The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Campaign money: like ocean water!

    Igbo have the aptest phrase for what Hardball wishes to describe. They call it erime agwu gi agwu. In other words, an endless supply of resources. To take the example further, if your hear that a man has the title of erime agwu gi agwu 1 of Ndi Olumbe, for instance, it simply means he could feast the entire land of Olumbe (wherever it may be and whatever its size) until every man and woman, boy or girl in that land is constipated and inebriated and they are left wasted in blissful stupor on account of a single man of endless plenitude. Erime agwu gi agwu is actually a mirthful metaphor if you know it.

    Never mind Hardball taking off on a flight of fancy. The matter of interest today is the barrage of campaign advert from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which reminds one of the erime agwu gi agwu imagery. If money could buy an election, there would not be any contest in the forthcoming polls. That crude oil prices are crashing and that our reserves and treasury are almost empty do not seem to matter to the PDP campaign office. The presidential adverts are streaming like the waters of five oceans.

    In 2011, it was a cash behemoth, a special utility vehicle (SUV), known as Neighbour2Neighbour (N2N) which was in charge of PDP campaign funds and it spent money in the manner Nigerians had never known before and there was so much uproar in the land. Today, N2N would appear a joke. There are probably over a dozen verisimilitude of N2Ns today spewing money as if the volcanic mountain of Vesuvius in Italy has gone haywire again.

    Apart from the initial but very expensive rabble of the likes of the Transformation Agenda of Nigeria (TAN); the Forward Nigeria; the Southwest Study Group; the #Let The Good Work Continue; The Seven Wise Preachers; #Wake Up Nigeria; and the Directorate of Media and Publicity PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, to name just these few.

    There must be some wisdom in breaking up the cash points or serving points if you like. The war chest must be so enormous that no single unit or entity can handle it. In those good old days of our innocence, campaign funds were domiciled only in the designated campaign office and every advert was signed by the office. But these days campaign adverts emanate from all quarters and they are coded.

    But you would not begrudge a man his loot would you? Of course not, except that Hardball would have loved some creativity even in the bazaar. But it seems creativity and surplus cash are mutually exclusive. And come to think of it, which man can think straight who suddenly comes upon a billion in any currency – all for spending!

    A case in point is the wrap-around in many national newspapers last Wednesday, February 4. It was almost a full page with an illustration of an army general’s cap and the wordings: “Generally speaking, the more some people change, the more they stay the same! Vote wisely”.

    A front-page wrap-around advert is a minimum of about N15m. That is a N15m copy, if you know what a copy is. Now multiply that by at least four newspapers and you will understand that this PDP campaign fund is indeed like ocean water: erime agwu gi agwu!

     

  • YCE: Ige battles Afenifere

    Even from the great beyond, Chief Bola Ige, the inimitable Uncle Bola, master of the Yoruba political streets, would appear taking pot shots — lethal shots — at his old traducers in Afenifere, over the grandees’ fatal endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    The Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), Hardball must recall, under the earliest chair of the late Justice Adewale Thompson, was Ige’s Trojan Horse to get back at his old colleagues. Reason: Ige’s 1998 clear betrayal at the Alliance for Democracy (AD) caucus presidential nomination. Afenifere chose Chief Olu Falae over the charismatic Cicero of Esa Oke.

    Ige’s revenge mission, like the hubris of great characters, would eventually lead to his own end. He dared his own political family to stop him from joining the Olusegun Obasanjo cabinet.  But at the other end, he met the treachery of the PDP alleged nest of killers, resulting in the assassination of the old, piercing wit, that had a young, vigorous mind.  But that is story for another day!

    YCE, challenging Afenifere’s ill-conceived endorsement of Jonathan that purported to speak for the Yoruba people, dismissed Afenifere as politically contaminated.

    “YCE is not a party to any purported endorsement given by any group or groups to a presidential candidate,” it thundered from a rather very high moral horse, after its national executive committee (NEC) meeting, speaking through Prof. Bayo Olateju, who briefed the media, “and so dissociates itself from such action; as YCE did not at any time sit with any group of people to consider and come to such decision.”

    Giving a stern warning to AIG Mbu Joseph Mbu, who now presides over Police Zone 2, comprising Lagos and Ogun states, YCE cautioned the controversial officer, who attained notoriety and set off public alarm by his impolitic statements against Governor Rotimi Amaechi in his earlier tour of duty as Rivers commissioner of Police (CP), not to fan embers of discord or court any needless controversy, in his new posting in Yorubaland.

    YCE also cautioned the postpone-the-poll agitators to stick to the INEC timetable, instead of indulging in costly distractions that could derail the democratic process.

    Phew!  Those were Afenifere’s natural sound bites, when its words were virtual law, because its legitimacy was beyond question.  But not anymore!

    Still, what has all these got to do with Uncle Bola (God bless his gentle soul!)?  Simple.  At the height of his perceived betrayal, he set up YCE to rival Afenifere’s dominance for the Yoruba political soul.

    As it was then, YCE was positioned such that ideological purists were inclined to believe it was a negation of the Yoruba cause, even if they retained some deep affection and reverence for Uncle Bola. But with Afenifere blundering into the Jonathan support, with scant any consultation with anybody, except the probable spite in the grandees’ own hearts, Afenifere might just be unravelling into utter irrelevance.

    So, Afenifere’s self-relegation and AYC’s self-elevation appears the ultimate triumph of Ige. Even from the grave, Ige, through the Igbimo he nurtured, appears more in tune with Yoruba aspirations than his living rivals — a case of the dead that lives chastising the politically living dead?

    Call it the ultimate triumph of the Cicero, and you won’t be wrong!

  • Elders for sale

    Hardball demurred. The original, or if you like, the instinctive title of this piece was “Agbata ekee elders on the prowl”. But one thought it would be too restrictive. It was changed to “Elders on the prowl”, but that seemed too tepid and too susceptible to being overlooked as it did not quite carry the message. Well, the survivor, “Elders for sale”, is the compromise candidate. But you know what they say that if it is not the original, though it may not be fake, it ain’t the original.

    Agbata ekee is Igbo colloquial phrase which roughly translated means: to share illegal gains or booty. It can also be interpreted as commissioned agents. Yoruba has a similar but more sinister version of the same phrase known as apa pin. Short, bullet-shaped and morbidly penetrating, it roughly translates to ‘slaughter and share’. In the sense of savage hunters and also in the sense of putting down national patrimony and parceling it.

    This is the feeling one gets these days as we cruise inexorably to election day. It is actually a season of endorsements and all manner of groups are hawking the ‘hot’ commodity to anyone who would pay. Well, all is also fair in politics you may say but when supposedly respectable elders who are supposed to be our guiding light in times of national crisis are neck-deep in it, then there is cause for alarm.

    Examples are numerous but let’s highlight a few. Afenifere, an influential Yoruba group led by eminent men and women, have long endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan. Their reason? He is the only person who can implement the decisions of the National Conference. Sounds like a baby babbling, abi?

    Ohaneze, the Igbo socio-cultural group, has been boiling in the cauldron of its own insouciance for some time now – endorsing and de-endorsing until it does not even matter to anyone anymore. Last Friday, in one national newspaper, a page 7 report had, “ Ohaneze fails to endorse any candidate,” while a full page colour advertorial on page 44, apparently from another faction endorsed President Jonathan. Igbo ‘leaders’ scrambling for a pot of porridge.

    Ndigbo Lagos, the inconsequential group with hardly any influence, has also declared a blanket endorsement; so is another mushroom body called Igbo Leaders of Thought, which is a racket run by barely half a dozen people. It has neither leadership nor thought and its endorsement would ordinarily not add any value to any candidate. But endorsement happens to be a seasonal business so they might as well make the best of the season.

    No one seems to be immune to the political flu being spread by the biggest party in Black Africa. Former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, needed a quick back flip and a touch of equivocation to catch the attention of the gravy train. In a ‘bold’ interview he had said that he was not sure he would vote his party’s presidential candidate. And pronto, Mr. Candidate dashed to the hilltop and swiftly, the ‘oracle; on the hilltop upped the ante by equivocating some more. “Nigeria under Jonathan is in safe hands,” he fobbed. But can you beat this: One child of his leads the campaign for PDP and another for APC; all in Niger State. Pure genius you say?

    Well with elders like this, you can only have a country like Nigeria?

  • Chad to the rescue?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Ekiti: Ifa is not to blame

    The majesty of Greek and Yoruba cultures came alive when Prof. Ola Rotimi (God bless his soul!) adapted Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (King Oedipus), a play, to the African setting in The Gods Are Not to Blame.

    The two plays show both the Greek and Yoruba traditional societies as religious, superstitious and even fatalistic. But even with the larger-than-life presence of the supernatural in these two societies, people still make their own choices — to make or ruin themselves.  So, it was with Kings Oedipus and Odewale, and their corresponding tragedies.

    The gods and choices are, of course, reminiscent of Ekiti in modern Nigeria — one of only perhaps two states, the other being Bayelsa, that is ethnically homogeneous.

    Figuratively speaking, Ifa has been kind to Ekiti!

    Four years ago, Ifa gave Ekiti Kayode Fayemi (sure, the former governor is a staunch Catholic, even boasting the baptismal name of John, but Fa suggests his name is an Ifa derivative, in Yoruba meaning “Ifa ennobles me”).

    And just last year Ifa gave Ekiti Ayodele Fayose.  No, no: it was not like the Israelites of old, pestering Jehovah to give them another king.  But from the incumbent’s crushing loss at that election, it might not be so dissimilar.

    Well, the replacement is another Fayose (literally in Yoruba, “Ifa will do it”) — though again Fayose boasts a baptismal name of Peter (can you imagine: Peter the Rock!); and at the last count, worships at the Deeper Life Christian Church, where he laid prostrate — poor lamb of God! — at the thanksgiving, just after his inauguration.

    Anyway, Ekiti made their own choice: Fayemi out, Fayose in, chikena!

    Fayemi had his weaknesses: many said he was distant and cold.  Other said he built roads but ignored the grumbling tummy.  Yet others, particularly the avant-garde and sophisticated, said he was Plato’s philosopher king, among a democratic rabble.  He rippled with ideas but left his people winded and far behind; so they couldn’t buy into his vision.

    Yet, in four years he envisioned, laboured and tried to build lasting and transformational legacies, en route to vaulting Ekiti from its pristine rural state to glorious modernity. But all that is history now — except the cold, concrete stare from his physical infrastructure!

    Then enter,  Fayose, the man of the people, though in the mould of Chinua Achebe’s fictional Chief Nanga, MP!  As Fayemi was cold, Fayose is warm. As Fayemi hugged physical infrastructure, Fayose hugs stomach infrastructure.  As Fayemi ate and drank with his books and policy wonks, Fayose eats and drinks — agbo jedi! — with his people, live in the streets!  The Ekiti masses couldn’t have had it better.

    Yet, in four months, Fayose is about undoing what Fayemi has done in four years: structured governance, executive-legislative harmony, respect for and integrity of the judiciary, and even general security and safety.  For four years, hooliganism and open opportunity violence appeared banished from Ekiti.  But just in four months now, these vices appear back with a vengeance.

    Two “donations” from Ifa; yet two diametrically opposed results!

    Still, Ifa is not to blame; Ekiti Kete made their choice.

  • From the creeks: gunboat logic

    Someone dismissed them as lunatic voices. Another claimed it was empty din from empty persons. But the putdown that took the cake was gunboat logic from the creeks.

    No bouquet for guessing right: it is all about the threat of war should our son lose the February 14 election, from Tompolo (who by the way is a government, his name being Government Ekpemukpolo), Asari Dokubo and colony.

    After the latest reactions, particularly the intervention from Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, calling for the arrests of the threat howlers, Asari has sort of chickened out — or hasn’t he?

    In his reaction to the Danjuma demand, he denied ever threatening anybody — at least by the latest misadventure at Bayelsa Government (in-between bouts of anti-Danjuma expletives, The Nation reported).

    But not Tompolo, the Government himself!  He reportedly insisted that should Goodluck Jonathan lose, Nigeria would break up. The way he spoke, that was no threat, but a cold and sinister promise! The Government has spoken!

    Tompolo lectured that since the alleged 100-year agreement on which Nigeria was founded expired in 2014 (1914-2014), Jonathan’s loss would be Nigeria’s final unravelling point.  Again, the Government has spoken — cold and dire!

    But even as these militants bawl and holler themselves hoarse, is anybody telling them they howl nothing but inanities?

    First: can anyone, in his right senses, quarrel with what numbers a die — an unloaded die — throws up? Statistics 101 teaches you die-throwing is somewhat a random capture of logical  occurrences.  So, how can someone then howl and scream that he or she would commit suicide, if the die does not throw up his own preferences  — except of course, he wants to load the die and he has the capacity to do so?

    Put in another form, the hollowness of the we-would-war-if-Jonathan-loses threat becomes manifest, using the die symbolism.  In Nigeria, as constituted today, the Niger Delta is a minority. Related directly to Nigeria, the Ijaw (the ethnic group where these loud mouths come from) are even a smaller minority, taken from other Niger Deltans; though the Ijaw fancy themselves as only next, in population, after the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa-Fulani.

    So, if democratic elections are a game of numbers, and the minority cannot persuade the majority to vote for their candidate, how can the minority skew that natural die, and make their threats produce the number for them to win?

    But that is not even the Tompolo gunboat logic. After making the usual empty noise, Tompolo declared that because Danjuma called for his arrest and that of his colony of threat-howlers, for making subversive noises, the general was responsible for some northern miscreants pelting, with stone and sachet water, the president’s campaign convoy!

    Haba!  What is the nexus between calling for some ex-militants’ arrest, and misguided elements in the northern streets stoning a campaign convoy?  That, of course, shows the level of logical thinking that went into the threats, in the first instance.

    But logic or illogic, a bit of history. At the approach of the unfortunate Civil War (1967-1970), rumble from the Biafra enclave boomed: no power in Black Africa can vanquish us!  That was a tragic boast that led to a tragedy of victory (to borrow the title of Brig. Godwin Alabi-Isama’s Civil War memoirs) — even from the Federal side.

    Threat is cheap!  Let these ex-militants get serious.  Enough of this ridiculous gunboat logic!

  • Ouch, Baba’s children at war!

    God loved Biblical King David, to be sure. But the amorous excesses of the man who the Bible said knew how to celebrate God – and the Psalms are concrete proof – mainly on account of the Beersheba covetousness, received a God-ly rebuke: swords shalt never depart from thine house!

    Of course, you know God also loves Baba – Baba being former President Olusegun Obasanjo – at least from his own personal testimonies. Didn’t all of you hear Baba declare that if he had wanted a third term – and he had earnestly asked his God – God would have done it for him?

    Well, the old man is back at university, trying out a PhD in theology. Who knows? Maybe when all is settled, his swansong would be a book entitled Obasanjo’s Jehovah Praise, which in the sheer celebration of the Almighty, would put the David Psalms to shame? That, to be sure, is a mouth-watering proposition!

    In sweet expectation of that however, Baba seems to have caught the David syndrome, in terms of a civil war in his political house – his children are boys and girls at war!

    Ah, on the score, Baba lives by example! He fired the first shot by training his verbal AK-47 on Goodluck Jonathan, president of the Federal Republic, but a godson out of favour. Since godfather and godson fell out, the nation has been catching a cold!

    Godfather says godson is incompetent and useless – and mind you, Obasanjo doesn’t hate Jonathan; he only loves Nigeria. Godson counters godfather is no statesman to harshly put down his own president just like that – remember the Fela number “Just like that, just like that..”? He says godfather, at least from the irreverent lampoon of his own president, is nothing but a motor park tout.

    True, quid pro quo,  after Baba had shown up at Jonathan’s daughter’s wedding, Jonathan too showed up in Baba’s sanctuary – to beg: remember Fela’s “E don beg me” episode with Justice Okoro Idogu? But Baba? “No agreement today, no agreement tomorrow…”, ah another Fela’s famous number! The war continues!

    But as this war rages, the political children too appear to have caught the bug.

    When former CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi accused Jonathan of hugging sleaze on account of NNPC’s alleged non-remittance of US $20 billion into the Federation Account, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (NOI) was talking of some forensic audit, Oby Ezekwesili (OE), gave the coordinating minister for the economy a short shrift. What was needed, she roared, was a full international enquiry, not some closely-guided forensics. Both NOI and OE were golden girls of Obasanjo’s presidential economic think tank.

    Then comes the latest theatre of war: NOI vs Chukwuma (his first name is no longer Charles) Soludo (CS). CS, in a truly seminal intervention, rippling with contemporary Nigerian political history, political economy and economics qua economics, scored Jonathan F9 in his (mis) management of the economy. Not only that: he buffeted the president for “outsourcing” the economy, a chore he should have done himself!

    But NOI, the CEO of the “firm” benefiting from the “outsourcing” came out, eyes flashing, gun blazing: Soludo is Nigeria’s worst CBN governor ever! Well, ask Nasir El-Rufai: there is no love lost between the two, even during the halcyon days of Obasanjo’s economic management team!

    Which of Baba’s children would tango next? Watch out, Baba’s children are at war!

  • Project next: sully the waters!

    All of a sudden, it appears a throw-back to the days immediately before  June 12, 1993, the annulled epochal election, which ripples still haunt the land.

    The Ibrahim Babangida military government, having run rings round the people and eventually round itself, was in a bind. Finally, the much-shifted election it promised to round off its hazy but costly transitional programme loomed. Yet, the IBB government still stonewalled, looking for every reason to cancel or postpone.

    But the rude shock came from the American Embassy in Nigeria. The United States warned that it would take very serious view, if the election was aborted. The message devastated the IBB junta — it knew it was trapped.  So, it decided to devastate the messenger — the American envoy, through whom his home government spoke. The IBB government declared him persona-non-grata, and was summarily expelled.

    But aggressor’s blow and victim’s wound aside, what has come to be called June 12 in Nigeria’s political folklore came and went.  Since then, this country has ceased to be the same.

    The 1993 parallel is playing itself out, with the Jonathan Presidency’s apparent imprimatur on the new wave of agitation to postpone elections, starting on February 14.

    Since Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), National Security Adviser (NSA), started the campaign after his lecture at Chatham House, London, the water is getting more sullied by the day.

    Though President Goodluck Jonathan has somewhat committed himself to the inviolability of the February 14 date, the body language of his government speaks otherwise. The president and his party appear heading for a crushing defeat, and they would be damn if they didn’t try every trick in the book to postpone the evil day.

    Even the Jonathan fresh commitment resulted from US Secretary of State, John Kerry’s intervention, saying Nigeria should not only respect its election schedule, but should commit to non-violent elections. So, welcome again, 1993?

    Back then, the IBB government did everything to sully the waters and muddle the issues. All manners of groups; and shady characters sprang from nowhere to canvass a vile cause; and needlessly heat up the polity. Eventually all failed — or did it?

    The election held, all right. Not only that, it remains the best election ever in Nigerian history. But IBB, for reasons he still refuses to disclose to date, annulled it. The IBB junta thought it was an open-and-shut, routine ambush case that would have no consequences.

    But see how June 12 and its annulment shook Nigeria? Whoever thought a minority of the minorities would ever be president of Nigeria, despite the bully tendencies of the Nigerian majority groups?

    But ironies of ironies! The government of the grand beneficiary of the June 12 shake-down, President Jonathan, appears plotting everything by the books to shift the elections, using the alleged non-preparedness of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), vis-a-vis the ongoing distribution of permanent voter cards (PVCs) as excuse.

    Still, no one is deceived. The Jonathan government has strong motives to push the postponement, simply because it knows it is heading for a hideous slaughter on February 14.

    But before it does anything reckless, it should remember: those who don’t learn from history risk being consumed by it.

    If June 12 could rock Nigeria this far, who knows the damage this looming gambit could cause?

  • Project next: Postpone the polls!

    If you fail to plan,” goes that trite saying, “you plan to fail.”  That perhaps best captures the pre-election epigram of the Jonathan Presidency, vis-a-vis the present lobby to shift the general elections, starting with the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 14.

    National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), set off a virtual bomb, that resonated all through the civilised world, aside from causing ripples of cataclysmic proportions at home, when he suggested, after a Chatham House lecture in London, that postponement be considered, given INEC’s lagging behind in the distribution of permanent voter cards (PVCs).

    That Freudian slip, or deliberate leak to test the waters, gives a peep into the Jonathan administration’s probable thinking on the issue.

    But as far as the 2015 polls go, Jonathan’s government has failed to plan; so it would appear doomed to fail — except the postpone-election-gambit works!

    President Jonathan rode to power on some easy yarn of being too poor to own shoes; and some thick sentiments of keeping power from those with born-to-rule mentality, after which, open sesame, some magical breath of fresh air would do the rest!  That was fine, and a pan-Nigeria (conspiratorial) mandate was soon in the bag.

    In office, however, the president was a clear and graphic image of phantom hope.  When, at Buni Yadi, the Boko Haram lunatics set ablaze pupils in a Federal Government College, the president only hee-hawed.  Till date, the criminals have not been arrested.  No action.

    When at Chibok, this same band of criminals kidnapped over 200 school girls from their hostel, the Jonathan government not only dilly-dallied, losing precious lead time to rescue the girls, the very next day, President Jonathan was on the stumps, dancing Azonto at some Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stump in Kano, at the ruling party’s so-called zonal rally. No compassion.

    The security battle, for the Jonathan order, was well and truly lost, casting a pall on the integrity of the Nigerian state.  A few days ago, the graphic result of this graphic failure was writ large: a virtually empty stand stared at the president’s campaign entourage in Maiduguri, while the president’s “I vow to do more” graphics, emblazoned on the presidential stands, virtually shouted at the skies.

    But do more of what — crass incompetence, inaction and culpable lack of compassion?  Hardball wagers: the president and his party already know  the result from such a place!

    The Maiduguri empty stands were an extreme. But the seal of disapproval, near-nationwide, has followed the president wherever he goes. And he leads no united party — for in his desperation to re-contest, he muscled even harmless opposition, birthing at the ludicrousness of the ruling party claiming they only printed one nomination form, even after collecting prospective aspirants’ money!

    Desperation courts disaster, and all too soon we are all thrown back to the immediate pre-June 12, 1993 presidential election days. But the shift-the-polls plotters easily forget this is not military rule but constitutional order.  The United States that brought Gen. Ibrahim Babangida to heel back then, and forced him to conduct the election he later cancelled to ruin himself, is already out warning President Jonathan not to change the rules bang in the middle of the game.

    The president, in fairness, has committed himself to the election timetable. Well, Hardball waits to see if he would walk his talk, or …

     

  • Femo, what next?

    Dear reader, Hardball hopes you don’t mind this rather cheeky opener this Monday morning, but the question really is: Femo, what next?

    Femo, of course, is the smooth-talking and sweet-tongued Femi Fani-Kayode, who seems to lay much store by the sweetness of his tongue and the smoothness of his elocution than the sense or nonsense of his subject.

    His principal, President Goodluck Jonathan, not the best in the land when the subject is elocution and the  gift of the gab, would appear well and truly wowed by Fani-Kayode’s oratorical talents, so much so he made him the chief spokesperson of his presidential campaign.  Ah, the president is entitled to his beloved choice!

    Still, it is amazing how Femo runs himself into a ditch — with his principal’s cause of course!

    Even after the unlamented burial — with full contempt — of a certificate scandal that was not, Femo is still waxing lyrical about a phantom “forgery”.

    Hear the son of Fani-Power talk as if only power, brazen power, matters; and never common sense: “We do not know who the authors and masterminds of this forgery are, but whoever they are, we urge them to come forward and be identified”.  “If they fail to come forward voluntarily,” he warned, “we hereby call on the Police and other security agencies to seek them out, find them, arrest them, interrogate them and prosecute them in accordance with the laws of the land.”

    Some talk, yak, yak!

    The Police and other security agencies — as in public security services in private vice-grip of his ruling federal party?  But thank God for small mercies, Femo barely escaped the late Augustus Aikhomu’s syndrome — Admiral Aikhomu, the Chief of General Staff (CGS) to Gen. Babangida as military “president.”

    The late naval officer threatened to gaol a certain group of citizens for alleged offences.

    “We will gaol them,” he thundered to the media — until somebody pinched him: “Your Excellency, you have not tried them …” “Yes” the gamesome marine soldier conceded, “we will try them and gaol them!”

    At least Femo still talks of prosecution “in accordance with the laws of the land”, even if his body language suggested more of the late Aikhomu stuff.  Thank God for small mercies!

    But the notorious fact is, as Femo continues to waste his time on a dead and buried scandal that was not, even the most gullible of his former riveting audience has moved on.

    Even as he huffed, puffed and threatened, Alhaji Isyaku Bello, the current principal of Buhari’s old school that made public the report, has invited the doubting Thomases to come see the original of the document, if only to purge them of their verbal diarrhoea!  But Fani, Hardball guesses, is far too gone, working himself into a lather!

    Well, Hardball’s sincere observation.  Fani and his party started phantom campaigns of spite and blackmail, and at every juncture, they have woefully failed. First, it was the opposition as Islamic party. Then, it was anticipation of a Muslim-Muslim ticket.  Then, the conjuring of Buhari being allegedly down with prostate  cancer. And now, it is the dead and buried certificate non-scandal.

    Meanwhile, as Femo and co waste precious time over inanities, they de-market their principal and give his opponent the bounce!

    So Femo, what’s next in your factory of mischief?