The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • France, Etete says ‘Merci’

    Even though details of likely behind-the scenes moves that culminated in the intriguing decriminalisation of Chief Dan Etete, a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, by the French government may not be in the public space, this does not make his clearance any less dramatic, or any less absurd.

    The background to the hard-to explain development dates back to 2007 when a French court found Etete guilty of corruption-related misconduct, specifically money laundering, and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment, although he was tried in absentia. In addition, he was fined 300,000 euros (about $40,000).

    Particularly, Etete who served in the scandalously authoritarian military administration of the late General Sani Abacha between 1993 and 1998, was convicted of spending 15 million euros believed to have been gained from official fraud on properties in 1999 and 2000, including a chateau in north-west France, a Paris apartment and a luxury villa in the chic Paris suburb of Neuilly. Furthermore, the court then issued a warrant for Etete’s arrest and ordered him to pay 150,000 euros to Nigeria as compensation for “moral prejudice” and 20,000 euros as fees.

    This was the historical situation until March 7 when Bulletin No. 3 issued by the Criminal Cases and Pardon Division of the French Ministry of Justice publicised the fact that Etete had been pardoned and cleared of the earlier conviction. Could this be interpreted to mean that Etete was never found guilty of the charges and the sentencing never happened? Or is it that, as the word “pardon” suggests, he was correctly convicted but his wrongs have been forgiven? Alas, the bulletin signed by the magistrate in charge of the national criminal record, Xavier Pavageau, was not helpful in that connection.

    No matter what, there is no denying the fact that to all intents and purposes Etete can strut without the stigma of conviction. Why he was proclaimed spotless is a question that perhaps only the French authorities can answer, and they have offered no clue. Consequently, the Nigerian public in particular is left wondering about the mysterious ways of “Justice”.

    Indeed, if there was any doubt about the redeeming quality of Etete’s purification, his solicitors, Pierre Benoliel, provided clarification in a letter to the French Ambassador in Nigeria, noting that in view of the current circumstances Etete deserved to be treated as a free man without qualification. The communication said, “As you know, Mr. Dan Etete, eminent personality in Nigeria is a great friend of France and has been so for many years. In spite of the judicial vicissitudes that he has unfortunately known in the beginning of year 2000, he is now free of any constraint and he complies with the fiscal and legal French administrations.”

    From the look of things, in reciprocation, France has as well proved to be a “great friend” of Mr. Etete. With his honour apparently restored, shouldn’t Etete be grateful for having friends like France?

  • Presidential Afghanistanism

    Presidential Afghanistanism, what in the name of God is that? What clap trap?

    But please, at least, hear Hardball out.

    To start with, you know of Afghanistan, an old civilisation, rich in fairy tales, but brought into recent disrepute by Taliban stone-age men, who threw up the Al-Qaeda terrorists and Osama bin Laden, who bombed the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, USA, which resulted in a long-drawn US-led anti-terror war.

    Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    An Afghan is a citizen of Afghanistan.

    And Afghanistanism?

    It is a media term for running away from urgent news at home, to feast on often irrelevant news abroad. Call it media filibustering, and you are not entirely wrong.

    And presidential Afghanistanism?

    Ah, that is today’s gist! And you could make concrete examples of that from the foreign trips President Goodluck Jonathan makes, and local trips he refuses to make. Call them fleeing from the hot front of presidential duty and you are not entirely wrong.

    Yet, Goodluck Jonathan did not invent presidential Afghanistanism. In years gone by in the Second Republic, President Shehu Shagari took to the skies, even while the NECOM Building, the tallest building in Nigeria and corporate headquarters of the defunct Nigerian External Telecommunications Ltd (NET), was gutted. The gentle president would rather not be frazzled by the NET-generated heat.

    Even then, President Jonathan appears to have perfected the concept of retreat-by-travel (abroad) and retreat-by-non-travel (at home). It is perhaps his own unique style of maintaining his personal sanity in the midst of so much madness. But what about the American quip: if you can’t stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen?

    After the Abba Moro fatal job interviews that claimed the lives of 19 Nigerian job seekers, the president simply hee-hawed. Moro he would not sack or un-sack. On his fate, the president just opened and closed his mouth, and nothing came out of it.

    Of course, you must applaud this presidential focus on issues and not personalities. Pronto, he has cancelled the scandalous interview, ordered relations of the dead should be offered three jobs, in a three-jobs-for-one-death philosophy, and offered the living the opportunity to have another go at those jobs, hoping of course that the interview(s) would be far less fatal next time round.

    Not only that: the Jonathan awards also approved a job apiece for the injured in the job melee. So, do we now expect another crush from veterans of that ill-fated interview, struggling to show their wounds and scars to land another job?

    Of course, all these were too much for our dear president, who quietly pressed his retreat-by-travel (abroad) button, and took off on a jaunt to Namibia, the Vatican and Holland. It’s invaluable days of rest from the Nigerian nuthouse!

    Meanwhile at home, the rival All Progressives Congress (APC) has shouted — and is still shouting itself — hoarse on why the president must visit Yobe to condole with parents and guardians of the slain Federal Government College, Bunu Yadi, minors. But apparently APC has not studied the retreat-by-non-travel (at home) Jonathan presidential manual.

    The party should — and be soundly educated – on the latest techniques in presidential Afghanistanism.

     

  • ‘Help, NNPC is sinking’

    Not surprisingly, Andrew Yakubu, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), is not finding it funny at all that the organisation has come to represent bad news in the eyes of quite a few Nigerians. An upset Yakubu reportedly made his feelings known to journalists during dinner in Abuja and his moans were multidimensional.

    To start with, he complained with a sense of alarm, “We cannot do this business without Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), without foreign participation. Our credibility level is going down very fast. And unfortunately, it is based on perception.” He went on, “If we continue at this rate, I am going to tell you something that is very bad. I will ask all of you that if you continue to destroy our economy this way, then pray never to give birth to children because those children are coming to suffer the outcome of our terrible destructive attitudes. Because it will be difficult for anybody to invest in this country if we continue to destroy our country’s perception.”

    Biting words, but who really is messing up the country’s image? Is it those who irresponsibly make negative news, or those who faithfully report it? From the look of things, Yakubu was suggesting unprofessional self-censorship by implying that reporters should look away and keep mum when NNPC is in an alleged mess. To be specific, it is easy to link this veiled recommendation with the highly controversial allegation of missing $20 billion oil revenue by suspended Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido, the latest in a long history of corruption-related accusations against the corporation.

    No doubt, it is convenient for Yakubu to blame the organisation’s woes on “perception”, and to sell the wrong impression that so-called perception cannot be objective. Indeed, the question is whether the claimed damage to NNPC’s credibility is based on correct perception.

    Perhaps unable to reasonably disregard the possibility that public estimation of the corporation’s performance might actually be based on reality, Yakubu told the audience,” If you are talking of corruption, mention anywhere you don’t have any iota of corruption. But what they do is that, you do it, but the law will catch up with you.”

    Obviously, it is a lame argument to suggest that corruption is everywhere and, therefore, no big deal. Or isn’t that what Yakubu meant? Thank God, he was at least honest enough to acknowledge the fact that the justice system can be relied upon to deal with corruption issues in those places he referred to, where the law is usually applied with all sense of responsibility. By extension, he should also be truthful enough to accept that his country is not yet in that category.

    He was clearly speaking in a strange tongue, or being unserious, when he said, “So I would appeal that if you have any specific case, bring it out, then we will be able to correct it.” If anything had been corrected in all the years of alleged sleaze at the corporation, it is likely that Yakubu would not have had to do his latest dinner talk with journalists, or if he did, it would not have been about loss of credibility, which is not surprising in NNPC’s unflattering circumstances.

  • Diezani’s unending book of scandals

    It is so difficult to associate beauty with so much ugliness; especially beauty of the feminine kind. But Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s oil minister and a woman of exquisite beauty has, in just a few years as head of this all-important sector, earned the dubious distinction of being the most scandal-prone person to head that office. She has notched up enough ugly tales about her office that her feminine good looks would compare to the mask of gorgon. There are enough hoary stories about this oil queen to write a fat, steamy book.

    Running now is the Diezani private jets scandal. A few months ago, an NGO petitioned the National Assembly (NASS), detailing how our dainty queen had notched up a bill of over N10 billion flying the world in such luxury only associated with Arab sheikhs. It is a tale of unrestrained extravagance and flamboyance many thought was a cruel joke on Nigerians. But as the House Committee on Public Accounts began its probe on the allegations, it has been revealed that not only one jet, the Challenger 850, but there is another XRS plane which she flies for overseas trips at the cost of 600,000 euros per return trip. It has been revealed that she chartered this jet twice last year on trips to London. And hold your heart: there is yet a third jet!

    Investigations are still on-going though, but that seems to be the catch about this fair lady; probing her has always ended in a cul de sac. Her inquisitors seem to always hit a stone wall or is it a golden wall as a cynic once conjectured? Just before this jet affair rebounded, we had been fed the kerosene subsidy, which was an N850 billion ear-tingling caper. She allegedly defied a presidential order to vacate the dubious regime and for years supervised a most duplicitous transaction of importing kerosene under the subsidy template and selling it to the public at market rate. What this would amount to is that while the cycle lasted, only the minister and her team were being subsidised. And this matter just fizzled out.

    There was the Malabu miasma: though this multi-billion oil block (OPL 245) dated back about 15 years, it is under her watch that it was resolved – but not in favour of Nigeria’s government as it ought to be, but in favour of various fronts and shell companies. Thus a lucrative oil block dubiously acquired by some renegades was eventually disbursed to their benefit. The payout by Shell last year for this oil block was a hefty $1.3 billion and instead of this swelling Nigeria’s treasury, it was a huge payday for economic saboteurs and their collaborators in government. Our oil queen remained conveniently silent and aloof over this shenanigan that brewed right under her nose. We are to assume that it was no business of hers but we know better.

    There is the January 2012 subsidy upheaval, which ended up showing how subsidy had become a huge multi-trillion naira racket. All the panel reports from this epic drama is now an easy chair upon which our oil lady sits coolly, unperturbed. What about the $20 billion missing oil money that recently consumed Mr. Lamido Sanusi, the Central Bank governor? What about Transfigura, Vitol, crude swap, etc? It is indeed a fat, sordid book.

  • That editorial on Osun REC

    When a newspaper pens an editorial, it is expected to carry with it the dignity of integrity. But perhaps the greatest attribute of such writing in any newspaper or journal of repute is its fidelity to facts. As elementary students of journalism hear often to the point of flagellation, facts are sacred and opinions are free.

    The existential possibility of this assertion can lead to nunaced modification of the so-called aphorism. But all in journalism know that facts are indispensable to any newspaper report or comment. And that accounts for why Hardball frowns at a recent editorial of a newspaper of shrunken influence calling for the removal of Resident Electoral Commissioner in Osun State, Ambassador Oloruntoyin Akeju.

    It is baffling that that piece of journalism might have undergone the traditional rigour of debate from a suite of cerebral minds who are supposed to reside in the editorial board. The essay in question was a travesty of law, of arithmetic and of the rudiments of the English language. So they discuss a matter that has already been heard in court, not once, not twice but at least three times. In law, it is called sub-judice. Newspaper editors know enough of this not to show defiance over a matter whose ins and outs are undergoing scrutiny in the court of law.

    Whether they don’t’ understand the difference between 25 and 11 or between 25 and one, is yet to be clear to Hardball when the editorial claimed that 25 parties in Osun State opposition walked out of a meeting in protest against Akeju’s continued appointment as the state REC. If APC is one of the 25 parties in the state, where is the phantom 25th in the opposition? That party in power cannot be an opposition entity, a point the editorial writer should understand as routine.

    But then if 11 parties dissociated themselves from the so-called walkout, how then could an editorial board still number the walkout at 25. The failure of law and the failure of arithmetic are appalling for a newspaper, even if it has abysmally lost its elite status in the company of Nigerian newspapers.

    Add to it the devastating stumble in the English language. It wrote that the “INEC Chairman averred that he could not be changing his officials based on the petitions against them.” For those who did not follow the statement of the electoral body’s head, it would seem the newspaper knew what he said. But in its collision against the facts, it lacked an understanding of the English language. What the professor said was that he could not change his officials based on allegations not proven.

    This three-legged flaw of law, arithmetic and English language falls short of a standard editorial. Or shall we say that If you lack these three, the editorial fails in logic. Apart from all of these flaws of failure of English, arithmetic, law and logic, it was a great editorial.

    This is bad for a paper whose original owner is a metaphor for rigour, development and character. That editorial is a classroom example of how not to write one.

  • Jonathan’s curse?

    Jonathan’s curse?

    No, no, the curse of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, Nigeria’s president, is no curse at all. It is rather a deleterious attitude to rush when he should tarry but tarry when he should rush. That way, he loses the best and retains the worst.

    Losing the best: once upon a time, there was a Barth Nnaji, the Power minister. Even when all seemed lost, and the president and commander-in-chief appeared indeed sincerely clueless, Prof. Nnaji appeared to have figured out the power problem. It was not yet Uhuru, but things were looking up.

    But pronto, Nnaji had to go! The official line was he had a conflict of interest in the power privatisation, even if he made public his interest, active or dormant, in one of the interests contesting for the power utilities. The Economist, the London weekly, also darkly hinted the former minister was edged out because his power interests collided the one of another “Oga at the top”.

    Whatever it was however, clash of interest is anti-transparency. So, maybe on sheer principle, Prof. Nnaji needed to go. But with him, appears to have gone the putative power magic, for the Nebo Chinedu power regime is more of the same old darkness.

    Again, losing the best: figuratively yesterday, there was Bolaji Abdullahi, the Sports minister, who won virtually all there was to win in African and global football: 2013 African Cup of Nations, 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup, qualification for 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, and steady ascendancy of the Super Eagles in Africa.

    But again, Mallam Abdullahi had to go, not because of his bad job record but because his political godfather became an emergency presidential “enemy”. In Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) court, loyalty and stellar service to the country are not enough. Only grovelling, flag-waving loyalty to self and party would do!

    Retaining the worst: and the Stella Odua’s Stella-gate readily comes to mind. Ms Odua, accused of blowing public money on fancy armoured vehicles rode her scandal as a whale would ride the boiling ocean, supremely convinced she would triumph. She didn’t triumph at the end, but it was not for lack of trying. Despite Stella-gate, Jonathan lost his appetite to fire, even if according to him, he has “absolute power” to hire and fire.

    Still, retaining the worst: and the latest Abba Moro eyesore is the latest of Jonathan’s stonewalling, when his presidential ire should be at its whitest. After the death-for-job scam, which claimed no less than 19 Nigerian job-seekers and youth, Jonathan has suddenly forgotten his absolute power to fire.

    If you add the case of Diezani Allison-Madueke, who continues to sit pretty in office for presiding the alleged NNPC scams and CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who promptly got booted out for blowing the whistle, it is easy to figure the Jonathan curse is a peculiar one.

    And the cheek of it: Diezani is talking of subsidy removal, after the scandalous opacity she presides over at NNPC!

    Who will cure Jonathan of his curse? Perhaps the electorate at the next vote.

  • ‘Offend’ and be damned

    It is the eternal lot of the journalist in Nigeria to suffer image problem and poor self esteem. Though we are touted to be of the Fourth Estate of the realm, that claim is either a huge joke or the worst self delusion ever invented for most journalists cannot boast of a tin roof, not to talk of an entire estate. While half of Nigerians would probably vote the press and its practitioners as necessary evil, the other half would surmise it is an unnecessary evil. But evil it is either way. Thus though the press is tolerated, used and even abused, there is a subterranean disdain for the media, especially among the new, cabalistic elite of today. While an erstwhile president of the United States famously said he would rather have the press than the senate, Nigeria’s ruling elite of today will gladly abolish the press and go to bed with the senate (no ‘offence’ intended!).

    The above rigmarole of an introduction is an attempt to surmise the thinking of the National Conference administrators when they threatened they would withdraw the accreditation granted to a media house for the covering of the talk-shop if it proves to be ‘antagonistic’ during the course of the confab. This threat is contained under Order 14 – Miscellaneous of the National Conference Procedure rules, 2014. To quote from the rule books, “The Conference may withdraw approval to the representative of any media to attend the sitting of the conference if the medium publishes a report on the proceedings which the Conference considers unfair, offensive and not a true reflection of what transpired.”

    Hardball insists that this is an outright gag and intimidation of the press and asks that this Order 14 must be expunged immediately from the confab’s Procedure Rules. It is unacceptable that the media is being singled out here for harangue, intimidation and bating. If the confab could do without the press, well and good, the entire independent press would stay away. Otherwise, the press must be allowed to participate on its own terms, according to its professional dictates and without being limited or shackled.

    This is neither the first conference nor biggest national event ever to be covered by media houses in Nigeria and never had a special rule of engagement been drawn for the media. The administrators may also be overreaching itself a little to think that it can bar the press or that it reserves the right to accredit the press to cover the conference. The press, especially Nigerians, need no accreditation whatsoever to report the conference. Let us not forget that the entire junket is being bankrolled by tax payers and that automatically gives us all entry tickets to the confab under the law to play our legitimate roles.

    Finally, what constitutes an unfair or offensive report? Who determines it? What does the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria admonish in a situation like this? Why do we split hairs about ‘unfair’ ‘untrue’ and ‘offensive’ reports? Is our media law not replete with prescriptions, charges, punishments and even remedies for sloppy, poor and willfully malicious reporting? While we await the confab’s rethink of Order 14, let it be noted that should this one too fail, it would not be due to ‘offensive’ reporting.

     

  • Here’s “The 2014 Declaration”

    Now what mischief is Hardball getting to, you are quick to ask with your antennae up like the ears of an agitated rabbit’s? Has Hardball cottoned on to the great declaration for 2015 unbeknown to the rest of the world? Yes, the much awaited bombshell declaration by President Goodluck Jonathan. Yes, the contest-or-not-to-contest declaration. Yes, that declaration that could make or mar us for good. Perhaps Hardball has a lead on it; perhaps he has scooped it with his extra-sensory devices?

    Well, sorry to disappoint, Hardball is not in possession of any such hot, news property and if perchance he has, such stuff is never consigned to the back page; that would be sheer journalistic sacrilege. So what is this tempting amour with “declaration”? Hardball is only pussyfooting and playing the game of the Federal Ministry of Health, FoH. You may have noticed the two-page newspaper advertorial by the FoH recently in which it showcased its: “Presidential Summit on Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria: THE 2014 DECLARATION.” The headline of the FoH’s newspaper supplement (as above) was so bold you would be quick to accuse the ministry of deliberate mischief. In fact, were the message from the Ministry of Information it would have been nothing but a sublime piece of propaganda.

    But what was the FoH up to? It apparently had a summit on what it terms Universal Health Coverage (UHC), a Presidential Summit (PS) for that matter (please don’t ask me what constitutes a PS) and how it is different than an ordinary summit. But from the full page colour photo splash it was a grand talk-shop with so much colour, so much grandeur but of an indeterminate outcome. For instance, after reading through the full page of “THE 2014 DECLARATION”, Hardball could not make head or tail of it. There is no proper articulation or explanation of what UHC is all about (probably a new fad from our foreign donors).

    For instance, one of FoH’s 23-point declaration states that it is “DEEPLY CONCERNED that Nigeria’s attainment of the target of 30% health insurance coverage by December, 2015 is threatened by the non-institutionalization of universal Health Coverage.” How is this so? Who is to be blamed? Health insurance has been with us for nearly two decades and we have visited that albeit efficient concept of health care management with our usual mendacity mixed with toxic insouciance; thus ideas that blossom in other climes meet their graveyard in Nigeria. Yet we are creative at shifting blames for our failings.

    Another phony example in this declaration is the one (No. 14) on “STRENGHTENING and expanding financial risk protection mechanisms for the poor and vulnerable groups as part of the broader social protection efforts in the country.” Phew! Utter gibberish! It is sad to say that the FoH under the current minister, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu has been lackluster and sucked up by mundane stuff. The dashing professor has shown neither creativity nor a desire for legacy.

    About the time this odious presidential summit was going on, it was World Kidney Day (March 13) and it was reported by experts that about 16 million Nigerians suffer from kidney disease. Thousands of hapless Nigerians are being worsted by this near-terminal ailment without even a word of succor from FoH. There must be something we can do beyond vacuous summitry and photo-ups. Ordinary generation and dissemination of basic health information for poor Nigerians can go along way. Let’s get serious please.

     

  • ASUP-erlative action

    A quick quiz for you: a people are as good as their leaders, their constitution, their institutions and even their country: true or false? True, to a large extent. A native saying corroborates this truism that if you consider your farm as truly your farm, so it shall be and when you refer to it as that farm of mine, so too it shall be. Hardball indulges in Monday’s outing by polytechnic students in Lagos protesting the strike by their teachers, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP. Believe it or not, for about five months, nearly half of an academic session, all the federal polytechnics and colleges of technology have been shut because of a trade dispute between lecturers and the government.

    Recall that the nation was held in thrall for about half of last year because university lecturers (Academic Staff of Union of Universities, ASUU) also downed tools largely because of the government’s nonchalance and insouciance. Apparently the ASUP crisis predated ASUU but we wager that ASUU may have been main-streamed because it affects us more. The same reason why ASUP were neglected and ASUU were highlighted is the same reason crisis persists in the polytechnic campuses today. In their uncanny manner, Nigerian policy makers have managed to down-grade this cadre of technical education, making its certificate seem inferior even though the content of their curriculum may not be inferior to the university system.

    So at job interviews, in offices and at every turn, graduates of higher technical education are openly discriminated against and made to seem like second class citizens who committed some mortal offence by enrolling for inferior technical certificates in government-established technical institutions. But Hardball in this piece is not about the fine details of the pros and cons of these two cadres of pedagogy. We are here concerned about the gallant action of last Monday spear-headed by a non-governmental organisation, Education Rights Campaign (ERC).

    According to reports, ERC’s national co-ordinator Hassan Soweto Taiwo led the students under the aegis of Concerned Students Against Education Commercialization, (COSATEC). The protest, which comprised students of polytechnics across Lagos State, started at 9am from Yaba College of Technology spreading on to Ikorodu road, the major road artery linking Lagos Mainland with the Island. The placards-wielding students held up traffic for hours as they sang, danced and laid on the road. It was albeit, a very peaceful protest which was well organised, regulated and turned out most effective.

    The students had yielded way without letting the protest get out of hand. To underscore their seriousness, one of the leaders said, “We cannot stay at home and watch the strike continue. This is the first phase of the protest; it will continue next week, if the government refuses to implement the agreement it signed with ASUP.” It is indeed a superlative effort by these youths in organising this protest in a most civilised manner; making the point without allowing any mishap of any kind. Nigerian youths must do more of this kind of creative and peaceful agitation in order to keep the authorities in check.

    We ask: what is the Presidency thinking as students stayed home on forced holidays for 9 months? What is the education minister doing as an entire academic session is lost? Is there a worse index of irresponsibility? An up and doing minister who cares about legacy, who is not distracted by politics, will never allow this to happen. Will government act now?

  • Stella’s happy ending

    It was an eye-opening lesson on how to go about rewriting history when Princess Stella Oduah, the former Minister of Aviation who left office in undignified circumstances, lectured a gathering of stakeholders in the country’s aviation industry, including civil servants and pilots, at a valedictory ceremony held at the Protea Hotel, Asokoro in Abuja. It was a moment when reality, or objective truth, got reinterpreted, perhaps to the discomfiture of the audience.

    Oduah, whose dramatic exit followed a long-drawn-out controversy over her involvement in the scandalous purchase of two bulletproof cars for N255 million, kept a straight face as she pronounced herself blameless, which was not altogether surprising, given the known tendency of the blameworthy to insist on innocence. In a move that spoke volumes about her provocative perspective, she reportedly shunned a prepared speech by her media aide, ostensibly to speak from the heart. It proved to be socially useful by revealing the mindset of a former public servant who stands condemned by public opinion.

    “And without being immodest, I think we did the right thing,” she said of her stormy tenure, conveniently forgetting that it was the business of the people to judge her performance, and not for her to play the role. Remarkably, her choice of words on the occasion was unwittingly revealing. Three instances will suffice. First, she said, “I really don’t have anything to say but to say that what we did, we did it collectively.” This can be interpreted to mean that she actually has no defence in the matter of alleged abuse of office concerning the over-priced cars. Second, she told the audience, “It was Einstein that said I am strong as I am because you allowed me to stand on your shoulders, and all of you here allowed me to stand on your shoulders and so I want to say thank you.” Considering the unresolved accusation that preceded her removal from office, it was more like she stood on their heads. Third, she added, “Therefore, the next coming person, I believe with your support will do the needful. Most people don’t understand what the needful means…” To go by her dubious accomplishment in office, it shouldn’t be any wonder that her own definition and comprehension of the word “needful” may not be quite popular, as she brilliantly pointed out.

    It is noteworthy that before President Goodluck Jonathan eventually showed her the door, doing so with irritating hesitancy and undeserved courtesy, Oduah had a reputation as one of the very few sacred cows, largely female, who enjoyed unshakable presidential protection. Others who stand out in this charmed circle are Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, and Diezani Alison-Madueke, Minister of Petroleum.

    All it took to reinforce this image of invincibility was for Jonathan to cunningly ensure a soft landing for Oduah under the guise of a cabinet reshuffle in February; and for the avoidance of doubt, he denied any linkage with the armoured automobiles affair, which the Presidency has since left behind after an unproductive cosmetic probe, despite an indicting investigation by the legislature.

    Consequently, Oduah can look back at the scandal as just a bad day at work, and lift her head high as she did at the farewell event. All is well that ends well, isn’t it?