The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  •  Too dazed to reason

    One way of looking at the outrageous seizure of over 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram terrorists in Chibok, Borno State, one year ago, is through the eyes of the Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe.

    With most of the kidnapped girls still missing and the world still in shock, it was predictable that on the April 14 anniversary world leaders reiterated the familiar demand: bring back the girls.

    While the solemn international remembrance made the headlines, Okupe was busy posting his own views about the abduction on the social media. He was quoted as saying on Facebook: “One of the reasons the Chibok girls were kidnapped was to present Jonathan’s administration as incompetent and to hold it to ransom against 2015 elections. One of the reasons the BBOG (BringBackOurGirls) was formed was to sustain and internationalise the embarrassment.”

    Okupe continued: “One of the reasons President Jonathan lost the election was a national and international conspiracy predicated on this carefully choreographed and assiduously sustained perception.”

    It would seem that Okupe is still too stunned to accept that his boss was demonstrably defeated in the March 28 presidential poll, and still too dazed to reason out how it happened that an incumbent with alleged poor marks in governance was voted out of power. Also, which is worse, it would appear that Okupe may never be able to see Jonathan’s fall as a consequence of his administration’s failure to bring about the developmental transformation the people need.

    Contrary to Okupe’s narrow reasoning, the abduction was not necessary to “present Jonathan’s administration as incompetent” since its incompetence was already self-evident. What the abduction exposed was the gargantuan extent of its incompetence. Okupe should reflect on whether the one-year-old unresolved kidnap is a testimony to the administration’s competence, if any.

    It is disturbing that, considering Okupe’s role in the administration, he may not be the only one thinking this way. It is even worse that he may have been communicating the general thinking in Jonathan’s camp.

    In a significant way, Okupe reflected the presidency’s incompetence when he said: “What is reasonable and expedient for well-meaning men and women of good conscience is to dialogue with the incoming administration on what best new approach to employ to find and rescue the Chibok girls.” When a spokesman speaks of focusing on “what best new approach to employ”, it can be interpreted as a sign, if not an admission, that the administration he represents has handled the issue incompetently.

    Of course, incompetence must have consequences, and the incompetent must bear the consequences, never mind what Okupe seems to think. Interestingly, Okupe said: “Not much can be achieved, except mischief, by continuing to flog this administration on this matter.”  The truth is that the Jonathan administration deserves to be continually flogged until it hands over power to the incoming Muhammadu Buhari administration. Beyond the first level, there is no doubt that the Jonathan presidency will be continually and deservedly flogged by history.

  •  Too dazed to reason

    One way of looking at the outrageous seizure of over 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram terrorists in Chibok, Borno State, one year ago, is through the eyes of the Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe.

    With most of the kidnapped girls still missing and the world still in shock, it was predictable that on the April 14 anniversary world leaders reiterated the familiar demand: bring back the girls.

    While the solemn international remembrance made the headlines, Okupe was busy posting his own views about the abduction on the social media. He was quoted as saying on Facebook: “One of the reasons the Chibok girls were kidnapped was to present Jonathan’s administration as incompetent and to hold it to ransom against 2015 elections. One of the reasons the BBOG (BringBackOurGirls) was formed was to sustain and internationalise the embarrassment.”

    Okupe continued: “One of the reasons President Jonathan lost the election was a national and international conspiracy predicated on this carefully choreographed and assiduously sustained perception.”

    It would seem that Okupe is still too stunned to accept that his boss was demonstrably defeated in the March 28 presidential poll, and still too dazed to reason out how it happened that an incumbent with alleged poor marks in governance was voted out of power. Also, which is worse, it would appear that Okupe may never be able to see Jonathan’s fall as a consequence of his administration’s failure to bring about the developmental transformation the people need.

    Contrary to Okupe’s narrow reasoning, the abduction was not necessary to “present Jonathan’s administration as incompetent” since its incompetence was already self-evident. What the abduction exposed was the gargantuan extent of its incompetence. Okupe should reflect on whether the one-year-old unresolved kidnap is a testimony to the administration’s competence, if any.

    It is disturbing that, considering Okupe’s role in the administration, he may not be the only one thinking this way. It is even worse that he may have been communicating the general thinking in Jonathan’s camp.

    In a significant way, Okupe reflected the presidency’s incompetence when he said: “What is reasonable and expedient for well-meaning men and women of good conscience is to dialogue with the incoming administration on what best new approach to employ to find and rescue the Chibok girls.” When a spokesman speaks of focusing on “what best new approach to employ”, it can be interpreted as a sign, if not an admission, that the administration he represents has handled the issue incompetently.

    Of course, incompetence must have consequences, and the incompetent must bear the consequences, never mind what Okupe seems to think. Interestingly, Okupe said: “Not much can be achieved, except mischief, by continuing to flog this administration on this matter.”  The truth is that the Jonathan administration deserves to be continually flogged until it hands over power to the incoming Muhammadu Buhari administration. Beyond the first level, there is no doubt that the Jonathan presidency will be continually and deservedly flogged by history.

  • Pee-dee-pee … porting!

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) old order loved to bawl pee-dee-pee, to which the faithful would roar pawa!  Were such whoops to be re-enacted now,  the thunderous roar, with absolutely no sense of irony, would probably be porting!

    That is how far the once-upon-a-time largest party in Africa has unravelled!

    And fittingly, Vincent Ogbulafor, Himself the hubris-smitten PDP national chairman who predicted his party would rule for 60 years in the first instance, is coolly a part of the tragic collapse.  Talk of Nebuchadnezzar eating grass!

    The other day, ex-Chairman Ogbulafor staged a “secret” walk into the All Progressives Congress (APC) Abuja headquarters, declared himself in some summitry with John Odigie-Oyegun, APC national chairman, and breezed out to casually tell the media: “It’s not yet time to join APC.”  Call it due process porting, and you won’t be wrong!

    But that was too slow for some Edo PDP denizens, and frankly, only a few could beat Charles Airhiavbere, former Edo PDP gubernatorial candidate, in hasty and indecent defection.  Though part of the unfazed denizens that gave APC Governor Adams Oshiomhole some black eye in the March 28 presidential election, particularly in Edo central and south senatorial districts, he jumped boat as soon as he realised President Goodluck Jonathan had lost out in the power sweepstakes.

    “We delivered for PDP on March 28,” he declared, flush with triumph.  “We will deliver for APC on April 11”!  Can you beat that?  And “true, true”, as they would say on Nigerian streets, Gen. Arhivare and his zesty neophytes, that won the presidential election for Jonathan in Edo also rallied to win for APC, the new national ruling party, most of the seats for the Edo legislature!

    Comrade Governor Oshiomhole must have been quite amused with this rather dizzy about-turn.  But he gulped it all up, perhaps having a big snigger in private!  After all, whoever spews out nuts ground to a sweet pulp by benevolent spirits?

    Such was the nationwide scramble to bale out, from the fast sinking PDP ship, that the ever swinging Jonathan Zwingina, in Adamawa, caught the bug.  Zwingina, barely two months earlier, campaigning with Nuhu Ribadu, the Adamawa PDP gubernatorial candidate, had literarily howled at his constituents: “Don’t vote Buhari; if you do, he will gaol all of us!”

    So, in two short months, what has changed?  But don’t ask Zwingina, a former senator, such swinging questions — he has ported, and that’s that!  Needless to say?  Zwingina’s gain was the excitable Ribadu’s loss. Ribadu, who had earlier boasted a landslide, ate electoral crow yet again, by coming a distant third in the gubernatorial race.

    However, Hardball is not really concerned about the PDP humpty-dumpty which, at least for now, not even the best  of the king’s horsemen could put together again.  It is rather for APC, the new national ruling party, to take a cue from PDP’s hubris.  If PDP can dismantle after 16 years of fly-away power, APC too can suffer such collapse, if it gets afflicted by the PDP contagion.

    That is why it must stress more service, less power; and demonstrate a sense of historic mission and responsibility in its new challenge.

    Otherwise …

  • Ngozi in ‘wonderland’

    Madam Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has managed to create her own fairy tale wonderland over these past few years as Nigeria’s prime minister. Well, why not, even her title as Coordinating Minister of the Economy (CME) is an aberration that became her to the ill of her colleagues and even the polity. That title never amounted to much after all nor was the economy coordinated by any stretch either.

    To be sincere, Hardball actually gave up long ago on President Goodluck Jonathan’s superstar Minister of Finance, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala. Not because she is not a brilliant economist, no. She was indeed a renowned World Bank fellow which was part of her credentials for getting the top job under two presidents. But Hardball wrote her off upon discovering that she is of the abstract and magical ‘school’ of economics.

    Economics for the sake of it: Economics of rates and ratings; of marginal inflationary indexes, positive outlooks and such jargons. In her nearly one decade at the pinnacle of Nigeria’s finances and economy she would always tell us about high growth rates projections and positive outlooks from the World Bank yet in all these periods, Nigerians have sunken deeper into wretchedness.

    Not once under her watch was the annual budget passed on time and she could never radically bring down Nigeria’s crazy recurrent expenditure. For about a decade, a country of about 170 million people was running on about 25 per cent capital expenditure, yet we wondered why infrastructure remained at its nadir.

    Under her watch, the treasury leaked like a sieve and Nigeria hardly got 50 kobo worth for her naira. She feigned ignorance of this festering corruption at best and at worst she denied or wrung her hands in utter helplessness. Ironically, in the last five years, Nigeria earned the most income in her history with her Brent crude price selling at over $100 per barrel all this time. Yet old refineries were never properly fixed nor new ones built. A season of massive petroleum products importations persisted through her time with pervasive graft.

    In her time, everything that could go wrong about the economy did and hardly any critical sector was galvanised by the studied effort of the Federal Government. The more revenue the country earned, the more she was mired in the morass of underdevelopment. But the crash in oil prices caught her pants down so to speak and had her completely unraveled as no attempt was made to diversify the economy from crude, crude oil export.

    As noted earlier, Hardball had long given up on Madam CME because a man (or woman) could not possibly learn to be ambidextrous in old age. But when Madam begins to tell us that all is well with us though we be actually in deep stuff then we must stir. During an interview with the CNN last week, she was asked if Nigeria was broke. Madam was full of equivocation.

    Hear her: “Under this administration, we began the work of truly diversifying the economy and the proof of that is that much of the growth in this past few years that has come to the country, has come not from the oil sector but actually from non-oil sectors like agriculture, telecommunications, manufacturing and the creative industries…”

    Really, this Ngozi must be living in wonderland!

  • President and priest

    When religion is mixed with politics, the result is what was offered by the Chaplain to President Goodluck Jonathan, Ven. Obioma Onwuzurumba. On Easter Sunday, after it was clear that Jonathan’s reelection dream had died, Onwuzurumba delivered a sermon at Aso Villa Chapel titled “Christ is risen indeed.”

    According to an account, the priest said:  ”This Jonathan they did not want, they will look for him. This Jonathan they despised, they will look for him. They will seek his advice. He is not Jesus but he is like Jesus. I am not here to praise him. The disciples did not have the confidence that Jesus who did many things in their lives and that of the people was the messiah and if indeed he would resurrect again.”

    It is puzzling what Onwuzurumba meant by “I am not here to praise him.”  If what he said during the church service did not amount to praise for Jonathan, then he would need to redefine what he means by praise.

    Of course, there is nothing wrong with singing the praise of Jonathan, particularly if he deserves praise. But even deserved praise must be restrained lest it sounds like designed praise.  In this case, likening Jonathan to Jesus not only sounded far-fetched, it also had the sound of nonsense.

    As regards the implication that Jonathan “did many things” in the lives “of the people”, it is worth considering whether Jonathan could be said to have done the right things, or more specifically, whether the things he is said to have done were the right things.

    Jonathan’s implied messianic importance is even more intriguing, especially because a priest suggested it; never mind that Onwuzurumba sounded like a partisan.  It is demonstrable that Jonathan has not governed like a messiah. The state of the nation today, politically, socially and economically, certainly doesn’t reflect any messianic intervention. Or what was Onwuzurumba talking about?

    Interestingly, the cleric used the narrative of the resurrection of Jesus to imply Jonathan’s political comeback.  One question:  If the electorate had wanted him back, would he have been voted out of power in the first place?  But to be fair, his recent electoral rejection doesn’t necessarily eliminate the possibility that he may be wanted back in the future.

    Now, why did Onwuzurumba sound so politically predictable? The truth, which he recognised, must be that he also was most likely on his way out.  An account said that at a point during the service, against the background of soul-lifting songs by “guest singers and the chapel’s choristers,” Onwuzurumba “looked straight at the President and said, “Mr. President, we will miss this choir ooo.”

    The priest probably didn’t say the whole truth. Much more than the choir, both president and priest would surely miss power. When religion is in a romance with politics, it may be too much to expect a man of God to say the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  • Mbu’s ugly fangs

    Ask the controversial Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 2, Joseph Mbu, what he was trying to do by boasting that his fang-baring method made peace possible during the Governorship and National Assembly polls in Lagos.

    According to a report, Mbu said “the threat he issued to kill 10 people for every policeman killed made the Governorship and National Assembly elections to be peaceful in Lagos.”  He was quoted as saying: “Generally, people are becoming more and more mature.” But he left no one in doubt about what he thought of the potency of his threat.  He said: “Also, the statement I made, which people misconstrued, also helped the police because people say, ‘this man has come o, and whatever he says, he means it’, and that instilled fear in them.”

    Mbu continued: “Go and check all the places where I served, how many people have died? We don’t kill anyhow. But you have to instil fear so that people will have more respect for the police. Now we have succeeded as far as I am concerned.”

    Considering Mbu’s status in the force, his idea of success achieved by terroristic means and his promotion of fear-based public respect for the police are thought-provoking. If an AIG thinks and speaks in this manner, what is to be expected of those he is supposed to head and control? To say the least, it suggests crudity and backwardness, which may explain why the country’s police force continues to attract public thumbs-down for demonstrable unprofessionalism. What is advantageous and should be pursued is for the police to earn lasting public respect through professional conduct.

    By his own account, Mbu is aware of his monstrous image; and he is perhaps haunted by his past actions in the line of duty, particularly in Rivers State and Abuja where he exhibited brazen contempt for the people by being an oppressive puppet of the politically-powerful.  This time also, he has shown contempt for the collective intelligence by arguing that his threatening words were “misconstrued.”

    To go by Mbu’s example, both then and now, it must make sense to suggest a planned re-education for police hierarchs, especially with the approach of a new federal administration to be led by President-elect Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    At the time he issued his threat, which was roundly condemned by right-thinking members of the public, it was evident that he had dark motives. Mbu’s new tune is certainly not exculpatory, no matter what he wants the public to believe. He needs to be reminded that his police uniform and station are no reasons for him to terrorise the public.

  • Ha, ase Jimi o tie le!

    Dear reader, please permit Hardball to, this morning, indulge in Reuben Abati’s famous tautology, in the service of his presidential principal: negative triumphalism!

    Ha, ase Jimi o tie le!  Ha, so Jimi is not that tough!

    For much of last week, it was virtual war, with the Olowo Eko, Oba Rilwan Akiolu fatwa; the Igbo taking the umbrage and threatening to vote Jimi Onye-Igbo to call the Oba’s bluff; the Yoruba, first all apologies; but later their own bout of defiance, almost telling the Igbo to go jump into the lagoon (no pun intended!); the Ambode All Progressives Congress (APC) camp in palpable panic, over what had promised an easy enough win, following the bandwagon of their presidential triumph but now becoming a tough call; and the Lagos Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), veteran and perpetual losers in such gubernatorial match-ups, clutching at a virtual gift from the gods to shake off the stupor of their crestfallen supporters, after their presidential loss!

    Lagos, the state proud indigenes and residents love to call city-state, was quaking with electoral war and rumours of war!  Jimi Agbaje himself, the PDP candidate, went virtually berserk, somewhat telling Igbo traders at Trade Fair Complex Lagos to use their votes to drive APC into the Atlantic Ocean, in a savage and irreverent pun of the Akiolu lagoon warning!  No paddy for jungle — on April 11, there would be war, war for the soul of Lagos, and the ultimate electoral determination of its rightful owners!

    Since 1999, Mr. Agbaje has been the most formidable challenger to the Lagos progressive establishment.  For one, it was a very dangerous juncture: a government handing over to another, not an incumbent seeking a second term.  For another, with an ethnically and religiously divisive Jonathan Presidency, bent on driving in inter-ethnic and inter-religious wedges for costly partisan gains, it was the best PDP chance in ages.  What is more?  A party used to fielding political straw-(wo)men had cottoned on to a very credible candidate — who rather colourfully dubbed himself Jay-Kay (his initials) but whose APC opponents derided as Just Kidding!

    But at the end, it was a damp squib, not flattering at all to the JK noise and seeming formidability on facebook and other social media outlets.  Of the 20 officially recognised local governments, JK won only in five, surrendering the remaining 15 to the APC candidate, Akin Ambode, who coined his own Ambo [We’re coming]; and whose delirious supporters, sensing victory as the results trickled in, broke into screams of “Ambo, ati de!” [“We were coming, but now we’re here!]  Though the winning margin was not a gulf, the spread was a rout — ase JK o tie le!  Still, it ended as sport, as JK congratulated the winner, shortly before the official declaration of results.

    Mr. Agbaje must have learnt some hard lessons from this bitterly fought electioneering, with hate campaign and ethnic baiting the central core of PDP’s strategy, even if the candidate himself, aside from a few blunders, sought to stick to issues.

    But the Igbo-Yoruba confrontation, which drove the eventual result, hung on JK’s neck the rather dangerous title of Afonja of Lagos — as in the Afonja of Ilorin case, a toxic metaphor for a person who sides with strangers against his own people’s interest.

    Now that the heat of election is gone, it is time for real reconciliation.  JK may be a keen competitor, who went overboard in the heat of the moment.  But he is a patriot, not a traitor.  Lagos needs every useful pair of hands on deck.

  • Scourge of odious defectors

    It is said that adversity brings the best out of man but this certainly does not seem to apply to that man called the Nigerian politician. He abhors adversity and lean times. In fact he has no such discernment to appreciate the imports of turning points and watersheds in the rise and tide of man.

    Why, Hardball is tortured by a wave of exhilaration and melancholy in a flux of steady currents. Yes, the tide turned as the presidential election coasted to a salubrious finale. Instead of the rat-tat and boom-boom of guns and IEDs, it has been the feisty back-slapping as happens in a win-win scenario. The loser’s spirited capitulation lifted the black incubus the nation and a bright new celestial light has wafted in so strongly that everything comes alive once again. Suddenly, a burst of new-found virility surges from our loins.

    But another phenomenon that would dim the new light is the horde of opportunists jumping ship from the fallen party to the victorious one. Imagine an anxious crowd of passengers escaping from a sinking ship and unthinkingly, rushing into another ship. Of course that is a recipe for doom as they will capsize the other ship too.

    Such is the story with members of the crushed Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rushing heedlessly to join the new gravy train – the All Progressives Congress (APC). Hardball had never experienced such odiousness before. Someone must open a hall of shame for all the over-night defectors into APC; the fair-weather politicians who would only want to be with the party in power must be properly identified, documented, segmented and annotated.

    It must no longer be business as in the PDP; it must no longer be anything goes and we must refrain from living by the gravy alone but by some finer principles and precepts. By the last count last Friday, no fewer than 20 prominent PDP members have openly and shamelessly rushed over to the party in vogue today.

    One remarkable example is Chief Olusola Oke, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) who until last Wednesday was the Legal Adviser of PDP and its governorship candidate in 2012, but who jumped ship late last week to the chagrin of his PDP clan in Ondo State. His decampment speech was particularly instructive and a study in the art of mea culpa. Her him:”The wind (of change) almost blew me off, but I have now surrendered. I can no more resist this change. The change that has blown in the federal must also blow in Ondo State.”

    He spoke further that the forces of darkness (meaning his erstwhile party, PDP), fought against change to happen but the only thing that is permanent in life is change. “We have come to add value to the APC and salvage the state from bad and visionless leadership with broken promises across the state,” the former PDP kingpin surmised.

    Another prominent PDP deserter, Senator Jonathan Zwingina from Adamawa State also spoke rather peculiarly: “After careful identification of the best of the current circumstances facing the state…” Gee! Some cud to chew isn’t it?

  • Shameless spokesmen

    There are indications that the expressions of goodwill by the losers in the country’s March 28 presidential election may be no more than lip service after all. This shouldn’t be surprising as it may require superhuman humanity on their part to come to terms with the reality of the fall from power, especially given their delusional egoism.

    Beyond the surface, it is likely that the real thoughts and feelings in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) following President Goodluck Jonathan’s loss to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) can be more reliably observed from the utterances of the spokesmen. Who are these revealing spokesmen? Of course, they are none other than the Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP presidential campaign, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, and the Senior Special Assistant to President Jonathan on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe.

    By their words, both men showed no remorse for the offensive malevolence that characterised the campaign for Jonathan’s reelection, and they might well have been speaking for the party. Fani Kayode said at a media briefing in Abuja: “We did the right thing during the campaign. We have no regrets about our candidate or the way we conducted our campaign and we live to fight another day.”  This is the language of thoughtlessness, and it is a wonder that Fani-Kayode stubbornly tried to present the senseless as sensible. It is on record that the PDP approach, which was popularly defined as a “hate campaign”, attracted wide condemnation; and Fani-Kayode’s approving perspective does not make it any less condemnable.

    Okupe perhaps betrayed a tortured soul and sought unsuccessfully for rationalisations. He said in a statement: “On our part, we have run a good race and fought an intense and unrelenting battle from the beginning to the end. Sometimes in the course of defending our turf, the engagements have been knuckle-breaking and often outrightly vicious.” He added: “The fight and contest for power from time immemorial has always been fierce and intense, it has never been a sport for the lily-livered or the faint-hearted.”

    In other words, both men more or less said that if they had another chance, they would play the game no differently. It is lamentable that they are yet to awaken to the lessons of their loss, including the public thumbs-down for electioneering excesses. If they have learnt nothing about the importance and superiority of the issue-based political campaign, it may suggest that they are incurably unteachable.

    There is no doubt that the contest for power is usually marked by combative competition, but there must be limits lest it becomes animalistic. The beastly model offered and endorsed by Fani-Kayode and Okupe, and which reflected the standards of both men and their party, was thankfully discredited by the electorate. Do they know the meaning of shame?

  • Just Kidding, Just Killing, Just Keeling …

    For Jimi Agbaje, the Lagos Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the April 11 gubernatorial election, his initials, JK [Jimi Kolawole], have become comely partisan puns … Just Kidding, Just Killing, Just Keeling …

    Just Kidding: was rascally campaign baptism, with Governor Babatunde Fashola, as probable author, pouring cold water on JK’s chances at an election many a pundit had predicted would be the closest in the state’s history.  Mr. Agbaje remains popular among a set of Lagosians; and enjoys name recognition among many others. But his albatross has always been his suspect party. Whether this mix could propel him to the Alausa Ikeja, Lagos House, after PDP’s crushing loss at the March 28 presidential election, is doubtful.

    Just Killing:  is a classical example of guilt by association.  Just Kidding mutated to Just Killing after Gani Adams’s Odu’a People’s Congress (OPC) embarked on its Lagos show of intimidation (looking back now, no more than armed buffoonery), in aid of President Goodluck Jonathan, which second-term triumph would have given JK a fillip, in his gubernatorial bid.

    Indeed, the alleged plot was, had Jonathan triumphed, Mbu Joseph Mbu, the notorious Police Assistant Inspector-General (AIG), over-seeing Zone 2 (Lagos and Ogun Police Commands), would swing into action and, should JK stumble, help muscle the vote.

    Nobody knows, for sure, if that is true.  But given Mr. Mbu’s crass partisan disposition, and rabid penchant to obey illegal orders (as he did as Rivers Commissioner of Police, CP) or gift himself one (as he did as CP, Federal Capital Territory, when he tried to ban the Chibok #BringBackOurGirls lobby, before he got over-ruled by the Inspector-General of Police, IGP),  the allegation sounds apocryphal.

    For JK, however, the OPC Lagos invasion is an electoral tragedy — for JK will end up as the electoral scapegoat.  Gani Adams is a stark carpenter, who developed huge hubris from freak fortune, which brutally exposed his pathetic starkness in politics, where he is a stark illiterate.

    By classical tragedies, Gani is too lowly to be a tragic figure — for he can sink no further.  He is also no Willy Loman, the modern tragic hero in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.  But by JK’s rather reckless empathy with some Ijaw militants’ boasts to wage war should Jonathan lose, JK’s opportunistic mind would appear in tune with the OPC atavistic braggadocio on Lagos streets.  Well, he appears set for the resultant electoral comeuppance on April 11.

    That drives the point to the last pun: Just Keeling.  To tell the truth, JK’s gubernatorial run has been a study in opportunism laced with presumptuousness.  The moment he landed the Lagos gubernatorial ticket, JK boasted he had come to “take over” Lagos; and that his party would rule for 16 years, in the first instance!  From his boast, you would think PDP had much to show as Nigeria’s ruling party!

    Then, though he craftily played down the PDP symbol in his campaign posters, he bravely “backed” Goodluck Jonathan, suggesting he had what it took to cleanse whatever electoral toxicity that came with the Jonathan name!  That was presumption at its most reckless!

    In the heat of the moment, he even got embroiled in the ethnic manoeuvring, between Lagos indigenes and residents, while he joyfully mouthed his cant of saving Lagos from “vested interests”!  The bitter ethnic undercurrent in the lost presidential election also appeared to have set JK up as a brazen face against the interest of his own people, all for crass partisan gains.

    So, JK might just keel over, now that a new political order is emerging.  It is the cruel making of JK as Just Keeling … before the final crash!