The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • For Oghiadomhe who makes people jubilate

    Chief Mike Oghiadomhe is no mean a personage. Indeed, he could easily pass for a great man if you judged greatness by a man’s influence, positions held and his vast means. On these scores, CMO (we will have to stick to his initials here because as you can see Oghiadomhe creates irritating spatio-temporal challenges for a writer) is actually a great man. For the uninitiated, CMO is the recently sacked/resigned Chief of Staff to President Goodluck Jonathan. The Fugar, Edo State born gentleman was deputy governor of Edo State for eight years (1999 – 2007). Going by this rich track record in public service, we can safely extrapolate that CMO must be extremely rich if not affluent.

    But why have the travails, the rise and fall of CMO and his material accumulations become an object of fascination to Hardball? Well, apart from the fact that Nigerians may never know whether CMO took a walk or was axed, numerous interesting side-bars have emerged from his exit from the gilded and much-coveted office. No, we are not talking about the many allegations of tales flying about in the wake of his exit. The allegations of inefficiency and other procedural finagling are of no interest to us. So what is so spectacular about CMO and how is his fall different from all other recently resigned/sacked ministers’?

    It is the small matter of people everywhere jubilating about CMO’s ouster as if they just won a raffle bonanza. According to the news which broke early last week, the staff at the Presidency where he was the chief were said to have broken into loud jubilation upon hearing that he had fallen. If you thought that may have been as a result of perhaps a strict disciplinary regime of his which often does not sit well with subordinates, wait until you read this.

    In far-away Fugar, CMO’s hometown, the news of his fall from grace was said to have sent residents into a wild jubilation. Let us take this quote from Vanguard newspaper in order to properly situate what may be described as CMO’s epitasis: “Youths and the elderly (of Fugar) were observed drinking and celebrating his alleged sack. One of the men who informed that he was a school mate of Chief Oghiadomhe, said: “I don’t take alcohol, but today I had to drink. This man rose to power through our son (Rear Admiral Mike) Akhigbe, but he got there and abandoned everybody, including the man that made him…””

    There is a lesson here for every man of power today to learn. It is better captured by the Yoruba saying to the effect that, “humanity is my clothing”. Made plain, it is an evocation that says it is always about the people; people, people and people. The people in your household, the people in your office, the people in your village, your neighbourhood, your church/mosque, your ward, your town, etc., always, a worthy life is that which is lived for the people, starting with the ones around you. CMO apparently never learnt that lesson, which explains why he lost in his ward in the last Edo gubernatorial election; which may explain why he will never win an election in Edo State; which explains why everyone around him is happy about his downfall.

    We all must learn that lesson here that power, influence and great wealth are nothing, if they are not deployed to the benefit of humanity.

     

     

  • Jona boys: Falling on own sword?

    I was not sacked,” came the trenchant claim by Elder Godswill Orubebe, erstwhile minister of Niger Delta Affairs. Was that a confident voice, leaving the Jonathan cabinet for more challenging partisan adventures as the ex-minister insisted; or a shriek from political Siberia, determined not to be forgotten?

    The former minister is probably right in his claim, but only God knows. Still, it is rather interesting how hitherto vociferous Jonathan “warriors”, against real or perceived presidential enemies, are biting the dust.

    Orubebe, you will recall, opened the very first front in the Jonathan-Amaechi war, badly strafing and raking the Rivers Governor; dismissing him as rude, crude and uncouth, a mannerless brat always rude to the president, Orubebe’s all-mighty principal.

    But when Rotimi Amaechi roared back with his own scud missile, and the ministerial territory was rocking and quacking, the wise Elder beat a hasty retreat. The pounding, to be sure, was hideous. Amaechi told the minister to show cause why he was not a grand liability from his parlous record of performance, especially on the East-West road. Hot sentiment had met cold performance. Mum was the word. That opening battle was lost and won.

    But not the entire war. That continued with the threats and the politics and the clannishness that preceded the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) election, which the presidential party lost; and the parody of 16 greater than 19, and all the doomsday threats that followed.

    Still, the gubernatorial underdog stands while the presidential Goliath bites the dust, again and again. Could the minister have been sacrificed for blundering into a no-win war for the president? Did Orubebe fall on own sword? Again, only God knows!

    Then, exit Mbu Joseph Mbu, the latest political policeman in town and hitherto commissioner, Rivers State Police Command.

    Mbu may not be the first in his infamous tribe of police officers who, for a mess of pottage, defecate on the Constitution. Mbu was a classic example of how not to be a police rank-and-file, not to talk of a lowly police officer, not to talk of a Commissioner of Police (CP).

    While his reign of impunity lasted, Mbu committed the most hideous of constitutional crimes — levying war against an elected and legally constituted state government, in a federal polity — in the name of the central powers-that-be. The climax was the shooting, at a public rally, of a sitting senator.

    At that juncture however, the Mbu “thief”, to parody the one in Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People, had stolen too much for the owner not to notice. Not even the most brazen of illicit presidential powers could save his drop. Another Jona boy fallen on own sword?

    By the way, is it a coincidence that since Mbu’s exit, there has been less wike, wike talk from Minister Nyesom Wike? Is that a sign of tolling bells for another Jona boy, or uneasy quiet before the next phase of political rascality?

    Time will tell.

     

  • Keshi and the football technicians

    Keshi and the football technicians

    Nigeria’s football house seems to thrive on chaos, intrigues and confusion; all the ingredients that make for retardation and under-development. Mind you we do not refer to the edifice, the Glass House, the Abuja secretariat of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). We talk about the administrators and managers tending Nigeria’s beautiful game of football. It is as if something odious is always in the brew in the Glass House and every now and then it wafts into the atmosphere sending Nigerians scampering and holding their noses. We are beginning to get used to the fact that scandals and misbehaviour come to them naturally to the point that when there is no caper, they create one.

    We are of course belly-aching over the recent shenanigan in the football house between the coach of Nigeria’s senior football team, Stephen Keshi and members of the Technical Committee of the NFF, let’s call them NFFTC. The report which had been in the grape vine since last year after Keshi led the Super Eagles to win the Africa Nations Cup, AFCON, the premier continental football trophy, blew to the open recently. As the story goes, a plan was afoot by the NFFTC to employ a foreign technical assistant ostensibly to help Keshi prosecute the World Cup tournament in June.

    In fact, there was an indication of this move when shortly after the Nation’s Cup success last year, the NFF had moved in such a brazen manner to fire most of Keshi’s backroom staff, including his technical assistant and video analyst, without as much as a discussion with him. The excuse then was paucity of funds. But football watchers think it was a ploy to cut Keshi to size as he is deemed to have become uncontrollable since he led the team to clinch the AFCON trophy. Recall his resignation brouhaha in South Africa shortly after AFCON and the bonus battle just before the Confederation Cup tournament last year.

    All these gave fillip to the persistent murmurings that Keshi must either be removed or reduced. The cage-Keshi-monster may have broken from its leash again after the recently concluded CHAN tournament. Some members of the NFFTC notably, Paul Bassey and Victor Ikpeba had told journalists that a foreign technical assistant (TA) was to be employed shortly for the Super Eagles. When a spontaneous uproar from Nigerians greeted the pronouncement and Keshi insisted that he would not be subordinated to any other coach, they quickly made clarifications that the TA would not sit on the bench with Keshi but would largely do the work of a video analyst. NFFTC insist that only a foreign TA would help Nigeria make an impact during the world Cup in Brazil.

    But the more they explain, the louder soccer-crazy Nigerians shout them down with a let-Keshi-be slogan. In fact Keshi has become the nemesis of those who used to do jiu-jitsu with football in Nigeria; he is the kind of meat Yourba call ishan, they can chew him all they want but they cannot swallow him. To moot a foreign TA just about four months to the football mundial is to suggest that Keshi is not technically sound enough to play at the world stage. In their diminished self-esteem, they will pay the white skin tenfold higher than Keshi, this will instantly breed disaffection and cause crisis in the team Keshi has been building in the past two years.

    Obviously, many are not happy with the stability and progress the Keshi era has brought to the national team and our football sub-sector. But we say let those who feed through crises starve.

  • Stella bites the dust, N-2-N fashion

    Stella bites the dust, N-2-N fashion

    At last, Stella Oduah, President Goodluck Jonathan’s embattled minister of Aviation, bites the dust — and well, in a neighbour-to-neighbour way.

    Given the explosive twin-Stella-gate, of the purchase of two BMW armoured cars for almost US $ 1.6 million (when US and UK price for each car is no more than US $267, 000) and alleged certificate scandal, Ms Oduah did not exit the cabinet, pursued with hot presidential rage.

    What happened was “voluntary resignation”, in the best tradition of a neighbour-to-neighbour graceful exit. You see why President Jonathan cannot, and should not, be an army general, a dictator, a Nebuchadnezzar or a Pharaoh?

    That should be obvious, when you recollect Ms Oduah’s neighbour-to-neighbour electoral exploits. How Ms Oduah did the candidate-president great honour.

    Neighbour-to-neighbour, or N-2-N for short, so popularised the Goodluck brand that a voter in downtown Lagos, rhapsodised in the blazing sun, on a voter queue: you sure must have Patience to get Goodluck. It was tribute to N-2-N’s electoral blitzkrieg that that mood was nationwide.

    And when Jonathan was winning, and some rascals tried to portray his great pan-Nigeria mandate as some “pan-Nigeria mandate of Southern Nigeria and the Middle Belt”, N-2-N came up fast with its own graphic representation, to show the mandate for exactly what it was: a real, genuine and confirmed pan-Nigerian mandate.

    So, would you expect the President to show brazen ingratitude, and throw away the prized Stella just like that, because of some unsubstantiated scandals and rumours? Doing that would conform to sheer rashness: the exclusive preserve of dictators, of army generals, of Nebuchadnezzars, of Pharaohs.

    But perish that thought: Goodluck Jonathan is a democratically elected president! So folks, you can understand his tardiness and grace in the Stella affair.

    Still, not a few insist Ms Oduah is rather Janus-faced: she brought great honour to an electioneering president; but Stella-gate also brought great odium to the sitting president and his exacted office.

    So, many believed she should have fallen on her sword — metaphorically, that is — as the ancient Romans would have done, to save the dignity of the presidency and the integrity of the president. But whoever does that these days? The Romans were after all ancients and antique.

    Not a few too expected the president to wield the big stick, and throw out the beloved Stella. But again, that would be playing Pharaoh or Nebu.

    But at last, the president has played the political equivalent of mercy killing: Stella would go; but not when the mobs are baying; not when the rabble is screaming, for blood. She would go when it is dignifying, when it is calm and when the president is ready. Ay, that time has come, and Stella has made her exit with grace and honour, N-2-N fashion.

    Alleged corruption or no alleged corruption, that is how to do it. So, foreign experts in good governance should come learn something new: how to fight and conquer corruption, N-2-N fashion.

    It is a Goodluck special.

  • CBN-NNPC tango: deeper in the mire

    CBN-NNPC tango: deeper in the mire

    A man who suffers a protrusion of the belly as he is treated of hernia is doomed. This adage aptly encapsulates the ongoing petro-dollars squabble between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Consider that in the days of yore, it would have been something close to profanity for the apex bank to challenge the government or any of her agencies to a wrestling match of the fiscal kind. It is indeed a strange, if not unimaginable, occurrence in the arcane world of public finance and official revenue accounting.

    But the belly of Nigeria’s economy (not to mention politics) keeps protruding even as remedy is applied to another deadly ailment. As if our jumbled and bloated budget is not wearisome enough, all so suddenly all our government revenue agencies are being stumped by simple arithmetic. As if the oil subsidy mess of 2012 was not grievous enough, NNPC has continued to live up to its billing as the most opaque oil corporation in the world.

    You may accuse the CBN governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi of loquaciousness and even playing to the gallery but you won’t quarrel with his whistle-blowing on the NNPC. If only because of the fact that the corporation has become an obdurate monster inured to any gently prodding. Which Nigerian does not know that our oil giant is a house of corruption? In the last three decades or so, NNPC has morphed from an oil giant that was to lead Africa and the emerging markets to a badly diminished, nondescript entity that has no place among even its top African peers. What Sanusi is trying to reveal is what we have written about almost every year and every season over this period.

    While Nigerians are still smarting from the $10.7 billion NNPC’s missing revenue according to Sanusi, the apex bank chief last week came up with even a larger figure of $20 billion. Appearing before the Senate Committee on Finance investigating the alleged non-remittance of earnings to the Federation Account, Sanusi armed with a 20-page document which has a separate 30-page appendix said:

    “We have provided evidence in the naira crude account that out of the $28 billion domestic crude shipped by the NNPC, it had repatriated $16 billion. Out of the $67 billion that has accrued to the NNPC account, we have accounted for $47 billion.

    “That is, out of the $67billion that NNPC shipped, $47 billion had been repatriated to the CBN. What we are talking about is the balance of $20 billion and what explanations had been given.” He said further: “I have submitted to this committee, written evidence of a presidential directive eliminating subsidy since 2009 and the NNPC needs to provide its authority for buying kerosene at N150 and from the federation account and selling at N40, and inflicting that loss on the federation.”

    NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Mr. Andrew Yakubu retorted that they were about concluding reconciliation which detailed report would be submitted to the committee: “That is where we are and what we reported is the true position of things; we are at the point of concluding our reconciliation, and as you are aware, the major chunk of the amount in question, over 80 per cent of it is in the subsidy for both PMS and kerosene,” he said.

    From the foregoing, it is apparent that we are confronted with the same old muddled- up graft story; the more you try digging (for facts), the more you sink deeper in the mire.

  • If gold rusts…

    How, how would Geoffery Chaucer, he of the famous Canterbury Tales, have reacted to the Church of England lobbying the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) to help the lobby to cancel Nigeria’s new anti-gay marriage law?

    And the double whammy: that the Church of England’s leading lobbyists, in this pro-gay marriage crusade, are the Archbishop of Canterbury (global head of the Anglican Church) and Archbishop of York, both prelates who reside in the Church’s holy of holies.

    Chaucer, the chronicler-satirist, would probably chuckle and, half-mirth, half-pity, declare: “If gold rusts, what would iron do!”

    Both Archbishops, of Canterbury and York, have “reported”, to the global Anglican Communion, the two errant governments of Nigeria and Uganda, so outrageously misguided to move against gay-marriage, making themselves affronts to the cultured world. Waving what they call the Dromantine Communiqué of 2005, their Lord Bishops, with all canonical rage at their disposal, appear to be calling for the stiffest of punishments for these errant zealots, who appear to love Christianity more than the original “owners”.

    But from what canon is Their Lords Spiritual arguing their case, the Dromantine Communiqué or the Bible? Oh, in the Dromantine Communiqué, they sure have a winning formula: the sentimental claptrap about everyone being a child of God, entitled to His love, no matter how deviant or perverse, and assured of pastoral care and friendship. Hardly a crime!

    But another question: from what cannon did the archbishops get their calling? It could not have been a fanciful communiqué, a conventional fad to toady up to the gay lobby, to corral their offerings and tithes, in the face of a drying Western church. So, all the talk about the love of God to everyone and abiding pastoral care might just be bunkum – some pitch to embrace carnality to spread a peculiar spirituality. It is the classic commercial universe, in which the church is just one of the sectors, pushing just another product!

    Still, what does the Bible say? For one, it is so alarmed at the moral depravity of sodomy (the un-deodorised acts of gays and lesbians) that it utterly destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So hot was Jehovah’s ire against sodomy!

    Even the New Testament talks of doing the will of the Father, and cautioned against the illusion of mushrooming in sin and yet expecting grace. Even Paul excoriated sodomy in very harsh tones. So, does the Bible conform to this new bible of convenience, the well loved Dromantine Communiqué, which these two archbishops now dote on?

    But make no mistake. All this is not about Christianity or morality. The theology of gay rights is all about the Western Church struggling for nourishment, and it would not mind even Mammon providing that daily bread. But that is okay, if it is okay by the western society.

    What is not okay is the evangelisation of arrogant imposition, hiding behind “human rights”; and these clerics have become the latest champions of the negative. Your Lord Bishops, even the blind can see through the veil!

  • Cheery ‘news’ for corrupt Nigerians

    Sorrow needs company, it is often said and crooks would fellowship together, opined another thinker. These wise sayings may explain why quick fingered Nigerians, especially public officials, will be much gladdened by this piece of ‘good’ news from Europe. Here it goes: “Corruption across EU breathtaking”, says the report of a Commission set up by the European Union (EU) to survey corrupt practices among member countries. According to the study, corruption may be costing the economy of the EU about €120 billion ( £99 billion).

    While this may console treasury raiders in Nigeria, the report must be a touch disturbing to peoples across the world in the vanguard of good corporate governance and ethical fiscal conduct in public and private settings. The report which studied corruption in the 28 EU member states considered issues of levels of bribery; public procurement processes; financing of political parties; conflict of interests and questions of transparency and openness.

    For instance, about 64 percent of British respondents said they believe corruption to be widespread in the UK, while EU average was 74 percent on that question. But it is remarkable that while Sweden and Britain fared better in the survey, the less endowed members of the EU proved to be the more corruption prone. Some of these are Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece. There are particularly high levels of bribery in Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.

    Cecilia Malmstroem, the EU Home Affairs Commissioner, who presented the report, noted that member countries seemed to lack the political commitment to really root out corruption and that the malaise was eroding trust in democracy as well as draining resources from the legal economy.

    While it may be comforting in a sort of way to learn that corruption is also a source of worry even in the developed world it must be pointed out that it is nothing of the sort that happens in Nigeria in particular and most of Africa generally. Corruption in Nigeria has become endemic and has permeated through the entire fabric of her systems and institutions. Looking specifically at some of the indices used in the EU survey like bribery, public procurement, political financing, conflict of interest and openness, all these concepts have become thoroughly debased and made hollow.

    Bribery had been entrenched as part of the business practice in Nigeria for many decades and in government particularly, hardly any major business is transacted without money changing hands under the table. The Haliburton and Siemens bribery scandals are still fresh. Government contracts and the attendant public procurement in Nigeria have become a cesspool of the worst kind of corruption to be found any where in the world. In the past 15 years of civilian rule, top officials have grown more brazen and they are known to simply award multi-billion naira jobs to their shell companies, pay the entire sum upfront and pocket the entire sum. A minister is currently facing trial for such a practice but he is just one out of many dozens.

    Electioneering and political campaign financing has grown to the status of a scourge. The ruling party, particularly, thrives on slush funds from every sector of the economy, which is sunk into a bottomless hole called campaign fund. At a major election period, this is usually a huge bazaar that defies common sense of logic.

    And lastly, government in Nigeria abhors openness and transparency; in fact, it still relishes such ogre called official secrecy oaths which are routinely administered to officials. If, therefore, the level of corruption in EU countries is breathtaking, then no word can sufficiently describe it in Nigeria.

  • Trillionaire police

    Much-needed seasons of plenty may have arrived for the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) with the presidency’s announcement of a planned N1.5 trillion expenditure on police reforms in the next five years. The news, which must have been music to the ears of policemen across the country, was delivered by President Goodluck Jonathan’s representative, Sen. Bala Mohammed, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FTC), at a two-day retreat organised by the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Benue State government in the state capital, Makurdi.

    Remarkably, the theme of the programme, Sustaining Nigeria Police Reforms, sounded rather inaccurate by implying that the police force was already being reformed and the event was about supporting the process. Glaring instances of abuse of power by the police, particularly in the political sphere, for instance, belie this idea. Except, of course, police reforms are narrowly conceived only in the context of review of the training curricula, upgrading of training institutions and increased funding, as identified by PSC Chairman Mike Okiro, a former inspector-general of police (IGP), at the event. Perhaps more importantly, it must be stressed, central to police reforms should be correct understanding and appreciation of the role of the force by its personnel, and professional performance in the context of official responsibility.

    However, not only the phrasing of the theme was problematic. It was confusing when the president reportedly said that 60 per cent of the funds would be provided by the Federal Government while the private sector, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), is expected to contribute the balance. This is obviously ridiculous as it suggests the transfer of governmental function to the private sector; and, in a sense, it implies an imposition on the same. Since it is government’s idea to spend a specific sum on the police, apparently without consulting the private sector and obtaining its consent to the terms, it is clearly nonsensical to define the scope of private contribution, if any. Is the determination of corporate charity in the context of “social responsibility” now outside the control of private organisations?

    Actually, it is difficult to avoid the thought that the president was merely paying lip service to police reforms. While Jonathan reportedly said that the government accepted the recommendations of a committee on the subject headed by Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, and would issue a White Paper before long, Okiro expressed regret that the government was delaying the implementation of recommendations by another police reform committee under former PSC boss Parry Osayande.

    The place of the police in the critical area of security cannot be downplayed, which is why the talk that the government is committed to equipping the force, among other reforms, makes a lot of sense. But action, not talk, is what the country needs. For instance, it is no longer news to hear of policemen who fled the scene of crime because they could not face alleged superior weapons of criminals. What about policemen who habitually bully unarmed innocent civilians? With the coming trillion, hopefully, there should be enough to work toward a “reformed” force, in every sense of the word.

  • Boko Haram goes to university

    What an interesting development, the proposal by the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan (UI), Prof Isaac Adewole, for partnership with the Nigerian Army in the counter-terrorism campaign against Boko Haram! Don’t forget that the name of the dreaded Islamist group mirrors antagonism to Western education and way of life. So when a centre for the very type of learning that the group is opposed to offers assistance in the battle, it appears to be a fitting move for self-preservation, which is said to be the first law of Nature.

    Prof Adewole, during a visit to Maj-Gen Ahmed Jibrin, the general officer commanding (GOC) 2 Division, at Ojoo, Ibadan, Oyo State, said: “The Chief of Defence Staff said the insurgency will end in April. I do not have the facts and information that he has. But I believe that winning the war involves winning the heart and soul of the people. The university can partner the military to find out what are the real reasons for the insurgency.”

    He added that the suggested collaboration between the Army and the university’s Department of Strategic Studies would also serve the purpose of “re-teething and retooling “the military’s personnel.

    The motive and objective may be appealing. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the professor’s academic background, the gesture was rather over-intellectual. Reminder: Boko Haram has been on the rampage since 2009, and at various times its spokesmen have projected its “guiding principles,” if such a positive-sounding phrase may be used in describing the group’s destructive philosophy.

    In other words, the group’s grounds for violence have not only been well publicised; they are also well-known. Driven by a theocratic agenda, perhaps fuelled by unacceptable socio-economic conditions, Boko Haram, the truth must be told, does not require any elaborate study to deconstruct it. The anti-terror effort should not be complicated with impractical over-analysis.

    It is noteworthy that Prof Adewole mentioned the comment by the new Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Marshal Alex Badeh, on crushing the terrorists by April, the terminal date of the six-month extension of emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states in November last year, following an initial period from May to October. Also worth mentioning is the fact that, in a demonstration of apparent contempt for Badeh’s time-table, Boko Haram carried out devastating attacks in Adamawa and Borno, which claimed at least 138 lives.

    This context clearly calls for urgent action, certainly not the type proposed by Prof. Adewole. Even considering that the Army buys the Vice-Chancellor’s idea, there is no doubt that the advocated strategic research would likely be time-consuming, which is a luxury the country can ill afford in the face of the group’s relentless and remorseless rebellion.

    While such study might be of intellectual value, it is highly improbable that it could be decisive in winning the terror war. It could be endorsed for academic reasons, but it would be over-optimistic, if not unrealistic, to imagine that it can yield the kind of concrete result needed at this time.

     

  • DISCO-theque blues

    Traditional discos are chambers of fun: blaring music, good booze, vigorous dancing, smooching lovers. They best exemplify Bobby McFerrin’s famous croon: “Don’t worry, be happy …”

    Not Nigeria’s latest Discos! These electricity distribution companies are the latest faces of Nigeria’s infamous generation of darkness! To be fair though, they are supposed to distribute, after the Gencos (power generating companies) must have delivered on the product.

    Still, what sort of due diligence is that, to be the hated visage of darkness generation, when your chore of distributing the ever phantom power is severe enough? Anyway, everyone has got to carry his or her own cross!

    Now, the Discos are not happy at all! They are screaming, squealing and cursing: power (or, from the costumers’ point of view, darkness) consumers are owing some cumulative N100 billion or more!

    The major culprits, they say, are government agencies: the army, police, ministries and parastatals and para-military forces which, the Discos claim, owe no less than 70 per cent of the debt. The remaining 30 per cent must then be households, and those beleaguered commercial and manufacturing interests still brave enough to plug into the darkness the Discos, from the tradition of NEPA/PHCN dark days, still claim is light.

    Now, what would Fela call government that consumes light but is adamant on not paying? Authority Stealing! So, as government presses its divine authority to consume power without paying, so did NEPA/PHCN press its own divine authority to collect tariff for supplying consumers darkness! PHCN’s market exit strategy was clear, at least to households: supply darkness yet generate bills; if consumers as much as complain, disconnect them!

    The Discos, as their own market entry strategy, appear to have embraced this bully tactic, knowing full well they are still monopolies. But it is a tragic strategy that will, sooner than later, bring them nothing but grief.

    Even as we speak, the disconnection gang are going about neighbourhoods, to disconnect consumers, for daring not to pay for electricity never supplied; and therefore, never consumed. In some neighbourhoods, they got away with it. But in others, especially the wild ones, the gangs had needed the Police to retrieve ladders from electric poles. The hungry and angry communities simply showed the disconnection gangs they had nothing to lose but their temper — which they would gladly unleash on visible agents of authority stealing and crass injustice!

    That brings the issue to a fundamental question: what is the integrity of the N100 billion debt owed? Could part of it be bills charged for phantom electricity?

    That is the hard question Discos need to ask themselves before embarking on escapades, ala NEPA/PHCN days.

    But perhaps, a bit of common sense. PHCN exited with a ruinous strategy. Discos therefore need to enter the market with a winning one. Before making a fetish of owed but controversial debt, they should ensure visible electricity distribution. If that is given, perhaps recovering their debts might not be that herculean.

    Nigerians, after all, are famous for their short memories and, with a little comfort, have the penchant to forgive and forget!