The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • The forlorn man in the back row

    Hardball had a heck of a time finding a suitable title for this piece and to let it out, he never suffered such a challenge. The first intuitive title was ‘Coming in from the cold’ but nay, that seems flat and trite. What about, ‘The man in the cold’? No, the fellow in the picture does not seem the least troubled by the weather condition of that rarefied environment. I tried out ‘Lost in the crowd’ but quickly discarded it for even though the subject may look lost, it is not a rowdy crowd. What about ‘Alone in the crowd?’ well, almost good but then you could be right in the front row of a picture yet still appear alone. I even considered ‘The giant in the back row’ but that does not seem to jell; seeming a bit jaded this giant thing.

    Now was he perchance late for the photo session, whereupon I cast the head: ‘Late for the party’. But even at that, protocol would not object to his taking his rightful position in the front row, right at the focal point of the photograph. A few may snort and grunt but none would dare stop Africa’s premier president. Well since we do not know that as a matter of fact, we settled for the one above. We speak about the group photograph emanating from the US-Africa leaders Summit in Washington last week.

    The photo which has set the Nigerian world abuzz for a few days shows our dear President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan standing alone in the back row. In a photograph that features vice presidents, prime ministers and some two-bit kings, many Nigerians are taken aback that their president is relegated to the back row. Many argue that a President Olusegun Obasanjo would never have accepted that spot in the picture; that he would rather not be in it than be found in such unlikely position. Who did this to Nigeria? Was it the White House protocol team that sought to so diminish Nigeria and belittle her?

    Who has ever seen any US President anywhere apart from the front row if it does not matter? Jacob Zuma of South Africa will not be found on that spot; neither would Moumar Gaddaffi of old. When did we lose our sense of magnitude and self worth? Are we no longer the biggest economy in Africa? It is the same manner that Nigeria was bypassed and snubbed during the burial of Nelson Mandela. Nigeria paid a heavy price to liberate South Africa from the apartheid regime, yet would not be allowed to take the podium at Mandela’s funeral.

    Who really is managing our foreign policy? What really is the rationale for our president attending some of these summits? The other time, it was France summoning African countries to Paris supposedly over Boko Haram and this time it was the US herding African leaders as if they were American serfs. Jonathan had no business attending this US-AU summit in the first place; the vice president would have represented him well. But what did we see: our president hankering after photo opportunity with the US president.

    See the giant standing timidly in the back row.

  • Bats at the Villa

    How that the Goodluck Jonathan presidency has declared a national emergency regarding the outbreak of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), it may be expected that the administration would take certain unusual steps in line with the announcement.

    In particular, to go by a newspaper report by a State House correspondent in Abuja, the government is likely to launch an operation to get rid of the bats that populate the location of Aso Rock Villa, the president’s official base.

    The correspondent said: “One of the animals the Minister of Health mentioned as carriers of Ebola was bat. That also generated another round of fear. Many of the big trees inside the Villa are homes for bats. They fly around the Villa in their thousands. They pass out faeces on cars, leaving the owners with no option than to clean them.”

    He continued: “Journalists called the attention of the minister to this and he was also surprised. He quickly hid his fear and assured the agitated journalists that those concerned will definitely do something about the bats as soon as possible.”

    So, Hardball expects a vigorous effort to make the place inhospitable for bats, but wonders how this will be achieved, considering the information that they are present “in their thousands.”  Given the government’s penchant for governance-by-committees, it won’t be surprising if it sets up yet another committee to tackle the bats.

    Sadly, apart from the unfortunate death of a Nigerian nurse who contracted the disease from the late Liberian diplomat, Patrick Sawyer, whose entry into the country on July 20 triggered the spread of the virus, reports say 177 others are currently under Ebola-related surveillance in the country.  Against this alarming background, it is perhaps understandable that, according to the Aso Rock correspondent, “the spread of the virus was the only item on the agenda” of the August 6 Federal Executive Council meeting chaired by Vice-President Namadi Sambo.   He said: “His boss, Goodluck Jonathan, was at that time in Washington DC for the United States-African Leaders Summit.”

    The correspondent observed that “there is fear in the Vila over the spread of the dreaded Ebola virus.”  According to his report on the meeting, “it all started like a joke with some ministers avoiding handshake with their colleagues, journalists and other government officials for the fear of contracting the disease.” He said of the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu: “Apart from regular washing of hands with soap, the minister also encouraged citizens to cultivate the habit of using hand sanitisers. He said he had his own bottle of sanitiser inside his car.”  He then said of the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku: “At that point, Maku dipped his hand into the pocket of his agbada and brought out a bottle of sanitiser. To demonstrate it, he and Chukwu rubbed their hands with the substance.”

    Now, back to the business of battling the bats and sending them packing from the Villa – supposing this is accomplished by whatever means, would it guarantee an Ebola-free Villa? Speaking of bats, what about the possibility of “human bats”, with the implication of spreading the virus, among other things?   By way of information, there is a mysterious creature called the Humanoid Bat, also known as Human Bat or Bat-Thing, which is believed to be either a human that had evolved into a bat-like creature or the other way round. What if such a creature can be found in the corridors of power?

     

     

     

     

  • Lagos okada, not for politics

    There have been some politically- motivated statements and articles of late about the role of the okada, the commercial motorcycle, in the lives of Lagosians, and some of them have not done justice to the conscience of the commuter. When the matter came to the boil about a year ago, the misunderstanding was clear.

    The Babatunde Raji Fashola administration introduced a restriction in the circulation of the machines. But swiftly the spin that went to town was that it was a ban. This is a misuse of language for a tendentious end. But at the time it was not read as an act of overt political counter-narrative against the Lagos State government.

    The state made it clear that it wanted to restrict their operation for a number of reasons. Not among this reason is the inconvenience it potentially could impose on the average commuter in the city. The principal reasons were linked with safety. In some of the hospitals, the okadas had become synonymous with slow lynching. Some of the hospitals in Lagos had become acquainted with the gloomy images of the victims. Legs broken, charred flesh bleeding profusely, tears in deluge, deaths to tell the story. And newspapers, including this one, reported many of those stories, gory pieces of young, old, men and women, frittered away in one okada’s nervous tilt into disaster.

    Governor Fashola announced a restriction from the major arteries of the city, where the heavy traffic snarl is characterised by such heavy duty vehicles like the trucks, trailers that sometimes bear crates without hinges. The roads also came with various lanes making the trajectory of the okadas so serpentine that they lost their bearings and collided with these mammoth contractions. If cars could meet perilous destinies on these roads, the matter of the thin, fragile okada without unprotected passengers was a foregone conclusion.

    That informed the decision of the Lagos State government to the bold step.  In spite of the restrictions, the okadas still operate in 95 per cent of the roads in the city. The statistics bear out the wisdom of the action. From the records so far, before the restrictions the number of accidents per month was about 600 on the average. By the recent reports, it is about 100. Deaths per month averaged 15. Today, it is about one. Sources say in the past few months, no deaths have been recorded.

    The decision may have started in Lagos, but others have since followed suit. And the decision has not had any partisan flavour. Abia State, Akwa Ibom State and Rivers State are a few of the states that have followed that path.

    So, anyone who wants to politicise a matter of public safety because of the ambition for power must be courting death and disaster for people and their families.

     

  • First class rot

    We thought there was rot in all ramifications of the Nigerian system but we probably did not know the depth of it. This line is actually an infection Hardball contracted from the Obasanjo era – the singsong then (1999 to 2007) was always that ‘the rot is deep’. When we challenged the administration then (as we do Jonathan’s now), concerning its ineptitude, pervasive corruption and mis-governance, the handy response was: ‘the rot is deep’. You would think that they would try and clear the debris of rot but nay; eight years of Obasanjo and the rot only got deeper than any sea. Hardball is particularly troubled today that the rot may be even more ingrained in Nigeria’s educational system than anywhere else. Now that would be a rotten tragedy for the otiose reason that education is the bedrock of the modern society and should the educational system be so decayed, then we may well be living in the land of the living dead – or are we?

    Hardball was pushed into this rather morbid conclusion upon reading a report of a first class graduate and his colleagues currently in police net for job application fraud. Now if you have ever been through the university system, you would know that first class is the pride of any institution that goes by the name university. It is their pre-eminent laurel. Whether it is summa cum laude or alpha head, a first class in the North Pole is acknowledged to be a first class in the South.

    Indeed, students graduating first class or top of their departments are considered national assets and are treated as such in properly ordered climes. They are immediately noticed, shortlisted for special assignments and kept under the radar of the system. All over the world, first class graduates are special breeds; they never lack jobs, they are availed with scholarships and are specially harnessed and groomed to deepen a country’s intellectual equity. Many advanced countries have automatic schemes first rate young minds activate upon achieving this rare educational attainment.

    This is why Hardball is worried that a certain young man, Olalekan Fajobi (27), is reportedly languishing in police net right now for allegedly, being part of a gang that defrauded job seekers through an online scam. Fajobi, according to a report on page 11 of New Telegraph, July 28, 2014, is a first class Mechanical Engineering graduate of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA). He is reported to be the best graduating student in his department in 2012.

    Fajobi is among a six-man gang of mainly graduates and students who had perfected an on-line scholarship scheme with which they have defrauded gullible applicants to the tune of about N5 million. Fajobi and his friends are currently cooling off in the cells of the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the police, at Milverton Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. While Hardball makes no excuses for criminal behaviours, he insists that the travails of these young men are more of systemic failure than behavioural. He insists that Fajobi and his friends should never languish in police cells if our system was not in deep, first class rot; he should be applying his mind in some sensitive national assignments right now – like working for the SFU.

  • Nasarawa: King-Kong kayoed!

    It was Chinua Achebe, in his A Man of the People, that threw in the Igbo jibe: that one of the roguish politicians, in his fictional polity, had stolen more than enough for the owner not to notice.

    Like fiction that shapes today’s dirty reality, Chief Nanga, MP, could well pass as patron saint for today’s power politicians, in Nigeria’s present troubled democracy!  Chief Nanga’s power-without-scruples (mis)philosophy has a lot in common with the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) (a classic name-as-paradox case!) in its present capture-by-opposing-governors’ impeachment unholy crusade.

    Surprised with the ease with which Adamawa’s Murtala Nyako was shoved off his seat, and firing off victorious shots in the air as the impeachment train furiously galloped into Lafia, Nasarawa State, the Tanko Al-Makura ouster was supposed to be a piece of cake, which should also warn the stiff-necked band in Edo and Rivers — and any other state that tickles the PDP King-Kong’s fancies — that the bell tolls for their errant governors.

    Not even anti-impeachment protests by the political masters of the all-mighty Nasarawa legislators, the voters themselves, could impress the rampaging legislators, having smelled blood, like some rogue hunters fixed on their hopeless prey.

    They seemed particularly re-energised after a “private visit” to Aso Rock Villa, with you-know-who, who perhaps further assured them that legitimate federal coercion would surely be available for their illegitimate state endeavour. He is commander-in-chief and chief monopolist of state force, isn’t he?  At least, after discounting the rag-tag Boko Haram now seriously competing for space!

    Still, it is true: a dog that would meet its doom is totally deaf to the hunter’s whistle!  And so it has been with the Nasarawa lawmakers whose temper appeared more like law breakers’.

    They met every protest with a sneer.  And every plea, by traditional rulers and other crucial stakeholders to backpedal, with dismissive scorn.  Pronto, they ordered the Nasarawa State Chief Judge (CJ), Justice Suleiman Dikko, like legislative village headmasters, claiming constitutional backing, as the Legislative Leviathan, even as the governor virtually shouting himself hoarse that he was not properly — and therefore not legally — served the impeachment notice.  The CJ obliged them.

    But then, having had their way they realised, like a reckless boxer, they had run into a sucker punch, entirely their own making!  Suddenly, they wanted the CJ to disband the committee they had ordered him to constitute.  Drama!

    The CJ demurred, citing constitutional provisions. The legislators insisted threatening to boycott the court they caused to be set up; and to go to court to challenge their own doing.  It is political vengeance turned splendid farce!

    What did the legislators expect?  A zombie CJ that would stuff the committee with partisan hangmen that would, after sending a governor to political gallows, crown the legislators as gubernatorial legisla-thieves?  Or a fair arbiter that would do justice to all, without fear or favour, as the cliché goes?

    Anyway, the last time Hardball checked, the governor had been cleared of all the charges.  Is that the end, or there is more legislative banditry to come?

    Talk of stealing too much for the owner not to notice!

  • Acting IGP’s sweet talk

    Acting IGP’s sweet talk

    Perhaps as expected, survival must have been on the mind of the Acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Suleiman Abba, as he took over from Mohammed Abubakar who retired on July 31 after two years in the saddle and a 35-year career. So, it was unsurprising that he had good words for the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, despite that the administration is poorly rated in the critical area of security.

    The 55-year-old Acting IGP, in his maiden address to men and officers of the Force in Abuja, said: “Of all reforms embarked upon by the past governments, it is only that of the Yar’Adua/Jonathan administration that is working. We have seen the seven city programmes with the necessary equipment; we have seen tens of helicopters and other facilities in place.”

    Abba’s flattering picture of the Jonathan government is understandable, considering that he is working in acting capacity and must be hoping and praying that the qualification reflecting temporariness would sooner or later be removed from his designation. Or what else could explain his apparent selective perception? Was Abba speaking about the same police force that is empirically regarded as scandalously ill-equipped? Besides, how have the so-called “necessary equipment” and “other facilities” translated into security success? It is noteworthy that Abba unwittingly highlighted security failure when he said: “The recent upsurge in security challenges will have my full attention.”

    Still pursuing the path of sycophancy, he declared: “In consonance with the President’s Transformation Agenda, I will develop and implement constructive policing strategies for the maintenance of a stable democracy and economic growth.” Maybe he needs to be told that the country’s transformation under the Jonathan administration has been in the negative direction, as it continues to endanger democracy and threaten economic growth. Hardball is a witness to the abuse of the police and security agencies by the powers that be, particularly the use of these organisations for non-professional and politically- motivated purposes.

    It is worth mentioning that all eyes will be on the role of the police in the August 9 governorship election in Osun State; and beyond that, in the 2015 general elections. In other words, among the challenges he will have to tackle, Abba will need to prove his professionalism as the police helmsman and demonstrate that he can operate outside the sphere of political influence in the electoral context.

    Hopefully, Abba was not just being theoretical when he referred to the vexed question of police reform.  He said: “It is not the fault of those implementing or those that sat down and wrote the reform programmes. It is because one thing is missing, attitudinal change; the absence of attitudinal change in the Force is why the reforms are not effective.” With all due respect, he sounded repetitive as the issue of “attitudinal change” was at the heart of the ceremonious launch of a 20-page booklet known as “Nigeria Police Code of Conduct” in January 2013.

    The implication that Abba will devote his tenure to achieving “attitudinal change” in the police force needs to be properly contextualised. If there are no complicating factors and he transcends the acting capacity to become the substantive IGP, he is expected to retire in March 2019. So, Hardball appreciates why his maiden speech was full of sweet talk, the type that will possibly please those who have the power to keep him in office.

     

  • Osun: The CAN-didate you know

    Osun: The CAN-didate you know

    It’s E –Day in Osun State on Saturday. In just 48-hours, all the huffing and puffing; all the stomping about the state in the last few weeks will be over. Hopefully the people of Osun, the Omoluabis, would have made their choice and the initial winners and losers will emerge. The electoral battle between incumbent Governor Rauf Aregbesola and Senator Iyiola Omisore promises to be one of the most keenly contested in Nigeria’s recent history.

    Were it in those days when the world wrote on scrolls and in long hand, Hardball would wager that a whole library of scrolls would have been filled with verbiage on the Osun election. In other words, there is hardly anything left to be said in this epic battle. All the boastings have been boasted, all the posturing have been postured; all that is left is for all parties to keep awake and ensure that the voting and collating processes are truly free, fair and without any glitch.

    It may well signpost one of the most significant battles between the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) behemoth and the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). Whichever party wins this will gain an important edge over the other. If PDP’s Omisore wins, it would amount to a most momentous victory for his party and may have set up a groundswell for the re-capture of the Southwest by the PDP, considering that Ondo and recently, Ekiti had been lost by APC. It is indeed a must win for Ogbeni and his party if only to stem the recent losses and imbue reassurance.

    Ogbeni had put up a modest performance in the past three and a half years, surpassing the record of most of his predecessors. He is a man of the people, a man who cares passionately about the welfare of the people. He is the direct antithesis of Omisore, who could be appropriately qualified as a member of the conservative old order. He was a deputy governor and then he has been a senator since 2003. That is about all for his achievements and claim to leadership unless you want to recount the unfortunate incidence of the gruesome killing of Chief Bola Ige of which Omisore was seriously linked, though a court discharged and acquitted him.

    Great leaders and politicians would naturally seize the grand pedestal of the Senate to define themselves and their raison d’etre.  But it is sad to admit that Omisore’s time in the upper chamber remains an insignificant blip in the annals of his people. A man who could not manage to be a great senator, how can he deign to seek to make a good governor? Most notably, one would have thought he would run an intellectualised campaign, carefully articulating his ideas; sadly, it has been a puerile outing, with the electorate not knowing neither what Omisore stands for, nor what he seeks to offer.

    Finally, it has been widely conjectured that the Osun election may be crucially decided by the votes of Christians led by members of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). If that truly be the case, then one can be sure that the best candidate would be victorious because CAN is a most rational entity.

     

  • Chibok: Babel over cash

    One (un)fortunate event and a Babel of voices over cash!

    Abdu Halilu, a Chibok girl parent, part of the group on a presidential visit to Aso Villa: “I got only N200, 000 out of N100 million allegedly received by our leaders in Abuja.  Some of us got N300, 000 and some less than that.”

    Pobu Bitrus, a member of the House of Representatives, also present at the meeting: “After we met with the Presidency, the parents were given some money in envelopes.  That’s all. All other things they are saying about N100 million, I don’t know about that.”

    Both Halilu and Bitrus reportedly spoke with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

    Reuben Abati, President Goodluck Jonathan’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity: “The allegation is completely untrue.  Nobody distributed any envelope after the meeting.  The meeting was held in the Villa, a public place.  After the meeting, the president left and the parents as well as the children went into their buses in the presence of the media. There was no time, after the meeting, that envelopes were distributed or money was given.”

    And away from it all, but still related to it, another voice — Oby Ezekwesili, leader of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign: “I wish the Chibok parents resisted the filthy lucre. I really wish they did.  How much can douse the agony of a missing child?  We shall stand.”

    A final voice, an unnamed parent, whose girl is still missing, but who missed the Abuja trip: “I was on the farm when they brought the N7, 000 to my house and I collected it. Some of us got even less, N3, 000 and below.”

    Herein then is contemporary Nigeria’s moral sewers in full stink.

    Now, by African custom, it is nothing unusual for country folks to visit their president and the president gives them some token as transport fare. Then envelope story could have supported that — and maybe there perhaps would have been nothing to it.

    But Dr. Abati’s trenchant denial raises serious eyebrows.  So, the president gave no token as parting gifts to his guests? That would simply be un-African. But it would appear Abati’s denial has more to do with fending his boss from the allegation that he tried, by cynical lucre, to buy the soul of the parents, from the crisis at hand.

    Hear Abati again: “This is not about money. We are talking about human lives here.”  Bravo!  But it is near obvious that Abati’s rally is either in anticipation of, or in reaction to, Dr. Ezekwesili’s rebuke that the Jonathan Presidency, by the alleged N100 million payout, tried to corrupt the Chibok campaign with cynical cash, to somehow salve its conscience, on the feckless manner it had handled the Chibok case, and failure so far to set the girls free.

    Reading between the lines, however, it is almost clear there was some form of payout to the hurting Chibok parents. The scandal and national shame is that some Chibok leaders, would appear not averse to profiting from their people’s sufferings.

    That is apt metaphor for contemporary Nigeria’s moral sewers at its full stink!

  • On subterfuge mode

    Nigeria’s politics can be likened to a long lesson in subterfuge, trickery and bad faith. More tragic, however, is that new entrants to the system have proved to be even more adept at plodding these old, damnable ways. The recent ‘downing’ of Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State from his exalted office through a crude and clearly subterranean ‘impeachment’ process is immediately reminiscent of the desperate days of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

    The Adamawa State House of Assembly suddenly accused the governor of gross misconduct warranting of an impeachment and before the cock crowed twice, all manner of kangaroo panels had been set up and in a flash, the deed was done. Murtala Nyako and his deputy have suddenly become history. Though he has threatened to challenge the action in court, Hardball wagers it would be an exercise in futility because he is sure to be in court till the end of his tenure, yet would not get a favourable outcome, if any at all.

    While Governor Nyako still writhes from his great fall, his colleague in Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura, is in the line of fire and may be next to fall. And now, the impeachment fever seems to be catching on across the country with unsavoury stirrings in Edo and Rivers states. The common factor in all of these is that these are all opposition party states. Even a child can see through this dark veil.

    It isn’t that impeachment is not a necessary part of democracy or that Hardball seeks to absolve Nyako or the opposition party clan of whatever malfeasance  they may have been accused of; no. We quarrel with the barely disguised ‘hand from above’ that is making state assembly marionettes dance with such uncommon excitement. It is not that anyone needs any proof or convincing (at play is a crude tactic perfected by Obasanjo) but last Thursday, six members of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly led by its Speaker, Alhaji Musa Ahmed, were sighted in the Presidential Villa. They were reportedly there to meet the president. When did the impeachment of a governor become a presidential affair, one might ask?

    It is funny and Hardball laughs out loud at the unfolding scenario of unmitigated subterfuge meshed with a pastiche of bad faith. For the presidency to resort to rough tactics and garrison method to contain the opposition only suggests a failure of the intellect. It suggests a setting in of desperation if not the do-or-die virus. We must be careful what we get up to just because we want to retain power, just because of 2015; we must be wary of what we do today if only for the fact that there is always tomorrow. Let us recall that one of the actions that must haunt former President Obasanjo must be his obnoxious deployment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the police to forcefully and abhorrently nudge governors out of office. Obasanjo broke all moral rules and all democratic norms in what was obviously a megalomaniac quest. He must live in utter regret today about this baleful legacy.

    Would President Goodluck Jonathan live in a regretful tomorrow?

  • Soldiers who are shy of death

    It is becoming increasingly clearer why the country’s terror war remains practically theoretical, thanks to the recent remarks by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Kenneth Minimah.

    The place and timing of Minimah’s revealing comments were noteworthy. By a significant coincidence, the army boss underlined the military’s cluelessness, particularly in the campaign against the Islamist guerilla force Boko Haram.

    On July 23, the day that twin bombings allegedly masterminded by Boko Haram reportedly killed 82 people in Kaduna and nearly claimed the life of a former military head of state, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Minimah made statements that expressed helplessness. He told soldiers at the 9 Brigade, Ikeja Cantonment, Lagos, during a familiarisation tour: “Boko Haram terrorists come to die not fight. It is a new warfare, which military personnel are not trained in. They carry explosives to blow up anyone around. They load Hilux with bombs and run into troops with them. It is not a conventional war. You do not see or know the enemy you are fighting.”

    It must be said that this definition of the battle as unconventional is unacceptably repetitive, especially coming from the army chief. Indeed, his argument raised fundamental questions about the nature and quality of military training in the country. It sounded incredible that in the modern world, with the familiarity of guerilla fighting, Minimah referred to the observable fact as “a new warfare, which military personnel are not trained in.”

    Even more unbelievable was his suggestion that the country’s soldiers are restrained by the possibility of dying in battle. It would appear that he was trying to redefine the generally acknowledged riskiness of war and downplay the reality that dying is always a possible occurrence in warfare. If, as he claimed, the terrorists “come to die not fight,” then it may be logical to reason that by rejecting the same mentality, their opponents could be fighting a losing battle.

    Furthermore, against this background, it is astonishing that the President Goodluck Jonathan administration continues to explore the so-called international support in fighting Boko Haram as part of the broader global war on terror. Considering Minimah’s hint that his soldiers would prefer warfare without the risk of death, it must be the height of wishful thinking to imagine that foreign soldiers would be willing to die for the country when local soldiers are busy making excuses.

    This brings up the controversial issue of the $1billion external loan for which the Jonathan administration is seeking the approval of the National Assembly. When the president presented his request to the federal lawmakers two weeks ago, he argued for an urgent endorsement, saying the money was needed to upgrade the equipment, training and logistics of the Armed Forces and security services in order to empower them better to achieve victory against the insurgents.

    The storm generated by this loan idea is unsurprising and understandable, particularly the criticism that a colossal total of N3trillion had been allocated to defence in the national budget in the last three years “with nothing to show for it.”  The question is: whether with N3trillion or $1billion, how can the military succeed in arresting terrorism with soldiers who are shy of death? Mind you, Hardball is certainly not a sadistic advocate of violent death; it is just about being frank and realistic.