The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Chasing shadows

    Personal safety comes before professional policy. This logic of preservation probably explains why Chief Olu Falae’s family chose to pay a ransom to his abductors. But the police are not impressed.

    The 77-year-old who was kidnapped on his birthday on September 21 reportedly said: “I was let go the day after ransom was collected.” The kidnappers initially demanded N100 million, which they later reduced to N90 million. It is unclear how much the family eventually paid to get Falae freed. But it is clear that money changed hands, to go by Falae’s comments to reporters at his home in Akure, Ondo State, after his release. By his account, it was a harrowing four days in captivity for the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) who was seized at his farm at Ilado in Akure.

    The intervention by the police and the official involvement of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, prompted by the presidency, may have made a difference in the kidnap drama.   But money may have made the ultimate difference.

    The police said in a statement: “As professionals, it is our conviction that the unprecedented and massive deployment of police resources and men to support search and rescue operations put pressure on the criminals to release the elder statesman.”  In trying to take the credit for Falae’s release, the police perhaps underrated the power of money.

    On the payment of ransom, the police said: “As a law enforcement agency guided by rule of law and professional ethics, we do not under any circumstances encourage the payment of ransom to kidnappers or other criminals.”  It is convenient to speak theoretically. It should be appreciated that Falae’s life was probably in danger. According to him, “there were six of them with three or four guns, and every half hour or so they will say, ‘Baba, we are going to kill you. If you don’t give us money, we are going to kill you.”  These may not have been impotent threats.

    The police also said: “Whatever the family did as regards payment of ransom was outside the knowledge and consent of the police and at this point, we wish to advise that in future, families who fall victims of such acts should rather work closely with the police component of the rescue initiative so that we can achieve the primary purpose of rescuing the victim alive.”

    Again, this sounds like theoretical talk. The practical considerations that come up in a kidnapping, especially concerning the safety of the victim, must not be downplayed. More practically, the police should concentrate on apprehending Falae’s kidnappers and bringing them to justice, rather than this unproductive effort to teach the families of kidnap victims how to respond to abductors. It looks like the police are busy chasing shadows.

  • Hide-and-seek

    Why would ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, by his own admission, choose to go into hiding? True, his reelection dream proved to be a fantasy. But that is no reason to play hide-and- seek.

    When he surfaced at the home of the late Mrs. Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo in Ikenne, Ogun State, on a condolence visit, he was accompanied by his wife, Patience, and a few loyalists. Jonathan was quoted as saying: “Within this period, my wife and I have been hiding; we don’t even go out. We thought we’ll be hiding for at least 12 months. But in this particular case, we could not hide. So, we’ve come here to console and encourage our brothers and sisters that we are together.”

    Jonathan did not provide any details about his hiding place, or perhaps more precisely, their hideout, since he included his wife. That would have been interesting information.

    Wherever they might have been holed up before their Ikenne appearance and performance, they must have enjoyed the advantages of domestic adequacy. Jonathan’s words, “we don’t even go out,” painted a picture of internal sufficiency that stretches the imagination. Also, it is food for thought that the former first couple planned to stay in the indoor paradise “for at least 12 months”.

    It is unclear when they took the decision to restrict themselves to strictly private space, and when it took effect. When Jonathan left office on May 29, he left the federal capital, Abuja, and reportedly returned to his country home in Otuoke, Ogbia local government area of Bayelsa State.

    But on August 17, there was Jonathan, looking animated, in a newspaper picture with this caption: “Dr. Jonathan alighting from the aircraft in Kenya…at the weekend. Standing on his left is his wife Dame Patience and other officials”

    The accompanying report said: “Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan at the weekend stormed Kenya’s Maasai Mara Games Reserve in two chartered planes. One of the planes carried Kenya State security and the second was occupied by Jonathan, his wife Patience and two of their children. He is at the reserve for a three-day tour to witness the wildebeest migration. Jonathan was booked at the new Angama Mara Lodge at the Oloololo conservancy. The ex-president was received by Narok Governor Samuel Tunai.”

    The report continued: “Tunai, who is also the Council of Governors tourism committee chairman, said more than 500,000 tourists from all over the world are expected to witness the spectacular crossing of wildebeest across the crocodile-infested Mara River. Jonathan, who refused to speak with reporters on his arrival to the reserve, according to Kenya media, is the second dignitary to visit the reserve in less than a fortnight after the King of Swasiland, Mswati III. The king was booked in the same lodge six days ago. The owner of the hotel, Nicky Fitzgerald, said this tourism peak season is different from the past as prominent personalities from across the world have been calling for bookings. “We have received Mr Jonathan, King Mswati III, a Chinese prominent family and we are expecting other royalties,” said Ms Fitzgerald.”

    Is this Jonathan’s idea of going into hiding?

  • Deaths in the holy land

    Before anything else, Hardball must enter this caveat.  Muslims and their beliefs are inviolate.  This year’s tragedy does nothing to negate the Islamic holy injunctions for the Hajj, for who can afford it, at least once in a life time.  It is one of the five pillars of Islam; and the faith is not about abandoning one of its fundamental pillars because of human negligence.

    The kingdom and people of Saudi Arabia no doubt feel blessed to yearly be home to millions of Muslim faithful worldwide.  It is a grave spiritual privilege that must be matched with no less secular responsibility, in pilgrim safety and security.

    Mecca, Medina, Mina and allied sacred cities are only among the privileged few, among the globe’s holiest religious destinations, to which pilgrims flock every year.  Even if the whole of the pilgrim population were to perish, that calamity would still not dull these cities’ appeal.  Faith, after all, is a thing of the mind.

    Besides, by Islamic belief, dying in Mecca during pilgrimage is religious bliss; for to the deceased would come additional blessings the living cannot boast, as (s)he enters Al-Jannah a privileged soul indeed.  But it was never conceived as being crushed by cranes or being squashed in stampedes.

    Which is why the Saudi authorities must take the blame for these twin-tragedies; and must wake up to their responsibilities.

    By Allah, Nigeria has paid dearly for these man-made errors, in lost lives and crushed limbs.  From the stampede, no fewer than 56 Nigerians — and still counting — out of a casualty figure of 769 so far have perished, many of them the cream of their generation.

    The morbid list: Justice Abdulkadir Jega, presiding judge, Court of Appeal, Abuja, and brother to Prof. Attahiru Jega, former INEC chairman, Justice Musa Hassan Alkali, another Court of Appeal judge, Alhaji Abbas Ibrahim, the Panti Zing (traditional ruler of Zing, in Adamawa State) and Amirul Hajj (leader) of the Adamawa delegation, with two of his four wives, Prof. Tijani Abubakar El-Miskin, the famed Islamic scholar, Hajiya Bilikisu Yusuf, former editor of defunct Citizen magazine.  And to think of the fate of Alhaji Bello Gidan-Hamma, former caretaker chairman of Illela Local Government of Sokoto State, with himself, mother, stepmother and two wives perishing in the stampede!

    Pray, how can a nation lose such calibre of people, on a pilgrimage, just because the host country is remiss in its safety responsibility?

    To worsen matters, a Saudi prince’s convoy is claimed to have caused the stampede; with another Saudi prince reportedly making a racist statement, blaming the dead for their own death!  That is reprehensible and should not be tolerated.

    Which is why Nigeria must lodge the sternest of protests to the Saudi government.  Nigeria cannot stop its Muslims from Hajj.  But it certainly can expect the Saudi government to appreciate the enormous responsibilities in pilgrims’ safety.

    We can’t just sit back and mop in agony, while our compatriots die avoidable deaths because they are on pilgrimage — and let no one mouth any pious fatalism about Allah wanting it that way!

    Allah’s will is one thing.  Human negligence is another.  This is why the Saudis must sit up.  Enough of these harvests of needless deaths!

  • Impunity and carpetbaggers in Bayelsa

    Bayelsa State is in the news, but not always for the right reasons. The All Progressives Congress (APC) held a primary election for the prime seat of governor. The news said former Governor Timipre Sylva won with what was apparently a landslide. But a new narrative came into the spotlight. One was the announcement credited to the party Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun that the election had been cancelled and a new date would be set.

    The second was the issue of who built the party, who sowed and who wanted to reap.

    First to Oyegun’s statement. He made a statement to the News Agency of Nigeria, and said the primaries had been cancelled. Yet, a few days later, the APC announced that its National Working Committee (NWC) would examine the complaints today and arrive at a verdict. Meanwhile, former Governor Sylva still holds the ace. The questions is, why did Chief Oyegun say the elections had been cancelled when the party had not sat to decide the way forward. Hardball smells a rat. The party chairman was not in a position to decide whether or not the primary election was in order. Yet he flew to the media with a glib remark on behalf of a party.

    It was a clear case of impunity. Those who were sent to the field to conduct the election had not returned to Abuja. The process is usually simple and straightforward. The panel was expected to submit a report to the NWC, and then an appeal committee presides and recommends to the party.

    So was Oyegun the panel that went to Yenagoa to conduct the election? No. Is he the NWC? No. So when did Oyegun become the panel and the decision maker at the same time?

    As a party chairman he should beware of the statements he utters. He should not be seen to be a chairman of a group of people. That is not the logic of his high chair. Tragically, he has not uttered any retraction of that ignoble statement. In democracy, we do not work from answer to question. That is what is called impunity. When we work from question to answer, it is called due process. That should be lesson 101 in democracy for the APC chairman.

    The other issue that arose was the question of who sowed and who wanted to reap. Those who made much of the acclamations during the primary election said no one should reap where he did not sow.

    The APC was regarded as anathema by the political elite in BayelsaState during the inglorious era of former President Goodluck Jonathan. They all pitched tent with Jonathan and mouthed their solidarity with various degrees of volubility to the Otuoke man.

    Suddenly with Buhari’s victory, APC became the bride, and the elite who swore by Jonathan suddenly made a shameless pirouette and APC became the Mecca. It is not only that they did not sow, they want to be lords of the manor. This is becoming a trend in our politics, and it is an opportunistic game that rewards carpet baggers. As the Good Book says, those who did not sow should not reap. It is high time it meant something in our democracy, if it should grow.

  • Traffic tales

    Hardball has an idea — traffic tales!  Now, what do you think that is?

    Well, it is certainly tales about the traffic.  And if traffic is about vehicles and their drivers, including the ubiquitous Okada riders — traffic laws be damned! — it is certainly about what these drivers do or don’t do on the road.

    But while you probably would take a denotative view of all these road exploits, Hardball is taking a connotative view.  Want to take a sneak into the mind of a nation?  Then rivet your eyes on the behavioural pattern of its traffic.  Got the gist now?

    Imagine, you are driving, a law-abiding citizen; and a fellow road user just zooms at you from the opposite direction, flashing impatiently and totting on his horns.  Well, there is a fuel station which he is trying to enter and your car, on your legit lane, seems a nuisance on the way.  All the flashing and all the totting scream a single message: get the hell out of the way, you scum!

    Now, what do you do?  Scurry out of the way?  Or call his bluff by ignoring him, and seriously praying his brake is okay, so he won’t bash into your car, after a brake failure?  You probably act, according to your mindset, at that exact moment.

    Familiar, isn’t it?  Well, that unruly traffic behaviour just shows a good number of Nigerians — perhaps a majority, though there are not stats from studies to back up that claim — are simply indecorous, hasty and resort to insults, when they could simply have asked nicely.

    Again, look at your terrain, what do you observe?  A serpentine traffic, with a gridlock of truckers and tanker drivers staking their constitutionally given, not to talk of God-divined, right to inflict pains and make your day a hell on earth.

    Before you know it, a container has fallen upon a fellow road user, crushing a whole family.  Other nearby cars only escape by the whiskers.  Pronto, lucky to be alive (its Hobbes’s jungle, after all!), they scurry to the church and give testimonies on their great escape!  Not without reasons though: for far too many have perished in such wilful accidents, and seeming no action was taken, that they simply became statistics.

    Now, from this chaotic traffic, what sort of people are these?

    Peculiar people whose governments make laws but don’t have the guts to enforce their own laws.  And a minority of citizens that commit wilful crimes, yet insist on their right to such fatal wilfulness (fatal to the victims, but morbid trophies to the perpetrators), and go on to inflict even more tragedies.

    That is the sorry tale of Nigeria today.  Right now, Lagos groans under a heavy traffic; and the tormentors-in-chief are trailer drivers who have simply decided to call the bluff of the law.  And what does the government do?  Not exactly looking askance (though that seems what it is).  The last time Hardball heard, the government was trying to “negotiate” with these traffic outlaws.  But while the demonstration goes on, stress has reached a boiling point, with everyone seeming to be trapped and helpless.

    Nigeria’s traffic tales reveal a somewhat sub-human community, where traffic outlaws do as they damn wish and government appears scared to apply its own laws, even if that is what decent climes do!

    It is indeed a very sad tale.

  • Living with powerlessness

    About 15 former ministers in the expired Goodluck Jonathan presidency are probably still living in denial, unwilling to accept the reality of change and their changed circumstances as powerful people of yesterday.

    A report quoted a Muhammadu Buhari presidency source as saying: “Some of the ex-ministers are yet to return their official vehicles, especially the Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), which they were using. It is amazing that some of them are still using pilot vehicles for passage. While some of them claimed they are still entitled to such perks for about three months after leaving office, a negligible few handed over their vehicles before May 29.”

    The source also said: “Some of them said they had not fully disengaged because they had outstanding eight months’ salaries, allowances, claims and severance package to collect from the government. We have about 15 of them who have not fully complied with the directive to hand over their official vehicles.”

    Apart from those who thought they needed to hold on to official vehicles because they were allegedly owed by the government, there is another set with another thought. According to the quoted source, “Some former ministers assumed that they were entitled to some of these vehicles because of the monetisation policy of the government. They said they were awaiting official clarification on the matter.”

    The reasons given for the anomaly fly in the face of information that the government has had to write those concerned. The source said: “The government has no choice but to write the affected ex-ministers.”  According to the September 21 report: “It was learnt that the memo has started having effect. Some ministers last Thursday returned some vehicles.”

    It can be imagined that the ex-ministers involved may be interested in keeping the official vehicles as keepsakes of sorts. To them, the vehicles must be reminders of a time when power was sweet and intoxicating. To them, not having the vehicles around may be a reinforcing sign of their fall from glory. To them, having the vehicles as souvenirs would serve to massage their dented egos.

    However, these former ministers probably need to be told some home truths, although they may not be ready to hear home truths. The official vehicles are what they are said to be, and not personal possessions. Obviously, keeping the vehicles in personal spaces for personal purposes cannot restore the lost status of the ex-ministers.

    Holding on to the official vehicles when they are no longer in power suggests that they are clinging to a fantasy. They must get used to their powerlessness, and live with it without the vehicles that symbolise power.

  • Morgan Van Winkle

    Rip Van Winkle, you probably know.  He was the fictional American bloke that snoozed for  20 years; only to wake up and find everything around him changed.

    But Morgan Van Winkle?  Though American too, it’s a new one — particularly in the sphere of foreign banks, financial institutions and rating agencies, as they relate with the Nigerian economy.  Hitherto, under the reign of Her Imperial Majesty, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, all-mighty minister of Finance and the even mightier coordinating minister for the Economy, these foreign money clubs wielded the virtual power of life and death, over the Nigerian economy, and its neo-liberal local crusaders.

    J.P. Morgan, that American investment bank, listed among those global monetary titans.

    So, how did J.P. Morgan morph into Morgan Van Winkle?  Good question!

    Whereas the original Rip slept for 20 good years before jerking awake, J.P. Morgan would appear to have snored for only 20 days — or perhaps it still snoozes? — and would appear reluctant to wake up to the grim reality that for the last 100 days at least, the fetishisation of its ratings and allied bean-counting is getting out of vogue.  That makes it Morgan Van Winkle, the proud 21st corporate offspring of Rip Van Winkle.

    J.P. Morgan had it proclaimed that it would, by October ending, shove Nigeria off its Government Bond Index (GBI), a sort of guide for foreign investors flush with funds but with an eye too on the big bucks, willing to try their luck in the so-called emerging economies, after the matured marts of Europe and America.

    J.P. Morgan’s grouse?  Its near-insistence that Nigeria further devaluate the Naira: to make more cash from exports and discourage imports.  But pray, how robust is Nigeria’s exports; and is it positioned to curb imports?  The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has responded with a near-emphatic no; and that has elicited J.P. Morgan’s notice to de-list.

    O, those good old days!  Such a threat alone would have sent HIM Okonjo-Iweala into some depression, talking down on CBN, and galvanising the Economic Management Team (EMT — does that, by any means, resonate as “empty”?) to do the needful and fast!  The economic metropole has spoken and the House Negroes in the periphery must comply — or else!

    Well, not any more — at least for now.  The days when foreign rating agencies strut their stuff and local viceroys swoon on their plastic stats, and the government itself makes a fetish of cosmetic book balances and convinces itself, yeah, it’s doing real good, appears gone.

    Now, growth should be in how deepened are social and physical infrastructure, the one in the long run and the other in the short; adequate electricity power to unleash the people’s productive energy; how these infrastructures trigger real economic activity; how this activity triggers more jobs and unemployment drastically declines; how this growth results in development (better standard of living, affordable better education and affordable health services); and how that development transforms into eventual prosperity, taking most off the poverty line, and driving the well-off to further create real wealth.

    It’s Buharinomics, stupid!

    At the end of the day, which investor can ignore the huge Nigerian market, if our government gets its acts right?  Sure, we will still need J.P. Morgan and allied clubs; but as productive and sensitive partners not arrogant overlords, whose baleful sneezes make us catch terrible colds.

    But that is when J.P Morgan would have shed off its Van Winkle state.

     

  • NRF and the rest of us

    Hardball is not given to sectionalism and ethnic jingoism – yes, even if he says so himself. Hardball, if he must go on this self-adulatory trip, is something close to a humanoid – human machine programmed to redeem, ha, ha, ha. But today, Hardball will pick on a nascent group known as Northern Reawakening Forum (NRF). According to reports last week, NRF chaired by Alhaji Mohammed Umara Kumaila had a summit and retreat in Abuja and the communiqué emanating from the event was at once remarkable and unsettling.

    This is why Hardball is giving a warning upfront that it is going out of its way today to do a regional number. Alhaji Kumaila who was a member of the House of Representatives in company of other northern elements like Tajudeen Dantata, Jack Yakubu Pam, Aliyu Ahmed Wadada, Aisha Dukku and Mallm Saidu Malami. Others include; Salam Ahmed, Adamu Moddibo, Suraj Yakubu, Yusuf Hamisu Abubakar, Bilkisu Magoro, Hajiya Amina Jambo and Hajiya Fatima Saleh, among others.

    Those who know can tell that these are the new young Turks of the North most of who have held plum public appointments in the recent past. And if we might add, most of who are ‘loaded’ to the hilt; if you understand Hardball. Now what does this group of young men and women want? At the summit which had the vice president and four governors in attendance, they demanded that (1) the national conference held last year be discarded; (2) a new confab to focus on how to rebuild the Northeast be convened, (3) the Federal Government must pursue within the next 12 to 24 months, issues of health care, youth empowerment, education, security, human suffering, good governance and infrastructure in the Northeast.

    These demands by the NRF seem legitimate but are obviously ill-digested. One, most of them did not only participate actively in the Jonathan National Conference of 2014, they also benefited immensely from it both politically and in pecuniary terms. Hardball happens to know that age-old maxim which says you cannot have your cake and eat it; and the other one: you cannot burn your candle at both ends.

    Two, the NRF says their demands have become necessary because the Northeast zone has been marginalised. Hardball on his part demands that this word must be banished from Nigeria’s political and grammatical lexicon for good. ‘Marginalisation’ has over the years, been sharpened into a deadly weapon of victimhood, a handy totem to terrorise the polity.

    NRF quotes a 2013 World Bank Report to corroborate the fact that poverty has doubled in the North since 1980; that the North has the lowest rate of literacy in Nigeria among other damning indices.

    But the NRF so conveniently forgot that the North has held power in Nigeria, it has the highest number of former heads of state, former top military brass, former permanent secretaries, former Supreme Court justices and former governors.

    The North has the highest number of senators, House of Representatives members, government appointees, states, local government areas; billionaires and apart from the Southsouth, the largest share of the national cake.

    Now, short of asking the rest of the polity to evaporate or live on sawdust, all the money in Arabia will not help the North if it won’t stand up and help itself.

  • A snake’s day in court

    There does the right of a judge begin and where does that of snake end in a court of law? On Tuesday September 15, not even the judge of the Ota High Court, Ogun State, could answer this. She had detained a number of journalists in the course of their professional assignments on the high court premises.

    The judge, whose name could not be picked up by the arrested journalists, ran away from where she exercised supreme power when a snake bit one of her staff. She, detained journalists, audience and staff of the court were dismissed summarily by the mouth of the sly beast.

    The theatre of snake and judge began when the journalists arrived the court premises in two vehicles. The journalists included Daud Olatunji (The Vanguard), Samuel Awoyinfa (The Punch), Ernest Nwokolo (The Nation), Abiola Taiwo (Daily Times), Sulaiman Fasasi (National Pilot), Wale Adelaja (TVC)  and Johnson Akinpelu (Alaroye). A police officer, who knew his place, inquired about the newsmen’s mission, and when they told him, he retreated to his post.

    But an assistant court registrar looked askance at the so-called intruders and informed the judge in the middle of a court proceeding. Her majesty was incensed and ordered the immediate arrest of the newshounds. The journalists languished in detention for about three hours. One of them reportedly fainted.

    It was while the judge was addressing the journalists in her hectoring style that a snake bit one of the court staff. The judge dismissed the journalists, the court officials, and of course herself. The snake had spoken (sorry, bitten) and everybody found their way.

    The reptile reportedly slithered into a staircase area where  – can you guess? –  the office  of the assistant court registrar was located. The ACR was the snitch who squealed to the judge that the reporters were filming something on the court premises.  Can you call that snake judgment?

    So, who owned the court? The snake or the judge, or the people of Nigeria? If it was the judge, why did she flee? Well, if she has to wield her powers, she would have to press charges against the snake, or at least detain it. She locked up journalists who did no harm but watched as the snake crawled out of sight after spewing venom in a staff’s bloodstream.

    Now, what would she charge the snake with? Hardball has a few suggestions. One, trespass. If the journalists could spend three hours in confinement for stepping onto the premises of the court, what of the snake that could not be seen until it bit? Two, assault. The snake bite was not only a source of discomfort, some read voodoo once they saw a runnel of black liquid on the victim’s skin. Three, contempt of court. How could the snake slip into the court where justice was in the offing? It was totally unacceptable. Four, interference in the world of human beings. It was bad and ominous enough that it was in the bush, but to move and take its place where a hallowed human institution was in action was the ultimate disregard for the superiority of the homo sapien.

    But first she must send her minions to catch the snake in the bush. Or else we can say, it was the snake that had its day in court, not the judge.

     

  • Making a portrait a problem  

    It is laughable that the political opposition is opposed not only to President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), but also to his portrait. The pictorial hostility was first publicised by Olisa Metuh, National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He announced on September 8: “We will never hang his (Buhari) portrait in this office, because President Buhari is not known to our party. He is not a leader of our party and, therefore, we will never put his portrait here.”  Perhaps for the avoidance of doubt, Metuh added: “We are a political party, very partisan and therefore, we are not going to hide that.”

    Like copycats, two other parties adopted the PDP’s position. According to the National Chairman of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), Peter Ameh, “…the APC did not have Jonathan’s portrait in the party’s national secretariat. Everything is about precedent. Throughout Jonathan’s tenure, the APC didn’t have his photograph; so, maybe other political parties are also learning from the precedent set by the APC. “

    The Labour Party (LP) was guided, or misguided, by the same logic, or illogic. It’s National Chairman, Abdulkadir Abdulsalam, said: “We don’t have the photograph of President Buhari in our secretariat because the APC never had the photograph of ex-President Jonathan in their offices.”

    It is a settled issue that display of the President’s portrait is a discretionary convention, which is why the seeming fuss by the opposition betrays desperation to score cheap political points. However, it could be realistically argued that Jonathan’s emergence as president lacked the incontestable clarity and popularity that defined Buhari’s election as president.

    If the antagonistic parties intended to generate a controversy by their rationalisation, they only succeeded in drawing public attention to their post-election crisis of adjustment. Importantly, Metuh, Ameh and Abdulsalam referred to Buhari as “President”.  So, it would appear that they may not have a problem with Buhari’s official status, only with the portrait that illustrates his status.

    It must be said that although exhibiting the President’s portrait is volitional, in a proper democratic culture such exhibition should be beyond unprogressive partisanship. In other words, hanging the President’s portrait should not be influenced by his membership of a particular party, or, in Buhari’s specific case, his non-membership of a particular party.

    To use the words of a constitutional lawyer, Fred Agbaje, quoted in a report: “Even if it is not part of our constitution, it is part of our civic duty under the constitution that all public places should display the portrait as a mark of respect for constituted authority.”

    In a fundamental sense, therefore, the attitude of the antagonists can be described as disrespectful, not to call it rebellious.