The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Presidency prayers

    Thanks to an observant newspaper correspondent who covers activities at Aso Rock, the hallowed seat of the presidency, Nigerians now have an idea of the quality of prayers that the country’s leaders and their sycophantic crowd send out to Almighty God. In the first place, it is reassuring that these creatures of comfort still recognise the supremacy of the divine. Although judging by the manner in which they routinely behave, particularly their passionate worship of mammon, many of their disadvantaged compatriots outside the power loop had long concluded that their hearts were far from heaven. So self-absorbed and distant from the very people they were elected to serve, they were no examples of godliness. Apart from these, they were noticeably used to playing God and throwing their weight around in obscene exhibitions of crude power.

    So what a pleasant surprise it was to learn of the existence of a publication called “Prayer Guide for Nigeria”, which is reportedly used for “intercessory prayers” at the Aso Villa Chapel. The identity of the publisher is unclear, said Olalekan Adetayo of PUNCH, who reported that the booklet “is being used to pray there with free copies made available to worshippers.” The reporter gave a revealing insight into the contents of the December 2013 edition of the prayer guide. By the way, it may be important to note that President Goodluck Jonathan is a Christian.

    Disappointingly, among the prayer points listed for Monday, December 2, according to the source, was this extremely self-serving one : “Pray that the crises rocking the ruling party, the PDP, will not mar the party’s chances of victory in the 2015 general elections to enable the present administration to continue the transformation agenda (Zechariah 4 :9)” Isn’t it amusing that a so-called transformation agenda that is high on talk but low on deeds could be mistaken for the divine wish for the country’s underprivileged multitude? It seems that this prayer point is deceitfully worded. Precisely, it would appear that this was more about continuing the agenda of moving on to multiplication of personal wealth.

    Two other prayer points taken from the guide show the pattern of supplication in government. Consider this: “Thank God for the approval of the $100 million loan from the Indian Import-Export Bank for Cross River, Enugu and Kaduna states to address power infrastructure by the Federal Executive Council.” Then this: “Thank God for the $300 million loan from the International Development Association to boost the country’s mortgage sector as approved by the Federal Executive Council.”

    Of course, it is good to express thanks to God for provision, but the Nigerian experience sadly demonstrates that it is never certain that a major part of the funds won’t end up fraudulently in private pockets. Such reality, unfortunately, continues to hamper the country’s development and progress.

    The truth is that if the powerful were sincerely in tune with the dictates of the divine, with all the implications of selfless service, honest and dedicated attention to social needs, non-violent conduct and the pursuit of peace, among others, this country would not be stagnating in incredible under-development.

    Given the pervasive and intense religious competition across the land, it won’t be surprising to learn that Muslims in government also have their own version of “Prayer Guide for Nigeria.” Vice President Namadi Sambo is a Muslim, after all. Perhaps if the indigenous religions also enjoyed the limelight, there would be similar programmes in their spheres.

    The situation can be defined thus: So much religionism; but so little righteousness. How fruitful it would have been if the reverse were the case. Well, there is no harm in praying for “transformation”, is there?

  • Redeeming Bode George

    Redeeming Bode George

    Congratulations to Chief Bode George, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) bigwig and jailed former Chairman, Board of Directors of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), who has apparently succeeded in shedding the stigma of prison following a Supreme Court verdict quashing his 2009 conviction and 30 months imprisonment by Justice Olubunmi Oyewole of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja. It must be joy unspeakable for him, considering the snide remarks he most likely had to cope with on account of his prison history, especially in the dirty game of politics. Now he can do a swagger in public without restraint or embarrassment. He can proudly reject the tag, “ex-convict”.

    With him on the soul train are five former members of the board, Aminu Dabo, an architect, Captain Oluwasegun Abidoye, Alhaji Abdulahi Aminu Tafida, Alhaji Zanna Maidaribe and Sule Aliyu, an engineer, who were also discharged and acquitted.

    George and four others were arraigned in 2008 by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a 163-count charge of conspiracy, disobedience to lawful order, abuse of office and alleged illegal award of contracts worth N84 billion while he was NPA chairman between 2001 and 2003. During the trial, the EFCC reduced the charge to 63 counts, and the judge found the defendants guilty on 47counts. Specifically, they were found guilty of exceeding the limit for award of contracts, splitting contracts in order to bring them within the limit, and inflating contracts. In other words, they were sanctioned for official corruption, that monstrosity which many observers have identified as the bane of the country. It is noteworthy that as prison inmates, George and his colleagues enjoyed the V.I.P. section, were excused from wearing prison uniforms, and had access to meals prepared by their families, which smacked of corruption.

    Even more remarkable, and reflective of corruption of another kind, was the lavish celebration that greeted his 2011 release from Kirikiri Prison, Lagos, which was nauseating to the public. George, 68, claimed that his trial and imprisonment were consequences of a conspiracy by his enemies. With his clearance by the Supreme Court, it is predictable that the flamboyant retired naval officer would arrange a church thanksgiving service and throw a party, all to make a statement.

    It is interesting that they took their battle for redemption as far as the Supreme Court, suggesting that they were convinced about the supposed injustice of their conviction and sentencing. Well, they could afford the services of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN), Kanu Agabi and Joseph Daudu, and they obviously couldn’t live with the shameful stain, given their social standing. Just a thought: What if the apex court had affirmed the correctness of the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal, which had endorsed the initial High Court ruling? What a horrible thought!

    It may well be that by overturning their conviction and imprisonment, the Supreme Court, perhaps inadvertently, not only saved them from deadly depression but also prevented their descent into suicidal psychosis. It is even possible that the latest ruling will energise them beyond their years.

    However, there is ironically something to be sad about. Central to the exculpatory judgement were the arguments that the prosecution failed to establish the guilt of the appellants and that contract splitting was not unlawful at the time of the alleged offence. In the words of the court: “Contract splitting, which formed the basis of the offences charged, was unknown to law at the material time. The Public Procurement Act, which made contract splitting an offence punishable with term of imprisonment, was enacted into law by the National Assembly in 2007, long after the appellants had ceased to be members of the NPA.”

    George and others were probably ahead of society’s consciousness of the infinite possibilities of contract award.

  • Auto policy and its contradictions

    Hardball knows the trick too well (now don’t ask him how); for want of a better description, let’s call it acting stupid for a ‘higher’ purpose. It is akin to the gambit trick in a game of chess: you sacrifice a smaller piece in order to capture your opponent’s bigger piece in the course of the game. But the difference here is that the star of this story, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, (MITI) is neither stupid nor making any sacrifice. In fact, he is supposed to be one of the star technocrats head-hunted from Wall Street to come help turn Nigeria’s economy around. It is, therefore, not possible that Aganga would make such elementary mistakes in policy articulation, enunciation and implementation.

    As you may have guessed, Hardball is interrogating the Automotive Industry Policy Development Plan (AIPDA), known as auto policy for short. Let us remind ourselves that the AIPDA or some variant of it is not new. Nigeria has had auto policy for ages which drove the setting up of about six auto assembly plants in the 80s. It also necessitated the establishment of the Automotive Development Fund (ADF) and the subsequent thriving of the auto component parts industry. Time was in the late 80s and early 90s when Nigeria supplied West and Central Africa the bulk of their auto batteries, light covers, glasses and other small plastic based replacement and ancillary parts.

    But all these initial strides towards achieving a self-sustaining auto sector atrophied and vanished the way of all Nigeria’s policies. Now like a strange people without history, the Federal Government through MITI, woke up one bright day last October, realised Nigeria is wasting huge sums through automobile importation and promptly dredged up a policy to build auto plants in Nigeria and effect an immediate stoppage of importation of fully built vehicles. Before you could say ‘assembly plant’, government had rolled out a vacuous policy whose main objective, apparently, is to increase tariff and levy on imported vehicles. It was done with the speed and alacrity that we do not experience from our governments anymore and that is indeed, alien to us these days.

    Setting up auto assembly plants in Nigeria is a great idea and Aganga would earn accolades on this space, if the motives are by chance altruistic but Hardball is in shock that this technocrat would embark on a major landmark policy such as this without factoring in some basic elements. We have not seen a review of the old order to determine the factors that led to its collapse; there are no assembly plants running anywhere yet; the oil sector which would yield the petrochemical base materials for vehicle components is in the doldrums; no electricity to power the envisaged automotive manufacturing clusters; no steel mills; the only tyre manufacturing firm in Nigeria migrated to Ghana long ago as a result of unfriendly business environment; no cushion or alternative mode of transit for the people in the event that vehicles become unaffordable in the face of Aganga’s crazy, new tariff and levy.

    How come then that Aganga thought of nothing else in the entire mix but tariff and levy hikes? How come what ought to come last has been put upfront? Hardball wagers that the purpose of the auto policy is a scam, a ruse to gather up billion of naira in a nebulous auto fund that is never accounted for. We wager again that Aganga does not give a damn about any assembly plants or Nigerian-built vehicles. Why is everything done post haste as if there is a (2015?) deadline to be met? This hurried auto policy is the exact scenario in the so-called rice policy in which the Agric Minister, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, hiked rice tariff and levy so high, so arbitrarily that it has become stupid for any businessman to import rice through our ports. Nigerians now consume smuggled rice while the rice fund is never applied to the development of the Nigerian rice.

    What manner of government is this?

  • OBJ: I dey cry o

    OBJ: I dey cry o

    Hardball feels like singing a dirge, a sad, melancholic dirge upon reading the rambling missive of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to his anointed son and current president, Goodluck Jonathan. But the muse fails me; it must have journeyed to a faraway country, having found no sober soil here to sprout. I want to sing, to moan about the black egg laid by the dark crow seven moons ago which has now hatched into a malevolent vulture. I want to weep about the prodigal father who sired a son who would out-prodigal him. I want to cry on behalf of the wayward father but tears fail me, my eyes having been worsted by evil sights, is stark like the night thief’s.

    Hardball wants so much to laugh as our former president was wont at his opponents when he had them by their jolly sac; when he squeezed them with sardonic mirth and he would chant, “I dey laugh o.” I want to echo his laughter with peeling ecstasy but the situation is grave. See who is on the run now; see who is afraid now and crying wolf. He says they are training snipers; what a laugh! Does a president need to train snipers to eliminate people? Are there not trained snipers all over the world waiting to be beckoned upon? Why would any respectable eliminator leave an entire training base of evidence?

    The other day when our dear Bola Ige was vaporised, no evidence whatsoever was left. Even as Baba wrote this long, ‘love’ letter to his ‘son’, he never gave us a coherent answer about our Cicero. He who dispensed wisdom from his front pocket the way his contemporaries would only dispense lucre suddenly became a fool’s tale before our eyes. Marshal Harry met a similar fate. Over a dozen others too all fell under the watch of our Baba Obasanjo; not one was explained or unraveled. In fact, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under his leadership was described as harbouring a “nest of killers.” Haba Baba, when did political killings become the sole franchise of the Abacha era? We were all here between 1999 and 2007; while the Abacha regime had a boisterous gang. PDP’s was a clandestine, sinister machine that ‘worked’ with an especial gruesomeness. The “nest” was not content to eliminate, it picked quarrelled with the cadaver and often went on to squash and pulverise it. Don’t remind us Baba.

    Every issue Baba brooked in his long, whimsical letter, he sowed the seed and perfected the act. He cries about honour, character and keeping word: he was accused of promising to do just a term by his vice. He did not only jettison that, he tried to damage the constitution and organised a voodoo national conference in quest of a third term. He rigged elections at will and all the ones he conducted (2003 and 2007) were all a travesty in the annals of polling in Nigeria.

    He says “Corruption has reached the level of impunity” but the Jonathan administration must have learnt all the tricks from his political ‘father’. Does Haliburton ring a bell? What about Siemens and Transcorp and power contracts, to name a few out of hundreds of blatant malfeasance that defined the Obasanjo era. Impunity! What is impunity? Who disobeyed Supreme Court rulings at will? Who used state powers to stage impeachments galore across states, sometimes with a handful of legislators and sometimes from hotel rooms? Who deployed police in Anambra to lock up a governor in the toilet while the state Assembly held a mock session that impeached him?

    Every line of that ego-boosting letter is a farce; let’s just call it a PDP tale, told by idiots full of sound and fury and not just signifying nothing but denigrating Nigeria and her people. But we take solace in the fact that the PDP undertakers are finally singing their end-song.

  • CBN’s money troubles

    CBN’s money troubles

    More money more trouble: that is a common street saying and Hardball agrees that nothing is truer except that in the case of Nigeria’s apex money shop, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) this truism is a bit more nuanced than you may think. First, this is not to suggest that the CBN is swimming in cash – though it may well be considering that it is the repository of Nigeria’s treasury – we are concerned here about the endless shifts between coins, polymer and paper currency in the last five years.

    But think what you may, cynics have a different take – and they have a right to their worries – they see in the flip-flops, heavy cash movements in the name of contracts rendered both in local and foreign currency tranches. Each time we change from one form of currency to another we are doling out huge sums and in a sense that can be said to be money trouble. If CBN were the Central Bank of Niger Republic for instance, it sure would not have such large sums to play with or throw around. You may even say that CBN when confronted or ‘troubled’ by a surfeit of cash (which comes with its peculiar challenge of managing it) it thinks up currency change to reduce the wahala of managing so much liquid cash.

    Since 2006, the CBN which seems to live in a neuter world of its own where we have only to accept the report it renders to us and where transparency, accountability and oversight are abhorrent practices grants us any mode of currency it sees in its dreams. For three years from 2006, CBN experimented with the N20 denomination of the polymer note. Having found it exceptionally cost-saving, durable and anti-bacterial, the big bank set all the other small notes like the N5, N10, and N50 into the polymer wonder at a huge cost and contract procedure that was opaque as can be. CBN also entered into its usually expensive publicity blitz to sell the new polythene money and make us love and use them. In fact recall that at a point, a deadline was fixed for the final jettisoning of the paper money. Nobody had a sensible reason why we had to outlaw our money just because it was in the paper form but consequent upon that announcement, market women were upfront in rejecting the notes because they don’t want to be stuck with it. In the ensuing crisis, many ended up getting stuck with the paper money.

    Nigerians have been using the polymer currency ever since with most either not knowing the difference or not caring. If only they could find the money to spend it would not matter the nature of it. Truly the polymer money has proven to be more durable comparatively but less manageable in the peculiar Nigerian way.

    Last month, the CBN sailing on the choreographed braggadocio of its governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, told us that we have to revert to paper money because it had been re-discovered that polymer is not amenable to our hot climate which makes it fade easily. It is as simple as that; no detailed comparative cost advantages, no apologies for blatant policy failure and no dire consequences to any. Once the CBN oracle has spoken to the denizens, so be it.

    In no time, contracts would be awarded (they may well have gone out) and ultimatum would be issued to we guinea pigs for the change over to paper money once again. Dear reader, is this not money trouble of an acute type? By the way, what is the value of these miserable ‘little’ notes? Whoever uses N5 anymore for any purchase? There must be a fundamental problem somewhere if only the CBN thinks.

  • The Mandela oxymoron

    The Mandela oxymoron

    Writing about Nelson Mandela in the heat of this moment is like praying to God: there is a million and one thing unsaid yet everything has been said. It is infinitude – that state of endless magnitude; a greatness that is of infinite nature. Everything about Mandela is a story, an anecdote or a positive lesson that humanity must do well to learn. Hardball was thus stuck finding a fresh entrée in the Mandela repertoire. What more is there to be said? Everything has been said yet so much remained unsaid about this unusual bird flying out of Africa.

    As I pounded my gray matter an old adage came to me. The living in mourning the dead, mourns but his self. And yet another saying that your very life is your funeral; that is the way you live your life is a foretaste of the kind of funeral you will ‘enjoy’. Put more plainly, in living you are drawing up your burial progamme. As the world stand as one eulogising Mandela in cities and towns, churches and mosques it is not the fact of his death that stirs the human community but his life.

    Dear reader, you must have noticed the oxymoronic tendencies of this piece, the emerging contradictory words and phrases so far deployed. For instance, “your life is your funeral” and “the living mourns but his self.” But the Mandela oxymoron is of deeper import. How about black Africa, the dungeon of the modern world; a world of strive, poverty, hunger and ugliness sprouting an exquisitely beautiful flower named Mandela? And as we say in Africa, “the greenest sukuma wiki grows in the rubbishest dump” (Kenyan) and “from the blackest pot comes the whitest pap” (Nigerian/Yoruba).

    And as we relish our repertoire of Mandela-inspired oxymoron, how about the seeming endless streaming of eulogies by leaders from across the world, especially African leaders? Let us take just three here and see if could detect any hint oxymoronic contradictions in them. Robert Mugabe, the 89-year- old President of Zimbabwe is a contemporary of Mandela’s. While Mandela did one term as president of South Africa and turned down another term of five years when he was 76, Mugabe is on his seventh term as president and he does not seem ready to go yet. In his tribute, he described Mandela as the great African icon of liberation… a humble and compassionate leader. Say, when Mugabe transits someday, would the world hail him as a great African leader, humble and compassionate even though he stayed on the throne for almost eternity?

    Here in Nigeria, former President Olusegun Obasanjo narrated how he had asked Mandela why he would not do a second term and how the great man had retorted: How many 80-year-olds do you see still ruling a country? This was shortly before Obasanjo returned to office as president. But what did Obasanjo do after serving for two terms of eight years? He was desperate to go for a third term having forgotten Mandela’s homily so soon. He corrupted the system in his bid to suborn the constitution and he set the polity almost on a spin. Though Obasanjo cumulatively ruled Nigeria for 13 years did he win the hearts of his people? Did he achieve world acclaim? How does he compare to Mandela who did just five years?

    Lastly, we take President Goodluck Jonathan’s epic tribute to Mandela in which he said “Nigeria politicians were tiny men” compared to Mandela. Let us hear Jonathan: “Read newspapers, listen to radio and television or go to the social media and see how politicians talk. Some of us even think we are gods. We intimidate, we threaten, we show hate in our communication. These are definitely not the virtues of great men. They are shockingly the vices of tiny men.” Leaders like Jonathan (according to him,) cannot be great like Mandela because they are “tiny men.” This must be our classic, screaming Mandelan oxymoron.

  • FMoW in mother of all variations

    Since we are talking about a road, Hardball posits that what has happened is an equivalence of a horrific carnage. Unless of course you are one of the big men in the Federal Ministry of Works (FMoW), the news of that contract variation is bound to make you dizzy. The sheer impunity of the figures is sure to twist your innards to the extreme. You grow instantly impotent as rage takes over your sinews. In your extreme agony, you would probably curse the day you were conceived under the green and white flag, which seems to flutter with so much infamy these days.

    Contract variation, it must be noted, has become something of a norm in Nigeria since the 80s and most ministries at all levels of government may have adopted this phenomenon as the proper course of doing business. In deed, Hardball would stand to be corrected that any contract that did not ‘enjoy’ a variation especially in the FMoW in the last two decades would be an exception. It would be strangely extra-normal in Nigeria today if any contract is carried out from start to finish and on schedule without any variation of the contract sum. But this case in point of the variation of the Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja Road contract must be the mother of them all. Hardball takes the liberty to term it a ‘terror’ attack of sort on the psyche of the nation.

    The FMoW has bent over double trying to explain this monstrous action since the Senate Adhoc Committee ‘uncovered’ it but no explanation would fly. An initial contract sum of N42.55 billion in 2006 was in 2011 ballooned up to N116 billion and they expect us not to cry our eyes out? They say an inter-ministerial committee approved it; they say the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) issued certificate of ‘No Objection’ – whatever that means. The Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved and sanctioned the variation. But of what use are all these aforementioned vetting processes? Did they not approve the first contract which turned out a disaster?

    The FWoW ought to hide its head in the muck for seeming to be proud to have initiated and awarded a contract that five years down the line, had to be varied by about 300 per cent. What this means is that no planning whatsoever was carried out. Officials of the FWoW are indignantly suggesting that critics are ignorant of the enlarged scope of work built into the reviewed project but they play down the fact that more that 62 per cent (or N26.63 billion) of the initial contract sum was disbursed. And what value did we get from this? Only 38 per cent. If we add the initial disbursal of N26.63 billion to the current N116 billion we have a total sum of N142. 63 billion to be spent on this singular road project.

    No explanation will justify this manner of project review, especially if we consider the antecedence of our public service; a service steeped in corrupt practices and a recent unremitting brand of impunity. Another point to be made is that we could count it as ‘all is well that ends well’ if the FWoW manages to deliver this road next year as proposed. We will also live with this grim assault on our psyche if the road, upon completion, stands the rest of time. But Hardball will wager again that this road will not be completed in 2014 and may well be reviewed and re-awarded someday in our usual tradition, especially if it remains unfinished in the life of this administration.

    Hardball wishes the FMoW would do Nigerians a little favour by helping us with a list of reviewed contracts; a list of uncompleted/abandoned contracts; a list of reviewed yet unfinished projects in just one ministry.

    It is sad that our public service has become one huge, kleptocratic, revenue-crunching machine. But a man who steals his patrimony is only clever by half isn’t he?

  • VAS as e-pick-pocketing

    It is a disease that has no therapy. We are doomed it seems and the thing we cherish the most has become our albatross. Hardball had written about the nuisance of unsolicited text messages last September but instead of abating, the practice has spread like an epidemic that has defied all solutions. It is a by-product of greed and collusion between major network operators and the so-called Value Added Services (VAS) providers. Hardball would want to wager that what happens here; this feeding frenzy on the citizenry does not happen anywhere else on planet earth. It is simply a manifestation of an environment where rules and laws are obeyed in the breach. Regulatory apparatus has become servile; consumer protection organ is weak and incapacitated leaving operators to enjoy a free rein.

    If unsolicited text messages and calls were few in September, today they invade our phones in jet streams. While hitherto, about a dozen different text messages streamed in daily, today, about half a dozen same messages would invade your phone at the same time. And the messages range from the outlandish to the outright fraudulent; they come from both unknown, unsigned portals and also from the major networks which leave subscribers often wondering why an MTN, Glo, Etisalat or Airtel would willfully intrude into one’s world in the bid to force an additional naira out of the customer. Sometimes they appear no better than desperate e-pickpockets.

    Consider some examples: “Big Games in association with Toyota is (sic) giving away a Corolla this week in the big Toyota Corolla giveaway. Text BIG to 5045 to qualify (N100/SMS).” This one streamed in relentlessly as if the world was coming to an end.

    Here is another one: “13 year old Marvelous won a Galaxy Tab 3, Note 3, generator and brand new Kia Rio from Dettol. Text Dettol to 5030 now! N10/SMS.” This too streamed in torrents.

    And this from MTN: “Does your number end with 4151? Please send ok to 7070! Your number has been rewarded with access to MTN’s N2,000,000 draw today! Subscribe for N100/SMS.

    This barrage of unsolicited and often fraudulent messages to the subscriber is simply not acceptable. It has become a major cause for concern for not a few Nigerians and both the networks and the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC must do a lot more than denials and making excuses. Reacting to an open petition to the president recently by an aggrieved consumer group on this matter, the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), the umbrella body of operators and providers of telecoms and ancillary services in Nigeria simply sang the same old song that still leaves us rooted on the same spot.

    ALTON noted “that to the credit of NCC, very clear regulatory prescriptions have been developed and are being adhered to by operators regarding the nature, frequency and timing of text messages, as well as other “cold” communications with customers.” It stated further that “most of the offending messages do not in fact originate from operators. Stakeholders should note that unsolicited SMS often originate from sources outside the respective networks.” We are also informed that most of the weird contents consumers are bombarded with originate outside the shores of Nigeria taking undue advantage of the fact that operators are technically unable to, and in fact cannot legitimately discriminate against SMS passing through their respective networks. Still educating us, ALTON said that all networks are duty bound to deliver messages addressed to subscriber and can only reduce the scourge of rubbish texts if they installed state-of-the-art spam filters. Lastly, VAS operators are held to high level of service excellence by the networks to ensure that they do not abuse their connections, etc.

    Well said but two last quick points. We the hapless consumers know that the networks are making a whale of money from this situation thus the onus is on them to stop it.

  • Again, this Doctrine of Mischief

    You do not require any especial intellectual facility to discern that there is a straight line between the quality of our leaders and the overall progression of our country. Taken a step further, it will not be far-fetched to conclude that since Independence in 1960, leadership acuity in Nigeria has continued to depreciate with successive governments. Hardball can actually predict and with alarming accuracy the political behavior of the government of the day in the next 18 months. Government has been terribly watered-down and set in a mired template and since nobody seems to be thinking anew, the same methods and approaches are applied by every new government.

    For instance, we can safely wager that in the next six months we shall begin to witness a rash of supporters and endorsers of the Goodluck Jonathan’s second term project. Rallies will be organised in major cities by all sorts of groups – ranging from students, market women and Nollywood stars. Of course, “Jonathan-for-second-term” posters will flood Abuja as if they are but cocoyam leaves and not expensive printed matter. Then you will see traditional rulers from different parts of the country queuing up to visit the President in Aso Rock; it is usually done with so much fanfare and ceremony for effect.

    Worn political chicanery which are dredged up and re-used often in a most noxious manner are too numerous to count. Almost every move of government is tailor-made for the singular purpose of giving the incumbent another life and another day in the sunshine of Aso Rock. We witnessed this as (military) President Ibrahim Babangida twisted and turned in his spirited attempt to remain perpetually in office. The goggled one General Sani Abacha did the same. Remember Abacha badge, Abacha, television and Abacha rice. And of course, the mother of all political subterfuge – the one-million-man march in Abuja; it could be described as the whirlwind that sucked in most of Nigeria’s elite politicians.

    President Olusegun Obasanjo after tasting eight years of sweet power did not hand over without trying not to hand over. He employed a horde of marabout, pushed out a pot of cash, worked the military (third term cars) the media, the National Assembly and party’s axe men. He organised a quick (fake) National Conference and he tried to change the constitution by a sleight of hand using some thug who strutted as a Senator of the Federal Republic.

    Sadly dear reader, we are at that grave juncture of our political lives once again. Why is it that nobody wants to leave power, especially in black Africa? Why do we still suffer the sit-tight disease; why do we covet office so much that we convert it to our personal property and sometimes transmute to a god unto the people? The current man of the moment, Hardball can announce, is hard at work now beating all these worn tracks listed above.

    The Deputy President of the Senate, who is also Chairman of the Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, Ike Ekweremadu, is obviously hard at work on one of the plots to prolong the shelf life of President Goodluck Jonathan in Aso Rock. Recently, he has been harping on the discarded six-year single term proposition. “It could be a win-win situation for everybody. And I believe that the way it could work is, now, people have been elected for four years; let everybody complete the four-year tenure for which he or she is elected. And then through the doctrine of necessity or a kind of jurisprudential approach, do some kind of transition of two years. In which case, those present occupiers like president and state governors, who are completing their tenures, maybe, will do another two years that would end in 2017.”

    Hardball would just dismiss this as self-seeking, low-level thinking that has no basis anywhere. We are not in a crisis; our constitution stipulates an election every four years and an election it shall be. No doctrine of mischief please.

  • As Okotie sentences Catholics

    As Okotie sentences Catholics

    Reverend Chris Okotie is a child made in the public space. Now wait right there dear reader because this pregnant statement must be properly disambiguated before we take another step further. Hardball would be a child of mischief if he suggests by any chance that our new age man of God was conceived in the open space or anywhere for that matter because he has no fact about Rev. Chris’ conception. What Hardball is stating (rather awkwardly, I crave your pardon) is that Chris was made through the public, by the public and for the public. He is the democracy of the public sphere; a public animal. Think for a moment what Chris would be if he were to be banished from the public space!

    Chris invaded the public arena when as a law student in his early twenties he became an instant music star and celebrity upon the release of his first music album. This was in the early 80s. He went on to make many more hit songs even after qualifying as a lawyer. A life of a successful musician and show business personality was all laid out for him and his teeming fans were in for a good time with their rave-of-the-moment barrister-pop star. But they were soon disappointed. Not quite long after, Okotie announced suddenly to his fans that he had seen a new light. He was no longer going to prance about the stage singing and entertaining the world; he vowed to henceforth, sing the Word and preach Christ. Not a few of his fans thought he suffered a temporary seizure of the ‘spirit’ and that he would soon shake it all off and return to the ‘beautiful’ and electrifying world of wining, wenching and shin-digging.

    But such fans were disappointed. Chris never looked back. He never sang another song for the world; he preached the Word in his own peculiar way, he built a ministry that must have become the envy of some men of God if they had such vice in them. Household of God, Rev. Chris’ church at its peak, became the touchstone of Nigeria’s modern day Pentecostalism. It is a mark of Rev. Chris’ genius that in a short time, he became even more a successful preacher of Christ than he was a pop singer.

    But he was not done. He dove into politics headlong but heart-first; not as a fresher but as a founder, leader and presidential candidate of the FRESH Party. He has been the sole runner for his party for the past three or so presidential elections with little impact. He has discovered to his chagrin, that it is an obdurate political system and set up we have here in Nigeria. It yields to neither rhyme nor reason. Chris has also had a turbulent marital life which does not commend itself to the Christian faith and certainly not exemplary for a great man of God but we are willing to blame it on the carnal man in him.

    But to what do we put Rev. Chris’ recent and obscene outburst against Catholics and the Catholic Church? One hates to repeat it but you need to hear it to appreciate it: “The Catholic Church is a counterfeit church set up by Satan. Catholics bow to idols and crucify Jesus every Sunday when they eat bread claiming they are eating Jesus’ body.” He said also that Catholics will go to hell. The first time I read the statement which was purportedly made during a sermon last Sunday I was in a quandary whether it was me who had lost my mind or the clergy man. This really has gone out of the realm of normalcy and commonsense. Being a child of the public space, is it possible that he seeks controversy to regenerate his waning ministry as some people have dared to suggest? Is Chris preaching hate; is Catholicism the bane of humanity?