The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Iran and Israel: Of terrorism and counter-terrorism

    Reader, Hardball comes to breakfast this morning with some conceptual dissonance.  Who is a terrorist and who is a counter-terrorist?  Is a counter-terrorist also a terrorist, since he operates the Mosaic law of an eye for an eye?  Or is (s)he a better moral monster(?) simply because (s)he replies in kind — as in trouble sleep yanga go wake am, Fela-speak?

    Another apologia: Iran, Israel and allied global hot spots speak of journalism’s Afghanistanism, particularly when Nigeria has more than its fair share of terror troubles.  Why go shooting in Iran, Israel, when Boko Haram, in our backyard here, is quite a handful?

    Well, fulsome apologies!  But this Afghanistanism portends Armageddon for today’s close-wired globalised world where a little, even playful fireworks could cause massive explosions elsewhere, if not in real combat then in great human misery.  If you still doubt, witness the current Europe refugee crisis.  With Ghadaffi’s  Libya state destroyed, and Syria under siege and the Islamic State (IS) in devil-may-care mass murder, Europe suddenly finds itself victim of a roaring ocean of refugees, which ferocious wave it cannot roll back.

    With the latest rhetoric from Teheran and Tel Aviv, the world has something to fear: the Armageddon to come, from terrorism and counter-terrorism.

    Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spiritual leader of Iran’s 21st century theocracy, left very little to speculations, dismissing Israel as a Zionist (read terrorist) state, which Iran could (“with the grace of God”) erase, 25 years from now.  Flush with anti-Israel Teheran loathing, the Ayatollah concluded Zionism was terrorism the globe could well do without.

    But a chilling counter-rhetoric has come from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, proud scion of Moses, unfazed Zionist, unrepentant Israeli nationalism hawk: Iran just bit the bullet, for the Ayatollah to dream such dangerous dreams, of liquidating Israel.  Mr. Netanyahu grabbed that opportunity to contend that pariah Iran got recklessly voluble, because of the US-led global rapprochement over Iran’s nuclear programmes — a programme which, left to Mr. Netanyahu and his hawkish Likud Party, should have been crushed; just to make a vicious scapegoat to other rogue states dreaming such future nuclear nightmare!

    Well, what qualifies Israel to have nukes but disqualifies Iran?  Perhaps the answer is in Global Real-Politik 101!

    Still, these two ancient races are not new to imperialism and power play.  In antiquity, Persia (modern day Iran) backed Sparta against Athens in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), just to put Athens’ nose out of joint; and gain a foothold in intra-Greece geo-politics.  If David remains the eternal hero of Israel, it is simply because the war-like modern Israelis have not forgotten how King David gave everyone else a bloody nose in ancient Palestine, en route to securing the ancient Kingdom of Israel before the Diaspora.

    Nevertheless, both Khamenei and Netanyahu crassly betray the grim lessons of history — a grave irony indeed, for both historic races.  An Ayatollah, Ruholla Khomeini (1902-1989), Iran’s first supreme leader, played God by decreeing the death of writer Salman Rushdie, placing on his head a fatwa, for the temerity of authoring Satanic Verses, which the Iran mullahs decreed ridiculed Islam.  But where is Khomeini today?  Dead as dodo, while Rushdie, whose death his fatwa proclaimed, appears in no rush to die.

    Netanyahu, by threatening to match Khamenei, quarters-for-quarters (hardly a crime, when threatened with mass elimination), forgets threats and sabre-rattling don’t solve problems.  They worsen them.  Israel itself, and its modern Palestine homeland, are living and biting examples.

    That is why the reasonable globe must step in before Iran and Israel level the world in their star wars of terrorism and counter-terrorism.

  • Between Ubah, Olukoya, Aliko et al

    Hardball is at it again foisting his football peccadilloes on you guys. But this is a football story that has to be done. The news is that two clubs in Lagos have qualified to play in the GLO Premier League top division next season. They are MFM FC (Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministry Football Club) and Ikorodu United Football Club, (IU FC).

    So what the heck? Easy, the story is that Lagos State, the largest city state in Africa had no football economy for over two decades. What on earth is football economy, you ask? It is about private stadia, about weekly football matches, thousands of young men and women working and making good living as footballers, coaches, referees, etc. It is about many more people working as stadium managers, sports wears and equipment producers and sellers.

    It would be about many more talented young footballers in Lagos getting noticed by scouts from big European leagues. It is about weekly gate-takings and merchandising. It is yet, about the psychological satisfaction of supporting your own local football club; buying its kits and wearing them proudly. It is the joy and therapy of taking your family to a late Sunday evening football outing. It is so much more.

    For over two decades, Lagos has missed all these despite its huge population. While most other states had at least one club playing competitive football in their city every weekend, Lagos had none. For a state that had the legendary Stationery Stores FC, among notable others; it is a wonder why successive governments did not see the huge potentials of football economy for so long.

    Today, Lagos has I.U.FC and MFM FC to play top-flight soccer every weekend from next season. How salutary. While one knows little about I.U.FC, MFM FC is a dream come true for Dr. D. K. Olukoya Founder and General Overseer of MFM. Those who know him say after God and family, his other passion is youth development through football.

    He had therefore taken his church football club from an academy and through the lower rungs of our league to the elite division. We hear he is raising the bar of football club ownership by building a stadium. Going by his methods and zest he is aiming for the world stage.

    Ifeanyi Ubah, the enfant terrible, recently bought over a flailing Udoji United FC and converted it to Ifeanyi Ubah FC. We hear a 50,000 capacity stadium is rising in his hometown, Nnewi. We don’t need an expert to tell us what this singular move would signal for the youths of Anambra and the economy of Nnewi.

    Aliko et al means business mogul Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Chi Limited, Sterling Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Seven Up, etc. While Aliko nurses a strong desire to acquire Arsenal, London’s iconic football club, the aforementioned Nigerian firms are jointly spending millions of pounds in sponsorship promotion of such English clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal FC, Manchester City and Chelsea FC.

    It is sorry enough that at least a quarter of Nigeria is watching the English Premier League every weekend; do we need to ship out millions of pounds to them as well? Thousands of talented Nigerian youths are wasting away, who will help develop our rich but comatose football economy? Imagine what a few more Olukoyas and Ubahs will do for our country.

  • Jonathan’s statue and Dickson’s status

    Whatever his critics may say, ex-President Goodluck Jonathan is still credited with political influence in some ambitious quarters despite his failed re-election dream. Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson, who is eyeing a second term, demonstrated Jonathan’s importance in the eyes of those determined to remain in power in the former president’s state.

    It is interesting that Dickson considered it strategic to publicly signal the start of his re-election campaign by unveiling a statue of Jonathan. A picture of the statue was published on September 6. There was Jonathan frozen in his signature “resource-control” fashion, wearing beads and a plastic smile, waving his right hand, and holding an open umbrella painted in his party’s colours over his head.

    Following the celebration of the standing sculpture, Jonathan, who was not at the event, played host to Dickson at his country home, Otuoke, in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. The visit resulted in Jonathan’s formal endorsement of Dickson for the position of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) standard-bearer in the December 5 governorship poll in the state.

    Jonathan said on the occasion:  ”I am not expecting the governor to score 100 per cent There are three key parameters I will like to score Governor Dickson, which are payment of salaries, physical infrastructure and low indebtedness of the state in terms of bank loans and in the capital markets. If you compare what has happened in other parts of the country, you will praise the governor.”

    Jonathan’s encouraging words for Dickson’s campaign must be discouraging to the people, considering, among other negatives, news of water scarcity in Otuoke, a community whose claim to fame is that a former president hails from there. Against the background of Jonathan’s positive rating of the Dickson administration based on alleged infrastructural development, it is relevant to draw attention to a recent report on the water problem in the ex-president’s hometown.

    A member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) serving in the area, Emmanuel Agede, was quoted as saying: “You will not believe it that here in Otuoke, we use water from an unused soak-away pit dug near our lodge, for washing clothes and bathing. For cooking and drinking, we buy sachet water; life is very difficult here; we spend the bulk of our monthly allowances on water for survival.”

    This is a big blemish on both Jonathan and Dickson. No water can wash them clean on this point.

  • Wailing Metuh

    Early enough, Femi Adesina, chief presidential spokesperson, dropped a cyber-bomb that set the social media howling: wailing wailers!

    That two-word bomb sent presidential supporters cheering, presidential opposers jeering and neutrals rather disturbed at the rather cavalier dismissal of presidential opposition.

    But in truth: Mr. Adesina would appear prescient, at the shape of malicious, bordering on utterly senseless, anti-Buhari criticisms to come — from those who appear to suffer from acute post-power belligerence syndrome (APPBS).

    Reacting to the Buhari 100 days in office, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) provoked a storm on twitter, when it claimed the president’s first 100 days were “wasted 100 days”.  That drivel provoked such an ire you could feel the virtual heat.  But those who reacted ought to have shown some empathy: that irrational judgment was triggered by the abyss of APPBS.  Instead of fury, they should have reached for the dial, to ring up a doctor: Nigeria’s former ruling party needs very, very urgent help!

    On this score, Olisa Metuh, PDP spokesperson, is chief and unfazed wailer.  Tell him he needs a consultant in post-power psychosis, and he would probably wail and scream even louder. But the holy truth: the decibel of Mr. Metuh’s hysteria would appear going a notch too high, a function of acute political agitation that needs rather urgent poli-medicare.

    Hear Mr. Metuh’s take on President Buhari’s asset declaration, just made public: “We have noted the release of a flimsy list of belongings of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo by the Presidency, who wants such to pass as the public declaration of assets as pledged by the President.  Nigerians are not deceived by this poor attempt at window-dressing, designed by the Presidency to hoodwink the unsuspecting populace in a desperate bid to shore up its diminished image.”

    Really?  Assuming without conceding (as Mr. Metuh’s learned friends would say) his claim is true, what was the situation when the doomed Goodluck Jonathan was at the same presidential juncture, even with the stellar example of his late principal, President Umaru Yar’Adua?

    The man, whose personal good luck spectacularly exposed the country’s bad luck, only snapped: “I don’t give a damn about what anyone says; I’m not doing any public declaration of asset”.  That set the tone for criminal opacity that would clean out the national till, doom the Jonathan presidency and banish PDP to the power wilderness, from which Mr. Metuh and co now wail.

    If the Metuhian metaphor claims Buhari’s effort is “poor attempt at window-dressing”, in the Jonathanian cave, there was even no window to dress; and Mr. Metuh still spun such crass opacity as the best of global presidential practices.  Sure, the Metuh gibberish is still alive and well.  The difference, however, is it is getting, by the second, more and more ridiculous.

    Oh, talking about caves reminds Hardball of the Plato allegory of the cave, making pith-darkness the nadir of ignorance; and dazzling light, the summit of knowledge.  That was why the soul in the allegory, after snapping free of the chain at the bottom of the cave, got the scales off his dark eyes at the sight of  light and went near-berserk at the sight of glorious sunshine!  That is the exhilarating liberation of knowledge!

    If Mr. Metuh’s wailing wailers (apologies to Mr. Adesina) still dismiss the Buhari’s first 100 days as “wasted”, it is because they are still chained to the pit of Jonathan-era cave.  On the electricity supply front alone (and every pun intended), that shows how Metuh and co languish in their Jonathan cave, while everyone else has moved on.

    Pity!

  • Champagne jurisprudence – a fable

    Once upon a time, in a certain large and shambolic country, there lived a man of immense affluence known as Chief Cleanface. He was of such  means that all the nobles, princes and judges of the land would always gather in his palatial abode for one purpose – to quaff champagne.

    Chief Cleanface loved that bubbly, fizzy, golden popper. Of course he loved all the good things of life and he can well afford nigh everything money can buy but he had a thing about the ‘champ’. He had it specially blended for him from vines in far-flung lands. Champagne was his particular and especial passion.

    One day, the unexpected happened to Chief Cleanface: a local miscreant dared to desecrate his pristine abode. The misbegotten fellow managed to scale the high and imposing fence of Chief Cleanface’s pad, and having beaten the security, like a rat, he scurried into Chief’s living room.

    Bedazzled by the wanton opulence of Chief’s lounge, the young man trembled notwithstanding that he held Chief at ‘gun’ point. Unable to withstand the awesome presence of his ‘victim’ any longer, the pale intruder grabbed a fancy object within reach and made for the door. Of course the hapless fellow was soon ensnared in the exotic security web of Chief’s equally exotic palace.

    The miserable bugler was soon arraigned and put on trial post haste. The entire judiciary was agog and judges fell over each other for this special assignment. What cheeky, little, vermin dared to try robbing the Right Honorable Chief Cleanface; a noble of no match, a philanthropist of oceanic magnitude? This miserable young man must be taught a lesson never to look great men in the face how much more contemplate robbery, the judges thought.

    Soon the celebrated trial began. Of course no counsel stood for the poor son-of-gun save for a state prosecutor who all the time wondered why the state would waste so much time with a rascal. It turned out that the ‘gun’ the blighters brandished was only a toy pistol. It also turned out that all he ‘stole’ was an empty champagne case that resembled a compact stereo set.

    Even Chief Cleanface sobered up as the case reached its ugly crescendo. The intruder was an armed robber and the punishment was death. According to the judgment, he was found guilty of an offence bordering on conspiracy to commit armed robbery and was sentenced to death by hanging. Soon the Brahmins of the community repaired in Chief’s abode to celebrate his ‘survival’ and the triumph of the rule of law. Of course champagne flowed like water but Chief wallowed in private melancholy.

    He was a much tortured man and as soon as the crowd dispersed he lapsed deeper into sorrow. He remembered he had changed his name to Cleanface after pulling off a multi-billion naira pension scam. He had hired six seniors advocate; he had had to part with half of the loot in a quiet plea bargain. He still had about 10 billion with which he relocated far from the city and begun a new life as Chief Cleanface. Yes, his face – head, beard, eyebrow and all – he shaved clean in his new life. If this boy is hanged… he thought, as he turned in his golden bed later that night.

    Moral of the fable: the law is an ass….

     

  • Jonathan’s dubious defenders

    In managing the defeat of the old political order under ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, the losers were not expected to accept their loss without attempts to romanticise their gone era. But even idealisation of the past should have limits and the voices of historical revision should also know their limits even if they don’t recognise their limitations.

    Some former ministers in the Jonathan administration who jointly issued a statement on August 30 made revisional claims that fly in the face of the record. They said: “The improvements that have been noticed today in the power sector, in national security, and in social services and other sectors did not occur overnight. They are products of solid foundations laid by the same Jonathan administration.” If the failed administration demonstrably laid such “solid foundations”, does it suggest that Jonathan’s electoral ouster was misguided and undeserved?

    The statement continued: “Contrary to what the APC and its agents would rather have the public believe, the Jonathan administration did not encourage corruption; rather it fought corruption vigorously, within the context of the rule of law.” Were the ex-ministers talking about the same administration known to have encouraged corruption premised on Jonathan’s famous defensive remark that “Stealing is not corruption”?

    They added: “It was also the Jonathan administration that mobilised and secured the support of our neighbouring countries to ensure a robust multinational response to the menace of terrorism and insurgency, resulting in notable advancements in the fight against terror.” The “notable advancements” referred to must include the tragedy of over 200 schoolgirls abducted in Chibok, Borno State, by Boko Haram terrorists over a year ago and who are still missing.

    The former ministers blamed “the Muhammadu Buhari administration and members of the All Progressives Congress (APC)” for what they described as “an orchestrated and vicious trial by media…that discredits our honest contributions to the growth and development of our beloved nation.” Did they honestly mean “growth and development”?

    In an implied admission of a degree of rottenness that can be associated with the Jonathan administration, they said: “In addition, the Buhari administration should be fair enough to acknowledge the good work of the Jonathan administration. No administration can be either completely bad or completely good.  President Jonathan’s achievements in moving this country to greater heights deserve to be duly acknowledged.” It is the height of illusion to claim that the discredited government took the country to “greater heights.”  Clearly, the electorate graded the Jonathan administration as more bad than good.

    In conclusion, Jonathan’s dubious defenders said: “We are constrained to speak up in defence of the legacy of the Jonathan administration, and shall do so again, for as long as those who are determined to rubbish that legacy are unrelenting in their usual deployment of blackmail, persecution and similar tactics.” One question: Is it possible to rubbish a “legacy” that is rubbish?

  • Ekiti Kete, how market?

    Nothing more perhaps, depicts the starkness of Ayo Fayose’s Ekiti, than two pictures, of two governors, from two states, with two contrasting tempers: one forward-looking, the other firmly fixed in the past.

    Kaduna’s Nasir El-Rufai: with construction experts, at some work site, studying a sheaf of diagrams.  The imaging?  A 21st century futuristic governor.

    Ekiti’s Ayo Fayose: at an Ado Ekiti market, pricing ponmo and allied orisirisi, with his darling hoi polloi roaring; and salivating a putative life-time treat of gubernatorial stew!  Abiding image: a crude throw-back into the Medieval, if not outright, Stone ages!

    Yet, El-Rufai and Fayose are governors in today’s Nigeria.

    Ekiti Kete, famed land of professors, how market?

    Fayose, no doubt, is a master of full emptiness.  When the  barbarians over-ran Alexandria in ancient Egypt, their public enemy number one was the 700,000-scroll Royal Library of Alexandria.  So pronto, they razed it, for nothing scares a barren mind more than even the most routine of ideas.

    Like Barbarians in Egypt, like Fayose in Ekiti.  So, when others levitate the clouds for ideas, seeking solutions to developmental problems, Fayose plumbs deep into empty stunts, stunts he hopes would tantalise his people, and freeze their thinking, even but for a little longer.

    This is why El-Rufai would study maps; and Fayose would, with glee, price ponmo!

    Ekiti Kete, how market?

    Indeed, in Fayose’s Ekiti, it would appear morning yet on a long, long night.  At the beginning, it was loud emptiness muscling out quiet ideas.  But now, it is equal-opportunity vacuity, of different shapes and sizes, and rippling muscles, in a vicious combat for hegemony.  Fayose, formerly undisputed lord of manor, is therefore constrained to up the ante.

    First, a bitter rival for public attention rather audaciously decided to beat Fayose to his own game.  At his first coming, Fayose dazzled Ekiti with tanker loads of free water, the water of forgetfulness, which Ekiti drank to forget its essence.  By the time they woke from the watery drug, Ekiti Kete was almost undone.

    Now, that rival has reached for the jugular, Fayose’s beloved Okada riders, and declared free fuel for all, in this jungle of rough-and-tumble politics.  When the dust cleared, the riders reportedly declared themselves ready to be spoilt silly by whoever supplied free petrol, even — heresy of heresy — asking Fayose to stand up for the new champion of dramatic emptiness!

    Then, a renegade former “Speaker”, who was a rebuke to the law, his own conscience, decency and even common sense, suddenly remembered he had principles, alleging that he was a victim of Fayose’s use-and-dump tactics!  He declared himself liberated from Fayose’s potent spell of one-man show.

    Even, some elements in the Ekiti Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have joined the restiveness, with a splinter group and youth vanguard declaring themselves ready to confront the hitherto popular — more of notorious — Leviathan of Ekiti streets.

    Geez, the Fayose revolution seems set to devour own scions!

    But for the rambunctious Fayose, it is time to up the emptiness.  First, was the ponmo show, of the latest gubernatorial cook in town, boasting a glittering CV of an illustrious career as Danfo driver.

    Then, the latest outpouring of gubernatorial tomfoolery: the appointment of a 72-year-old reported “illiterate” as local government caretaker chairman, with a graduate as blissful personal assistant!  Whatever the illiterate lacked, the graduate sidekick can make up, right?

    Can any contender, in all of Ekiti, beat this audaciously dramatic gubernatorial clowning?

    Ekiti Kete, how market?

  • Chad to the rescue?

    “Dada is a weakling,” a Yoruba saying direly warns, “but he boasts a mighty younger sibling”.  That would appear the story of (once almighty?) Nigeria, vis-a-vis the latest cheery news from the Boko Haram front.

    First, cheery news.  At last, Boko Haram’s nose appears finally being bloodied — and about time too! — with Nigerian troops’ reported crushing victory, in the ill-fated Boko Haram raid on Maiduguri, capital of Borno State; and epicentre of the Islamists’ insurrection.

    Boko Haram attacked twice; and twice it was put to the sword.  That is the sort of news Nigerians want to hear — and Hardball says Bravo to our brave troops, including the volunteer militias that joined to repel these blood thirsty anarchists.  Though it is still audacious Boko Haram must attack and our military defend (it should have been otherwise), the victory is no less sweet and reassuring.

    Cheery news, of sorts too: according to news reports, foreign armies from neighbouring countries — Chad, Niger and Cameroun — have now fully joined the anti-Boko Haram column.   But that is no altruism.  It is only strategic thinking that Boko Haram be checked before spreading its fatal doctrine into these countries, and contaminating their peoples.

    Besides, it is the decision of the African Union (AU) to raise a regional army to contain this menace.  That is just as well, for an injury to one is injury to all.

    Still, from this cheering news would suggest some jeer: “Chad captures Gamboru from sect”, was a headline in the February 4 issue of The Nation.  Gamboru is a Nigeria-Chad border town, which Boko Haram had earlier over-run, after putting Nigerian troops on the run.

    Indeed, it is good news that Gamboru is free.  If the lunatic boasts and taunts of Ibrahim Shekau, and the Stone Age savagery of his band of Islamist lunatics are anything to go by, the liberation of Gamboru is very good news.

    But by Chad?  That is not so good — particularly that, within four days, Chad is reported to have liberated other towns in Borno State like Baga, Dikwa, Malam Fatori, Damasak, Ngala and part of Bama!

    So, to use the Yoruba saying as metaphor, is Nigeria now the elder weakling, relying on the muscles of Chad, its younger sibling?  That must be very traumatic to a people who have always worn a chip on the shoulder as “the giant of Africa”!

    Sure, the Defence Headquarters has pooh-poohed the reported Chadian military driving seat story, insisting the Nigerian military was in control, busy directing affairs and calling the shots.  That might well be.

    Still, results are results: even if Nigerians were indeed in charge, the Chadian troops’ intervention would appear clearly fatal for Boko Haram.  Besides, if Nigerian troops had earlier attained the reported Chadian level of success, the intervention of neighbouring countries would have been needless.

    It would appear, therefore, that the once-upon-a-time lion of West Africa, imposing peace and order in Liberia and Sierra Leone, after those countries’ civil war; and favourite peacekeepers in global trouble spots, has now become a mere lamb, to be rescued by Chad!

    But what if Chad suddenly develops appetite for territorial ambitions?  That should trouble every patriot; for a country unable to defend itself leaves itself open to foreign domination.

     

    • This article was first published on February 5, 2015

  • FIFA: OUK for president; ha, ha, ha!

    Hardball should have aptly tagged this piece: “The great Nigerian hustle”. But true to be told, it is not a Hardball original. It is a timeless line lifted from Time magazine. It was way back in 1994 in an edition reviewing the USA ’94 World Cup tournament.

    Time had spotlighted football super-powers – Brazil, Argentina, Italy, among others. In highlighting Nigeria the reigning African champions, the journal described the Super Eagles’ quest for the World trophy in that memorable but unflattering line, “The great Nigerian hustle.”

    Scalding as that line was, you couldn’t fault it. Then as it has remained now (save for few months of sanity), Nigeria’s football, especially its administration, was one great hustle. It was a game of chance, hit or miss. It was devoid of much thought. Players were like wild berries which were dispersed around the world by some ‘explosive mechanism’. At the advent of every tournament, they were gathered, not unlike wild fruits and assembled for contest.

    More troubling, however, to the likes of Time magazine was that Nigeria would hope to win tournaments against teams and countries which had prepared methodically.

    This immortal line comes to mind again as a result of the current clamour by some acolytes of Chief Orji Uzor Kalu (OUK) for him to join the race for the presidency of the world soccer ruling body – FIFA. OUK was a two-term governor of Abia State, a contractor, businessman and football enthusiast.

    But most remarkably, OUK represents the quintessence of “the great Nigerian hustle”.  We speak of that devil-may-care derring-do; that knack to seek to get results anyhow; that desultory, immethodical mode to seek to solve algebraic problems by bypassing equations and formulas.

    How else would one assess the ongoing noisy insistence on OUK vying for FIFA presidency if not an enactment of the good old hustle? FIFA and its current president, Mr. Sepp Blatter, is currently wracked by serious allegations of fraudulent activities. The world body is going through a phase of self-cleansing; the great football house is attempting a rebirth. How then does OUK come into this picture if not to woo opprobrium upon Nigeria?

    Is OUK remotely qualified for this job? Not by any chance. As governor of a wretched state in Nigeria, he shoveled state funds into running a football club (Enyimba FC of Aba) with the sole aim of garnering cheap popularity and massaging an excessively large ego.

    Thus this man spent millions of dollars over eight years to bankroll a football club in a state that lacked basic sporting facilities; a state that lacked basic existential amenities; that was scourged by poverty. He would misplace priorities by committing scarce funds to playing football for eight years.

    Today, some fellas are taking a disgraceful Nigerian joke all the way to the world stage in Switzerland. An awkward league of supporters including former President Ibrahim Babangida, octogenarian politician, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, tarred CAF executive, Amos Adamu, former footballer, John Fashanu and sports promoter, Felix Awogu.

    Taking the joke even farther, one impetuous supporter said he is the “crazy outsider” FIFA needs. Well, before any ‘crazy’ move is made, let it not be neglected that OUK has a small issue with the anti-graft agency, EFCC. FIFA won’t need that now.

  • Folks, IBB misses MKO!

    Can you imagine?  Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) loves Chief Moshood Abiola (MKO) so much that he now misses him!

    So said IBB to mark his 74th birthday.  But unlike his power and glory days, when he committed that grave anti-MKO infraction that nearly brought Nigeria to her knees, the public met his declaration with a near-total snub.

    Could IBB, the soldier trained to dominate his environment, who once boasted he was not only in government but in power, be fading from public consciousness?

    Perish the thought,  IBB-philes would roar!  But really, is the self-christened evil genius fading out of fashion; and that grim reality had pushed the rather peculiar MKO praise out of his mouth, just to remind all he is still around?

    Sure, IBB misses his “friend”.  But MKO, wherever he is now, would probably think — and in popular estimation, he won’t be wrong — that with friends like IBB, MKO needs no more enemies!

    The IBB-MKO tango needs no elaborate retelling.  IBB was military “president”, a civilian gloss on a military dictatorship, which should have warned early enough that his so-called political transition programme was a grand fraud.  But he authored it, anyway: a long-winding and serpentine programme supposed to birth a new democratic republic, but which instead delivered death to not a few political ambitions.

    But the most tragic loss was clearly MKO’s, IBB’s self-confessed darling “friend” who not only lost his presidential due (courtesy of the presidential election he won on June 12, 1993, but which IBB annulled), he eventually lost his life.  Even before that, in the epic struggle to reclaim that mandate, MKO had lost his most senior wife and chief mandate-reclaiming campaigner, Kudirat, making the couple’s children premature orphans, because their parents fatally strayed into politics.

    MKO also lost his billion-naira business empire, in the course of the struggle, the empire that watered MKO’s famous charity and philanthropy, which greatly benefited the polity.  Finally the country lost a democratic republic.  The still-birth Third Republic got truncated for the starkest and grimmest military dictatorship Nigeria had the misfortune to suffer — under Sani Abacha.

    So, if IBB now declares he misses MKO, Hardball just wonders: what granite constitutes IBB’s love — a peculiar love that ensures pain but seldom any gain?

    Cold comfort, though: the proverbial high and the mighty that aided and abetted the IBB scheme appear having their due comeuppance.  For starters, PDP, the Army Arrangement power transfer special vehicle has coughed and spluttered to a halt after 16 painful years of retrogression.

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, first pilot of that misbegotten political jet, is condemned to declaiming PDP, and explaining why the best thing to happen to a country he always claims he loves was for his former party to lose power.

    David Mark, who rose to become president of the Senate just made dubious history as the first Senate president in Nigerian history to become an ordinary member, no thanks to PDP loss of federal power.  He was allegedly active in the June 12, 1993 presidential mandate annulment plot.

    IBB himself tried to re-step into power, after “stepping aside”, but found himself a thoroughly damaged good. His campaign was mercilessly shut down, even before the PDP primaries closed.

    So, what is IBB’s rather strange professing of love for MKO — a bitter and painful pang of conscience?  Whatever it is, IBB must carry his own cross. But Hardball’s friendly advice: he had better come clean and publicly apologise for the great ill he did MKO.

    A pang of conscience is a pretty heavy albatross to carry to the grave.