t matter what getting new cars for Saraki and others would cost the country. That is the cost of high office. According to him, “we have been very frugal, responsive and responsible in our spending.  We have also cut down on several expenses. However, there are certain expenses and purchases that are normal in government and any organisation. The legislature is not an exception.”

    When “expenses and purchases” considered “normal” in government appear abnormal to the public, then it is time to reconsider the social contract. Insensitivity to the public’s idea of normalcy is not a legislative virtue.

  • Blue, blue Christmas

    This is certainly Christmas with a difference. Even the harmattan winds from the Sahara Desert timed its advent almost perfectly to the first day of December. It came with an unusual vengeance purveying dusty, dry wind and much cold. It could well be a harbinger of a dreary augury. It blew without letting up, seeming to emphasis the tough times pervading the polity.

    Because it’s Christmas, the hard times have come in the beautiful colours of the season – virgin red, original green and snow white. These bright colors struggles to subdue the dark incubus that seeks to cast a pall on the polity.

    The only good news around here is the strained sounds of Christmas wafting reluctantly from equally reluctant sources. It just happens that Christmas is irrepressible otherwise someone would have outlawed it or reconfigured it or at least, change it colors to black, grey and a hue of dross. But Christmas is universal and transcendental; it surely defies all human weaknesses and foibles.

    It may be for these reasons that the many troubles besetting Nigeria and Nigerians seem to stand aside at this moment as the people of Niger area join the rest of the world in singing alleluyah to the King. Not many compatriots seem to fret too much about the fuel scarcity that has lingered across the country for over two months. Not only that it is scarce, the pump price has increased sharply to between N100 to N150 per litre.

    It had been predicted that the scarcity would last till Christmas but the authorities in charge had no fresh responce than to discountenance the warnings and disparage the messengers. We have enough fuel to last till January, was the retort of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. The marketers are hoarders; they are saboteurs, was the refrain from those who ought to have given a deep thought to the looming crisis. Commandeer fuel stations of hoarders, confiscate and discharge fuel freely was the command. But it did not work.

    Economics 101: demand and supply. A constriction in supply would automatically cause a dis-equilibrium in the market which also triggers panic buying, storing and even warehousing. The scarcity has lingered till Christmas day and is poised to overflow into the new-year and beyond.

    The so-called petroleum marketers may have suspended importation after collecting a hefty chunk of N413 billion from the federal government, leaving the country in the lurch. NNPC should have seen this coming; a phased deregulation should have commenced as the crude prices continued to slide. Subsidy had long become a nullity because it had fallen to levels tolerable to consumers. So why not throw it open to anyone who can afford to import while frantic effort is made to build new refineries by which ever means.

    It’s a bazaar out there with marketer selling at discretionary prices – some more than double their purchase prices. Queues cause excruciating traffic on major city roads; power supply continues to waver. Gas suppliers seem to be giving to the highest bidders instead of power plants; naira has fallen to an all time low and foreign exchange is as scarce as dry season crab.

    Truly a blue Christmas for Nigerians.

  • Military justice

    “Twelve soldiers were convicted in September 2014 and sentenced to death by a court-martial for demanding weapons when the General Officer Commanding, the 7th Division of the Nigerian Army, visited a military camp in the war zone while 58 others were convicted and sentenced to death in December by another court-martial for demanding weapons to fight the insurgents. Therefore, the number of soldiers who were sentenced to death by the two court-martials is 70 and not 66.”

    That was Lagos activist lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) clarifying the information released by Army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman on December 19 about the number of soldiers whose mutiny-related death sentences were commuted to imprisonment.

    Apart from the confusing detail concerning the number of soldiers involved, more confusing is the decision by the military authorities to impose 10-year jail terms on the previously condemned men despite exonerating evidence.

    Although the outrageous corruption-related narrative emanating from the office of the former National Security Adviser in the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, Sambo Dasuki, is still unfolding, there is already enough information to show that the soldiers being punished do not deserve punishment.

    Those who ought to be punished are the crooks who stole public funds, using the anti-terror war against Boko Haram as a cover. The multi-billion arms scam and the alleged scammers making the news at this time are at the heart of the Jonathan administration’s failure to defeat the Islamist terrorists who have been on the rampage in the country’s Northeast since 2009.

    Apart from the huge number of mortalities linked with the insurgency, and the huge figures of internally displaced persons, the yet-to-be-resolved kidnap of 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, over a year ago, remains a huge open wound on the country’s conscience.

    It was an open secret in the Jonathan presidential era that people in power ironically fuelled the Boko Haram insurgency by fraudulent acts. The anti-terror war became a pro-terror effort because of the weakening of state-capacity by government officials expected to win the war. Under the Jonathan administration, the image of the Nigerian military appeared irredeemable as it battled unimpressively and unconvincingly against terrorism.

    Now the world knows the terror war was kept going and had to be kept going to keep the fraudulent actors going.  So, the mutinous soldiers have been vindicated. Their ultimate vindication would come when they are not made to pay for the sins of others. Or is military justice inflexibly and unfairly different?

  • Ladoja and the runway of Oyo politics

    THE concept of the beautiful bride has always made politics into the vanity of a runway, where voters, intriguers, bigwigs and go-getters duel. The beauty on the runway is aware of his or her value and plays the coquette with dexterity. In politics though, the beauty is often male and his appeal has less to do with curves and leggy strides. Except, of course, the curves of political manoeuvres.

    Sometimes, the bride, like a true model on a runway, ought to be aware when her appeal wanes, and the curves lose lustre and an alternative pulchritude is on offer. That is when the beauty shows more humility than usual and concedes when she normally snorts with contempt.

    Such beauty contest is a fare in Oyo State politics. And the person playing the beauty on Oyo State runway is Rashidi Ladoja. The snag though is that, normally with his looks, Ladoja will not even appear if it were a runway for Adonis, with all the demands of biceps and bass. But he played the bride and the incumbent governor, Abiola Ajimobi, deferred to the meretricious allure of the so-called balancer in Oyo politics.

    Recently, there were hints that Ladoja rose to the wisdom of his diminishing beauty in Oyo politics, and was flirting with the possibility of a romantic embrace between his Accord Party, or AP, and the then Action Congress of Nigeria, or ACN. This was after the election tribunal ruled against the AP’s Ladoja who had challenged Ajimobi’s victory at the polls. Even the politician of crude glamour, Adebayo Alao-Akala, who seemed to have swivelled to the reigning party after his star expired in the state, knew the beauty had lost his bridal qualities.

    So, when the Court of Appeal also ruled in Ajimobi’s favour, Alao-Akala asked the fading beauty named Ladoja to come to the light. Hear hm: “ I am appealing to my brother, Senator Ladoja and others to join us and work together with us instead of going from Appeal Court to the Supreme Court.”

    But Ladoja is still playing the beauty whose graces now belong to a past. He was governor once, and he still rides the false high horse of His Excellency when that era has gone. When Ajimobi became governor, he extended his hands of friendship with the beauty. After a few coquettish strides, he allowed himself an embrace and became a partner with Ajimobi, who in a few years etched his name in the infrastructure history of the state.

    But beauty felt he wanted more, although his own brother was commissioner and had quite a few others in the executive council as commissioners and special advisers. Ladoja started to undermine Ajimobi in public in the hope that he was amassing a structure that would win in 2015. No dice, though. He lost. Again.

    He still wants to go to the Supreme Court after falling twice. The beauty still does not know that the hurrah has passed, and he still relies on flatteries as well as the diminishing bank rollers of his runway dreams.

    The beauty has faded. Everyone knows except the beauty himself.

  • The ‘exceptional’ columnist

    A simple but profound Igbo adage has a queer manner of relating the saying: “Enough is Enough.” It says it to the effect that when a matter or an occurrence gets too overwhelming or sinister, we must point at it. It is not clear from the expression what the motive of our elders was in pointing at the matter. Could it be to draw attention to it; to repudiate it or perhaps to cast a spell on it? Whatever the case may be, the very act of pointing at something ominous and foreboding is in itself an enactment of valour.

    Hardball is therefore of the opinion that time has come to point to the weekly column of a certain Femi Aribisala published in Vanguard  every Tuesday. Yes, he has indeed made a reputation for himself as a controversial columnist who seems to love to hold extreme views.

    In fact his views rub against the grain so much they hurt like the sharp cut of the razor. Sometimes some wonder whether Mr. Aribisala truly means what he writes or he is just kidding. His support for the former President Goodluck Jonathan would make a case study in the art of intellectual endorsement for a candidate in a major election.

    Of course, he is entitled to his views and standpoints. One can even grant a columnist some spell of propaganda especially of the subtle and intellectualised type. They are his prerogative so long as they are within the bounds of decency and journalism ethos.

    But Hardball posits that Mr. Aribisala’s views are designed perhaps to damage the mind. His thoughts are often obdurate and at variance with edifying national sentiment.

    His last piece (Vanguard, Tuesday, December 15, 2015) comes particularly insensitive and raises a lot of questions in the minds of compatriots of goodwill. Titled: “Goodluck Jonathan was an exceptional president”, it is an extension of some of the electioneering sing-songs he rendered early in the year. Now that the elections have been won and lost, it would be expected that all sword would be sheathed and we all return to making the best of our mother land.

    In the face of the current revelation of large scale pillaging of the treasury during the administration of President Jonathan, one would expect all compatriots to work in tandem to see that our looted treasure is restored. But not Mr Aribisala; hear him: “Thanks to Jonathan, agriculture now accounts for 22 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, more than oil and gas which only account for 15.9 per cent. Under Jonathan, Nigeria recorded more than 50 per cent reduction in food imports… With the innovation of dry season farming, Nigeria reached 60 per cent self-sufficiency in rice production…? Where is the rice, where is the food?

    He says the ongoing investigation of public officials is a witch hunt of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but what is his take on the billions of dollars being revealed? Is Mr. Aribisala not troubled that so much money was removed in cash from our apex bank? As an Oxford alumnus, which other country has he heard that $2 billion cash is taken from the apex bank? Would he rather this grand thievery is not probed?

    Where is the public consciousness of an intellectual- columnist that Aribisala supposedly is. He is indeed an exceptional columnist!

  • Put your money where your mouth is

    This year’s World AIDS Day on December 1 was a time to tell the country’s three tiers of government a few home truths. At an event to mark the occasion in Abuja, the National Agency for AIDS Control (NACA) accused the political authorities of abandoning the treatment and intervention programmes on HIV/AIDS.  The United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAID) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), which are international agencies, also lent their voices to what may be described as a campaign to make the country’s political leaders demonstrate greater sensitivity to HIV/ AIDS.

    The grim picture is that three million people are living with HIV in Nigeria and only 800,000 are on treatment. NACA Director of Policy and Strategy, Alex Ogundipe, was quoted as saying: “Nigeria has left HIV treatment and interventions in the hand of donors. It is not right and that is why we are unable to provide the response to everybody that should be on treatment right now. Local governments should see people that are positive as those who can still contribute to this country’s development and provide them the best health care services.”

    UNAID Country Director Dr. Bilali Camara’s comments were more pointed: “It is not that donor partners are abandoning HIV response in Nigeria, but they are tired and want to see the Nigerian government do more on their own in response to HIV. Somebody who is coming to help you with your own issue, you need to demonstrate to that person that you are also concerned and you are putting resources in it.”

    Against this backdrop, the HIV elimination target might just be a fantasy. “Getting to Zero: Ending HIV/AIDS by 2030” is easier said than done, given the circumstances described by representatives of NACA, UNAID and WHO.

    For the avoidance of doubt, Dr. Camara was clear enough about the path to follow. He said: “This means investing in the issue and we are calling on the Nigerian government to do more and see how it can match the international resources coming into this country with local response. This will trigger an impactful response which can end the HIV epidemic by 2030.”  It is curious that, to go by the information, the country is behaving as if foreigners should carry the HIV burden of its citizens at home. Of course, that is unrealistic. It goes without saying that the onus is on the country’s leaders to fill the identified major gaps in the response to HIV/AIDS.  This is a case where lip service will not work. What will work is: Put your money where your mouth is.

     

     

  •  Nothing but pests

    It sounded and looked like giving trouble another name. The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) is trouble, isn’t it? This separatist group has been in the news for negative reasons. So, when its leader, Ralph Uwazuruike, announced its reinvention, the information didn’t suggest any less trouble.

    Uwazuruike, on December 6, unveiled his group’s new identity during a meeting of its zonal and regional administrators. “Old members will now belong to the new Biafra Independent Movement (BIM) while the MASSOB structure will be reorganised as the youth wing of the Biafra struggle,” Uwazuruike said. In other words, the struggle is still alive, but will be carried on under a redesigned banner.

    The group’s name wasn’t the only thing that changed. Uwazuruike also took a new title.  According to a report: “He said he would be referred to as Biafra leader instead of MASSOB leader, as he was previously known, noting that the metamorphosis was in line with laid down plans for the actualisation of Biafra.” By calling himself Biafra leader, did Uwazuruike mean that Biafra was already a reality, and no longer an objective?

    As background, it is noteworthy that a faction of MASSOB led by Uchenna Madu had expelled Uwazuruike for alleged financial misappropriation. Madu was the Director of Information under Uwazuruike in the old power structure.

    The complexion of the conflict was obvious following Uwazuruike’s allegation that Madu got money from the Federal Government to stop the pro-Biafra protests. In response, a statement by MASSOB’s Secretary, Ugwuoke Ibem, attacked Uwazuruike and threatened to expose his “atrocities, sabotage and deviation from Biafra’s actualiastion”.

    The statement said: “As the closest officer to the former leader as well as the image maker, our new leader has vowed to expose Uwazuruike’s dealings with the Federal Government under Jonathan; Ezu River case, death of Innocent Ogbuehi (ex-Umuahia MASSOB leader), and other illicit affairs.”  It added: “MASSOB, under Madu, will continue its non-violent agitation with other pro-Biafra groups.”

    How many pro-Biafra groups exist today?  This question is pertinent in the light of developments concerning what may be tagged “The Biafra Project”. Whatever the number of such groups, they spell trouble, don’t they?

    The truth is that problems arising from the country’s imperfect federalism may not necessarily be resolved by separatist impulses. Disunity among the various pro-Biafra groups is sufficient to show that. Rather than heating up the polity, wouldn’t it be more constructive if these agitators shed the toga of trouble? Or do they just enjoy being branded as troublemakers? Of course, that is a way of saying they are nothing but pests.

  • Fayose: In his usual fashion

    Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose chose to dress down and was dressed down. He was dressed in a pair of Jeans trousers and a T-shirt when he appeared at the House of Assembly to present the Appropriation Bill on December 8.

    “The world watched in disbelief as Fayose stormed the House of Assembly in casual dress,” said a statement by the Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Taiwo Olatunbosun. He described the governor’s dressing as “uncultured”, adding that it “defies decorum.”

    In response, the House Committee Chairman on Information, Gboyega Aribisogan, reportedly wondered: “And what has what Governor Fayose wears got to do with governance?” His defence of Fayose was perhaps predictable. They are both members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which is in power in the state. The defender also wondered why the opposition “turned themselves into Governor Fayose’s advisers on mode of dressing and public presentation.”

    So, Fayose’s informal dressing was considered appropriate for a formal ceremony by those who don’t understand the idea of “dressing properly for the occasion”.

    The APC’s statement continued: “More shocks came when the governor grabbed the gavel and started conducting a mock sitting. The worst was the quality of English by the governor who said: ‘those who doesn’t support the quick passage of the budget should say ‘Aye’ or ‘Nay’, to which both gallery and members hooted ‘Aye’.”

    Fayose’s dramatic use of a gavel to symbolically “pass” the budget into law after presenting the proposal to the lawmakers amounted to “a breach of protocol,” the party said. The governor’s action was described as a “flagrant disregard of the rule of law and constituted authority”. According to the APC, it “violates law and order and abuses power”.   This account sounded exaggerated. But Aribisogan’s reaction appeared to corroborate it.   Speaking on behalf of the 26-member House of Assembly controlled by the PDP, he told journalists in Ado-Ekiti that the lawmakers owed their positions to Fayose.  He was quoted as saying: “Is it our fault that the APC does not have a single member in the House of Assembly? … The reality that those in the APC must face is that if they are waiting for us to confront Governor Fayose on issues of governance, they will wait till eternity.”

    This hero worship must explain not only Fayose’s superiority complex, but also the legislators’ inferiority complex. The picture shows a little tin god and men of straw.

  • Hardball too wants to fall ‘sick’

    Ah, little did we know that our affairs were being run by infirm people, or people who are sick or sick people if you prefer. It all depends on the light through which you look at the matter. Of course you understand what Hardball is getting at: how come any member of the immediate past regime who is called upon to give account of his stewardship immediately ‘acquires’ some serious high profile ailment and either bolts abroad if he can or inveigles us as to his right to being innocent and his entitlements to his ‘loot’ until the courts pronounce him otherwise?

    The list is long and it keeps growing. First is the former queen of pearls who held the country by the scrotum (and you may take that literally if you are so minded) and who could have definitely risen to be the first Goddess of the Niger (as in Prince of the Niger, if you understand that) if her regime had subsisted. Her story seems like the ultimate revenge against her traducers. Let’s just say: well.

    There is also the golden-haired boy of the fallen regime who was lord of lords over the creek warlords. He almost single-handedly disbursed what we may take liberty to term, ‘amnesty billions’ as if money was fetched from the creeks of the Niger Delta. He had sneaked out as soon as the bubble burst and generally mixed with the crowd out there in a foreign land. He would hope to hell that Hardball and indeed, entire Nigerians get afflicted with an irreversible bout of amnesia. Well.

    They are quite a clan now, a large community of Nigeria’s ‘Medical Invalids’ of the Politically Exposed Kind (MIPEK). What about the latest member of that special breed, the anti-graft czar who could have been grafted into his job. Nobody yet can tell how he ‘escaped’ from our shores or when. He had disguised like a Beninois dowager exploring the West Coast under the shadow of the night.

    That must have been a sight indeed to overwhelm the Customs men because he is quite a voluptuous man, if we can take one more liberty. Call him the anti-corruption czar who zapped. Describe him as a multiple contradiction and he fits. Hardball knew him to have grown on the job – in a manner of speaking. Or better put, he bloated on the job. Coming on as a trim and fit police officer built to chase down the big thieves, he soon grew bigger than them all. He recently sneaked off to an extended medical check-up abroad.

    Another member of the clan, the former security czar has not been so lucky. He almost bullied his way through, using the courts. He almost pulled a $2billion wool over our eyes, but that was too much wool to fool around with without getting entangled.

    Now that falling sick is hip, Hardball too wants to go for medical escape-ade abroad; he feels wheezy with all these big figures flying around his head and all he asks for is to be arrested and his passport seized so that he too can belong to the in-crowd. Is that too much to ask?