The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Ologunagba’s angst with ‘capture’

    Ologunagba’s angst with ‘capture’

    Debo Ologunagba, the PDP national publicity secretary, seems struck by a painful epiphany, not unlike the blinding flash, on the way to Damascus, that turned Saul, the antichrist, to Paul, one of the greatest teachers and preachers of the gospel.

    The PDP voice just discovered his hatred for the use of “capture” — a dramatic but offensive crow: either before the poll, or after an electoral victory.  “Capture” reeks of military plunder, given Nigeria’s sad contemporary history; and how the political military staged a series of “corrective” coups but only ended up building own treasures, spreading mass poverty by their blind greed.

    In truth, Abdullahi Ganduje, the APC national chairman, should do far better than boasting his party would “capture” the entire South West come the 2027 election — a boast that got Ologunagba (which means “top warrior” in Yoruba: a General, for short!) into a war-like blather, waxing poetic and philosophical with teary cant.

    Ganduje can do far better with his partisan diction, if the ruling APC must escape the fate of PDP: once-upon-a-time ruling party, now screeching beyond control and sneezing badly from extreme power cold.  It was such reckless statements that consigned PDP to its present — and harsh — power(less) valley, from the apex of its 1999-2015 power halcyon days.

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    Still, Ologunagba was no less teary with cant because, had he studied the history of his party — or even accessed the tiniest bit of its institutional memory — he would have known that the offensive “capture” was patented by PDP during its power days. 

    What is more?  With the brazen robberies that were elections during the Obasanjo era, “capture” indeed was capture!

    The full ugliness of Obasanjo’s garrison democracy would not fully manifest until the gargoyle of his 2007 “do-or-die” election.  Before then however, at the eve of the 2003 election, Obasanjo and his repackaged military boys, turned emergency “democrats”, were bawling, shouting and screeching to “capture” the South West.  Old man, Bode George was especially trenchant, on how PDP would “capture” his native and beloved Lagos!

    Well, “capturing” Lagos proved a bridge too far, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.  But capturing the South West, by vile military stratagem, was mission accomplished in 2003, though two election seasons later in 2011, the captors were all thrown out, with stolen — or was it captured! — 2007 mandate from Ondo, Ekiti and Osun, retrieved between 2007 and 2010.

    So, before Ologunagba starts shedding crocodile tears about “capture”, let him know PDP power delinquents first  “aced” it! 

    Still, let Ganduje know APC can’t afford own future Ologunagba version — power is never forever — wailing over bad deeds they had done to others just because Karma was having the last laugh!

  • Lawmakers’ ‘paltry’ pay

    Lawmakers’ ‘paltry’ pay

    A senator of this federal republic draws a monthly wage of some N14million – if that is what generally applies – and it isn’t enough to pay their way. That much we now know courtesy of former Abia State Governor and lawmaker representing Abia North in the current Senate, Orji Uzor Kalu.

    The senator dismissed widespread notion that members of the National Assembly (NASS) live indulgently while most Nigerians stew in deprivation. Speaking recently on a Channels Television programme, he said: “I earn N14million in a month encompassing my salary, overhead and workers’ salaries. Let me be honest with you, do you know from this money I have to buy fuel to travel to my constituency? It’s not enough.”

    Speaking further, the former Senate Chief Whip denied that lawmakers got official vehicles individually, saying only committees of the NASS were given vehicles. “I am in the Senate and a lot of things are said about senators, and I sit there quietly and watch, and most of these things are not true. All I know is that committees get vehicles. No lawmaker is given any vehicle,” he said.

    Remunerations of Nigerian lawmakers have for long been a hot button in national conversation, with many believing they are among the highest paid in the world.  No one stoked the debate more than a member of the eighth Senate, Senator Shehu Sani, who said he earned a total pay of N13million monthly during his time but that members of the current 10th Senate earn N21million monthly. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo also always accused the federal lawmakers of fixing their own pay, to which the assembly rejoined that its members receive remunerations only as fixed by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

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    Only that the commission itself didn’t help matters when it announced that each senator draws a total monthly wage of N1,063,860 while each member of the House of Representatives gets N794,086. Because following that disclosure, Senator Kawu Sumaila representing Kano South in the current Senate came up to say he draws N21million monthly as “running cost.” Now, Senator Kalu says it is N14million…

    Even the Abia senator’s claim about vehicle provisioning does not stand up to what is known. It was a hot national debate late last year when both chambers of NASS insisted they were procuring sports utility vehicles for their members that would remain NASS’s property until the expiration of its tenure in 2027 when the vehicles could then be offered the members to buy off for outstanding value and make payment to government coffers, after which the vehicles would become theirs. That was the official NASS narrative in defending the mass procurement, and such couldn’t possibly be referring to pool vehicles.

    Kalu’s intervention hoods lawmakers’ remuneration more than illuminate the issue.

  • Beggars in the capital

    Beggars in the capital

    Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike is set to launch a war against beggars in Abuja, to save it from turning into a “beggars’ city.”

    “From next week,” he declared, “we will carry them; we will take them out of the city. It is embarrassing that people who come into Abuja, the first thing they see are just beggars on the road.” The operation is scheduled to begin on October 28.

    He also said the beggars constituted a threat to security and removing them was “for the well-being of the people.” “We are fighting insecurity, and people will carry plates begging, and might be informants,” he said.

    Wike unveiled his anti-beggar plan this week, during the official commencement of the construction of the access road from Nnamdi Azikiwe Expressway by N16, to Judges Quarters, in Katampe District, Abuja.  

    This is not the first war against beggars by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA).  It happened before Wike’s incumbency. In April 2023, the FCTA sent back 217 street beggars, street boys and vagabonds to their home states. At the time, the administration was reported saying they were to be returned “mostly to Katsina, Kaduna, Niger, Jigawa, Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi states,” adding, “this time around we have some from Abia, Imo and Delta states,” which meant that the expulsions were not unprecedented.

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    Indeed, more than 150 beggars, said to be mainly women, children and aged men, were arrested at various locations in the city by the FCTA’s enforcement squad, a year before then. 

    So, Wike’s new approach is an old one. From the look of things, it didn’t work in the past. That explains why beggars are still a problem in the city. The approach is not an effective solution to the problem because expelled beggars can return to the capital and continue street begging. Also, new beggars can come to the city.   

    Beggars are drawn to the federal capital, believing it is “flowing with milk and honey” like the biblical Canaan, which reflects poor socio-economic conditions in their states.  Arresting beggars is not the same thing as arresting poverty, just as expelling beggars is not the same thing as expelling poverty.

    A holistic approach focused on improving socio-economic conditions in the country will better tackle street begging, which remains a big issue not only in Abuja but across the country. That’s something Wike and all levels of government in the country should recognise.

  • The Commonwealth is more relevant today than it has been in decades

    The Commonwealth is more relevant today than it has been in decades

    Commonwealth leaders are meeting this week on the island of Samoa for our bi-annual summit. Intense discussion over free and fair trade, security, and climate action are occupying us 56 members – all friends and allies.

    If an alliance of primarily English-speaking nations rooted in common law and shared commitment to global rules didn’t exist, one would need to be created. Like-minded countries would naturally come together to amplify their values while also providing a mechanism to lend collective heft to the individual economic and geopolitical interests of each member.

    The world already has such an organisation, and its bi-annual leadership forum – the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) – is it. Yet, every two years like clockwork, the usual, ill-informed questions about the purpose and future of this oldest international organisation of partner nations appear: How can it survive its members becoming republics? What is the purpose of an institution that is neither a single market nor a regional political union?

    The organisation’s demise has been predicted for decades, mostly because of the misunderstanding that becoming a republic means Commonwealth exit. Quite the opposite: it is in fact a path most members have trod.

    When Nigeria became independent in 1960, the Commonwealth comprised ten member nations, three of which were republics. Nigeria became a member upon independence and then the fourth republic in 1963 – transitioning from retaining the late Queen as head of state to an elected presidency. Today, the Commonwealth boasts fifty-six members, of which two-thirds are republics. A few more would hardly rock the boat.

    History aside, today the Commonwealth is more relevant than it has been in decades. The world is moving beyond regional trade and governance blocs, shifting towards global networks of nations with shared interests across regions and hemispheres.

    The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – spanning the Americas and Asia, and with the accession of the UK, Europe and binding 12 countries in a trade-based pact – is one example; the Alliance for Small Island States (AOSIS), an intergovernmental organisation of low-lying coastal and small island countries, comprising 39 nations stretching across all corners of the globe is another. Though one is for trade, the other for political salience, both are based not on geography but on a common interest – the convening principle for which the Commonwealth is the original item. 

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    While multi-continental, global networks are back in favour, that doesn’t mean the Commonwealth could not benefit from a rethink. As President of the Commonwealth’s second most populous state, I believe more can and should be done together on economic cooperation and mutual political support.

    Nigeria would like to see more significant intra-Commonwealth trade, an opportunity in we have collectively underachieved as an alliance. Take Africa. Twenty-one of the continent’s countries are also Commonwealth member nations. All are members of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), a 54-country continent-wide free trade zone.

    Bi-lateral agreements between AfCFTA and leading Commonwealth economies such as the UK, India, and Australia would create a web of interlinked trade agreements among Commonwealth nations, driving closer cooperation and deeper integration across the Commonwealth. Britain has proposed a UK-AfCFTA trade agreement. Others should follow.

    Nigeria urges larger Commonwealth economies to prioritise importing materials and foodstuffs from African Commonwealth nations. Supported by bilateral trade agreements, there’s no reason why African coffee or fresh produce couldn’t be offered to Western Commonwealth members at preferential rates in exchange for investment in local processing industries. This would not only integrate our economies but also provide nations like Britain with affordable products they can’t grow while creating jobs in Africa – reducing the need for migration by offering better opportunities at home.

    Nigeria and all African nations seek Commonwealth support for a bid for permanent representation on the United Nations Security Council. Africa remains the only continent without a permanent seat on this crucial global decision-making body, even though it has been the subject of 70 per cent of its resolutions since the end of the Cold War. Africa remains a constant focus of the Security Council yet lacks a constant say.

    The Commonwealth has finally begun caucusing as a group at the United Nations, a development that surprisingly only became official a few years ago. While not every vote is or should be taken as a bloc, one thing is clear: securing an African seat on the UN Security Council with Commonwealth backing would supercharge the relevance of our 56-country family. This move would decisively prove the Commonwealth’s importance and silence doubts about its future.

    Far from done, the Commonwealth’s time has come.

  • Enugu’s morbid tax

    Enugu’s morbid tax

    So, the dead can be made to pay tax to the living – through living survivors, of course?! Come along to Enugu State and see how it gets done.

    The state government recently defended its mortuary tax that it said followed from provisions of section 34 of the Birth, Deaths and Burials Law Cap 15 Revised Laws of Enugu State 2004. It insisted, though, that the tax is not meant to generate revenue but to discourage people from leaving their dead ones in mortuary. A circular by the Enugu State Internal Revenue Service (ESIRS) that trended online recently prescribed a daily tax of forty naira as due to government on a dead body once the body was not buried within twenty-four hours. “Kindly ensure that owners of corpses make the payments before collection of the corpses for burial, and then remit same to the ESIRS in any commercial bank under mortuary tax in Enugu State IGR Account,” the circular addressed to mortuary operators in the state added.

    Reacting to public criticism of the circular when it recently trended, ESIRS Executive Chairman Emmanuel Nnamani accused netizens of making the tax seem new whereas it is part of a law that has been in place for years. He also debunked claims about the amount to be paid. “It is an indirect tax paid by mortuary owners, not the deceased’s family, and it is just forty naira and not forty thousand naira. Since its introduction, nobody has been denied burying their dead ones,” he said, adding: “It means that if the corpse stays in mortuary for 100 days the mortuary is expected to pay the state sum of four thousand naira. The tax is not meant to generate revenue but to discourage people from taking their dead ones to mortuary all the time.”

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    With due respect, the defence by the tax chief was at variance with the circular. He said it was an indirect tax paid by mortuary owners and not the deceased’s family, but the circular mandated mortuary owners to “ensure that owners of corpses make the payments before collection of the corpses for burial.” In any event, mortuary owners would have built the tax into their charges on the deceased’s family. But it’s also a no-brainer that the tax is meant to generate revenue, not discourage families from taking their deceased ones to mortuaries as purported. Death isn’t typically a pre-arranged event whereupon all preparations would have been made for the body’s burial before it occurs. Twenty-four-hour deadline for burial is conventionally a religious obligation for Moslems, and the demographics of Enugu State shows its residents aren’t predominantly of that faith. So, the government knew it would be making a revenue haul with the tax when it was introduced.

    Hardball recognises that the talk here is all morbid, but that perhaps is because the tax is morbid.

  • Reforms and respiration

    Reforms and respiration

    Disturbing figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated relentless inflation in the country. According to its latest Consumer Price Index report, month-on-month food inflation rate, for instance, increased in September, notably affecting prices of staples such as rice, maize, beans, and yams. There were also significant price increases in housing rentals, transport, and medical services.

    Responding to the NBS report, the Director of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr Muda Yusuf, was reported saying, “The reality is that the dynamics driving inflation are yet to be effectively subdued.” He observed that these factors include “the depreciating exchange rate, surging fuel price, rising transportation costs, logistics and supply chain challenges, high energy cost, climate change including resultant incidents of flooding, insecurity in farming communities and structural bottlenecks to production.”

    Taming inflation demands tackling these challenges, which are mainly the consequences of reforms introduced by the President Bola Tinubu administration.  The World Bank recently said the reforms were crucial for the country’s long-term stability. “Turning back or opposing the reforms would only make things worse,” said Ndiame Diop, World Bank country director for Nigeria, at the launch of the Nigeria Development Update (NDU) report in Abuja.

    Predictably, the World Bank’s position drew public criticism in a country struggling with a crushing cost-of-living crisis. However, Diop added that the ongoing reforms “must be accompanied by reforms enabling the private sector to create more and better jobs. With targeted support to youth and women.” This was a way of saying that the hard results of the Federal Government’s reforms can be softened. The World Bank report also noted the need for structural reforms, such as reducing trade barriers, improving infrastructure, improving the business environment and supporting household businesses for inclusive growth.

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    If the ongoing reforms were inevitable to achieve a better future for Nigerians, the authors and promoters of the reforms should understand that it is counter-productive to carry out such reforms without considering and implementing sufficiently ameliorative measures.

    The alarmingly deteriorating cost-of-living crisis in the country is a bad advertisement for the Federal Government’s reforms. It is important to ask what the three levels of government have done, and what they are doing to save Nigerians from hardship occasioned by the reforms.  They are expected to urgently find solutions to the cost-of-living issues in the spaces they govern.  

    No argument that reforms negatively impacting Nigerians are a necessary means to a positive end will make sense if the people can’t breathe.

  • Idiocy at 10, Downing Street

    Idiocy at 10, Downing Street

    The last time Yoruba Nation agitations boiled over — April 13 — it was sheer idiocy at Ibadan. Some deluded zealots tried to seize the Oyo State Secretariat and precincts, to plant their flag — Democratic Republic of Yoruba (DRY)!

    That idiocy was so manifest every name attached to the movement fled so fast their heels virtually hit the back of their heads, as they bolted clear of that comical rabble!

    Eminent historian, Prof. Banji  Akintoye, philosopher-in-chief on the Yoruba Nation project, scrambled to disown the Ibadan gambit, putting the blame on a radical “woman”, who later was identified as Dupe Onitiri. 

    Sunday Igboho, hitherto the Yoruba Nation battling ram, fresh but much subdued from a stint in Benin Republic jail houses, screamed to the roof top he knew nothing about it.  So did Gani Adams, the “Are Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland”.  He too swore he had nothing to do with the rabble’s comic treason.

    Those 18 suspects are facing charges now, trying to prove their innocence.  So, one would have thought that was one idiocy too many for a year.  Not so!

    Sunday Igboho, always assailed by his Fulani ghosts, just lived the latest DRY idiocy by going international.  He went to 10, Downing Street, London, official residence of the British Prime Minister, to present a petition for the British to sanction the carving of DRY from Nigeria!  What a dry joke!

    Wasn’t that sweet, though!  So, Britain, a former colonial master, is Igboho and co’s neo-Oduduwa, to sire a neo-Yoruba nation!  What thunderous contradiction!  Britain, whose colonization destroyed the Yoruba — and other cultures pre-Nigeria — for own greedy and cynical causes, is Igboho’s new messiah!

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    Nothing portrays the Igboho starkness in all of these more than a group picture in front of 10, Downing Street. Even if the puppet is incapable of understanding the full ramifications of his actions, what of the puppeteers juggling him?

    For the umpteenth time, Igboho dropped Prof. Akintoye’s name for his London escapade.  But the good professor is yet to comment on it all.  Well, it’s early days yet.

    But just as well, the British government had played down the comic drama.  The British High Commissioner in Nigeria suggested his country was at best a humouring the petitioners.  “The UK government,” he was reported to have declared, “does not concern itself with petitions concerning the sovereign affairs of another country.” 

    But doesn’t that go without saying? Pray, what might Britain’s business be with Nigeria, a sovereign state and its internal affairs?

    That aside: under what Yoruba mandate do these folks go to these annoying extents?  So okay, their lobby want a “Yoruba Nation” — dreams are free.  Others don’t want any of that — no crime. 

    But at what formal Yoruba assembly were these blokes mandated to go on these campaigns?  That’s the deepest idiocy of it all.

  • Banditry and name-calling

    Banditry and name-calling

    Residents of the North are having a huge challenge dealing with banditry that has hobbled  that region of this country for more than a decade. But leaders of the region are not making tackling the challenge any easier with their seeming penchant for finger-pointing and mutual accusations of links with bandits. It is high time government at the centre thoroughly looked into these accusations and ascertain if there is any validity to them; and if there isn’t, call out phony accusers.

    A group, last week, plied a defence of Senator Shehu Buba against allegations of sponsoring banditry and kidnappings in Bauchi State. The Bauchi government had recently accused Buba of abetting banditry activities in the state and petitioned the Presidency about his alleged involvement in the menace. But the group named Coalition of Civil Societies Networks (CCSN) described allegations against the lawmaker, who represents Bauchi South in the red chamber and chairs the Senate Committee on Security and Intelligence, as baseless. At a press briefing in Abuja, CCSN spokesman Jabir Aminu said the allegations were not only false but calculated to detract from the political capital that Buba had acquired among Bauchi people. He alleged that enemies of the All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker were jittery of his growing popularity ahead of the 2027 governorship elections in the state and were making efforts to undermine him.

    What you see in Bauchi is nothing compared with Zamfara State where Governor Dauda Lawal and his predecessor, now Defence Minister of State Bello Matawalle, have been trading accusations of complicity in banditry activities bedevilling the state. Lawal has repeatedly alleged that Matawalle had links with bandits with whom he negotiated when he was governor, and that he facilitated their criminal exploits. In a recent television interview, he dared Matawalle to resign his job as minister and face the allegations. He later said through an aide that he had reported the minister to President Bola Tnubu and National Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu.

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    But the minister denied the charge and counter-accused Lawal of being the patron saint of bandits posturing as fighting the menace they constitute. Also speaking on national television, he argued that he wasn’t the only governor during his time who negotiated with bandits. “The then governors of Niger and Sokoto States did the same. Why only me (being accused of links with bandits)? Because it is Zamfara,” he said as he challenged the present governor to swear on the Holy Quran as he already had done. “I challenged all the politicians, including General Ali Gusau and Dauda Lawal, to do the same. None of them could take the oath, and if they don’t take the oath, that means they are part of it,”  he added.

    There is need for the Presidency to probe these counter-claims and take follow-up measures as may be necessary.

  • Amaechi’s new romance

    Amaechi’s new romance

    Rotimi Amaechi is an angry man. He is a not ashamed to show it. The last time he showed that kind of public indiscretion for a perceived wrong was when he “wept” to news men in the open that the former managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Hadisa Bala Usman did not give him cake or flower.
    Many people wanted to know what was the connection between cake or flower as gift with her performance of her job. Why was he so particular? Was it just because he was a supervising minister? Hardball still needs some form of clarity as to why he wanted flower and what place it had in policy or in the passage of goods through our ports.
    But be that as it may, the former transport minister and governor of Rivers State is at it again. This time his anger is against his fellow citizens and youths especially. He is calling for uprising. He certainly was not happy that the last EndGovernance campaign did not go far enough, in spite of the bloodshed, the destruction of institutions of value and paralysis of activity.
    He should tell us exactly why he is angry.
    He said, “The people should be angry. There should be protests against anybody but against the politicians, that “we won’t vote.” That is what people should be saying. The rate of hunger now…if people like us cannot afford diesel, you can imagine what is happening to those who do not have children like us.”

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    He needs to explain a few things. Is he angry with politicians, because he is one of them? Or is he angry with democracy? If he is angry with politicians, and he says they are stealing the people’s money, then he should provide evidence of those who are stealing. But if he cannot make that distinction, then he is saying politicians steal money. We know it is not today that politicians have been accused of stealing money. So, if we follow his logic, then he is opening himself for indictment. As an APC chieftain noted, Amaechi has been a politician most of his adult life, for over two decades and he has gone the whole gamut as two-terms as lawmaker culminating as speaker; he was governor for two terms and he was minister for two terms. The math adds it up to 24 years. So, does it mean he was stealing money then? Is it not disingenuous for him to say he cannot afford fuel? Who is he lying to?
    Two, he said the object of the protests should be that they wont vote. That is not just a protest against politicians, it is a call to anarchy. Yet, he calls himself a democrat. Amaechi was nowhere to be found when many men and women were fighting the military. He was a mere personal assistant in a hospital and he came to “chop” when the food left the kitchen. So, he does not know how democracy is cooked. Hence, he can say they should say they wont vote. It was fine when he was winning elections, but after he lost the primaries, the man does not believe in polls anymore. He has now joined Sowore and company because he lost. The former minister is acting like a bad student and he probably needs to listen more in class to his law professors in Abuja about rule of law and democracy. Or else he will repeat the class.
    When he is not looking for flowers and cakes, he is turning his love to anti-democratic romance.

  • Soludo’s nuclear option

    Soludo’s nuclear option

    It is common wisdom that you do not hide behind a finger and hope you’re hidden. Neither do you seek to repossess by guile what was taken from you and hope not to be seen through. The recourse Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo has taken with the financial autonomy of local governments in his state is like jacking back by local legislation what the Supreme Court took away with its recent judgment.

    The Supreme Court had last July, in a suit brought against state governments by the Federal Government, affirmed the financial autonomy of the country’s 774 local governments. The court held that councils should, henceforth, receive their allocations directly from the Accountant-General of the Federation; and that it is illegal and unconstitutional for governors to receive and withhold funds allocated to councils in their states. The verdict gave three-month deadline for states in default to conduct elections into their councils, and empowered the Federal Government to withhold allocations of local governments being administered by appointed officials. 

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    Many state governors were not happy with the verdict and some voiced their displeasure openly. But they had no choice than democratise the councils as the apex court mandated – with many states where local governments were administered by appointed caretakers stampeding in recent times to conduct elections. Anambra State in particular had not conducted elections into its councils in 10 years, but gave 48-day notice for the poll to be conducted on 28th September.

    Now, Professor Soludo has authored a legislation compelling Anambra councils to remit a portion of their federal allocations into a consolidated account controlled by the state. The bill titled Anambra Local Government Administration Law 2024 was enacted by the House of Assembly last week. Among others, it prescribes that the state shall maintain a “State Joint Local Government Account” into which all federal allocations to local governments must be deposited; and that the councils must, within two working days of receiving their allocations, remit a state-determined percentage to the consolidated account. This requirement applies even when the allocations are received by the councils directly from the federation account.

    Critics noted that the new legislation undermines the financial autonomy of councils that the Supreme Court judgment affirmed. But the Anambra government insisted it acted within provisions of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) that empowers state legislatures to enact laws for administration and financial regulation of local governments. Commissioner for Information Law Mefor argued that the bill aligns with the assembly’s constitutional mandate, urging those opposed to the legislation to challenge it in court.

    Well, the judiciary has another intervention to make. Because you could bet if the Anambra governor has his way, a gale of similar legislations would be unleashed across the states to undercut the Supreme Court’s verdict.