The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Edwin (Serubawon) Clark

    It is a troubling augury for a country when her septuagenarians begin to get violently virile. Now this supposition is not taken from a Sigmund Freud thesis or any such human mind guru; it is Hardball thinking aloud and it is based on certain manifestations in the polity in recent times. There are two dimensions to this new-found superman-hood – the emotional and the political. Consider the situation in which our grand old men are acquiring a new taste for little brides only old enough to be their grand children. In this new-found senescent-pubescent armour, which is consecrated with elaborate if not lavish weddings our jobs-deprived youths must feel a sense of loss for sure.

    We need not name names here but discerning Nigerians remember which ‘elder-statesmen have taken new wives this year. The political aspect is the sight of old men morphing into self-appointed, swashbuckling hawks, fixers and even muscle men. In this regard, the Goodluck Jonathan administration has enjoyed the unsolicited services of Elder Edwin Kiagbodo Clark. Since Jonathan’s ascent to office in the land, Papa Clark has gradually ensconced himself unto the pedestal of the chief guardian of the president. He has self-appointed himself the commander-in-chief of the ethnic forces for Jonathan.

    As if in need of such native protection, the Presidency has also granted more than tacit acceptance to Papa Clark as a field-marshal. Have you noticed the new, regenerated blossoming of the old man? Papa Clark has become chubbier and there is a new glistening veneer about his visage. He seems tirelessly on the shuttle these days, setting up one feeble inter-ethnic forum or the other and purportedly building bridges and winning hearts for President Jonathan in the race towards 2015. So the wise old man is making himself useful.

    There is no doubt that every government loves the services of unsolicited champions and defenders of its causes; fixers and filibusters, spin doctors and sorcerers. Especially so in Nigeria: President Shehu Shagari had Umaru Dikko; Ibrahim Babangida had Alex Akinyele and Halilu Akilu; Sani Abacha had Wada Nas and Hamza Mustapha. Olusegun Obasanjo had Tony Anenih. Today, we are under the rule of Papa Edwin Clark. Just as an old man enjoying what we may call viagroid virility may seem odd, same way the flexing of wrinkled muscle will naturally be discomfiting to the beholder.

    But tell that to the ‘enemies’ of President Jonathan as have been identified by Papa Clark. As far as he is concerned, Jonathan does no wrong and he is the greatest ruler Nigeria was ever blessed with but for detractors and ‘enemies’ and yet in spite of the ‘best’ efforts of these ‘enemies’ of the nation, Jonathan has been outstanding– according to Clark.

    So why are we raking up this stale news all of a sudden? Recently, Edwin (Serubawon) Clark or lion heart if you choose in his position as the enforcer and hardy spirit of the government in power, roared at the opponents of the regime. Go get the new PDP rascals (not his exact words please) he seemed to have ordered the party chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur. Clark’s outburst was sequel to the solidarity visit of APC chieftains to Governor Chibuike Amaechi in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. At a press conference he called at his Abuja residence, Papa Clark said: “PDP inaction to discipline or reconcile the recalcitrant and unpatriotic gang of 7 and his cohort is a threat to the security and political stability of Nigeria.” He said that they are not behaving like disciplined party members and should be made to toe the party line or get kicked out.

    One last word: Papa Clark hardly stays in Kiagbodo any longer; he lives in Abuja now. Again there is a worrisome augury when elders relocate to the city and our ancestral lands and totems are left to village wags.

  • Atonement day – a dirge for Iyayi

    Finally they cut up Iyayi

    For ultimate atonement

    They caught him on Kogi macadam

    Enroute Kano

    They cut him up on a mangle of metals

    Grime-fingered they poured scarlet libation

    To wayward gods seeking atonement

     

    But their gods stand confused

    Would you atone with hemlock?

    Would light atone darkness?

    Whoever caught a spirit in flight?

    Whoever sacrificed at a watershed?

    This is a sacrifice of damnation

     

    Who arrested Iyayi

    The defiant cockerel of a wasted land

    They boomed bazooka

    He morphed into ncheke

    And smiled from their ceiling

    They rolled out tanks

    And he became a running stream

    That slaked our distant hamlets

     

    They put him in prison

    And he became amiringara

    Progeny of the long snake

    They chased and chased

    They could not catch Iyayi

    The head-yam of our barn

    They had to waylay him

    On the road to Kano

    And cut him up on Kogi macadam

     

    Iyayi, the spirit in flight

    Now they finally set you free

    To roam our sphere

    And impinge their dreams

    Now you will sit on the hedges

    Of their monstrous-cities

    You will rouse their sleep

    At the sweetest hour of night

     

    You watered our deserts

    But they harvest our collective rains

    The gods planted wheat

    But they feed us weeds

    You gazed them down

    We are not mulls you said

    And they got mad, they imported

    Boots, batons and Kalashnikovs

     

    AS UU stood towering

    They grew horns, two devil horns

    And they lay eggs too

    Like evil chickens they lay black eggs

    Black IED eggs for land desecration

    Improvised Explosive Delinquents

    They harvest our collective rains

    Leaving our land patched and denuded

    In perpetuity

     

    Now they have cut our voice

    They have cut down Iyayi

    On the road to Kano

    They made a final atonement

    On kogi macadam

    But their gods stand askance

    mortified in bemusement

    For a spirit in flight

  • The prayer contractor – A fable

    A certain government contractor (let’s call him Jobman) was out of business for quite sometime. Every bid he made for job came to naught; there is cash crunch, he was often told; oh oil revenue has dwindled as a result of theft, was the new song. A contact deep in the corridors of power would whisper to him that the next election was the only business on hand and all the cash is being stashed for that purpose. It is so big that the usual ‘proceeds’ of contracts won’t be sufficient any longer as the entire haul is being warehoused. No more procurements or supplies jobs for ‘outsiders’ anymore, he learnt. You may consider non-government businesses for now until after the elections in two years, he was counseled.

    Jobman was heart-broken and moved to tears before his friend. The last contract he executed was low-budget and it paid less than the premium kickback. Worse still, he sprayed the ‘proceed’ like confetti on insiders (vermin he calls them) from ministry to ministry and desk to desk. Don’t worry we are lining up a bigger job for you they kept reassuring as they fleeced him. He is down on his backside currently; he has never had it so lean. Every door is shut tight and the usual treasure trove in the oil groves seems to be marked off limits without anyone really saying so.

    One of those forlorn days, Jobman loitered around one of those watering holes where government overlords, their legmen and running dogs unwind in the hoary corners of the new capital city. Presently he happened upon Tommy Mire. TM, for short, is one of those public faces untutored citizens call ‘big boys’. But he is actually a notoriously reliable front man. He is a master weasel known to be able to spirit away any proceeds of graft to the remotest corners of the world with uncanny deft. If there was a university chair for the study of the subject of accessory to official graft, TM would be the professor laureate. And mind you he is very proud of his invidious vocation and it goes without saying that he is stupendously rich.

    Jobman had known TM for a while since he had sought him out and courted him to ‘submission’ and made a point of duty of tagging with him. This quiet evening he happened upon him and ensconced himself onto his company. I am down and almost out, Jobman begins his sad narrative… my bro no job anywhere, wetin dey ground now, anything, any runs make man take hold body? Forget it, TM tells him, taps have been shut everywhere, no contracts again, noting doing anywhere… Well, you may want to try some prayer business, that’s the vogue now especially as the year draws to an end. Which one be prayer business again? Jobman retorted, convinced that TM underestimates his dire situation.

    See, you know our friend Charlie who hangs out with us here sometimes, he has already finished two prayer jobs and he has two more lined up for Christmas. Charlie is the biggest thing in town now; you may need to reach him, he just might give you a piece of the show. Do you remember the national prayer summit our legislator had a while ago? It was Charlie’s job. But his big catch was the one in one of the delta states. It was a one-week affair which featured a sprinkling of foreign names including an expired American politician cum reverend. That was big, the prayer was ‘hot’ and Charlie cleaned out. The trick is, find any well known ‘man of God’ preferably from the USA, SA or even Ghana and you stage your show this Christmas with governors queuing to pay upfront. When our ‘Oga at the top’ relocated half of Nigeria to Jerusalem for prayers recently it was a massive contract. Ol’ boy prayer business is in and prayers are getting answered for some of our guys!

  • EAGLETS: The poetry of soccer

    EAGLETS: The poetry of soccer

    Hardball had a vicarious orgasm. Sam (In Touch) Omatseye came instantly – with a poem which streamed in with the final whistle. A Mexican Tear, it is titled: The Nigerians had value for their feet/ in fit after fit, wrote the in-house bard still relishing the afterglow of 90 minutes of exciting football poetics. It had been nearly one month of foreplay as the 15th FIFA Under-17 World Cup raged in the exotic city of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. At last the crescendo the Saturday finale, during which the Nigerian lads took the nation to a glorious ecstasy as they performed the final act of soccer supremacy over the rest of the world.

    Where did these lads learn to play soccer with so much poetry and even a dash of sorcery? They touched it as if it were not a running round leather object; as if it were something at their magical command: go now to Ihenacho— transport to Captain Mohammed—— find Yahaya— end up in the opponent’s net; so very simple it seemed. If the Eaglets were Indians, they would have confirmed the long held myth that they play with such subterranean powers which led to a FIFA ban. One of such tales is that when you play an Indian team you find your self contending with about 36 players on the pitch instead of 11.

    But the Nigerian team has a pedigree: this is the 4th time they are lifting the trophy. Even the Spanish giant, Barcelona Football Club, the grandmasters of the touch-touch style of play also known as tiki-taka, would have gone green with envy watching these boys from Africa. They played six matches through the tournament, scored 22 goals and conceded only five. But the goals understated their prowess. They did not only beat all their opponent silly, they treated them like kids; making them weep like babies after each match. Sweden they drew with at their first encounter and upon the second meeting, it was a resounding three goals to nil drubbing. It is same story with the Mexicans who had fallen 6 – 1 in the very first match and in the final last Saturday, the Eaglets reaffirmed that the first time was no fluke. They mauled them by three goals to zero to lift the cup.

    It is a performance from another world and the whole world must have taken note that our play was not ordinary. But can Nigeria harness its glory? Going by her previous record (having won it three times before) with no significant impact in the national team will this be different? If these young lads beat the world so dazzlingly today, the reasonable progression is that five years hence, in their early 20s, they should repeat the feat at the senior World Cup (2018)?

    This had never been the natural progression in our age-grade football. Apart from this team, Hardball wagers that with a little effort, we can raise 37 other junior teams as good as this world winners (one from each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory). Such is the great talent and the human person potentialities available to us. But we are perennially stumped by the requisite leadership to harvest our vast riches.

    One good example is that this team need not be disbanded; we can do so much with it. It can be branded and taken on a worldwide tour – country to country, continent to continent – where they would merchandise, sign autographs, play exhibition matches with youth clubs and even senior teams. Almost every country’s youths would want to watch them play. But they must be carefully packaged and marketed. There is enormous revenue to be earned and the big image boost for Nigeria.

    Hardball says there is so much more where this magical Eaglets come from – in basket ball, tennis, the sprints and races, swimming, boxing, name it. But where is that man with the magic wand who will invoke the Nigerian spirit?

  • Chime vs. Chime: crisis in paradise

    It is strange, indeed a touch stranger than fiction. A colleague said he never imagined people at that rarefied state of wantlessness (if we can use that word) would ever have a reason to feud. It is akin to dwellers of paradise quarrelling; whatever for? Mrs. Clara C. Chime is a young beauty betrothed to Mr. Sullivan Chime, the governor of Enugu State. She is not the first wife the governor ever took; she was about half the age of his beau or more graphically, Clara is about the age mate of Sullivan’s first son by his first wife. It was a fairy tale wedding between Clara and Sullivan about five years ago. Young Clara, fresh from school and her family, nay, her entire kindred down to far-flung villages must have been over the moon at the prospect of that matrimony. Good fortunes don’t come in better and bigger packages.

    The ceremony, which set Clara’s community abuzz for many weeks, was the dream of every young woman. Governors trampled on governors, royalty stepped on royalty; while black, glistening jeeps were almost piggy-backed on top one another to find parking space at the ceremony. It was a wedding that happens once in the lifetime of a people. It was of course a marriage made in heaven for a sitting governor to have found out this belle, Clara, among all the belles in the whole wide world. She was magically transported from being another gal on the street to a First Lady.

    For the benefit of readers who cannot fathom the magnitude of this tale, in Nigeria’s queer polity where a state governor (or president) is the closest thing to the modern version of an absolute monarch, his wife is the queen of the realm. The First lady is the de facto second in command (first in one or two cases) and the prime-commissioner if we might create such a post. Appointees, contractors, party stalwarts, favour seekers and friends of the governor/president would ignore a first lady at their peril. Such is their power, influence and status in Nigeria. Lately, we have upped the ante with what we call the Office of the First Lady (OFL). This is not just a title but a physical structure set up with all the trappings and authority of office second only to the office of the governor/president.

    Today, five years down the road, Clara and Sullivan have turned full cycle from an enchanting fairy tale to a horror story. The marriage has broken down to the point that Clara, the sitting First Lady of Enugu State is crying out in anguish and calling on anyone out there to come rescue her from her paradise-turned-to-hell. “We do not have a relationship anymore and the situation inevitably led to my nervous breakdown. I have been diagnosed with severe depression and at some point was quite suicidal,” Mrs Clara Chime sobbed.

    She said further that, “The strategy of my estranged husband (mark her word) is to subject me to the most horrific and intolerable of conditions to cause my demise but my strength and will to live has kept me alive.” What eerie cry of anguish from a haunted paradise.

    Her husband the governor and his minders were so much rattled by her petition which drips with such intense sorrow that they tried some damage control by debunking her claims and to insist she is mentally challenged and in need of help. But it is obvious that Clara’s soul has been tortured almost to the point of damage. Clara may need help but away from her estranged paradise and her “estranged” husband. She eventually broke free from ‘bondage’ last Monday remarking most defiantly never go back there again and not even to wish her enemy such a marriage as she fled from.

    Sullivan too probably needs even more help but if only he can be extracted from his exertions of purportedly running a state. Finally, Clara and Sullivan sorely need our compassion and prayers.

  • What shall we do with this oil ministry?

    Call it the house of sleaze and you will not be mistaken. Call it the Hammer House of Horrific Corruption and it fits even more perfectly. Such is the state of Nigeria’s petroleum industry as represented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). In the over three decades of its existence, corruption has become so much its second nature that it probably does not know the difference anymore. And being the honey pot of the nation is always in cahoots with any government in power that it has also become the sluiceway of official graft at the highest levels. NNPC plus Federal Government equals an evil template, an ominous Siamese twin that is medically inseparable.

    The Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NNPC and all the other little horrors down the line have become a long chain of legitimised fraud; it is a carefully developed and nurtured subculture of criminality that the nation seems to have come to accept and live with. In all the frequent exposures by the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) reports, National Assembly reports and international expose, it is never heard that anyone gets sanctioned or prosecuted. Worse still, this thriving cult has extirpated efficiency and vanquished any iota of corporate governance and work ethics.

    The result of this is that NNPC has shrunken from being the biggest national oil corporation in Africa to a worthless, ossified stealing field with no meaningful development going on in its hollow labyrinth in the last two decades. On the other hand, almost all its infrastructure are in their end stage, dysfunctional and derelict. For instance, all its four refineries are near comatose; its pipelines laid many decades ago are in dire need of replacement and repair; its storage facilities are 20 years behind time and the hollow, shambling giant is ravage by insider-induced scavenging and oil theft. It is a dire situation that has reached its nadir in the last two years of the current minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke. If there was a modicum of commonsense before her time, what we have now under Alison-Madueke is akin to a free-for-all. She seems so utterly bereft of any ideas and all systems seem to have gone loose: if it is not unmanageable revenue losses, it is turnaround maintenance scam at the refineries; if it is not blatant oil theft, it is subsidy fraud, oil bloc gerrymandering, shady oil-for-loan deals, on and on.

    Hardball has been triggered into this long sad treatise by the untrammeled mess that what used to be Nigeria’s oil glory has become. The local media have shouted themselves hoarse but it has been like water thrown on pumpkins. The story today is another sad report from abroad; a Swiss-based non-governmental advocacy group, Berne Declaration, in its current report, accused the NNPC of conniving with some foreign oil trading companies based in Europe to defraud Nigeria of subsidy payments amounting to about $6.8 billion. The bottom-line of the report is that the “The all-powerful national oil firm, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, categorised as the most opaque national oil company on the planet, itself, is evidence of Nigeria’s ‘resource curse’ at work.”

    The report states that two Swiss ‘letter-box’ companies by the names, Vitol and Trafigura had exclusive and un-transparent partnerships with the NNPC, which had given them over 26 per cent of the market share. “Vitol and Trafigura alone took respectively 13.44 per cent and 13.49 per cent of Nigeria’s crude oil exports in 2011 for a cumulative value of $6.8 billion.” It further states that more than 56 per cent of the oil output up for sale by the NNPC in 2011 valued at $14 billion was sold to Swiss companies or Nigerian companies with ‘letterbox’ subsidiaries in Switzerland. It notes that Nigeria is the only major oil producing company that sells 100 per cent of its crude to private traders rather than market it itself in the open market and benefit from the resulting market value.

    Who will save Nigeria from this mess?

  • Nigeria’s rice crisis

    Crisis, crisis everywhere, not a sector is spared. They have become so pervasive that even an aspect of our life that is as innocuous as our major staple food, rice has been afflicted. Have you ever stopped to ponder what would become of Nigeria without rice? Do you know that rice is eaten daily in nearly every home in every corner of Nigeria? Do you know that rice is almost as crucial to the Nigerian household today as petrol and like petrol, it is something that we have the capacity to produce in abundance and export to other countries but instead, we import it?

    To extend the comparison with petrol further, in the 70s to mid-80s, Nigeria was producing enough petrol for her use. It was the same with rice; Nigeria’s production actually peaked at about one million tons per annum when there was a ban on importation. This was up from about 450,000 tons of local production in the 70s. But with oil boom, by the mid 80s local production dwindled giving way to massive importation. Then, Nigeria had large rice belts sprawling from Sokoto, Benue, Abakaliki and Ogun axis. It was a major industry that comprised production, milling and distribution; providing food, jobs, livelihood and wealth to millions in the rice zones. It was an industry that over time, created well-knit enterprising communities, organic, prideful in their self-sufficiency and tradition of productivity.

    Now why is Hardball lapsing into a reverie of a long-lost utopia, you might be wondering? What is the point of all this if we all are well aware that in the past three decades or so, Nigeria’s rice economy has become almost a tragic situation with a quantum of importation that is not surpassed by any other country today. In fact our importation ramifies nearly all major staple foods like maize, beans and even palm oil. But rice is the one that has reached crisis level now.

    First, the Federal Government at the beginning of this year, arbitrarily jerked up duty and tariff on rice importation bringing them to a total of 110 percent in Nigeria while in neighbouring countries like Benin Republic and Togo, import duties on rice remain at about 30 percent. Why would any sane businessman ship through our ports if there is a slight chance that he can smuggle it through the borders. The profit is so tempting that those who are ordinarily law-abiding would think twice or risk extinction. Here lies the rice crisis: about 80 percent of rice consumed in Nigeria today is smuggled into the country by a cabal.

    The negative imports of government’s thoughtlessness are numerous and far-reaching. First, Nigeria loses revenues in hundreds of million dollars to her neighbours. Two, genuine importers are put out of business and some may be forced into the illegality of smuggling. Three, the Customs is put under immense pressure; compromised and overwhelmed. Four, the backward integration investments of genuine importers in local rice production and processing plants will go to waste in another year if this frenzy of smuggling is not checked immediately. The reason is that the price of a bag of the local rice is twice the price of the imported one. The modest efforts being made by some stakeholders to grow rice at home will soon be rubbished.

    Federal Government had increased the levy paid on imported rice ostensibly to curb importations with a view to outright ban in a few years. But no effort is being made to encourage or develop local production. The rice development fund is not being deployed anywhere. All these going on and government seems so inured to it all. This will never happen in any other country; orchestrated crises like this in every sector of our national life cannot be any way to run a country.

  • Anambra: of prayer and politics

    Faith and state have never been the best of bedfellows. When you mix the twain with a dash of politics you have a device that is more potent than any explosive. That was what happened a week ago in a remote area called Uke in Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State. The Catholic Archdiocese of Onitsha had held its monthly vigil on Friday and as the worshippers trooped home early Saturday morning, a stampede had ensued on a narrow way leading to the death of no fewer than 25 persons while many more sustained injuries.

    It would have been a routine tragic occurrence if this were the beginning and the end of the story. Even the Metropolitan Archbishop of Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province, His Eminence, the Most Rev. Valerian Okeke in a statement on the incident, ruled out any act of sabotage which in itself, was a hint that there could have been sabotage. But he puts it down to an unprecedented large turn out of worshippers this month perhaps due to the solemnity of the All Saints Day – a holy day of obligation for Catholic faithful. He noted that his investigations had shown that all precautions were taken by the organisers but the stampede occurred along one of the narrow roads out of the venue as a result of a false alarm.

    However, Anambra State happens to be in the thick of electioneering prelude to the November 16 governorship election thus the atmosphere in the state is suffused with politics. Governor Peter Obi was present at the Adoration Centre, venue of the vigil in company of Mr. Willie Obiano, his party’s candidate in the forthcoming election. In his broadcast after the tragedy, he pointed out that he was invited to the programme and he had left at about 3.00 am after making his remark. It also came out that during his remark politics had crept through the prayer grounds even at such an unholy hour when prayers were most solemn. Followers of the governor’s party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and that of the major opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) were reported to have been roused. This suggests that the two camps were entrenched even on the prayer ground.

    The governor insists he was heckled as he spoke, by people waving brooms while his antagonists aver that he mounted the hustings for his candidate thus charging the atmosphere. Brickbats have been thrown by both parties and blames are flung back and forth by the politicians. The truth may never be known; not even the panel of enquiry set up by the state government is likely to unravel the mystery of the Adoration Centre deaths. Why was it necessary for a governor to address a congregation at a vigil in the dead of the night? If he went there strictly for a personal religious obligation did the candidate have to tag along? Were people really waving brooms at the prayer ground; in which case they would have left home with broom and bible in hand?

    Three quick lessons are to be learnt by the politicians, the church and the laity. First, the politician in his quest for power must be cautious not to do so at the expense of the blood of his people. The church must by this tragedy learn that it must keep politics far away from its arenas especially during election period. The laity, the ordinary man must learn by this that he is just a trampling, a mere dispensable, sacrificial element for both the political and religious establishments. He must always look out for himself and ensure that he is never used as cannon fodder for principalities and power that have no qualms about making an impromptu sacrifice of him. Hardball can declare that God has not designated any special centre or ground for answering prayers. From the corner of your room he will answer if you call upon him in truth and in spirit.

  • Ham-fistedness

    There is no better word to tag the current hounding of the Alhaji Abubakar Baraje-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) than ham-fistedness or extreme clumsiness if you like. Leadership is said to be better tested in times of crisis and most great leaders of history are forged in the furnaces of the most turbulent of crises. But the leadership of the PDP has no proof of leadership. They have failed to rise to the quality of introspection and tact that the occasion demands. On the other hand, they seem to have resigned to trailing the in-house opposition by reacting to their every move and plans.

    The current crisis in the PDP has again confirmed the long-held view that PDP is at best, a conclave of philistines and kakistocrats whose primary aim in politics is to grab power for the sake of it and for suborning the treasury. It has become apparent that for nearly 15 years, PDP still remains a woolly-headed entity, unable to grow into an institution. It therefore has not acquired the capacity to get a handle on any issue, big or small. For instance, its headquarters is still a temporary site while the new head office building for which so much money was realised at a fund-raising has been abandoned for years. In essence, the party touted to be the biggest in Africa has no institutional memory or capacity for any work.

    Hardball of course is concerned about the seeming unraveling of the big umbrella in the face of a tricky, little internal storm. First, it is unthinkable that the rump of the party had gone to a national convention without having any inkling as to how deep the fissure in its fold was. Right there in the middle of the convention to choose new party leaders, there emerged a division down the middle to the embarrassment of the leaders. The splinter called nPDP immediately formed a formidable body electing and announcing its officers same day. It was a pointer to the capacity of the nPDP members to plan and organise.

    The original PDP which has the presidency and all other appurtenances of power and high office has continued to blunder and flounder since this crack appeared on its wall a few months ago. Attempts at reconciliation have failed serially, another attestation to the awkward leadership skills of the party leader, (the president), the chairman and members of the Board of Trustees. The seven breakaway governors have continued to dictate the pace and lead in initiative.

    Second, the old party, after the initial rupture, has responded in a most ham-fisted manner. It openly chases after the governors, especially Rotimi Amaechi, deploying all sorts of awkward trickery to either impeach him or force his decamp to another party. But the more they try, the more they make him a hero. Jaded tricks reminiscent of the Abacha and Obasanjo eras are being dusted up and re-used but to little effect. For instance, graft agencies suddenly dredge up old case files of ‘enemies’ that were hitherto, abandoned. Offices are being stormed and houses belonging to the ‘rebels’ are marked for demolition. The logic is to intimidate them to the point of surrender.

    But recently, a new verve has been added to the assault on opposition members. With the courts over-ruling the nPDP, the state’s security network, especially the police have been unleashed on its members. The rule now seems to be that anywhere half a dozen people are gathered behind closed doors, it is the ‘rebel’ governors and they are to be dispersed. It is called hamesucken in Scottish law, it means assaulting a man even in his own house. The latest was the invasion of Kano State Governor’s Lodge in Abuja last Monday, where the police tackily sought to stop governors meeting therein.

    Before our eyes, the police are being debased, our constitution is being suborned and democracy is being damaged. This clumsiness will sooner harm us all.

  • As Guinness pours libation

    Before Christianity gained ground in Nigeria, libation was one of such ways our fathers communed with their gods. During family or communal gatherings, elders ensured that wines (especially palm wine) were not drunk to the last drop – the dreg, that thick, rich remains, the condensate from the gourd is often poured out and handed to the oldest man who prays for the community or family as the case may be. Let the land drink, that we may harvest aplenty… let our fathers drink, that it may be well with us…he who wishes his brother dead, let him die first. The maker of heaven and earth, we call upon you seeking atonement, drink that it may be well with us… At each call, a bit of the wine is spilled and the rite of libation is completed when the last dreg is poured forth.

    Though our forefathers may well be worshipping the same deity as Christians, the art of libation has almost vanished today. But Guinness stout seems to cast our mind back to it a few days back when the good old alcoholic beverage brand launched its new colour and bottle fineries. Guinness, perhaps the number one stout drink in the world, has brightened its colours and introduced an all-new gold foiling at the bottle tip. This great, new improvement cannot go unheralded and uncelebrated thus Guinness took to the front pages of front-line newspapers (you may also call them national newspapers if you prefer). Apart from being a huge pay day for oft cash-strapped dailies, the front page bold adverts or (sometimes wrapped around cover and back pages) has grown from the unconventional about ten years ago to the norm today.

    Hitherto, a splash of advert on the front page of a respectable newspaper was something akin to a taboo. Not because it necessarily diminishes or harms the content but more in deference to the sensibilities of the reader. A blast of advert on the front page of your favourite newspaper is bound to piss you off dear reader (to put it in today’s parlance); but because the invoice is huge and business has to be taken care of, we have in recent years, allowed our newspapers to be wrapped around and even wrapped up by advertiser. In fact not getting wrapped-around along with others may suggest something unsavoury for a big newspaper these days.

    But Guinness, Hardball must not fail to note, took the front-page advert splash one notch too banal last Monday when readers woke up to find giant-sized bottle of Guinness stout distorting the front pages of most papers. As if that doesn’t tell the story enough, some papers have the giant bottle suspended at the top of the cover right under the masthead with the dark drink cascading into a glass at the bottom of the paper. Some newspapers were so unwary they had the dark alcoholic beverage cutting through matter on front page like an evil libation.

    What on earth is the purpose of pouring a drink across newspaper stories on the front page of a paper? Why would Guinness create such cheap, garish copy and why would a newspaper allow itself to be so cheaply used? What poor, poor copy. Did you have to pour the drink to showcase a new bottle neck foil? No thought is spared for the reader by both the paper and advertiser. These papers are read in homes, churches, mosques, schools and libraries, no thought for the under-aged?

    Make no mistake, there is nothing sacrosanct about the positioning of advert in the newspaper anymore, no page is sacred anymore if the price is right; that is the new universal practice. But we still need to look out for our readers and make sure we do not overly squash there sensibilities. A copy must not be designed in a way that it damages the persona of our papers or cheapen the front page; needless to add that a copy for the front page must be cute and smart.