Category: Hardball

Would the second bridge across the River Niger turn out a bridge too far? Remember the 1977 WWll epic of the above title based on a book also of the same title by Cornelius Ryan? It was a story of an ill-fated attempt by the Allied Forces to go behind the Germans lines by taking a bridge at Arnhem, deep inside the Netherlands. It was termed “Operation Market Garden”. The operation turned out calamitous and failed woefully. The story of the second bridge across the River Niger at Onitsha in a sense, also reminds of a bridge too far scenario. It is an ‘operation’ that has been conceptualised a long time ago but has been caught up in the mire of PDP election politics and defeated by the insouciance of a groveling Igbo elite.

The bridge has also become a metaphor for and a joke on the Igbo race. It is indeed a bridge too far and a joke gone humourless. Last Monday, President Goodluck Jonathan had gathered a motley crowd of governors, PDP chieftains and other bigwigs at the bank of the river at Ogbaru to lay the foundation for the second bridge to rise from Delta State to Anambra. It was a large ceremony in which eulogies were chanted and backs were patted. The gullible would think the bridge had already been built and was being commissioned for use. One of the prominent Igbo leaders present described the project as a dream realised and commended the leadership qualities of President Jonathan whom he said had demonstrated an uncommon love for Ndigbo.

But this is not the first time this manner of show has been staged. In May 2007, a few days before he reluctantly left office, former President Olusegun Obasanjo also flagged-off this bridge in an elaborate ceremony promising that it would be a public-private financed affair to be completed in a few years. A few months after Obasanjo left office, it turned out that he had shamelessly perpetrated a scam as there was no plan or design or even file of the second Niger bridge job in the Ministry of Works. Obasanjo only managed to hoodwink pliable Igbo leaders whom he had promised the bridge during the campaigns of 2003 and 2007.

The same pathetic scenario plays out as Jonathan had promised he would build this bridge during the 2011 electioneering. Indeed, he had promised it would be completed before the end of his tenure. Now as the tenure ends and he reckons he would be put on the spot should he return to campaign in Igboland soon, a flag-off was hurriedly organised. For all of three years this project was forgotten! How are we sure it is not another Obasanjo scam? Gullible Ndigbo are supposed to vote Jonathan for flagging off a project. Supposing he does not win in the next election would this project become a nullity?

More fundamentally, a second bridge across the great River Niger like every other federal project is a duty the Federal Government owes Nigerians; it is not a privilege to Ndigbo as Igbo leaders have been deceived to think. Finally, Hardball henceforth decrees an embargo on the flagging off of projects with fanfare. It has been determined that such projects are often not completed. Will this be another bridge too far?

If as they say, it takes a genius to track a genius, then Hardball is proud to announce that he has acquired the genius to discern that our dear president, Goodluck Jonathan is imbued with the rare genius of delivering not-to-be-missed homilies at every occasion. That art seems to mature on him as he stays longer in office (you see why his followers want him for another term?). The snag, however, is that his homilies are remarkable for their especial hollowness. In other words, the president has become notable for speeches that are flat, bland and dramatically opposed to reality. To further illustrate, it is like the difference between a rubber bullet and a smoking, live, hot lead.

Examples stream in daily but let us work with the most current release. Last Monday, in Ilorin, Kwara State, where Jonathan had gone to reconcile the PDP clan and embrace party returnees he had in a long treatise, admonished politicians to insist on people-oriented governance. His words: “We ask ourselves why you get yourselves into politics, you have to think about your people, not yourself. People who think about the people follow the people’s party and PDP is the only people’s party.”

Those who know will tell you to think nothing of this statement because banality is the sauce of Nigeria’s political rallies. Hardball dared to attend one not long ago, a most noisy and riotous gathering termed a political rally and he did not know when the programme ended and the arena was getting deserted; he still awaited the grand entrée and the big soul-stirring speech. So not even with a president would you expect an inspiring talk at a Nigerian political convention; perhaps the crowd too is never the inspired type.

But there must be a limit to even political inanity for as the president spoke, the entire country was almost shut down for lack of fuel power the activities of over 160 million subjects of his. It was as if he mocked the people when he talked to them about the virtues of a people-oriented government at a moment when many of them were trapped in filling stations for hours and even overnight. As the pump prices of products have doubled in most parts of the country spiraling instant inflation in prices of all other goods and services, especially transportation, the people are bound to wonder whether it was their president speaking or a clone.

Power supply situation has got worse since the generating and distribution firms were supposedly privatised. Because the new owners are party cronies and carpetbaggers, they simply continued where the government power company stopped but more intent on milking the system than providing service. Now fuel to power generator is scarce, the weather is mercilesslyhot and the result is that the people groan under the most excruciating living condition worse than even during the civil war.

And talking about war, more innocent Nigerians have been slaughtered in the last two weeks than in any two weeks of Nigeria’s history. As the president shuttles, playing his inane politics, the Boko Haram insurgents picked their moment to pound the northeast of Nigeria to pieces, overwhelming even the military and sending them fleeing. Now doesn’t it take some queer genius glibly about “people- oriented” government under this hale of assaults?

The child is the father of the man”, coined English Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, in his poem, “My heart leaps up when I behold”.

So, drawing from the Wordsworth poetic philosophy, you perhaps would begin to understand President Goodluck Jonathan’s innocent attitude to statecraft and state chores.

With child-like zest, the commander-in-chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces would jump into the C-in-C’s suit, at festive and ceremonial occasions, smiling the smile, if not exactly talking the talk.

Well, you could excuse the presidential diffidence for not exactly talking the talk. But even that cannot excuse Jonathan’s presidential hesitation to walk the walk of the C-in-C, particularly when presidential chores calls — indeed, shouts.

Mr. President may not be a General, a Pharaoh, or a Nebuchadnezzar. But he is still president, who ought to be a rallying force, for a country and people in anguish.

For the Northeast belt, it has been a particularly harrowing run in the hands of the blood-thirsty Boko Haram. At the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State, no less than 43 young Nigerians lost their lives; and scores of others, particularly abducted female pupils, are still missing.

Then the following night in Adamawa State, a Boko Haram raid on Shuwa, Kirchinga and Kibla claimed no less no less than 32 lives.

After in Maiduguri, Borno State, the epicentre of the rebellion, no less than 90 died from another round of Boko Haram attacks. The tragedy is though the military say they are trying their best — and indeed, there is no basis to doubt that claim — everybody seems to be steeling themselves for the next attack. What appears to hold the nation is the hope that less attacks would manifest; and not that the might of the Nigerian state would deter them.

That sense of near-hopelessness, of mass anguish and pain, has propelled the political opposition to suggest to the president to visit the troubled areas and at least empathise with the people; and boost the morale of the stressed armed forces. But no dice! True, the opposition could make political capital from the suggestion. But that hardly detracts from its merit, does it?

Whatever it is, the C-in-C decided to make a political sortie southwards to Kwara, to welcome partisan defectors, instead of north-east-wards to console the people and motivate the troops!

Just as he wined and dined with his centenary guests when Boko Haram criminals were laying waste the cream of Nigeria’s future, the president and C-in-C is schmoozing with political defectors, while an integral part of the country burns! Talk of a Nigerian Nero fiddling while his country is ablaze!

Reminds you, doesn’t it, of the Jerry Gana quip: if you’re commander-in-chief, command-in-chief well o? Incidentally, Prof. Gana is the president’s ally. Does he give him the private equivalent of that very public joke?

President Jonathan must get serious. He must not give the impression that he enjoys the lollies of office, while just enduring the corresponding chores.

That unfortunately is the impression he gives, by the way he handles the latest bout of the Boko Haram mess.

Believe it or not, this was a public notice advertisement in this newspaper: “This is to notify the general public that Mr. Hakeem Adelabu-Soule and Miss Atinuke Monsurat Odushina are no longer married since July 19, 2010. Lagos State Government and the general public should please note.”

Skeeter Davis (real name, Mary Frances Penick, 1931-2004), the famous American country music crooner, sang in one of her numbers: “Don’t say you love me, if you can’t change my name …”

If the purest of love inevitably ends in marriage: a man, taking in a woman and, in the words of Skeeter Davis, changing her name to his, what leads to divorces — or worse: the purest of hate?

Take a look again at the public notice advert quoted above. What would the once lovey-dovey couple want to achieve by such vile publicity? Probably one of the couple works for Lagos State; and despite being separated — or even divorced — from her spouse, she still bears his name? Would that qualify for impersonation?

Or is the partner just riled that she had not re-changed her name fast enough? And the general public — what is their business in taking note that a once-upon-a-time happy couple are now bitterly apart? Ah, is the time coming when divorce bashes would be thrown with equal gaiety as wedding parties?

What love gone sour! What bitterness! Folks, it would appear the age of toxic marriages!

Yet, weddings are never so merry and so elaborate. But what is the point of elaborate weddings — a weekend economy in itself — if the marriage would crash with the former couples hating each other for life?

Still, it could be worse. The story is told of a tragic woman in Ibadan, whose marriage left her, but whose parents insisted she should not leave the marriage. After yet another quarrel between husband and wife, the poor woman fled to her parents’ home. Better alone, she told herself, than endure a loveless marriage. But her dad would have none of such nonsense. So, post-haste, he despatched the woman back to her matrimonial home.

Then the grim drama began. Neighbours claimed they heard sad moaning, like a gagged animal being slaughtered. An hour later, they saw the man speed out in his car. Triggering an alarm, they rushed into the tragic couple’s flat, only to meet the grotesque sight of a slaughtered woman! Meanwhile, the fleeing husband had a set mission: to crash himself and end it all at one of the numerous roundabouts at the nearby Ring Road, Ibadan. He did. But he survived the crash. He later went through trial for murdering his wife and got hanged himself!

Must love-turned-awry end this way?

If the Ibadan story is so far away, what about the lately condemned Akolade Arowolo in Lagos, who will hang for killing his banker-wife, Titilayo? And he didn’t realise what would happen to their daughter, Olamide, until it was glaring he would face the gallows?

Must purest of love, morph into purest of hate and end in gravest of tragedies?

Social welfare folks, declare an emergency on the marriage front.