The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Going home tonight? Pray and fast

    Traveller, you must set out/ At dawn,” counselled Wole Soyinka, poet and Nobel laureate, “And wipe your feet upon/ the dog-nose wetness of the earth.”

    Though the protagonist in the poem, ‘Death in the Dawn’ died in a tragic crash, a cruel irony of technology consuming its own creator, the message was clear: set out early and you should reach your destination in time.

    In the Lagos traffic of latter days, however, such commonsense logic would appear to have vamoosed. You may set out early or late; but you must arrive late — very late.  That is why you must not only vigorously pray before leaving your office at the close of work, fasting — dry fasting too — might not be a bad idea!

    Hardball is guilty of arrant exaggeration, right?  Just wait.

    On November 3, two colleagues left The Nation’s Matori, Mushin, Lagos head office, after work.  One, a female, left around 8pm. The other, a male, left around 10pm. The destination of both: Journalists Estate, at Arepo, which though in Ogun State, is on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. If you discount the normal Lagos metropolitan traffic, that trip should last less than one hour.

    But on this day?  The one that left at 8pm reached her house at about 2:10 am — solid six hours later. If she was flying to London from Lagos, she probably would be touching down at Heathrow!

    And the one that left at 10?  Marginally luckier — but just: he got home at about 3am, another solid five hours!  If he was travelling to Accra, Ghana from Lagos, he would have touched down at Kotoka International Airport, at 10:45 and hit his hotel, latest by 11:30. By 3am, he would have had no less than three hours of sound and sweet sleep! Yet, here he was, sweating it out on a jammed road, in a dark night, in the midst of a swearing, angry and cursing stranded co-commuters, in the middle of nowhere!

    You still feel one doesn’t need prayers and fasting to commute to his house, after another hard day’s work?

    But what is it with our country — does Nigeria have so much time to burn on nothingness? Why didn’t somebody somewhere monitor things and take prompt action before they fester beyond measure and inflict on people needless pains?

    The gridlock is said to have been caused by some bad parts on the ever-busy expressway.  But then, the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) have their road camps all over the place.  Didn’t their engineers spot a minor rupture on that road, grow into a pothole and extend into a crater, so much so that a three-lane traffic now contracts into a bottle-neck of one, causing that hideous traffic snarl?  Must citizens suffer and die (yes, die: because the stress these avoidable gridlocks inflict could cause some citizens fatal ailments) before the authorities act?

    That portion of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway falls within Ogun territory. But even all over Lagos, bad roads abound. Just after the NAFDAC Lagos office at Oshodi, heading towards Agege Motor Road, is a crater from which many articulated trucks and tankers have stumbled.  Yet, that crater gapes as wide as ever, like some wide-mouthed malevolent god, waiting to swallow its latest victim!

    How long will citizens continue to endure such avoidable pains?  Someone, somewhere must sit up — and fast!

  • Going home tonight? Pray and fast!

    Traveller, you must set out/ At dawn,” counselled Wole Soyinka, poet and Nobel laureate, “And wipe your feet upon/ the dog-nose wetness of the earth.”

    Though the protagonist in the poem, ‘Death in the Dawn’ died in a tragic crash, a cruel irony of technology consuming its own creator, the message was clear: set out early and you should reach your destination in time.

    In the Lagos traffic of latter days, however, such commonsense logic would appear to have vamoosed. You may set out early or late; but you must arrive late — very late.  That is why you must not only vigorously pray before leaving your office at the close of work, fasting — dry fasting too — might not be a bad idea!

    Hardball is guilty of arrant exaggeration, right?  Just wait.

    On November 3, two colleagues left The Nation’s Matori, Mushin, Lagos head office, after work.  One, a female, left around 8pm. The other, a male, left around 10pm. The destination of both: Journalists Estate, at Arepo, which though in Ogun State, is on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. If you discount the normal Lagos metropolitan traffic, that trip should last less than one hour.

    But on this day?  The one that left at 8pm reached her house at about 2:10 am — solid six hours later. If she was flying to London from Lagos, she probably would be touching down at Heathrow!

    And the one that left at 10?  Marginally luckier — but just: he got home at about 3am, another solid five hours!  If he was travelling to Accra, Ghana from Lagos, he would have touched down at Kotoka International Airport, at 10:45 and hit his hotel, latest by 11:30. By 3am, he would have had no less than three hours of sound and sweet sleep! Yet, here he was, sweating it out on a jammed road, in a dark night, in the midst of a swearing, angry and cursing stranded co-commuters, in the middle of nowhere!

    You still feel one doesn’t need prayers and fasting to commute to his house, after another hard day’s work?

    But what is it with our country — does Nigeria have so much time to burn on nothingness? Why didn’t somebody somewhere monitor things and take prompt action before they fester beyond measure and inflict on people needless pains?

    The gridlock is said to have been caused by some bad parts on the ever-busy expressway.  But then, the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) have their road camps all over the place.  Didn’t their engineers spot a minor rupture on that road, grow into a pothole and extend into a crater, so much so that a three-lane traffic now contracts into a bottle-neck of one, causing that hideous traffic snarl?  Must citizens suffer and die (yes, die: because the stress these avoidable gridlocks inflict could cause some citizens fatal ailments) before the authorities act?

    That portion of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway falls within Ogun territory. But even all over Lagos, bad roads abound. Just after the NAFDAC Lagos office at Oshodi, heading towards Agege Motor Road, is a crater from which many articulated trucks and tankers have stumbled.  Yet, that crater gapes as wide as ever, like some wide-mouthed malevolent god, waiting to swallow its latest victim!

    How long will citizens continue to endure such avoidable pains?  Someone, somewhere must sit up — and fast!

  • Afenifere: A parting shot

    IT was a resignation letter that revealed more than it stated about the state of Afenifere, usually described as a “pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation.” The group’s octogenarian leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, said: “Considering my age, efforts and selfless dedication to my country, my state (Ondo), my parties, my past leaders and members in Afenifere in Nigeria and the Diaspora, I inform you all that I have decided to step aside as leader of Afenifere.”

    The November 1 letter provided historically, useful information. According to Fasoranti, the organisation “was formed in 1951 under the leadership of our leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo…to serve as an umbrella to be used to actualise the dream of a great nation and the Yoruba.”

    He said: “Over the years, the Yoruba have tried to focus on a common goal.”

    If this goal of focusing “on a common goal” was not achieved under Fasoranti’s leadership, it should be understandable and excusable, the letter suggested.

    Fasoranti said: “Chief Awolowo tried to ensure the oneness of our people with a lot of efforts, notwithstanding the challenges he faced in the process. Unfortunately, he passed on without actualising this dream.”  In other words, if the legendary Awolowo failed, Fasoranti’s failure should be accommodated.

    Fasoranti added: “As events unfolded in the past years, the focus and goals of the founding fathers were gradually eroded. This made it a Herculean task for members to work in unity. Several efforts were made to ensure actualisation of our goals, but it appeared we have not succeeded. This is basically due to reasons best known to members.”

    Then he defended what must rank among the defining features of his time at the helm of the group. He sounded like a man who was trying to make clarifications for historical purposes. Fasoranti said: “Let me state clearly that the issue of adoption of the National Conference report had always been the focus and goal of our people in Afenifere even long before the National Conference was set up. The support of a leader who promised to implement this report was not a mistake and inevitable despite all public insinuations.”

    It was tragic enough that, under Fasoranti, Afenifere unapologetically backed the unprogressive and unpopular Goodluck Jonathan presidency. The tragedy is compounded by Fasoranti’s unapologetic stance, even after Jonathan’s electoral defeat by a progressive wind of change had exposed Afenifere’s political incorrectness.

    Fasoranti’s insistence that Afenifere’s romance with the Jonathan administration was politically correct, and his reason for the romance, reflected the diminution of the group’s political wisdom and its disconnection from the public mind.

  • Thy name is impunity

    THE poet, John Keats, said to his “Grecian Urn” in his “Ode”: “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know’”.

    Now, Hardball is no poet.  But if he can be allowed some poetic licence, he will without flinching, tell the wailing, bad-tempered and hurting former federal ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with due permission to ape the famous poet: “Brawn is impunity, impunity brawn, — that is all/Ye know in politics, and all ye need to know”!

    Since the PDP murderous electoral muscling has been falling, like some tragic dominoes, particularly in Rivers and Akwa Ibom states, the brawny PDP has developed a Samson syndrome, making insane accusations, reckless allegations and tarring everyone  in its crazed sight — and foaming in the mouth to boot!  Power’s Delilah has brought Samson to grief — and the defanged superman of yore would be glad everyone perished with him!

    Ah, the Yoruba are right!  In one of their endless wits, they often quip: the merry executioner  goes ga-ga with a mere swish of the sword near him!  So, it is with PDP.

    In its heyday of untrammelled power, it made it clear it owed no one any apology however it mercilessly spurred the people — rule of law be damned!  Now in opposition, it hurriedly assumes — and wails! — everyone embraces power outlawry, as it did in its notorious days in government. PDP, impunity is all you know on earth, and all you need to know!

    Take the Senate Rotimi Amaechi ministerial clearing drama, and compare (and contrast) to a similar clearing of Musiliu Obanikoro,  as minister again, in the final months of Goodluck Jonathan’s doomed presidency.

    Obanikoro, as minister of state for Defence, had been indicted in sucking the Army into brazen partisanship to rig the Ekiti gubernatorial election of 2014, courtesy of the scandalous Ekiti audio tapes.  When the ruling PDP rode roughshod over the opposition in the Senate, the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) walked out of the red chamber.

    Now, things have turned full circle — and it is PDP doing the walkout!  But that’s not even the story.  Amaechi, a minister-designate, has been accused of all sorts; but by a politicking local Rivers PDP, with a barely veiled motive to  unhorse who it rightly believes is its nemesis.  Hardly a crime!

    But it becomes democratically criminal when the minority PDP believes its lie that its poisoned chalice, of partisan gore, was pure and wholesome; and swears it is either others drank from it or …

    Excuse me!  Does PDP have the numbers to back its bluff?  Even if that sounds as a dictatorship of the majority — which  starkly, what democracy is, shorn of requisite morality and good faith — has PDP established the good faith of its own dubious crusade?

    Notorious fact: Rivers PDP electoral conduct — maiming and killing people to “win” election — crossed the border of bad politics (which is bad enough) to out-and-out evil and brazen criminality.  This heinous criminality triggered the fresh anti-Amaechi campaign from the Rivers PDP.  Yet, PDP would throw tantrums because no one — outside its tragic and deluded camp — was convinced of the earnestness of its claim.

    Lai Mohammed, PDP’s publicity nemesis, said it all: PDP, rebrand or die!  But how has PDP reacted?  With a rash of vulgar abuse and personal insults from Olisa ‘Janjaweed’ Metuh!

    But Alhaji Lai wastes his breath.  Impunity is what PDP knows, and all — it thinks — it needs to know!

  • Sanusi: When monarchy meets punditry

    Help, Hardball is confronted with a chicken and egg dilemma here! In the matter of his Royal Majesty, the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, one is at a loss as to what gives him the most pleasure: is it the monarchy as captured by the elaborate and colourful costume or high-end political and economic punditry delivered with mercurial flourish and earth-quaking effect?

    Well to play the devil’s advocate, why can’t the feisty monarch enjoy the best of many worlds? That is, why can’t he be a grand monarch and a bombastic pundit? Especially in a country that is both a fledgling democracy and an emerging economy; that is in dire need of such dual omniscience (or omniscient duality, if you like), such multi-pronged talent is rare and in short supply.

    But Hardball must counter this advocacy quickly in the sense that our serendipitous monarch will soon notice the tackiness, not to mention the encumbrances of changing quickly from the panoply of royal regalia into the western Keynesian mode of dark suits and bow tie.

    In the meantime, Emir Sanusi did what seems like his first love penultimate Friday. At an event in Lagos, Sanusi had let it fly. Like a thoroughly agitated bottle of champagne popped with gusto, Sanusi was at his best. He had hit mercilessly at the mangers of Nigeria’s economy telling them to quit living in denial and rescue the economy from suffering the fate of humpty-dumpty. The twin government policies of protecting the naira and allowing subsidy in petroleum products must be stopped henceforth, he roared.

    Hear him: “Does it make sense at this time for the government to continue paying petroleum subsidy? It does not, and we must say it…”

    And hear him on the naira: “ Let’s stop being in denial, we cannot artificially hold up the currency,” noting that President Muhammadu Buhari who has been resisting the weakening of the naira needs help on the economy.

    Here are a few more nuggets from, shall we call him the mundit? (when monarchy meets punditry): “When you need fiscal consolidation, when you cannot borrow, when you are not earning because oil prices are down, when you have shut down, especially those expense lines that have been known to the sights of those seeking rent. This fuel subsidy has to go.”

    Here is some more: “We spent years deceiving ourselves, calling ourselves the 21st biggest economy in the world based on something called rebasing. We said our debt to GDP ratio was 11 per cent and that our ratio looked very good. Yes we have a debt to GDP ratio of 11 per cent, but we were spending 33 per cent of government revenue servicing debts.”

    We all remember Sanusi as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) who first revealed to us that the Senate (National Assembly) was guzzling 25 per cent of the federal budget.

    Can we forget his epiphanic rifling of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that led to his tumultuous ouster from his high perch at the CBN? That whistle he blew continues to ring and reverberate through the polity. Those who thought either the stool or the ‘change’ would have mellowed him must have been jolted by his recent outing.

    Watch out, here comes the mundit!

  • ‘Aluta’ tutorials for Okopoly

    Hardball must confess to be most impressed by this report wafting out of Oko, in Anambra State; the community made famous in Nigeria by the fact that it is the hometown of former number two man in Nigeria, Dr. Alex Ekwueme. And Oko also boasts a Federal Polytechnic that Hardball would want to describe as ‘once precocious’.

    So why is Oko trending in Hardball-sphere? Well, last Friday, about 200 Oko women, reported to be largely in their 80s held Oko town spellbound and perhaps locked-down when they carried out what has been described as a spectacular protest march which would make student leaders green as well as rethink their activism strategies.

    The great grannies were quite methodical and most effective too: they had set off quite early, – 7 am. They started with prayers, did a procession to the gate of Oko Polytechnic, then to the palace of the traditional ruler where they also made prayers. They finally assembled at the town’s civic centre where they addressed the press and made closing prayers.

    Their grouse is that the institution, Oko Poly, which they claim to be the only federal ‘presence’ in the town had totally alienated the people with zero employment policy. They said standards have fallen in the school and the students are beleaguered with all sorts of fees. It seems, they claim, that the “Management is only interested in how to make money.”

    Quietly, unobtrusively, they made their point: “Our eyes are full of tears. We are crying because we are supposed to benefit from the institution, but the leadership is giving the impression that we do not have a stake here.” They urged the traditional ruler and President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene to forestall a possible breakdown of law and order.

    But Hardball is more concerned here about their method than message. These grand old grannies have just shown that effective protests need never have to be riotous and opprobrious. Unless of course a protest is designed to upset and cause mayhem, most of it is actually supposed to call attention of authorities and create public awareness to a particular plight. But often out of ignorance, protests go out of control and their purposes are defeated at the protest grounds.

    These old ladies have managed to make one damning point against the management of Okopoly and that is: don’t take your host community for granted. It’s ‘aluta’ with panache.

     

  • Citizen Ojo and the police

    “I was arrested concerning a story that went viral online, which involved the First Lady of Ogun State. The accusation against me was that I maligned the image and personality of the governor’s wife,” said blogger Emmanuel Ojo in an interview published on October 18. He described his arrest by the police in Ogun State as “a frightening experience.”

    Ojo’s words: “At Eleweran, I was assaulted by some men. There was a man in mufti that I can only identify as ‘Philosopher’; he said: ‘Do you know who you are dealing with in this matter? May God deliver you!’ And to that I responded, ‘Amen.’ Then, the next thing I heard was ‘gbam!’ a swift and hard slap on my face that left me almost urinating in my pants. There and then, I knew I was in real trouble. But that was not the only time I was physically assaulted and treated like a criminal by the policemen.”

    Ojo continued: “With the first statement written at Ibara apparently discarded, I was asked to write another statement. This time, the police were dictating to me what I should write in the statement, which I stoutly refused to do. That drew their ire following which I was once again assaulted. There was a whole lot of intimidation going on while the police held me in detention for 72 hours without being allowed to see my lawyer or loved ones. I think all their attempts were geared at leading me to implicate myself. For three days, I was not able to eat. I feared for my life; I was afraid of being poisoned while in detention. I spent three days in detention without being charged to court.”

    He went on: “The charge sheet presented to me stated governor’s wife as the complainant, curiously though it was the governor’s CSO who wrote a statement against me. I didn’t see the governor’s wife at the two police stations or the court I was taken to. I find the whole experience traumatic –not just for myself but also for my wife who is pregnant, my aged father and mother. I think the police only charged me to court following public outrage particularly from online media. They were forced to charge me to court because a lot of people spoke out against my continued detention. I was eventually charged to court and later granted bail.”

    Ojo has gone to court. He said: “I filed a case against the police suing in damages of N150m. The case has not been assigned to a judge yet. This case is about overzealous security officers who go out of the dictates of their responsibilities… This is actually what I want to prove; what the police had done was an infringement on my fundamental human rights.”

    With this picture painted by Ojo in the background, it is worth recalling what Inspector General of Police Solomon Arase said after he became the country’s police chief on April 21. Arase was quoted as saying:  ”I hope that one day we would see a complete change in the attitude of police officers across the service.” It is hoped that this is not a case of hoping against hope.

  • NOUN as nuisance

    BY basic grammar, nuisance is a common noun.  But what might its proper noun be? Perhaps, NOUN — the acronym for the National Open University of Nigeria.

    To be sure, NOUN cannot be a nuisance.  On the contrary, it is a super-functional institution, catering to the tertiary education needs of thousands, if not millions, of Nigerians.

    Pray, what would Nigeria’s hundreds, if not thousands, of busy business executives  — that talented tribe, even if not exactly boasting university degrees, do?   Because they need some university certification, for both personal and corporate reassurance, would they then have to quit their jobs?  Never!  And it is NOUN to the rescue.

    What of the milling youth, downcast veteran failures at university matriculation examinations, so shut out of the conventional universities?  Do they just fold their arms and give up on their future?  Never!  Again, NOUN offers them scholastic redemption.

    Even the career politicians, grassroots braves who just clinched the local government chairmanship, but at the mercy of their hyper-educated peers, who lose no opportunity to jeer at “illiterates” who don’t understand anything but crow and preen as council chairs?  Well, NOUN again is the answer.

    If you doubt, ask Baba Iyabo, the former president who after a NOUN diploma in theology, is gunning for a doctorate in theology, under NOUN’s considerate, understanding and mature wings?

    After all these patriotic exertions, how then can NOUN be the proper noun for nuisance?

    Well, it’s all about NOUN’s new study centre on Fatai Atere Way, Matori Industrial Estate, Mushin, in Lagos.  Indeed, The Nation should be proud and happy that NOUN, that great patriotic educational institution, is one of its neighbours.  It sits pretty near the newspaper’s corporate headquarters.

    But as NOUN sits pretty, its scholastic bliss virtually poisons the environment.  The fellas that secured its new premises in the neighbourhood, which used to host two banks, clearly failed to carry out an environmental impact assessment (EIA) before securing the premises.

    Even before the advent of NOUN, Fatai Atere had been prisoner to serious gridlock — no thanks to its T-junction with the popular Ladipo Street, with its heavy concentration of auto spare parts traders, and their generally less-than-orderly conduct.  On a bad day, you could be trapped in that traffic for hours — and that is no exaggeration.

    Still, NOUN has come to compound the situation.  Each time the university hosts its study sessions, cars, presumably of its executive students, are parked bang on the road, since the not-too-small parking lot in its forecourt are either too sacrosanct for the students’ use (perhaps only faculty workers are privileged to enjoy that parking “holy-of-holies”) or just too small to cope with the numerous cars — or both!

    Whatever the reason, the mass of cars parked on the road, outside the premises, is a clear nuisance to other road users, subjecting them to needless stress.  True, parking vehicles on that road did not come with NOUN.  Many of the industrial concerns too, do park vehicles, mostly trailers and trucks, particularly those waiting to load or discharge, on that road.

    But NOUN has come to worsen the situation, such that the university is manifesting some notoriety as cause of gridlock anytime it is in session.  So, didn’t someone, somewhat anticipate students would need parking space, and why was that not factored into hiring that facility?

    Anyway, NOUN authorities should look into this environmental problem.  NOUN cannot afford to be a nuisance!

  • Emmanuel Dakkada Udom

    Hardball must sound this note upfront that this piece is without prejudice whatsoever to the current political flux in Akwa Ibom State. This piece is a carryover of an earlier one tagged “To Emmanuel razzmatazz Udom”, run here on October 8, 2015. Hardball had been piqued by the bad behaviour of the new governor of that oil-rich state of Akwa Ibom.

    Having picked the malodorous scent wafting from that land of immensely missed opportunities, one was caught between two ruinous options of either waiting to exhale or ceasing to inhale – a state of extreme double jeopardy isn’t it? The only saving grace left was to breathe through the oxygen mask of the pen.

    On the verge of getting choked, Hardball had wondered what all the wasteful fanfare was in Uyo on September 23 in the guise of celebrating the 28th anniversary of the making of Akwa Ibom State. Little did one know that one was only scratching the surface of the matter. It turned out that what transpired in Uyo was a huge jamboree; a licentious orgy of splurging on public funds.

    In this troublous times, the Dakkada misadventure was a prodigal’s fiesta, an infantile folly that defied logic and commonsense.  But what did the fellows in Uyo do? They had crafted a long rebuttal seeking to justify the action of the dashing new governor; while seeking to tar Hardball.

    Well, Hardball took the punches on his chest like a man and moved on until he stumbled on more information from a kindred spirit and one who ought to know considering his filial relations with the state in question. It was a short but brilliant piece by a brother of the pen Etim Etim in The Guardian of October 16, 2015, titled: “Akwa Ibom, the wastages continue,” it vindicates Hardball’s position and upholds his hunches.

    According to Etim, Akwa Ibom is nose-deep in debt owing over N500 billion (thanks largely to former Governor Godswill Akpabio’s profligacy) to both banks and contractors. He noted that Udom, a banker, took advantage of the Federal Government bailout window to restructure his killer debts and reduce them to N400 million a month from a crippling N3 billion a month. Wow, what a relief! But what did Udom do? Let’s hear it from Mr. Etim:

    “The economy is contracting steadily and insecurity is not abating. To stay afloat, states like Kaduna are cutting down on wastages by discontinuing wasteful pastimes like sponsorship of people on pilgrimage. If Udom Emmanuel could restructure our debts so that our grandchildren will pay, why does he have the conscience to blow away a whopping N3.7 billion on anniversary celebration…?”

    Etim bemoans the legacy of mindlessness that has become that much endowed state. Here is some more from him: “Under Akpabio, the government behaved as if it had no regard for money. There were wastes upon wastes, with no single savings out of the N3 trillion it earned for eight years. Instead, we have a litany of abandoned projects. But now, we have Udom Emmanuel, a banker touted as a financial wizard … who knows how to manage public finance, yet the indications are that he isn’t any better.”

    Well dear reader, the jury is out…no political pun intended, please.

  • The ala(r)ming lies in Bayelsa

    When the head of the immediate past Ijaw nation and a former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, died, a few people did not know the difference between science and superstition. They elevated rumour to the level of political wizardry.

    But first it was a desecration of the dead. The government of Bayelsa State showed no respect for the former leader of the Ijaw nation when they said the All Progressives Congress (APC) led to the death of DSP, as he is fondly called. The reason was that if APC did not win the last presidential election, he would be alive today.

    What a folly! The APC did not vote itself into power. The Nigerian people did. By implication, Governor Seriake Dickson and his folks in Bayelsa   State house are alleging that the Nigerian voter killed DSP. In one word, democracy killed the man. That is the height of political superstition.

    President Muhammadu Buhari won that election, in case Dickson and his Peoples Democratic Party fiction peddlers do not know it. He had enough votes to be declared the president.

    Let us go to science. The former governor, according the medical reports, died of complications from high blood pressure and diabetes. High blood pressure, in case they do not understand it, is a biological condition, not political ailment. It happens to the human blood and the human tissues and consequently it makes a person fragile and can be fatal. In the case of DSP, it was. Diabetes refers to high sugar content. It also happens in the blood and can eat into the tissues and turn the person to weak and fragile condition. It also can be fatal. Each of the two conditions, when it gets to a breaking point, can kill any human. He reportedly had both. So death came knocking unfortunately.

    So why were they saying that APC killed the man? They also argue that if Jonathan were in power, he would not have had a new brush with the British judicial system, and therefore his complications would have arisen. What a performance!

    It is no credit to their own son Goodluck Jonathan that they paint him, just as E.K. Clark did, as weak on corruption. So shall we stop the war on corruption because some people might die?

    What is the scientific proof that it was the extradition request of the British Government that led to DSP’s death? The man was reportedly receiving treatment in the United Arabs Emirates. He suddenly abandoned the hospital and came home. Why did the Dickson administration and the PDP not insist he received the best care.

    If Hardball were to go superstition then it is tempting to believe that allowing him to leave the chambers of care accounted for this unfortunate outcome. So, who to blame for that?

    We are supposed to be running governments based on scientific enquiry, not the wild reaches of a superstitious imagination. It is not time to ala(r)m Nigeria with lies.