Category: Hardball

As they probably would say in Benin streets, Epa Clark has moved on!  Epa Clark is no other than Pa Edwin Clark, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s proud godfather.

In the build-up to the election, Pa Clark was all storm and thunder, growling the worst of Armageddon, should his cherished godson not get a presidential anchor.

To be fair, however, it wasn’t a solo show from the old man from Kiagbodo, Delta State.  He was only a proud conductor of that fierce South-South orchestra, raucously cheered by its rapturous South East alliance.  Re-elect Jonathan — or else!

Well after, it has turned a damp squib — at least from Epa Clark’s front.  The old man who carried out his own fair share of the Attahiru Jega demonisation project, in the fond hope perhaps that a more pliable personage could somewhat help a doomed presidential cause, would appear a changed man.  The project was simple: whip up a pre-retirement leave campaign, make it gather traction and with that, particularly with the gullible segment of the public, railroad Jega out of office!

O, such halcyon days of electoral and electioneering mischief, when there was no dull moment!  But right now, it is all quiet on the Kiagbodo front.  Could Epa have had a most stunning conversion on the way to political Damascus?  Hardball just wonders!

Well first, after the hurly burly was done and the battle was lost and won (apologies to the three witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth), Pa Clark declared: he won’t kill himself simply because Jonathan lost an election!

Now, does that remind you of the three witches laughing at the tragic Macbeth’s expense, after the “impossibility” they predicted: Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane; and a man “not born of woman” had eventually slain Macbeth — Macduff, Macbeth’s conqueror, was strictly not “born of woman”, having come through Caesarean surgery!  Talk of the full emptiness of political witchery!

Epa himself must have been stunned by the concrete smoke of his ensemble’s threat; and its stunning instant diffusion, when the chips were down.  But even more stunned would have been the presidential godson, at Epa’s virtual disavowal, after his loss.

Well, more was still to come.  Epa latterly has been blazing from both sides of the hip, saying how nice his godson had been but how gutless he had been in fighting corruption.  But did Pa Clark  know all these when he and his lobby threatened the heavens would fall if Jonathan was not re-elected?  And if indeed he knew all of these, could he in all good conscience have pushed the election of someone too gutless to rein in corruption, and by corruption, everything was falling apart?

Even if he had prevailed, and things still continued to fall apart — the corruption monster undoing everything — how would he even have looked his godson in the eye, knowing he was far better off outside government?  Even now, how would he regard his hurt godson, when next they meet, having said such brutally hard uncomplimentary stuff about him, the godson in whom the Epa was once well pleased?

It’s all in the course of politics!  Epa, the godfather, has simply moved on.  The poor godson must deal with it!

Let’s hear it for Governor Emmanuel Udom, he is young, he is clean, he is cool, he is dapper and if Hardball were a lady, he would have described him as ‘delicious’. This fellow is so good-looking, often so well turned out that he would make many showbiz people cringe. Add all this to the fact that this dashing young man governs Akwa Ibom, one of the richest states in the land; well, you would be forgiven if you begin to question why Providence is sometimes so terribly partial in favour of some guys.

But the lesson of today is: never quarrel with Providence for there is always a catch somewhere (this line is a Hardball original, please be free to use without attribution). Simply put, it is not what Providence has bequeathed you that really counts but the dividends you declare at the end of the day. Remember the joke about other nations grumbling to God why he overly blessed Nigeria and He was said to have told them to watch out for the specie of people he would populate the place with.

So it is not enough for Governor Udom to be so blessed, what is he gonna do with such bequeathal? Hardball has picked on Udom because he may have started off so very poorly. Like most other colleagues of his, he does not seem to be imbued with the grounding, the grit, the character and discipline to run a state especially in these tough times. Like most of the other so-called governors, it has been 100 days of business as usual – flight of fancy, cheap bailout fund and loans galore. Most of the loans, Hardball wagers, have been frittered, to say it with decency.

Apart from perhaps Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna) and Ben Ayade (Cross River), who have attempted to shift the old, decadent paradigms, most of the others have manifested annoying humdrum and a stark lack of capacity to appreciate the magnitude of the challenges before them.

But Governor Udom stands out because he has chosen to burn millions of naira in some inane, feel-good advert campaign and celebration of an unremarkable state anniversary. Hardball was taken aback when the excessive advert and unnecessary celebration started; but then people are entitled to some ephemeral feel-good activities, one thought.

But when a national newspaper (The Punch, Tuesday, October 6, 2015) ran that prize-winning front page picture, one knew one’s hunches were right all this time. The picture shows pupils of St. Paul’s Lutheran Primary School, Ikot Ibiok, Eket Local Government Area (LGA) of Akwa Ibom State seated on bare floor in a classroom. There must be many more stone-age classrooms like this in Udom’s kingdom. This should never be in Nigeria; at least never in Akwa Ibom. Hardball would never be proud to govern a state with such a school.

Udom’s frivolous spending so far would have afforded basic furnishings to all the primary schools in the state in the last 100 days. The point being made here – to all our governors and not just to Udom  – is that they must cut waste; focus on the basics, get the LGAs functioning and explore alternative sources of revenues.

Hardball is angry this morning — very, very angry.  A four-year old pupil was allegedly raped, and all the  proprietor — and a cleric to boot — appears capable of is stark indifference!

Now what sort of cleric is this?  Doesn’t his faith, at which he is “reverend” preach compassion?

The Nation of October 5, in its CityBeats section, reported the haunting agony of a grandmother, Mrs. T. Ajose, discovering that the school’s bus driver on September 17 raped her granddaughter, a Nursery 2 pupil.

“The following day, when I got to the school, I shouted on top of my voice.  Though my daughter has been attending the school since she was 18 months old, the teachers pretended as if they didn’t know me,” Mrs. Ajose recalled.  A case of cold collusion, having known the dreadful crime the driver had allegedly committed?

Attracted by the old woman’s scream, a mob reportedly invaded the school, destroyed part of the property, before reporting the matter to Alagolo Police Station at Ipaja, Lagos.  The alleged rapist, one Yemi Adesina, was subsequently arrested after a parade of all the male workers.  Thrice was the parade; and thrice, the four-year-old picked the suspect.  But for the mob, would the school have surrendered the alleged felon?

Recollected the child to her grandmother: “He put me on a table, covered my mouth and my face with a piece of cloth and put something inside my bum.  But he later cleaned it.”

But that came after much prodding.  Her initial attitude was silence — stone silence.  “When I persuaded her to tell me what happened,” the jolted grandma said, “she said she had been warned not to tell anyone.  I asked her who told her that; and she said Uncle Yemi in her school.”  Some satanic uncle!

You could imagine the sheer trauma: the child, virtually struck dumb, excreted on her body (quite unlike her), excrement mixed with blood (which the grandma still passed as mere pile), her pant soaked in blood and finally the medical confirmation of rape!

It is good the alleged rapist is cooling his heels at Panti Police Station, Adekunle in Yaba.  Everything should be done to thoroughly investigate this case; and prosecute and convict with despatch.  Paedophiles should not be allowed a free rein in our society.

But beyond paedophilia, how do you explain the school management’s conduct?  The school claims a worker died when irate neighbours invaded the school.  Others countered that the woman actually slumped and died in her home — claims and counter-claims.

But the scandal is not contrasting claims but the school’s cold attitude.  To the proprietor and his management, the rape of a four-year-old in the care is not the issue.  The issue, rather, is the controversial claim of a worker’s death, as well threatening the victim to drop the case, or else …

Hear Revd. Michael Abodunrin, the proprietor: “I don’t think I will make any comment because it is just an allegation yet.  The case is in court already.  Our school was vandalised by some residents on September 18, between 7:30 and 8am in respect of the rape case.”

So, Mr. Revd. Proprietor would rather not comment on a violated child in his care but on alleged vandalism of school property?  Does this guy have the emotional soundness to own a licence to run a school?

The Lagos government should swiftly move in, even as the judicial authorities sort out the alleged rapist.  As we weed paedophiles from our school system, we should also do away with emotionally-unintelligent school owners.