The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Jonathan’s mud festival

    In Lagos on March 16, President Goodluck Jonathan and Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) factional leader, Ganiyu Adams met each other in a festival of mud, which smear scandalised friends and further alienated foes.

    It was (un)presidential desperation taken too far!

    And, as just desert for cynical opportunism gone awry, what the president harvested, next day, in newspaper headlines, was the notoriety of the shameful display in Lagos, and not the truly edifying news of the recapture of Bama, after six unholy months of Boko Haram occupation.

    Indeed, the president and Gani Adams would appear two of a kind.  President Jonathan, congenitally unable to rise to the dizzying dictates of his high office; and Adams, unable to tear himself off the lowly life of a humble carpenter, apprenticed in neighbourhood Mushin, a Lagos suburb of toughs.

    But don’t get Hardball wrong — nothing wrong with being a carpenter.  Artisanship is honourable business.  Even in developed economies of Europe and America, artisans form the hub of micro- and small-scale enterprises, which form the soul of the economy.  Even in the Bible, the earthly father of Christ Jesus was Joseph the carpenter.  So, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a carpenter.

    What is wrong with Adams, however, is forgetting his humble beginning; and playing on turfs where he is out of depth.  Besides, which self-respecting Yoruba embarks on dubious campaigns — what the Yoruba call Ija ebi [wrong causes], perhaps the most socially excoriated in pristine Yorubaland — and after, emerges a hero?

    What has Attahiru Jega done, aside from insisting on cleaning up Nigeria’s notoriously dirty electoral system, to deserve misguided and brainless demonization from Adams and his gross street muggers?  And what does Gani know about politics, its intricacies, its dynamics and its delicate temper, that he would be blabbing, like a machine out of control, about sacking Jega, and replacing him with a fairer person?  Doesn’t he know the joke is on him and his reckless presidential enforcer, who though passionately wants to cheat, pitiably lacks the guile to do it, smooth and suave?

    Which brings back the matter to what is wrong with the president.  Hardball, this morning, writes with visible anger: against a president that has a terrible habit of standing on the dignity of his high office; thus always bringing into disrepute, the high office we all cherish and revere.  Still, Hardball is clear: he has issues with Jonathan but still retains highest regards for the Presidency, hoping that on March 28, that high office would find the high mind it deserves.

    Still, the Jonathan romance with the mud, even as president, is mind-boggling.  Patience Jonathan, the presidential spouse, is an unfazed study in concentrated crudity and vulgarity.  Hardball doubts if the First Lady’s office would ever recover from her assault and battery of unmitigated coarseness!

    Nigeria’s Ox-Brigde tribe (famed graduates of Oxford and Cambridge universities) may trot and kid themselves on their supreme genteelness.  But in Femi Fani-Kayode, and his vocal distemper, for and against the president, is ample evidence that even Ox-Bridge is not averse to breeding sophisticated thugs!

    Then look at the Goodluck Jonathan zealous electoral canvassers, and hoped for enforcers: Niger Delta militants (giving Niger Delta agitation a bad name after the ultra-high moral Ogoni campaign of Ken Saro-Wiwa), MASSOB (no friend of sovereign Nigeria but fried of Jonathan’s dubious project) and OPC (which just committed the class suicide of training its guns, for filthy lucre, against its creator, its own people)!

    How low can the presidency sink under Jonathan?

  • OPC: Operation Public Chaos

    What is this news that a fragment of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), self-identified defender and promoter of Yoruba interests, has not only sold its soul for filthy lucre but also lost its collective mind? Members of this faction on March 16 took its militancy to heights that mirrored a disturbing depth of degeneration.

    In an unprecedented display and demonstration of desperation, the group terrorised Lagos in the name of a political protest. A report said: “The two pamphlets distributed by the protesters had 7 reasons why President Goodluck Jonathan must continue in office and 7 reasons why Prof Attahiru Jega, the INEC boss, must go on terminal leave and be replaced with a credible administrator before the elections.”

    It was a message of force by forceful messengers. According to a report: “The protesters got traffic stuck for hours, smashed cars, harassed motorists and disrupted business in many parts of the city. They destroyed banners and campaign billboards of All Progressive Congress (APC) candidates.”

    Who was behind the bedlam? A subsequent eye-opening disclaimer said: “We, the members of the National Coordinating Council of the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, the highest ruling body of the organisation, wish to disassociate ourselves from the shameful, destructive, violent and reactionary activities of the Gani Adams-led team which occurred in Lagos today.” The statement added: “What was witnessed in Lagos was the highest level of political violence sponsored and funded by certain elements in the Jonathan government.”

    From all appearances, the protesters were fuelled by reported multi-billion naira oil pipelines protection contracts controversially awarded by the Jonathan administration to a selection of militant and pro-militancy groups ahead of the country’s general elections, most likely to influence their support for Jonathan’s reelection ambition.

    It is a reflection of the politically charged and politicised atmosphere that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which is expected to manage the oil jobs, attempted to divorce the award and renewal of the combustible contracts from political calculations. A statement by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, said: “The pipeline protection contract is part of our community engagement programme across our host communities aimed at getting community members to help in the task of protecting the pipelines around their communities.” The corporation continued: “They are actually designed to complement the work of the security agencies by raising the alarm and drawing the attention of security agencies to any suspicious movements around the pipelines right of way.”

    Could this be correctly interpreted to mean that the contractors are expected to function only as spies of sorts? So, how can the violent expression of political dimensions by the Gani Adams-led OPC be explained or understood?  Gani Adams is reportedly involved in the pipelines protection deal, which is increasingly looking like a Jonathan promotion contract.

    Just a thought: Could it be that Gani Adams and his followers are misinterpreting and misrepresenting the terms of the deal in their overexcitement? And there are certainly enough pocket-related reasons to be overexcited.  This movement from pipelines protection to public chaos is a sign of a chaotic group headed by perhaps a chronically convoluted character.

  • MASSOB Quixote

    Hardball is not the only one puzzled about the latest road show in town, in this highly charged season of electoral distemper.

    The last time Hardball checked, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) crusade was stark: Nigeria was hell on earth, it must be scorned; and Biafra is utopia, haven and heaven combined; so every MASSOB patriot, led by the brave Ralph Uwazurike, must venerate it.

    Why, even in Dakar, Senegal, where the current African Youth Championship (AYC) is on, and Nigeria had just qualified for the semi-final, courtesy of a 2-2 draw with Cote d’Ivoire, live TV coverage of that match showed some braves lustily cheering the Nigerian boys but zealously waving the Biafra flag!  Were these MASSOB cadres?  Only God knows!

    So, MASSOB’s business is Biafra.  If Nigeria is ever mentioned, it is because it stubbornly stands between it and its Utopia.  Therefore, why must Biafra be concerned about elections into Babylonia — beg your pardon, Nigeria?

    That was the surprising spectacle in some South Eastern streets, late last week.  MASSOB embarked on a road show, howling and growling: Attahiru Jega, the chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), must be sacked.  Ralph Nwazurike had proclaimed the fatwa (not unlike the Ayatollah in an Islamic theocratic state): Jega must go!  So, from the MASSOB hoi polloi: the master’s fatwa must stand!

    But what is MASSOB’s stake in all of these, beyond the Nwazurike fatwa, which, by the way, is based on nothing but partisan passion fired by mere political old wives’ tales ?  Well, some manage to confess: they were pressing themselves into service for President Goodluck Jonathan, whose body language, if not his party’s and fronts’ loud grumbling, want Jega out, at all cost.  So, since Jonathan helped give their late leader, Dim Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, a grand burial, they are inclined to help him get rid of Jega.

    Jega’s offence?  No one really knows, except wild charges that he had allegedly compromised with the opposition.  Further proofs?  First, the late delivery of permanent voter cards (PVCs) — already being addressed with the six-week election postponement.  Crusade to junk PVCs for temporary voter cards (TVC) — which makes no economic sense, since scarce resources had already been committed to it.

    Then the PDP furore over smart card readers to authenticate PVC, being an electronic pre-voting device to make voting more transparent.  But who would oppose that except a probable rigger of elections?  Those are Jega’s “crimes” — and those are the bases of the MASSOB anti-Jega road shows!

    So, even if MASSOB gets its Utopia of Biafra, would it push dubious causes over there as it is pushing in this anti-Jega crusade, of aiding and abetting putative election rigging?

    But if it is any consolation, MASSOB needs not be distressed.  Across the Niger, Fredrick Fasehun’s and Gani Adams’s Odu’a People’s Congress (OPC) are onto to a similar racket.  For a piece of oil pipeline protection contract, they would do the merry bidding of the extant powers-that-be, even if that means wilfully subverting the democratic order!

    MASSOB, OPC and their likes as presidential lobbies just shows the low company the president of the Federal Republic keeps — show me your friends, the saying goes, and I will tell you the sort of person you are!

    Hardball thinks presidential lobbies should be made of more stellar stuff — and MASSOB had better get serious, and quit playing the Don Quixote of useless causes!

  • Buni Yadi as yardstick

    Igbo elders of yore had a repertoire of sayings for capturing their bemusement in extreme moments of, shall we say, bewilderment? They would exclaim: Ah! The dog has grown horns in the night. Or they would scream: the lion has eaten yam! These rustic, earthy axioms are profound even in their stark pedestrian nature. A dog flaunting two, little hard projections at the cape of its head or a lion, king of the jungle, bending over a tuber of yam… Abomination, the forest must be emptied of all lives first.

    Now why has Hardball chosen to gambol about in the countryside? Is it that he has become weary of the concrete jungle of a city life? Well, that may not be too far away from the point if you consider that Buni Yadi, the subject of one’s pathos is in the countryside.

    We all thought Buni Yadi was its own epigram; its own tombstone and its own elegy written at the rubles of a crumbling country but we are mistaken. The Federal Government of Nigeria has raised the melancholic ante of Buny Yadi. Now in Buni Yadi,  Yobe State, northeast of Nigeria, catastrophe has piggy-backed on calamity.

    Buni Yadi is the location of a Federal Government College (FGC) for boys, one of the showpiece secondary schools built and run by the government at the centre. Wherever they are located across the country, they are strategic national monuments design to imbue quality secondary education and foster national unity.

    On February 24 last year, the Boko Haram blood hounds invaded FGC Buni Yadi in the dead of night; slaughtered 29 students at a go and made away into the night. Remember how the entire US would come to a mournful standstill each time one spoilt brat loses his mind and do a shooting spree in a US school. Recall that the US President would invariably visit the scene and sometimes make a national broadcast. Then a national debate would ensue to ensure that recurrences are averted. Memorials are sometimes raised to immortalize the victims.

    Here in Nigeria and Buni Yadi, dogs seem to have grown horns. Last week, exactly one year and three weeks after the massacre of the FGC students, the Federal Government visited Buni Yadi for the first time. Yes, no mistake there: FOR THE FIRST TIME! Remember we told you it is a federal school. This means the presidency could have visited; the Federal Ministry of Education which boasts of two ministers, permanent secretaries and directors could have visited.

    No one visited the school or the parents of the fallen students until last week. Not even the school authority visited the victims’ parents. As a federal government delegation led by Dr. Abdul Bulama, Minister of Science and Technology visited some of the parents in a hotel in Damaturu, Yobe State, one of the parents had this to say: You have come one year late. We expected the federal government to be at the forefront of bringing succor to us but you are one year late.

    To describe the Buni Yadi episode as insensitivity or even irresponsibility is to mis-diagnose an acute ailment. Buni Yadi is a yardstick for measuring the leadership failure that currently threatens to blight this nation. Our dog has grown a long horn.

  • Gen. Agwai meets Eze Onyeagwalam

    Well dear reader, you must by now have gotten used to the fact that Hardball is a literary buff and sometimes even oafish and must not be taken too seriously. So if you are wondering what pranks he is up to here once again, you will be in order to be nonplussed. But let’s work the puzzle now. You must know Lt. General Martin Luther Agwai (you must disregard and forgive him his ‘colonial mentality’ name. We all do stuff don’t we?). Well here is a brief bio of the subject of our attention today:

    General Agwai must be among the last of Nigeria’s true and honorable army generals. He was trained in the best military schools in the US, UK and Nigeria. As a proof, he won multiple awards including Silver Medal Best Army Cadet; Best All-round Cadet of Sword of Honour and Gold Medal for being the First in Order of Merit, Nigeria Defence Academy, NDA.  Agwai was also Force Commander, UN Assistance Mission in Sierra Leone and was Military Adviser to the UN Department of Peace-Keeping Operations, UN Headquarters, New York. In 2005, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of US National Defence University. He was Chief of Army Staff and then retired as Chief of Defence Staff.

    Now that you have met General Agwai, who is Eze Onyeagwalam and where did the twain meet; why? First the literary bit. No, let’s bring it up that the General is from Kachia – that must be somewhere in Southern Kaduna. But the name Agwai has an Igbo carriage or baggage if you like. In fact it means one of half a dozen things in Igbo but the meaning we need here which seems to carry a grievous implication is: ‘if I had informed you, would you heed?’ Or to put it plainly: are you mindful? Or would you take heed?

    Now again, to the literary: Agwai alliterates at some point of the spectrum with onyeagwalam doesn’t it? Now to put the complicated tale together at last; Eze Onyeagwalam is the king in a fable and his very name means no one dares tell me. In other words, ‘King-You-Dare –Not-Tell-Me’ or ‘King Don’t-tell-me’ if you prefer. But you know the rest of the fable: nobody dared tell the king the day he was stark naked and danced about town believing he was resplendent in his royal robes.

    Well if you do not understand this tale so far, Hardball advises you quit trying. It is either you don’t get it all the time or Hardball cannot articulate it all the time or both. But let’s boil it down: Distinguished and retired General Agwai was until a few days ago, the chairman of the SURE – P: Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme. He was fired with ignominy because he dared to tell King Don’t-tell-me something he doesn’t want to hear.

    Agwai, playing the soldier in him had attended a birthday party he was not supposed to attend. Not satisfied, he spoke in a manner he was not supposed to speak talking about ‘integrity’, “good of the larger society” and worst of all, that sacrilegious word: “change”. Well, brave General, just take a bow!

  • Abati’s fool’s paradise

    Who needs a presidential debate to make a choice between President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the presidential poll rescheduled for March 28? It is noteworthy that Jonathan’s spokesman and media adviser Reuben Abati noted in a statement on Buhari’s alleged avoidance of a debate: “There is no gainsaying the fact that President Jonathan and General Buhari are the main contenders in this election. Every Nigerian would love to see the two of them debate. That would be good for our democracy.”

    Abati further said on Buhari: “His deliberate avoidance of a Presidential debate is akin to an examination malpractice. It is not god enough for a man who wants to be President of our country. He is short-changing the Nigerian electorate by denying them the opportunity of assessing him properly in an open debate.” He added: “While a Presidential debate is not a constitutional requirement, it is an established convention that deepens and enriches the democratic process.” According to Abati, “President Jonathan is ready to meet him in an open debate, any day, any hour, and at any venue of his choice.”

    Now, how would Abati describe the jolting rearrangement of the election dates by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), allegedly influenced by the Jonathan camp? What kind of “malpractice” could this be, and what does it say about a man who is seeking presidential reelection?

    It is a pathetic reflection of Abati’s distance from reality that he regards “an open debate” as an opportunity for the electorate to “properly” assess the candidates. It is convenient for him to downplay the defining value of electioneering as well as the wisdom of the electorate. Abati must be living in a fool’s paradise to believe that a presidential debate of an hour or two would conclusively convince voters to reelect Jonathan, when his low-grade performance in office and his unconvincing political campaign speak of failure.

    What this means is that Abati’s promotion of a presidential debate is much ado about nothing. It is highly unlikely that any perceptive voter would need to listen to Jonathan and Buhari debate before taking a voting decision. In case Abati doesn’t understand, and that seems to be the case, the candidates have been engaged in an informal but discernible debate based on their antecedents, their personalities and what they represent; and the people have followed this debate by other means with a keen and concentrated interest.

    For instance, when Buhari is portrayed and recognised as a game-changing player of unstained integrity, and Jonathan is seen as a cunning champion of corruption, the collision has the ingredients of a debate.

    In particular, it is evident from Abati’s obsession with a debate that he must number among the parochial who failed to grasp the import of Buhari’s February appearance and performance at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House in London. Buhari’s lecture was fittingly titled “Prospect for Democracy Consolidation in Africa: Nigeria’s transition”; and he glowed impressively during the question and answer session that followed.  It was certainly not a picture of a debate-shy man. But Abati is clearly reality-shy, which is a way of describing his narrow-mindedness.

  • Chibok: monument in lieu of stolen girls

    From President Goodluck Jonathan to Chibok, it would appear a monument for grieving parents, in lieu of their missing 219 school girls.  So, the parents should forget their girls and embrace the new monument erected in the girls’ memory?

    Last week, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance minister and coordinating minister for the Economy, represented President Goodluck Jonathan at the foundation laying ceremony of the Chibok portion of the Safer Schools Project.

    It is a proposed, glittering new facility to replace the old school Boko Haram terrorists, on 14 April 2014, razed just after carting away 276 school girls from their dorm; girls about writing their  2014 May/June Senior Secondary School Certificate examinations.  Though 276 girls were kidnapped, 57 escaped by their wits, even if the military high command told a lie back then that most of the girls had been saved, even when the Jonathan Presidency was still debating in its mind if the claimed “kidnap” was not the work of mischievous enemies.

    Well, in President Jonathan’s Chibok tragic script, complicated by a shambolic campaign that seems to target votes by all means necessary, he still appears mortally scared of the Chibok hearth.  Nothing, it appears, will make him visit that blighted territory!

    When the tragedy broke, the president was busy dancing Azonto in Kano at an illicit, if not outright illegal, campaign, which his Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) put in place, well before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) blew the whistle for formal electioneering.

    When the crisis won’t just disappear, thanks to Oby Ezekwesili’s #BringBackOurGirls lobby, First Lady, Patience Jonathan settled for a scandalous harangue, which spectacularly backfired.  Dame Jonathan’s intention was to, on TV, try and intimidate the Chibok school principal and the traumatised parents.  In the end, she ended up trying herself and roasting her husband’s presidency, as callous and barren of all empathy and compassion — Dia ris God oooo!

    Then when Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager and the globe’s most famous victim of Taliban terror, came to town, a shamefaced president had no choice.  Yet, rather than surmount the fear of visiting Chibok, he summoned the Chibok girls’ parents to the Presidential Villa, an event marked by alleged sleaze.  Some Presidency officials were alleged to have tampered with the monetary gifts to the distressed presidential visitors.

    So, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s latest visit to Chibok, in lieu of her principal, appeared to continue the running tragic soap of presidential avoidance.  After the commander-in-chief’s triumphant foray to the hot Boko Haram front at Baga, visiting Chibok to launch the “new, improved” school project, should have been “bean cake” for the latterly all-conquering commander-in-chief, but alas!

    To be sure, the Safer Schools Project is laudable.  If the odyssey of the Chibok 219 gifts their hurting community safer schools, which averts future Chibok 219s, that cannot a bad thing; and the project should be encouraged.

    But the problem with the Okonjo-Iweala visit, aside from the umpteenth Chibok snub by the president, is the crass desperation for votes.  Though Mrs Okonjo-Iweala played it cool, suggesting the visit had no political colouration, you could almost feel the leashed presidential-divine-right-to-garner-votes-no-matter-our-bad-behaviours gnome, almost snapping clear of the ministerial placid surface!

    Well, it’s over to the Chibok parents.  Whether an enhanced school can replace their loving girls would be clear on March 28, when the parents do their presidential referendum.

  • Our chairman has done it again – a fable

    Once upon a time in a publicly quoted company, let’s call it Njinji Plc, matters had come to a head. In other words, the company faced a certain extinction unless drastic measures were taken urgently. The Annual General Meeting (AGM) had been schedule; far-reaching decision must be taken, indeed, it was poised to be the most explosive meeting in the annals of the company.

    Actually, at the root of the roiling in Njinji Plc is its chairman, call him Chief Gedegede kponukpo. He is a confounding enigma in the sense that he had been a corporate mogul for over 25 years yet he seems not to know the difference between a balance sheet and profit and loss accounts. In fact, everything for him is income or profit or both. Since he was appointed chairman of Njinji the company’s fortunes went on the decline.

    But the irony of it is that Chief kponukpo had no clue the firm was in dire straits. As far as he was concerned, so long as the cash register rang, the company made money. Njinji was the largest producer of edible oils in the land. How then could the MD and his management team convince Chairman that the company ailed?  “Have vegetables and nuts finished in the land or have the people stopped making soup? Perhaps you people are tired of producing oil?” he would ask sarcastically each time he was shown the red figures.

    “It is when I request for money that you people will tell me that the company is dying but when you people pay yourselves fat bonuses and allowances there is always money,” he was wont to say in his pedestrian elocution. And did he raid the firm for funds? No week passed without one request or the other; always drawing beyond his statutory limits and putting the MD and his team on edge. He knew no  control or restraint. The company’s position was made the more hopeless because he was a nominee of the major shareholders who knew not much more than him. In fact, he was their eyes and ears.

    But the die was cast: he was either chucked out or Njinji died. This was the decision before the AGM in one week. Chief Kponukpo saw the danger signals, he may be on his way out as management has prepared a damning report to convince the shareholders. He moved swiftly, filibuster the Board and got them to postpone the AGM insisting the company wasn’t ready.

    Chief Kponukpo got his wish. He got a six-month postponement. Presently he set to work to get the MD discredited and sacked before the AGM. He tried every trick he knew but none cut ice because the MD was a man of integrity and untainted character. All accusations against him fell flat. Then one day, Chief Gedegede Kponukpo, Chairman of Njinji Plc did the incredible and outright irrational: he took full-page colour advert in all the national newspapers to discredit his MD, someone he headed the board that employed him.

    When the MD, his management and staff saw the barrage of adverts signed by the chairman with his picture to boot they were shocked beyond words.

    Ha, our Chairman has done it again! Some of them exclaimed.

    Moral of the fable: a desperate man is a crazy man

  • Man in a muddle

    It sounded like doublespeak when President Goodluck Jonathan said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Monday: “The security service did not want to take any chance. They did not tell Nigerians that they must rout Boko Haram 100 per cent before the elections could be conducted. But, they want to degrade Boko Haram to the extent that, they will not have the strength to disrupt the elections. That is the key thing.”  He was responding to a question on the contentious rescheduling of the country’s general elections on alleged security grounds.

    It is interesting that Jonathan played the role of an interpreter of the military’s mind and goal, but his attempted clarification lacked clarity. If the aim of the military ahead of the polls is not to crush the Islamist guerilla force but merely to weaken it, then it makes sense to wonder about the level of impotency that would make the terroristic group less forceful and less effective. Perhaps only Jonathan and the military have the answer.

    In another instance of unclear presentation, Jonathan said in response to a question on corruption: “Yes, we have corruption cases…we have cases of people stealing; no doubt about that. I always say that, call a thief a thief. I am not saying that we don’t have this element of corruption or stealing.”  He continued: “If you start from the former Central Bank governor, who initially said that $49.8 billion was missing… I don’t know how he came about that figure. The next moment he changed from $49.8 billion to $12 billion. The next day it was $20 billion. Up to this time I don’t know which is the correct accusation.”

    Okay, so Jonathan is not certain about the actual accusation.  Then he went on to say: “The Senate set up a committee and they used consultants; they looked into it and said over $2 billion could not be properly balanced. They did not say that somebody stole it. No evidence to say it was stolen but that it was not properly balanced.” Doesn’t this seem like doublethink? Did Jonathan consider why the figure involved was “not properly balanced?” Couldn’t this be because it was stolen?

    When Jonathan speaks in such confusing and confounding manner, how does he expect to be rated on believability? Another question, what does he think of the intelligence of the public? It is disturbing that the context was an interview with an international medium, which further exposed his confusion to a global audience.

    It would appear that Jonathan is facing a severe challenge concerning clarity of thought and speech, but this certainly cannot excuse his noticeable doublethink and doublespeak, which may be contrived.  Whichever way, the picture is that of a man in a muddle, or a muddle-headed man.

  • Fani-Kayode’s ugly colour

    Evidence of an ugly mind thinking ugly thoughts for ugly purposes could be seen in the reaction of Chief Femi Fani-Kayode to the appearance and performance of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House in London on February 26. Buhari’s lecture was fittingly titled “Prospect for Democracy Consolidation in Africa: Nigeria’s transition”; and he glowed impressively during the question and answer session that followed

    Fani-Kayode, the Director of Media and Publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign organisation, showed an unconscionable capacity for uglification when he reportedly alleged that the APC paid for the Buhari event, suggesting that it was devoid of credibility. How much was paid? Surprisingly, Fani-Kayode provided no clue.

    According to Fani-Kayode, “There are some interesting facts about the Chatham House outing that Nigerians should know. The event was organised only two days before it took place and well after Buhari had arrived in London.”  This is simply untrue and should raise questions as to why he chose to twist the truth. In reality, Buhari’s itinerary, which included the Chatham House engagement, was publicised ahead of his trip to the UK. So, what was Fani-Kayode saying, or trying to say?

    This is the kind of conscienceless constitution that attracts astonishment. This is the kind of talk that diminishes the country internationally. It is noteworthy that a former British High Commissioner in Nigeria and the event’s chairman, Sir Richard Gozney, said: “Chatham House is more independent than anything you can imagine. It is entirely neutral, it has no political stands. That is why it is a favourite venue for people from across political spectrum to give their view because they get open hearing here.”

    Perhaps more importantly, Gozney said of Buhari on the occasion: “When I visited you in Kaduna when I was High Commissioner in Nigeria, two things struck me. One was the modesty of your lifestyle, which is very striking for a Nigerian politician. The second thing was your clarity of thought and speech and we look forward to hearing such clarity from you today as you talk to us.”

    These positive dimensions of Buhari’s personality drawn from a first-hand interaction with him, and highlighted by a possibly objective observer, deserve serious contemplation in the countdown to the country’s presidential election controversially rescheduled for March 28. If Buhari represents “modesty” and “clarity of thought and speech”, and his major opponent, President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP, by popular opinion, stands for the arrogance of power and unintelligibility, the choices before the electorate are sharply and usefully delineated.

    In an important sense, the contentious poll shift is not without blessings, which most likely include Buhari’s Chatham outing. The postponement probably necessitated the public relations masterstroke, which was unanticipated by agents of ugliness like Fani-Kayode. Those who calculated that they would possibly benefit exclusively from the rearrangement are understandably enraged by the proof of miscalculation. Their effort to paint an obviously successful promotion in ugly colours is quite revealing of their colourless character.