The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • The Dasuki debacle

    No, not I! Hardball would never — repeat, never! — dabble in security matters.  It is a cloak-and-dagger territory, where the acme of transparency remains mitigated opacity!

    So, if comments in the public space are a function of facts, why would anyone dabble into security matters where, in street-speak, the more you look, the less you see?  Again, not I!

    Still, retired Col. Sambo Dasuki, ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s last National Security Adviser’s (NSA’s) reaction to the Department of State Services (DSS) search on his three houses, is different.

    As Col. Dasuki once abandoned his core security duties to play blatant partisan politics, pre-election 2015, so would Hardball wave his personal rule to comment on Sambo’s personal odyssey.  So, whatever DSS has on him would be revealed in the open court.  That is no Hardball business.  Hardball’s business, however, remains the man’s reaction.

    First, the profound implication of the rather trite saying: nothing lasts forever!  Col. Dasuki is finding that out the hard way; and he is reacting rather badly to the situation.

    Just in February, the all-mighty NSA, wearing a Jonathan Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) partisan cloak under his NSA camo, sauntered into Chatham House, London, and imperiously declared the February 14 presidential election could not hold because Prof. Attahiru Jega and his Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were not ready. Jega protested shrilly, but no dice.  The Leviathan had spoken!

    Sambo later came home; and with Jonathan’s service chiefs, walked his talk on the election postponement.  Not even guided advice by the National Council of State (NCS) could impress Sambo and co. NCS advised election should go ahead, so long as Jega declared his INEC prepared.  But Sambo and hosts roared no!

    For six weeks, their brave troops were beginning an anti-Boko Haram offensive to vanquish the Islamist rascals and make the elections more secure: in six weeks, what they had woefully failed to do in almost six years?

    Hardly a crime in the circumstances!  But even the most dense-minded knew it was a partisan security forces’ gamble to buy time for an electorally doomed President Jonathan.  Jonathan, famed for his crass opportunism, eagerly bought into the anti-election coup; the former president, with his party, mouthing all the cant at their disposal to justify this anomaly.

    So, it is this Leviathan Sambo, then untouchable and unshakeable, that now like some jelly, spews jeremiads of pity and playing to the gallery on democracy ethos, the same democracy he brazenly attempted to subvert with his Chatham House intervention?  Allah Akbar!

    Indeed, God is great and no condition is permanent — as the Great Zik riposted to the late Ukpabi Azika, who as administrator of the defunct East Central State (now the five Igbo states), mocked Zik with “ex-this and ex-that.”

    But the embattled ex-NSA was not done yet in his jeremiad of victimhood.  The Buhari presidency was trying to rubbish him, even after he (Sambo) helped it to gain power!  How?

    Now, is the ex-NSA delusional?  That would appear so.  Even after the election-postponement plot, he grumbled aloud about the penchant of Nigerians to read ill motives to his championing postponed elections.

    Now, Hardball thinks that delusion has become complex — for how could he claim he helped Buhari to power?  Was he a partisan, to start with?  And if he was — as bad as that would be — was he double-dealing, leading Jonathan to this power grave, while double-dealing with Buhari, for some post-Jonathan power trade-off?

    Let Sambo Dasuki meet his fate as a man, instead of making unguarded statements that rubbish, the more, the institutional mess he is leaving behind on the (in)security front.

  • Obj’s catharsis

    If only the handlers of former President Olusegun Obasanjo could have him hold his peace on matters that are better forgotten, then he would probably earn his hero status in a country that has few heroes. But for a man who made the famous remarks that he advised his advisers and not the other way round, then one can imagine that he (man) handles his handlers if he ever had any.

    Age ought to mellow and mature, wizen and make wiser and most important, makes a man come to terms with himself, his people and his maker. As a man sitting in the departure lounge of life, to borrow from Chief E.K Clark, one expects Chief Obasanjo to travel light, shed all excess baggage and be at peace with his world.

    But that is not the case with the Owu deity who enjoyed the rare privilege of ruling Nigeria for about 13 years, first as a military head of state and then as an elected president for two terms of eight years. But Obasanjo comes across as a man in prolonged and un-assuaged agony. Like all agonists, he is always seeking to be seen, to be heard and to be courted. He seems to covet and cherish the high table of relevance all the time. When he is not in the limelight, he creates his own lime and light and bask in it.

    Such was the case last week when the former president granted an interview to Channels Television explaining why he chose his late successor, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. For a classic Obasanjo mala fide that happened eight years ago and for which the nation had agonised and moved on, why Obj had to be scratching the scar of our wound cannot be fathomed.

    The underhand event happened before our eyes: Obasanjo the incumbent wanted a soft and weak successor and he found his best bet in the late Yar’Adua, a visibly ailing man. He paired him with a yodeling yeoman straight from the creeks of Otuoke. The Yar’Adua/Jonathan ticket for the 2007 presidential race must rank among the most debilitated and puerile pairing to be found in modern democracy.

    At the end of that era on May 29, 2015, a cycle of a debacle that was total and comprehensive had been completed. Anarchy was almost loosed upon the land. The nation still roils from it till this moment. A slew of mind-boggling corruption, abandoned projects, misery and poverty for the populace were what Obasanjo’s singular succession perfidy earned Nigeria.

    Yet he would not let us be. Unprompted last week, Obasanjo told us that choosing a terminally ill man to preside over this vast country was the right thing to do. All the other seekers of the job were corrupt, he said.

    If only Baba Obasanjo would hold his peace, if only he would keep quiet and allow time to heal the wounds he has inflicted on us. But Hardball knows he won’t; he can’t until he has achieved catharsis. But there lies the dilemma; Obasanjo is not likely to achieve such a redeeming state of self-purification. What a pity.

  • Jonathan agonistes

    The Guilty are Afraid, James Hadley Chase, the crime thriller great, would have dubbed it, being the title of one of his ever-racy novels.

    But Hardball prefers Jonathan Agonistes — the agony of Jonathan — being the reported unease former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan feels, over reported plans to find where some US $2.1bn in oil money nestles.

    The Nation, in its lead story of July 15, reported:  “Jonathan kicks as Buhari plans US $2.1b oil cash probe” — with the accompanying rider: “Ex-President seeks protection”.

    Protection — why?  The story reported Jonathan to have made a save-my-soul (SMS) Abuja sortie; and literally plans a protest placard, to Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, chairman of the National Peace Committee, that did much to ease tension before, during and after the epochal March/April elections, after which President Jonathan and his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost power.

    The story said former President Jonathan craved “protection”, from the Abubakar committee, against any alleged “blackmail” from the new Muhammadu Buhari presidency, over possible missing money, from the ever-leaking oil purse.

    Already, Edo Governor Adams Oshiomhole has gone radical, daring Jonathan and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, his economy czarina, to speak up on how US $1bn allegedly disappeared from the Excess Crude Account (ECA), with Oshiomhole alleging Okonjo-Iweala illegally withdrew the money to fund Jonathan’s electioneering.

    The former president must have been unnerved that the hard-punching Oshiomhole was part of the quartet the National Economic Committee (NEC) set up to investigate how the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), they of opaque operations, spent N3.8 trillion in three years.

    But a closer look at the quartet would reveal an intricate balancing, between the two major political parties: Oshiomhole and Nasir El-Rufai (APC), counter-balanced by Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom) and Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe). Alhaji Dankwambo, one of only two PDP governors from the North now; while Governor Emmanuel is a protégée of Godswill Akpabio, a rabid Jonathan supporter.  So, opposing partisan bile should cancel themselves out.

    So, why does Jonathan fear?

    As for the appeal to the Abdulsalami Abubakar National Peace Committee, nothing on the surface is wrong with it.  In a milieu that lays so much store by barking power, it is pleasing that quiet influence is weighing in.  Besides, Dr. Jonathan should do everything logical, lawful and legitimate to protect his name — and legacy.

    Where Hardball vigorously  disagrees is the reported allusion to post-poll but seeming pre-concession agreement, which appeared to have formed the basis of Jonathan’s acceptance of electoral loss.

    The Abubakar committee’s appeal to common sense and honour was laudable — even more so, as Jonathan bought into it; and accepted defeat in a poll he was clearly worsted.  He, other things being equal, could not have done otherwise, anyway.  With his defeat, his covenant with Nigerians, as president, had been shred.

    So, while applauding Jonathan for choosing the honourable path, that concession cannot — and will not — be a basis for perpetual blackmail, against positive action, especially where there are legitimate questions on his government’s handling of the economy, which put most of our people in ruin, are begging for answers.

    Jonathan should get his due honour.  But that should not shield him from flak, arising from the rot his presidency left. And certainly, the Abubakar committee must not be party to any illicit cover-up.  Every question must be put, and answer entered, in the public space.

    Nigeria is no medieval enclave where a few potentates enter a redoubt, and emerge (that word again!) to pronounce everything settled, even when their subjects have serious doubts. It is rather a 21st century democracy, where the citizens must press their rights to know.

  • What a Briton said

    Flashback to March 2009 and the loud launch of a project tagged Rebranding Nigeria. At the event in Abuja, the then Information Minister, Prof. Dora Akunyili, unveiled a slogan that was appealing on paper:  ”Good People, Great Nation”. Akunyili said: ”Nigeria cannot wait until it solves all her problems before it can stand to give serious thought to rebranding its battered image. This is because our development is tied to our image. This negative perception has had destructive effects on our people and stymied our growth and national progress.”

    The cosmetic idea belonged to the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua administration, and the then Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, represented Yar’Adua on the occasion. Jonathan said: “Let us resolve that we would no longer be held ransom by the fraudsters that give Nigeria and all of us a bad name and image.”  On behalf of the members of the rebranding committee, Isawa Elaigwu said: “We are not happy with the Nigerian product we have now; hence we have decided to do something about it… All we hear in the past is that Nigeria is a fertile ground for credit fraud and all kinds of crime. We all can rebrand Nigeria. Once we continue to rebrand ourselves, then Nigeria can be rebranded.”

    Against this background, the news that a 70-year-old British pensioner, William Harding, appeared in an England court charged with using improper language against his former Nigerian employee, had branding and rebranding implications, especially given that the 2009 project is considered a failure.

    Harding was accused of making remarks that were “grossly offensive or of an obscene character” in his counter-claim sent electronically to a small claims court concerning a Nigerian whom he described as a “typical thieving Nigerian”. He was also accused of saying in a form he filled: “I don’t think God made a worse race than Nigerians. I’ve not come across an honest one yet.” It is noteworthy that a report said: “Harding pleaded not guilty to the offence, saying he did not intend to cause any offence and did not think the victim would have been offended by the remarks.”

    Quite apart from the anti-racism merit of Harding’s trial, which is expected to take place in September, the point is that Nigeria and Nigerians still suffer branding and rebranding problems. Recently, the pioneer secretary and former Chief Executive Officer, Rebranding Nigeria, Mr. Lolu Akinwunmi, reportedly blamed the project’s failure on inadequate funding. He was quoted as saying: “We agreed on a social mobilisation programme that would even affect and influence teachings from our primary schools, etc. It was a great programme. And it was structured to run over a long span, not some six months campaign. Is it still relevant? Of course, it will always be, for as long as we need to go through a social reengineering programme.”

    Although Harding’s sweeping generalisation betrays a racist narrow-mindedness, it is food for thought that the perception of Nigerians as being characteristically corrupt has travelled far and wide. Irrespective of how his trial is concluded, Harding’s point of view should help to further energise the anti-corruption campaign of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency.

  • Rip Van Winkle of Cairo

    His name is Cairo Ojougboh.  But from his latest expose on the open secret of why the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost power in March and April, he could well qualify for a contemporary Rip Van Winkle, that however lives in Cairo!

    You will recall: the original Rip was a fictional character in the American Washington Irving’s short story of the same title, in a collection of short stories he titled The Sketch Book of Geofferey Crayon, Gent.

    To cut short a long story: Rip schmoozed with ghosts in a neighbouring wilds; and as a result, slept for no less than 20 years.  When he woke up, he found everything about him had changed — not the least America, which had passed from the colony of England’s King George III to a new, post-revolution order under George Washington.

    What made the goodly Dr. Ojougboh, PDP’s national vice-chairman for the South-South, to break, as fresh news, the common knowledge of the PDP faux pas?  Was he on some political sabbatical to Cairo, only to dash home to “break” the news — the news that everybody already knew?

    And why did Dr. Ojougboh, a South-South native as former President Goodluck Jonathan, tarry this far to realise Jonathan was embarking on a political journey of no return, on his trenchant insistence to run for a second term, when political dynamics suggested it was pure political suicide?

    Or did Dr. Ojougboh, like most in the deluded Jonathan presidential court, also feed himself the lie that, because Jonathan was not only in office but also in power (apologies to Gen. Ibrahim Babangida), all those dynamics would bow and cow before the majesty of Goodluck Jonathan, PhD, GCFR, president of the Federal Republic?

    And indeed, if Dr. Ojougboh really thought Jonathan was wrong to contest, despite the clear and perilous handwriting on the wall, why didn’t he speak out then?

    Was he a victim of the noisy orchestra; they of the empty din, that bluffed and blustered to no end, hoping empty threats and scowls, could make up for electoral numbers, which their candidate clearly lacked?  Or suspect Rasputins that introduced the religious card, waiting for a miracle that just wouldn’t come?

    The truth is President Jonathan’s first go was as controversial as any; for it breached a zoning arrangement that landed Obasanjo the presidency, knocked out his third-term attempt and installed the late Umaru Yar’Adua.  That should have warned Jonathan to steer clear of a second attempt.  But no!

    Incidentally, Obasanjo that falsely swore to declaim zoning became Jonathan’s sworn enemy, over a second term!  Talk of how power intrigue ultimately separates its own — since the union was never grafted on any noble principle.

    Truth is: PDP was doomed — Jonathan or no Jonathan.  But Jonathan’s intransigence, despite a suspect moral platform and rotten performance record on all objective fronts, fast-tracked that doom.  It was a classic example of how hubris romanticises self-destruction.

    But if the likes of Ojougboh had spoken up, driven by the rightness of their cause, and had somewhat gathered traction, perhaps Jonathan would have been saved the humiliation of the first sitting president to be democratically-ousted.  Still, that is no means a minus, for it deepened Nigeria’s democracy.

    Nevertheless, the Ojougboh late confession should speak to the Buhari camp.  A leader obsessed with only what he wants to hear sooner than later runs into a sucker punch.

    If Nigerian politicians take in this sole lesson, the polity would be the richer for it.

     

  • El Rufai and LGAs: Just do it

    They said it could never be done and for 16 years, none did it. It was so very convenient not to do it; in fact it was sweetly convenient. Not one showed the example or even tried. Hardball is going on and on about the matter of local government administration in Nigeria and the brigandage that has transpired there since the current democratic dispensation.

    The makers of Nigeria’s constitution in their wisdom embedded the local government areas (LGAs) in the document as the third tier of government with all the appurtenances of a unit of government built in. But our governors (all without exception!) circumvented the LGAs to their heart’s content. Units that ought to be semi-autonomous but under the purview of the state were viciously stymied, crippled and rendered comatose and outright dead in most instances.

    Units that ought to be the fulcrum of integrated national development were held hostage by some overlords across the country. They made sure the LGAs never functioned; they made sure there are never elections; they made sure that only nonentities who are of scant consequence ever get to head the LGAs; they made sure that statutory funds meant for the LGAs never get to them. Unanimous in mischief, they created an evil vehicle called JAAC –  a supposedly joint account (but which bears only LGA funds) where LGA funds a warehoused before they are stolen. It is at this JAAC that the funds that belong to an entire local council area are hijacked.

    This banditry has gone on for 16 years unchallenged and unabated. Even as you read this, the billions of naira meant for developing our streets, ward, villages and communities are callously seized by a few people. They have carried on like this for so long that they now tell us that there is nothing like the third tier of government; they say that the state is a federating unit so cannot harbour an autonomous unit. They have concocted all sorts of criminal logic to steal the people’s money. They have almost bent our minds.

    When it is pointed out to them that most of the social malaise besetting the nation is as a result of the fact that our local governments are dead, they don’t want to hear it. You see our so-called governors dissipating themselves running from pillar to post like cartoon superman trying to run an entire state. All one sees on display is the utter folly of a brigand stealing from his own house.

    Just when the whole country had given up, a bright light seems to peer from a northern tunnel. Kaduna State governor, Mr. Nasir El-Rufai, may well be our game-changer. He seems poised to repudiate and debunk his peers. He has given notice that he would not toe the path of perfidy well beaten by his fellow governors. He has vowed not only to hand over the entire LGA funds, he would also allot to them, 10 per cent of funds generated internally from the state.

    Hear him: “Therefore, I am happy to inform you that the government under our watch has formally abolished joint account in Kaduna State.” This will be the real change indeed if he can pull it off!

  • Aliko and Arsenal’s long juju (2)

    Let us make this confession upfront: Hardball, Aliko Dangote and Arsenal Football Club must be some kind of kindred spirits; therefore, this is a sort of kindred meeting albeit held in the public square. Like Aliko, Hardball is also confesses to be nuts over Arsenal. May be he has not been a fan of 30 years like Aliko, he has at least two decades of the club’s following to boast of, which includes all the years of Professor Arsene Wenger. So Hardball is also under the spell of the long juju.

    This may explain why the attempt by the richest man in Africa to acquire the North London football club someday, sometime, somehow has caught the interest of Hardball. Arsenal in the last 20 years is probably the most admired club in the world. Arsenal’s ancient mortar logo crusted in a deep red crest is probably among the top-five most recognisable logo in the world.

    For those who know something about brand value, this is probably the hugest asset of Arsenal more than the face value of the shares. This is a British icon, Britain’s ambassador, English pride and the white man’s cult hero. This is just laying out the quantum of asset that Aliko wants to buy. So for all of Aliko’s billions, he may never get to own Arsenal.

    It is true that money does not discriminate against color but colour would discriminate against money and colour has money. Five years ago when Aliko tried to buy off 15 per cent stake of the club, he was rebuffed and repelled with ridiculous pricing. Those shares were later sold to an American probably for less. This is what I mean by colour would discriminate against money.

    Our reality is that if the British ever get too hard up for cash and must dispose of their prize asset, they would rather sell to the Americans who must have the choice of first refusal. Then the Russians would be next in line to buy; then the Asians; then the Arabs, before it could be offered to Africans. Make no mistake about this: colour counts my dear compatriot.

    But how is it to be heard that Arsenal is owned by a Nigerian, a country where there are no modern stadia and no serious football league? The last time Hardball intervened in this matter, Aliko had posited that he would buy the club some day and that it was only a matter of time and they would accept his offer.

    Nigerians, including Hardball bayed at him and he has returned to the arena again responding that: “Buying Arsenal will take the Nigerian flag worldwide.” That is true and also quite patriotic too. But while biding his time to take over the Gunners, Hardball insists that there must be something he can help with around here.

    Hardball will always site the Aspire example in UAE. He can set up such mini facilities that can help catch and harness local talents. Many of the government sporting facilities and stadia across the land could use a touch of the Midas. He can lease, upgrade and manage or re-lease. This will bring instant boost to Nigeria’s football. Nigeria’s football is actually one huge, unpolished gold.

     

     

  • Old wine, new label

    His overexcitement was an overreaction. He announced a name change, saying he would no longer be known as David Oluwafemi Fani-Kayode “but instead, it shall be David Oluwafemi Olukayode.”  He explained in a statement: “Olukayode means ‘the Lord has brought me joy’ and today he has done precisely that. From this day, in honour of Him and as a small tribute to my love for and total dependence on Him, that shall remain my family name.”

    He went on: “I am delighted, humbled and relieved by this verdict. In the last seven years, I have been subjected to the most malicious, vicious, sinister, well-orchestrated, insidious and devastating form of political persecution and wickedness.”  He added: “The whole process almost destroyed my life, my family, my reputation, my health and my career. I thank God for his goodness, His mercy and for the fact that today, the whole nightmare has finally come to an end.”

    He was understandably upbeat. Has the “nightmare” ended, as he would like to believe?  His trial was related to an alleged cash transaction exceeding N500, 000 on September 20, 2006, which was not done through a financial institution.  Specifically, he was said to have received N2.1 million in cash, paid into his account by his aide while he was Minister of Culture and Tourism.

    But a Federal High Court in Lagos on July 1 acquitted Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Minister of Aviation, of the money laundering charges filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Interestingly, Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia found him innocent not necessarily because he was not guilty as charged, but because of “the absence of copious evidence before the court.”

    In the judge’s words: “By the fact that the giver and source of the money are hazy and unproven, it remains the law that where there are doubts or insufficient evidence linking the accused person with the elements and ingredients of the offence, a court must discharge as a matter of law.”

    It is noteworthy that the accused initially faced 40-count money laundering charges, which the judge pruned to two on the grounds that the prosecution failed to prove “elements” of the other 38 counts. A report said: “Fani-Kayode, in the course of his public service, was also accused of stealing N19.5 billion aviation intervention funds and another N6.5 billion. He was later accused of laundering N200 million.” His celebration appears premature as prosecution counsel Festus Keyamo reportedly indicated that the EFCC might appeal the judgment.

    The controversial politician who was Director of Media and Publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the campaign ahead of this year’s general elections has not parted with controversy as his self-renaming drama demonstrates. It is easy and convenient for him to claim a change of name. Given his antecedents, he probably needs to go further than that. More than giving himself another name, he urgently needs to reform his political personality and his earned reputation for fighting dirty to the point of nauseating obscenity.

  • Uncle Sam has gone nuts again   

    How, this is no harmless pun of Ola Rotimi’s comedy, Our Husband has Gone Mad Again; but a real grim fear at the re-enactment of the Biblical Tower of Babel; an audacious earlier attempt to technologically challenge the natural order of things.

    The Bible is a book of faith.  But were it a non-religious book, amenable to scholastic critiquing, the Tower of Babel could well pass for an apocryphal tale decrying vaulting ambition — over-ambition, even! — of cocky technology (on one hand) and the Almightiness of God (on another).

    Recall: the tower, to link the earth with the heavens (an audacious technological bid in those days, Hardball would imagine), was on course; and Man was a virtual heart-beat away from rudely looking in, into God’s celestial secrets — or so to say — until the Almighty played the language joker.

    That clinical break in communication put Man back in his place; and the heavens reigned forever — hallelujah!

    But comes a fresh challenge, after that pristine triumph.  Hardball talks of no less than the 5-4 US Supreme Court verdict, legalising same-sex marriage (a modern era deodorisation of bad, old sodomy, a pervasion under Mosaic law; and traditional African values), under the axis of human rights.

    Too true, President Barack Obama hailed it as a triumph for America.  But if you look at the less upbeat side, it is America’s triumph, in its human rights, to wilfully de-populate itself — fair enough, won’t you say?

    Still, looked at more deeply, it appears an audacious challenge, maybe the most serious, after the Tower of Babel debacle, to the natural order of procreation — for how can same-sex couples procreate: or do American scientists harbour, in their laboratories, a technological joker to grant Adam and Steve (to borrow that fast-growing cliché); and Mariana and Belinda, the fruit of the womb?

    But an Arab lobby is not particularly bothered, even if it views what it terms an American sexual pervasion, with cocky indignation and contempt.  It has come up with a documentary decrying what it calls America’s fouling of the globe with its home-made pervasion, rebranding homosexuality and lesbianism, in the guise of some avant-garde culture, that must be zestfully embraced by a new global civilisation.

    It, however, figures that by the time America is done depopulating itself by its newfound sweet poison, the booming  Arabs of the generations next would swoop on and take over the American homeland.  That, in its view, would be the ultimate sweet revenge for America’s past and present rascality!

    Another troubled Nigerian emigrant weighed in with his own troubled musing.  ”When I came to America, homosexuality was a crime.  Later, it became acceptable.  Now, it is legal.  I better leave America before it becomes compulsory!”

    Well, well, well!  Will we soon have neo-Andrews, checking out from goddamn America, across the Atlantic, to Naija, the new God’s own country, in a reverse trek of what happened in the 1980s and 1990s, at the height of the military misrule?  That would be the day!

    Meanwhile, it is heart-warming churches here are quite radical in their anti-gay posture, particularly as it relates to procreation and family life.

    If America presses her rights to gay rights, we sure can press our rights to our cherished values of marriage, procreation and family life!

  • NNPC probe: What mother tick told its children

    According to a certain African folklore, mother tick, the wizened matriarch of the blood-sucking specie of mites is said to have told her little ones to always stay calm and take cover each time humans begin to act up and begin to switch on the heat. “Stay quiet and lie low my children,” mother tick would admonish her fledgling parasites in hushed tone, “whatever is heated up would eventually grow cold.”

    Could this be the unfolding scenario in Nigeria today? Is the new All Progressives Congress (APC) government losing the momentum that brought it to office or is it actually planning diligently to unleash the real transformation?

    Apart from the fact that 30 days after inauguration, the President’s core backroom team (chief of staff and all the secretaries) is not yet in place and running, people fear there may be some disorientation when they eventually come on board. The civil servants may just get used to reporting directly to number one to the detriment of the appointees. This will mean that there may be so much bad blood that crucial tasks requiring urgent action may be jeopardised.

    One notable example is the ongoing attempt to probe the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). After the inauguration of the National Economic Council (NEC) last Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari set up a four-member committee to probe an alleged misappropriation of about N3.5 trillion by the NNPC and another N2 trillion from the Excess Crude Account (ECA). The panel comprises the governors of Edo (Adam Oshiomhole), Gombe (Ibrahim Dankwanbo), Kaduna (Nasir el-Rufai) and Akwa-Ibom, (Emmanuel Udom).

    NEC is a conclave of all the governors of the land and the president; it meets every month to deliberate on broad national issues. Now the matter of NNPC is crucial being Nigeria’s most strategic asset and again, being at the core of the unbridled corruption that ravaged the country in the last few years. Flashing a searchlight on this body is neither an ad-hoc affair nor a matter for busy governors.

    NNPC is Nigeria’s putrid honey pot. It requires a truly forensic audit of its affairs in the last five to 10 years. There is need to ascertain the true picture and completely revamp and upgrade its processes. There is need for even a forensic review of an earlier forensic audit by a certain accounting firm. NNPC is the heart and soul of the nation; it is an elaborate enigma, a jigsaw puzzle that would solve most of Nigeria’s problems if handled right.

    This is why Hardball is worried that after 30 days of the CHANGE administration and after all we know about this bastion of corruption, we can only come up with this kind of committee. If we mismanage the NNPC affair, it means that we are not gonna  get much else right. With this excited crowd of panelists to probe NNPC, the blood-suckers, like mother tick, would take one look and chuckle to themselves: “We thought these fellows were serious!”